Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 8

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Village pump (technical) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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(Talk) on your talk page

Recently we had the default signatures switched to display talk page links at the end. On a person's own talk page it displays as boldfaced rather than as a link. Is there any way to make it so that it automatically won't be appended when signing to one's own talk page, but remains for all other pages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No, not possible. Sigs act as substituted templates and cannot be filtered. The bolding is done by the link parser, and it affects all sigs. Look at any user talkpage and you'll see bold non-links of that user. — Edokter • Talk • 00:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

What I do is I link to a redirect to my talk page, so it always appears as a link and allows me to track where I have made signed comments. Another option is to use {{subst:#ifeq:{{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}|User talk:YourName||([[User talk:YourName|talk]])}} replacing YourName with your username which will make the talk page link appear everywhere apart from on your own talk page. Tra (Talk) 00:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The default signature format is now something that any admin can change. I think the code shown (as I understand it) would be a big improvement, removing the (black) talk page link when an editor (one without a personalized signature) posts to his/her own user talk page. Do we need a poll to move forward with this? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I had actually intended that code to be put in the box in the preferences for an individual user. I guess it might work for in the system message for everyone. It depends if that message supports ParserFunctions. Tra (Talk) 00:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. So if I understand correctly, this may be feasible site wide, but until implemented, if I want to make this change myself I would place the code Tra provided in the signature field in my preferences? I think this would be a nice feature site wide—slightly trivial, purely esthetic, but an improvement.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it supports parserfunctions - the bigger problem is that it seems at least semi-likely that if subst: is put in, it will subst when saving the message.—Random832 04:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit - yes, you can put the code into your signature field and it will work fine - I just tested it with IE7. Also, note that the code provided is only for the "talk" part of the signature; you'd need to add the front part as well, if you want a link to your user page. That's probably pretty obvious, but since I missed it the first time reading the code, I thought I'd mention it just in case.

Random832 - you're saying that you think that when an admin makes the change, the subst might kick in immediately, yes? Is there some way to test this, say at the test wiki that the Wikimedia Foundation has? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Random832 is right, as far as I know. It's very hard to save a page which literally contains subst: after a pair of opening braces, and none of the methods I know for doing it will work in this case, especially as it's a MediaWiki message that's being created and not a template. It's also worth checking to make sure that bug 5678 won't interfere with this; I don't think it will, but it'll definitely be worth checking what happens if a sig is used as a template parameter, and as a parameter to a nested template, after the new changes have been made. --ais523 13:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a solution for users' monobook.css:

body.ns-3 strong.selflink { font-weight: normal }

This rule simply removes bold - apply whatever styles you want. Can't get rid of it entirely though, because then you'd have empty parentheses. —Random832 16:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Continued at #Talk page links included in default signatures -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Policy protection based on {{policy}}

There's a discussion at the policy pump about making it standard to protect policy pages. Since all pages that are recognised as policy are tagged with {{policy}}, I was wondering if there is a type of protection that automatically protects all pages on which {{policy}} is transcluded. --Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 17:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

That would be the opposite of cascading protection, but such a mechanism does not exist. — Edokter • Talk • 18:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be permission escalation:

1. Admin A transclude protects {{policy}}
2. User B transcludes {{policy}} on page C
3. User B just protected page C

Prodego ^talk 22:55, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

This wouldn't be feasible unless you couldn't transclude a transclude-protected template unless you had permission protections. Otherwise, we'd start seeing vandals replace pages with "{{PAGENAME}} is gay. {{policy}}" so that only admins could revert. —Cryptic 23:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Considering that there are something like 40 to 50 policy pages, an automated solution doesn't seem necessary. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

edit counters

Hallo, I've used this link as a link from my user page to an editcounter for ages, but today I get a "cannot display" message. What's up? And, if it's gone permanently, is there another easy-to-use editcounter? Thanks for any helpPamD 12:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

That link's working for me. If you only want the count and not the details, the easiest edit counter of all is Special:Preferences (although it uses a slightly different definition of 'edit'; see Wikipedia:Edit count for more information about the different types of edit count). See also Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters, which has a list of available edit counters. --ais523 15:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It works OK for me too now, but was out of action for quite a time earlier before I posted. Just One Of Those Things, I guess! PamD 16:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

the toolserver might have been down. β^_command 20:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

SVG images incorrectly rendered as PNGs on server

Here is a demonstration of a problem with SVG files converted to PNG by the server (which is what happens when the client browser does not support SVG):

The SVG file was orginally generated by MS Visio, but I have then edited the SVG source code to try to fix the problems. There seem to be three problems:

• "font-size" measured in em seems to be being interpreted as being measured in points
• "letter-spacing" seems to be ignored
• if "fill" is omitted it seems to default to "black" instead of "none".

Can these problems be fixed? (And will other clients have problems rendering Visio's SVG?)

(Please don't tell me to upgrade my browser. 1. I can't, it's not mine. 2. I can't update the browsers of people reading my articles.) --Dr Greg 18:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, you speak of client browsers not supporting SVG - I wasn't aware there was any way to make the server serve the images as SVG even if the browser _does_ support SVG - anyone know anything about this? —Random832 18:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

• I find the only way to get text to render correctly in SVGs here at WP is to convert them to outlines (i.e. so they're rendered as individual shapes) before saving. Otherwise, who knows what typeface or fontsize will actually be shown. This makes the file bigger, and less editable, but attempting to work with the allowed fonts for the server-side SVG renderer is a non-starter, in my experience. --Bob Mellish 18:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

As much as some people talk about SVG being a superior format, Wikipedia's support for it really isn't suitable for production use in my opinion. All too often there are significant aspects of the standard that aren't supported (such as the embeddable font specifications), or other things that don't render as expected. I'd encourage you not to bother and use PNG. Dragons flight 19:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I partly agree with that. Its usage is good for some things in wikipedia, but until support (both clientside and with the serverside renderer) is improved considerably we shouldn't use too much SVG (and definitely not delete their source PNGs or do an all out replace of a "superseded" PNG [which we don't]) . Something that really annoys me for instance, is that if I thumb an SVG to something really small, it often becomes unreadable, whereas the PNG image resizing has no such issues. This is partly due to lack of anti-aliasing which causes really jagged unreadable lines at low resolution. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Image problem

Whats wrong with this image? Its not displaying (gives a server 500 error). --soum ^talk 15:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Works for me (using Safari on WinXP). DuncanHill 17:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I get no problems either, Mozilla (v 2.0.0.11) / XP. Have you read the link that says "If you have problems..."? - Rjd0060 17:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hyperlinking to Wikipeida

I am the editor of Eigen's Political & Historical Quotationswhich is the largest repository of political and historical quotations in the world (almost 60,000). I would very much like to link the names of the quotees and the concepts to which they refer to Wikipedia articles. Thanks to a foundation we distribute this free and we have been live for 15 months and have downloaded over 130 million quotations to people. Ideally each one of those would have two or three hyperlinks to Wikipedia.

We are looking for a way in which we can automatically do the hyperlinking? We have about 30,000 quotees -- people. In addition we have almost an equal number of concepts such as "democracy", "France", "Presidency", "revolution", "War of the Roses" etc. My guess is that there is a Wikipedia article for over 80% of these. What I would like to do is periodically (every week or two) send the file of terms to some Wilipedia address and get back a url for each term which is the hyperlink to the article with that name or in the case of no article, a null field or other symbol. We can then build a table and any of our users who want to hyperlink will be able to do so easily.

I would appreciate any ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.232.34 (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Google for the quote with site:en.wikipedia.org (to limit it to wikipedia entries). There ought to be a way to filter out non-article matches, such as talk pages, but I haven't thought of it yet. —EncMstr 23:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

One way to filter them out approximately is something like [1] athough it won't filter out all non-article pages and will filter out some pages that are articles but it's OK most of the time. Tra (Talk) 23:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

From m:Data Dumps you can get to the enwiki downloads (updates about monthly). The file "page.sql.gz" is a backup of the "page" table, which will provide a record of all titles for which Wikipedia articles exist (requires a SQL database to load it). Using that you should be able to construct standard links of the form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<PAGETITLE>. Dragons flight (talk) 00:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Fisterra city seal

I have tried to incorporate the seal for the city of Fisterra found here in the Fisterra article on English Wikipedia, but my clumsiness has so far prevented me. Can anyone help me put the city seal where it should be?--Filll (talk) 01:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Monobook.js

What would this be for?

shbase = 'http://localhost:8080/wp';

shindex = 0;

shalgo = "chooser";

document.write('<scr'+'ipt src='+

'"http://localhost:8080/wp/js/ui.js"'+

' type="text/javascript">'+

'</scr'+'ipt>');

which was originally

shbase = 'http://api.semantichacker.com/wp';

shindex = 1;

shalgo = "chooser";

document.write('<scr'+'ipt src='+

'"http://api.semantichacker.com/wp/js/aui.js"'+

' type="text/javascript">'+

'</scr'+'ipt>');

Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

If you were to direct your web browser to localhost, it would load the web page hosted by the HTTP server on your computer (assuming you had one). So I think that it means that someone downloaded the files from http://api.semantichacker.com/wp and loaded them into onto the HTTP server on their own computer. --Iamunknown 23:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think? Does that mean it's harmless here on Wikipedia or should I go delete it from their monobook? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be harmless. --Iamunknown 17:34, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll leave it then. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Page creation

Is there a tool which lets you know which pages you've created. Slightly egotistical, I know, but I'm looking for something in my contributions and I can't seem to remember where I've put it. Hiding T 15:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about this very thing, but I do not believe there is a tool. There really should be though. There should be something in the Logs (Like an option "Pages created by"). - Rjd0060 17:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Special:Newpages lets you select a username to filter results; the problem (I think) is that the list of new pages that it uses only goes back a month or so (that would be roughly 50,000 entries). All you need to do is convince the developers that the report should go back a year or two. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Cheers John. Maybe when I'm feeling tough I'll broach it with the devs. Hiding T 20:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Not likely. The recentchanges table is enormous enough, already. — Werdna talk 04:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two tools. The first one is very slow while the second is not working. --Meno25 (talk) 21:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

What about adding page creation as a log entry? Then filtering by log type and username would allow the list to exist. --ais523 10:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

That sounds a possibility. Is that doable? Hiding T 14:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've commented about this on the relevant bug bugzilla:10730. --ais523 13:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ive got a tool on the toolserver that I can run, that gets a lot of information about a user's contributions including all pages thay have created. If you would like me to run this on a user/ group of users, please leave a note on my talkpage and Ill gladly do it β^_command 23:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Betacommand2 (talk • contribs)

Talk page links included in default signatures

Note: copied from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Talk page links now included in default signatures -- JB

Sometime this month, following a discussion on the village pump (sorry, not sure exactly which page, or date) the default for signatures was changed to include a link to the editor's talk page:

[[User:Username|Username]] ([[User talk:Username|talk]])

rather than

[[User:Username|Username]]

This follows the announcement in the November 19th newsletter that the default signature was now customisable by administrators. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this got changed back again... Carcharoth 18:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure has. I'd guess that complaints/confusion of new editors seeing the black "talk" link, when they signed their own user talk page, was a major factor. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

But MediaWiki:Signature still has a talk link. I'm using a non-raw signature with this account, though, and there isn't a talk link, so maybe something else has changed? ais523 17:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It was a problem with the parser - Brion has fixed it, it should work now. Mr.Z-man 21:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, we're back to "talk" automatically being included as a link. Thanks. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

.spoiler ID in MediaWiki:Common.css

Does the MediaWiki:Common.css file control how everyone views the site, people who are signed in and people not signed in? The {{spoiler}} template was recently deleted. If the spoiler template came back, I have a hypothetical question about the MediaWiki:Common.css file. Would the following code hide the spoiler template from all readers or registerd users?

#spoiler {
    border-top: 2px solid #ddd;
    border-bottom: 2px solid #ddd;
    display: none
}

If a user wished to display the contents of the spoiler template when viewing a page, would pasting this code in their monobook.css or common.css do that?

.spoiler {
    border-top: 2px solid #ddd;
    border-bottom: 2px solid #ddd;
}

Thank you in advance for any input. --Pixelface (talk) 03:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Everyone.
2. No, but this would:

.spoiler {
display: block;
}

— Werdna talk 04:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Werdna (talk • contribs) 04:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite sure this has been discussed by WP:SPOILER before. At least a show/hide construction, which is almost the same. The conclusion: "The quality of the produced article will suffer" and spoilers are part of what an encyclopedia is by nature. We are not an episode guide or anything else. Just write prose that doesn't spoil everything by just reading the first line is what I always advice people. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

'What links here' and templates

In the special page 'What links here', redirects are marked as (redirect) and pages that indirectly link via the redirect are indented. Templates, however, are not marked so clearly but recognizable by name and, more importantly, articles that just transclude the linked template are listed on the first level, as if they link directly. This gives a rather wrong impression with respect to the actual backlinks. Shouldn't templates be treated similar to redirects i.e. resulting in all pages that just transclude them to be indented as well?--Tikiwont (talk) 10:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes please - would be very helpful in dabbing etc. DuncanHill (talk) 13:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Problem with a certain page working

Hello.

On the page Moshe Shmuel Glasner, there is a problem getting the page to display properly.

In the first, fourth, and fifth sections, there are entire blocks of text that show up on the edit and printable views but not on the normal page. Likewise, several pieces of information under Resources and References show up on edit and printable but not normal.

I have been able to determine that if I paste this same content elsewhere on the same page, or on the Sandbox, it does not show up there either. Also, if I delete the type and retype it exactly as before, except from scratch, it still does not display. Therefore, the problem seems to be not with where the text is, but rather the text itself contains some character that prevents its being displayed properly.

I have already tried viewing the page without invoking the cache, i.e. via ctrl+F5. I have also cleared my Temporary Internet Files.

Many users have already tried to fix the problem, and almost as many have erroneously believed they have fixed it. Therefore, anyone who tackles this, please very carefully examine the situation, lest you likewise erroneously believe the problem is fixed.

Thank you! Sevendust62 (talk) 14:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Could be unclosed refs? DuncanHill (talk) 14:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Several users have already suspected this, but they have not yet found any unclosed refs. In any case, I tried deleting every ref in the article, to no avail. Furthermore, since the page successfully shows ALL of its content in Printable view...???!!! Thank you for your help. Sevendust62 (talk) 14:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

What are the titles of the problem sections? DuncanHill (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've just printed out the article and read it through side-by-side with the screen version. I couldn't see any missing text. I use Safari on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 14:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm...In the first section ("Method of Study") do you see a paragraph starting with "A profound and innovative scholar..."? Section four ("Philosophy of the Oral Law") do you see two paragraphs, "This work (the Dor Revi'i) is also noteworthy..." and "In brief, Rabbi Glasner's philosophy..."? Section five ("His Zionism: Its Relation to His Philosophy of the Oral Law"), do you see one paragraph, "Although not stated explicitly, it is possible to discern..."? In References, do you see five bullet points with URLs below the text notice "The following are..."; I see only three URLs; 5 bullet points with 2 blank and 3 with URLs. In References, do you see footnote two with content about a comparison with Rabbi Berkovits's philosophy (not footnote 3, about the personal testimony)? I have used both IE and Firefox, on WinXP, have cleared the Temporary Internet Files and bypassed the cache (ctrl+F5), all to no avail. The same content repeatedly is missing on the normal page. Thank you again. Sevendust62 (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I see all of that! I'll switch to IE7 to see if that makes a difference. DuncanHill (talk) 14:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Agaiin, looks fine to me in IE7 on WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 14:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

When you say that you "see all of that", do you mean what I say above in "Hmmm...In the first section ("Method of Study")..."? Because I myself do not see my own contribution to this talk page! I can see your response ("Yes - I see all of that! I'll switch..."), but not what I myself said...???!!! I am using the latest version of IE7 7.0.5730.11 and the latest version of Firefox 2.0.0.11. So you mean to tell me that on the normal view of the page, you see everything I described above in the several sections, including the one paragraph in section one, the two paragraphs in section four, the one paragraph in section five, all five resources, and reference two? If so, then apparently I have a very strange browser bug, but I guess it means the problem is on my computer. (But why would this bug affect both browsers of mine??!!). Thank you very much. Sevendust62 (talk) 15:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I see yourparagraph above reading Hmmm...In the first section ("Method of Study") do you see a paragraph starting with "A profound and innovative scholar..."? Section four ("Philosophy of the Oral Law") do you see two paragraphs, "This work (the Dor Revi'i) is also noteworthy..." and "In brief, Rabbi Glasner's philosophy..."? Section five ("His Zionism: Its Relation to His Philosophy of the Oral Law"), do you see one paragraph, "Although not stated explicitly, it is possible to discern..."? In References, do you see five bullet points with URLs below the text notice "The following are..."; I see only three URLs; 5 bullet points with 2 blank and 3 with URLs. In References, do you see footnote two with content about a comparison with Rabbi Berkovits's philosophy (not footnote 3, about the personal testimony)? I have used both IE and Firefox, on WinXP, have cleared the Temporary Internet Files and bypassed the cache (ctrl+F5), all to no avail. The same content repeatedly is missing on the normal page. Thank you again. Sevendust62 (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC), and I see all the content in the article that you refer to in it. Very odd! have you tried restarting your computer? Sometimes that helps. Beyond that - I haven't a clue! DuncanHill (talk) 15:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Restarting - done so. Just to be sure, please check these three screenshots of what I see, and confirm that I am the only one seeing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rabbi_glasner_problem_one.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rabbi_glasner_problem_two.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rabbi_glasner_problem_three.JPG

Thank you again! Sevendust62 (talk) 15:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean - that is very odd indeed! I certainly don't have that problem with either of my browsers - can anyone else here help? DuncanHill (talk) 15:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, at least I know the page works properly - now I know why everyone else kept telling me the problem was solved! Thank you for all your help! Evidently, then, however, there is a bug somewhere. Since it doesn't work in both my IE7 and my Firefox, the bug is apparently not in them. Perhaps the bug is somewhere else in my computer, but I don't know where. Could the bug be somewhere in Wikipedia itself, with some component that doesn't work properly with my computer? Sevendust62 (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no problems seeing the whole page in IE 7.0. To narrow down your problem, try viewing the HTML source in your browser and search for the missing text. Is it there? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Not in the source. The source is missing exactly those parts that I cannot see normally. Sevendust62 (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. It seems that either your ISP or software on your computer is filtering anything with the word "o r a l". --- RockMFR 19:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me if you cannot see the message I wrote directly above. --- RockMFR 19:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to add 2 JavaScript functions to Common.js to support Slideshow template

I have formally requested adding two JavaScript functions to en:Mediawiki:Common.js in a thread at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Add a Slideshow template, based on existing functionality in French wikipedia. As this might be of interest to people watching the VP (technical) page, I'm posting this note here. Anyone with suggestions or comments on this is of course welcome to join the proposal discussion. Thanks. Rupert Clayton (talk) 18:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Small bug in Watchlist: geonotice.py

Internet Explorer flags a small syntax error on my watchlist. When running the script debugger, it tells me the following line from http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/cgi-bin/geonotice.py is missing a semi-colon:

{'city': 'Amsterdam', 'region': '07', 'area_code': 0, 'longitude': 4.9166998863220215, 'country_code3': 'NLD', 'latitude': 52.349998474121094, 'postal_code': None, 'dma_code': 0, 'country_code': 'NL', 'country_name': 'Netherlands'}

Could this be fixed? — Edokter • Talk • 14:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You should bring this to the attention of User:Gmaxwell (an email would probably work, in case he's not immediately handy). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be fixed. — Edokter • Talk • 13:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Category: Voluntary organisations (sic)

Can someone please correct this category name with the correct spelling? I know there are lots of links to the incorrect spelling, but the problem will only get larger for this IMHO useful category. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.248.253.6 (talk) 19:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

This is actually a correct alternative spelling. See organization and American and British English spelling differences#-ise / -ize. --- RockMFR 19:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Darn American ethnocentrist <me>. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.248.253.6 (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

A pedant writes "Organization" is perfectly acceptable in British English, and is the house style of the OUP. DuncanHill (talk) 22:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and this makes me feel ill every time I remember the fact. I think we should abolish the letter 'z' and be done with. I'm off to the tsoo. Splash - tk 22:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Gadgets preferences

It does not seem to be mentioned here yet, therefore I will. In the wake of the French wikipedia and Commons, it seems that mw:Extension:Gadgets has been enabled on the english wikipedia. This is a handy tool that allows you to easily enable userscripts trough your preferences. Currently only Popups is included, but I'm sure several other handy scripts will follow soon. Scripts can be added here. This still seems to be a testphase, but it has already shown to be immensely useful in the few days that it has been available on Commons. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd stump for Commons:MediaWiki:HotCat.js ... not yet installed here, but very useful. Perhaps too useful, as it makes reorganizing categories really really easy. ++Lar: t/c 23:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yup, new tab in "my preferences". As far as useful scripts, the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts would seem to be a good place to start. But these are scattered everywhere. It would be good to do this a bit systematically - not just to dump a bunch of scripts into the Gadgets-defnition page. For example, what happens if a gadget name changes? Or if a gadget is added by an editor, via preferences, and then is removed from the library? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The gadgets have to have a stable version moved in to the MediaWiki space, so they shouldn't go missing or break do to development. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, administrators may add to the available gadgets by editing MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. If there are scripts that you believe should be added, you simply need to find a consensus for their addition and then get a sysop to add it accordingly. AmiDaniel (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Umm, questions, please see MediaWiki talk:Gadgets-definition. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

See also Special:Gadgets for a dynamic list of all linked gadgets. — xaosflux ^Talk 06:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This is starting out already as a snafu. The gadgets tab now lists "Disable access keys", which links to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/removeAccessKeys, which (a) doesn't fully explain what it does (I believe it disables certain keyboard shortcuts), (b) contains installation instructions regarding the editor's the monobook.js page which (I think) are now irrelevant (or, at least should be clearly stated as being an alternative) (I did the checkmark thing on the Gadgets tab; my monobook.js page is unaffected, of course); and (c) implies that the editor should make some choices (specify which keys to disable in removeAccessKeys variable), but, of course, checking a box in the Gadgets tab doesn't allow for any choices. In short, this isn't starting out well. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Updated to more appropriate links. I chose that as the next one to add because it is simple in nature, but helps to resolve an issue requested by users. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

A thread has been started at MediaWiki_talk:Gadgets-definition#Admin_Gadgets regarding the types of gadgets to include. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 04:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Alpha channel in WP Favicon

Does anyone know why the WP Favicon doesn't have a transparency channel?? I see the white box around the W in Firefox when I have WP on a tab and in my favourites. --Anthony5429 (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Often browser tabs are grey, with transparency it would be a light gray W on dark gray tab, hard to see for many. — xaosflux ^Talk 05:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Other times, the end user will have a dark color chosen for a background on text fields and tabs. For example, I find white backgrounds very tiring on my eyes, so I prefer a very dark color approaching black for my text area backgrounds with light grey colored text; in this environment a transparent background behind a black W would make it impossible for me to see the W. The best rule of thumb on the web is that if you explicitly set a foreground color, you'd better explicitly set a contrasting background color as well because user preferences could cause the text to become invisible. Slambo (Speak) 16:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

spacing inconsistencies in revision comparisons

On the revision comparison page, there seems to be a space between the timestamp and the "(edit)" link on the newer revision, but not the older one.

For example:

• old version: Revision as of 17:13, December 5, 2007(edit)
• new version: Revision as of 17:14, December 5, 2007 (edit)

Is there a reason for this? --Ixfd64 (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be a typo hardcoded into /includes/DifferenceEngine.php as of 28153 on line 710:

. "(<a href='$oldEdit'>" . htmlspecialchars( wfMsg( 'editold' ) ) . "</a>)";

When it should look more like 665:

. " (<a href='$newEdit'>" . htmlspecialchars( wfMsg( 'editold' ) ) . "</a>)";

Seems to have been introduced inadvertantly in rev:27810. --Splarka (rant) 08:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed in rev:28196. AmiDaniel (talk) 08:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

automatic category filing?

I've noticed that if I put "[[Category:Foo|]]" in a page, it automatically becomes "[[Category:Foo|Foo]]" when I save it. Is this normal?

Thanks. --Ixfd64 (talk) 07:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, see Help:Pipe trick for details and similar things. Mr.Z-man 07:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The sortkey syntax of the category being like a piped link, the pipe trick also works for category tags, even though it is not useful there.--Patrick (talk) 09:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Status Switcher "Checking to see if its safe to use"

I'm wanting to place Status Switcher on my monobook, but before i do it I'm wanting to double check if it's safe, like the warning says on the monobook. SKYNET X1000 (talk) 11:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yea, Misza13 is fine. Prodego ^talk 12:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks but I've inserted the code onto the monobook, now it says i need to create two special pages how does this work, will others be able to view it. SKYNET X1000 (talk) 12:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes anyone can see it. Those pages will be what the status changer changes. Follow the instructions, and it should work fine. Prodego ^talk 12:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

When i installed some scripts not necessarily from this one, the browser started to have an error message on the previous account, saying that anyone could view the account details online and could Hijack the account, i don't know which script it was, but i didn't know how to uninstall the scripts i did remove it from the previous monobook and nothing had happened, so i created a new account and I'll be more careful and cautious this time SKYNET X3000 (talk) 13:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thats odd. You would need to refresh your monobook.js file after removing a script from it to deactivate it. I'll look. Prodego ^talk 13:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Automatic external link

Why does adding "RFC 10" in an article (RFC 10) cause it to be automatically linked. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Woah, good easter egg find. Similarly, why does this become a link: RFC 923148798231749823, but not RFC abc. It prevents us from RFC'ing all those users with numeric names :) Splash - tk 16:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably RFC with any number after it! I tried a few and they worked. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

See mw:Manual:RFC and mw:Markup spec/BNF/Magic links. "PMID 10" produces PMID 10. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Help Space Issue

A couple weeks ago I found this article in the Helpspace namespace Help:A Day in the Life. I moved it to the mainspace as Help-A Day in the Life. Eventually, it got renamed to Help!: A Day in the Life, which is still out of the helpspace. However, redirects at Help:A Day in the Life continue to exist. Is there some way to delete the redirect and prevent from re-creation? Mbisanz (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

That could be done, but it is a good redirect, which should be left in place. Prodego ^talk 20:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, it should at least be moved to Help: A Day in the Life (note the space behind the colon). Redirects (especially Talk) are a mess though... I'll clean it up. — Edokter • Talk • 20:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Never mind... too many pages link to all the misspelled titles. At least I fixed the talk page double redirects. — Edokter • Talk • 20:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Give ClueBot rollback?

I propose that we give ClueBot the rollback privilege. This not only is nicer on the servers and on ClueBot, but it is also faster, and it would all happen in one transaction so there is less of a chance for anything to go wrong. This would not mean making ClueBot a sysop, but the developers can give a single user rollback if consensus is demonstrated. Thanks. -- Cobi^(t|c|b|cn) 01:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

My intial reaction is yes, but am not sure if this is fair (possibly opens floodgates). GDonato (talk) 01:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this would be possible without making the bot an administrator, or creating a new user group for bots with rollback. —{admin} Pathoschild 01:35:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you are right but such a task should not be too difficult. GDonato (talk) 01:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Deserves it with all the work he does. --Charitwo ^talk 01:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC) 01:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
• If the developers can give ClueBot rollback without making it a sysop, I can't see the harm - it saves bandwidth and doesn't really change ClueBot's function. ClueBot will just beat me more often this way. :D Nihiltres^(t.l) 01:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support, if the devs can make it happen. (I'd also support this for Cluebot's friends) I agree with Gracenotes that we desperately need a process to give any user rollback without the other buttons, but opposing for that reason doesn't seem constructive to me. Considering the vast amount of contribs Cluebot (and it's friends) make, using rollback will be much nicer on the servers and will render the bots themselves more effective by speeding them up. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  In my defense, creating a user group for only one user to be in has little point... Gracenotes^T § 04:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• It'll have to get done eventually regardless. This might as well be the catalyst for getting it done sooner rather than later. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• If Cluebot gains rollback it could be the poster child for future requests for rollback. There are a lot of dedicated vandal fighters that could really use rollback but don't want ot become full fledged admins. –Crazytales talk/desk 04:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  I said this exact statement in IRC lastnight. --Charitwo ^talk 20:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Not until Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges (or a similar process) gains consensus, which will provide a standard process for ClueBot (or anyone trustworthy) to gain rollback privileges, instead of this straw poll. No point making vandalism cleanup nicer for servers if only one user contributes to that effect. I do not like the idea of going out of our way to give them to a bot without some standard process that reduces error and bandwidth for everyone else. In summary, I have no major objections to ClueBot getting rollback, but object strongly to this means of doing so. Gracenotes^T § 01:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
• If the devs say that it's possible, I reckon that there's no reason for us not to do it. I'm sure that other antivandalism bots would convert to this method of operation, so the "only one user" idea is a non-flier with me. Martinp23 19:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • We shouldn't be giving it out willy-nilly, but ClueBot has a pretty long history of being very reliable, I think. Probably another discussion, but we could look into giving rollback out to human users, as well. My main concern with giving these particular bots the priviledge, at least off the top of my head, is actually going to be rollback's default edit summary, which isn't nearly as useful as the summaries currently used by these bots -- unless we can somehow give our anti-vandal bots custom summaries? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Are you joking? This bot has a history of being unreliable from what I've seen of it. I can't give diffs, but it's often reverted back to vandalised versions of pages, so I think rollback will be a poor idea. Not to forget that rollback can't mention "This is a bot, please report my errors". Majorly (talk) 14:39, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
      • It seems that not many are aware that the default rollback summary can be changed on a case-by-case bases. If someone takes the rollback url and appends &summary= followed by the edit summary, that is used instead of the default rollback edit summary. And, of course, ClueBot will take full advantage of this ability. Thanks. -- Cobi^(t|c|b|cn) 19:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
        • To Cobi: Huh, I hadn't known that. Handy! To Majorly: Certainly the bot's made mistakes, any bot will (hell, I make my own share), but I do think the bot's done a whole lot more good than harm, all things considered. As for the edit summary, I suppose that's been addressed. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Polling is evil. If you'd like to have a rational discussion about the pros, cons, and if there even is a possibility of giving the bot rollback, then let us do so. Bringing the matter to a vote does nothing but discourage rational discussion and instead encourages this mindlessness of jumping on the support or oppose bandwagon. At present time there is no way to give a user -- be it bot or human -- rollback without sysopping them. Previous efforts to try to create a special "rollback" usergroup have failed, as it adds yet another level of bureaucracy to a project already laden with a tremendous amount of bureaucracy. If your intention is to get the bot sysopped, take him to WP:RFA. If you're intention is to get a new rollback usergroup, then please say so. If you have some other solution not mentioned, then please say so as well. But for the love of god, no more voting! Thanks :) AmiDaniel (talk) 08:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I went and asked in #wikimedia-tech if it were possible before starting this. They said it was. That is where I am getting my information. As for polling, I guess I should have been a bit more clear it was supposed to be a discussion to gain consensus instead of a vote. Thanks. -- Cobi^(t|c|b|cn) 13:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done something which someone will probably not like - I've reverted the archival and refactored the comments so that they no longer resemble a vote. Hopefully rational discussion can now continue. Martinp23 19:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• The question does not seem to be so much of should we give rollback functionality or not as much as how to do it. The simpliest way is to grant admin status to the bot which would make it the second bot with admin status. But as stated by others, it would probably make better sense to create a new user group, or add on group, that only adds the roll back feature; which would then make it easier to also allow other proven users to apply for and obtain rollback functionality without also gaining full admin status. Dbiel ^(Talk) 21:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• A separate user group for rollback seems like it would be both the easiest way, and the most versatile way (give it to the anti-vandalism bots for sure, but then we could potentially give it to, as has been stated, solid editors who don't want to become full admins). EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• Indeed, I've thought for quite a while that ungrouped permissions would be very useful. Why not? Nihiltres^{t.l} 21:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, you would get about 30 options under Special:Listusers, multiply the processes to get these permissions, so not just Admin, Crat, Bot, Oversight, Checkuser, but protect, delete, block, range block, IP-exempt, hide-revision, oversight, create account by email, edit interface, checkuser, bot, undelete, etc. Messy messy! Prodego ^talk 21:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Given the relative handiness of breaking out some of the features, that'd be really nice; having numerous options show up on that page is hardly a high cost. It'd be especially nice for bots, as they could be given only the features that they need and none of the others (though I don't think anyone was too concerned in that bot RfA of the bot going rouge and blocking or protecting). Maybe not break all the features out, but a handful would certainly be nice. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't necessarily see each different tool being added to the dropdown list, if I am not mistaken, even if there is a group added, it doesn't have to be displayed in the list. --Charitwo ^talk 02:12, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

• I know, we're not supposed to worry about performance and all, but, I really see no reason not to give cluebot teh rollback. IMO, it would be less stressful on the servers, and, I'd trust the bot to use it wisely :) SQL^{Query me!} 08:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Sure, there's not much difference between admin rollback and java functions these days for editors, so no big deal in making this minor upgrade for a pretty reliable bot. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support - If the devs can do it, I don't see why not. Dihydrogen Monoxide ^♫ 08:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support Why not? Doesn't make any harm. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 20:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• support (but note this is a perennial proposal, and when it gets wider exposure it may go the same way it has in the past) —Random832 22:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Support This sounds like a good idea. There is no harm in giving anti-vandal bots and maybe some trusted vandal fighters the rollback button. FunPika 20:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm considering starting an RFA for the bot. Does anyone see any reason not to do so? —Random832 20:04, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

• Asking devs to allow the stewards to grant rollback to the bot seems like the best option. An RfA would likely just create the usual amount of heated discussion whenever a bot is nominated for adminship, and some users would worry about the bot acting outside its remit in future, maybe about source code issues, etc.. Note also that developers have scheduled a change that grants rollback to everyone, so this discussion would then be about the much narrower issue of removing the rate limit on non-admin rollback rather than about granting a non-admin rollback. --ais523 20:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Once again, the devs have scrapped the default non-admin rollback. So the creation of a rollback flag now sounds preferable. FunPika 01:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)