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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at Bugzilla (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported to securitywikimedia.org or filed under the "Security" product in Bugzilla.

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Internal Server Error

I have been consistently getting a Internal Server Error when trying to use count lately. Anyone else? What can be done about it? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 15:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

This is referring to pcount, one of X!'s tools. @Cyberpower678: can you fix it? πr² (t • c) 16:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Everytime I look. It works for me.—cyberpower ^Chat_Absent 20:35, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't work for me either - and edit creator tool still won't load. GiantSnowman 20:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems to go back and forth for me. One moment it works, then it serves me a 500 Internal Server Error again. Sometimes it works again within a minute or two, other times it takes a while before it starts working again. Currently working for me, but wasn't approx. 20 minutes ago. Since the past few days (26th or 27th of February, I think), I've been getting "500 - Internal Server Error" approximately 20-25% of the times I attempted to use it, not counting the refreshes within a few minutes that also led to the same error. Sometimes, they're all pretty close in a row, where the tool pretty much alternates between "error" and "working" for an hour or two (in one case, it served me an error, worked again two minutes later and served me an error again another minute later). Other times, it works fairly well for most of an editing session (2-4 hours, usually), with just one or two errors in between. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

And now it's giving me the following error:

click "show" for the full error

Warning: mysql_connect(): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'enwiki.labsdb' (4) in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 62 Warning: mysql_select_db() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 63 Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 117 Warning: mysql_query() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 83 Warning: mysql_errno() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 85 Warning: mysql_error() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 100 Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 129 Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 117 Warning: mysql_query() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 83 Warning: mysql_errno() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 85 Warning: mysql_error() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 100 Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 129 Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /data/project/xtools/public_html/pcount/counter.php on line 104 Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 117 Warning: mysql_query() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 83 Warning: mysql_errno() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 85 Warning: mysql_error() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 100 Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 129 Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /data/project/xtools/public_html/pcount/counter.php on line 119 Warning: mysql_real_escape_string() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 117 Warning: mysql_query() expects parameter 2 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 83 Warning: mysql_errno() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 85 Warning: mysql_error() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/counter_commons/Database.php on line 100 Warning: mysql_fetch_assoc() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /data/project/xtools/public_html/pcount/counter.php on line 198

and tried to tell me AddWittyNameHere does not exist. Existential crisis here! I apparently do not exist! AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:42, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If this is still an issue, the best place to bring this up might be https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/labs-l --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Will do if it starts doing so again. Right now, it works. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 14:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't see what is being mentioned here, making it impossible for me to look into.—cyberpower ^Chat_Absent 16:37, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

It has already been resolved. You might grep the #wikimedia-labs logs from yesterday for "labsdb" if you want more info. πr² (t • c) 17:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Not resolved for me. It's been on and off, but mostly off, since I first posted. XOttawahitech (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

server problems?

Wikipedia seems incredibly slow for me right now -- is it just me, or are other people noticing anything? —Steve Summit (talk) 03:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I had been noticing this, but it seems to have cleared up by now:Jay8g [V•T•E] 04:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yup. —Steve Summit (talk) 06:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I've found it getting slower through the day, but a reload of the browser speeds things up again. Probably irrelevant... Peridon (talk) 12:47, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I was having a lot of problems yesterday evening New York time also. Reloading the browser didn't help. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Between slow and painfully slow for me yesterday and today. I have reloaded a few times and given up on a few pages but it deteriorates quickly. Donner60 (talk) 02:56, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It's been working fine in the mornings and afternoons EST but seems to slow to a crawl during evenings and makes WP nearly unusable during those hours.... Cloudchased (talk) 02:59, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Where are you located? At a guess this sounds like a load-balancing problem in one of the Wikimedia data centres, and location is important when troubleshooting things like that. For what it's worth, I'm not having any problems at the moment. (I'm in Sapporo, Japan.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:37, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Cloudchased. It has been murder for the last 3 days at around 22:00 EST (US East Coast, or 03:00 UTC) and maybe an hour or two before and after that. Near Philadelphia. Chris the speller ^yack 03:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

U.S. East Coast. Donner60 (talk) 04:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Now the 4th night in a row. Noticeably slower at 20:44 EST (US East Coast). Chris the speller ^yack 01:47, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Me in NYC, OK so far, for once. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Spoke too soon. Been intermittently balky, though not as bad as previous 3 evenings, for half an hour. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Glad I found this thread, I thought it was just me. I've had problems the last 4 nights (East Coast US, approx. 0100-0400 UTC 3/4-3/7); occasionally I'd get a page served up, after a much-longer-than-normal wait, but it would more often just hang on me, giving me the first 1/3 of a page but never the rest. Not saying it was this bad all 3 hours, because after a couple of tried I'd give up and try later. No problems any other time of day, and no problems during this timeframe with any other website besides en.wiki. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:57, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

At around 00:45 UTC on 6 March I tried to edit two long pages; the save attempts timed out after a minute with an error like this. After this happened five times for each page I gave up. Eight hours later I tried again, and both went through first time, and it took only a few seconds to save. Here they are: User:The Anome/Railway station list; Book:Stations Test. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Now it's about the 6th straight evening partially wasted. Is any investigation proceeding? Chris the speller ^yack 01:37, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I have been having these slowdowns again this evening, approximately 2200 EDT / 0200 GMT, in Washington, DC. I first above reported the problem on 4 March. I don't remember specifically whether it has been all seven evenings, but it has been close to that. I and other editors are reporting the problem on the US East Coast in the evening, on multiple evenings. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:06, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

FYI, I'm over on the East Coast, also near Philly, and these problems show up every single evening. Cloudchased (talk) 02:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

OP here. I'm in Boston. Very bad for me again last night (2014-03-09 20:15 EDT); fine this morning (2014-03-10 07:30 EDT). —Steve Summit (talk) 18:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Very slow again for me tonight. It has been almost a week of problems. Real time changes is hanging up constantly as well. Almost impossible to counter vandalism with these problems. Donner60 (talk) 02:26, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Slow again for me now (2230 EDT). My Reference Desk archiving bot (scsbot) is essentially useless.

See also this newer thread below. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:40, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Preview now jumps directly to edit window

When I preview an edit, I'm now taken directly to the edit window (ironically, from the edit window) instead of the the top (preview, with the red "This is only a preview...") section. Trouble is, I don't know if I need to continue editing until after I've read the preview and it's inconvenient to have to keep scrolling up. I checked my preferences, and couldn't find any gadgets or other stuff that would cause this. I use XP (stop laughing) and FF 27.0.1. Is it a bug, or is it me? Thanks for any help and all the best, Miniapolis 16:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I cannot reproduce this effect with Firefox 27.0.1 on Windows 8, under skins Modern and Monobook, preferences: Editing Preview:

[ ] Show preview on first edit

[x] Show preview before edit box

[ ] Use live preview (experimental). I've disabled Gadget wikEd, and enabled wikEdDiff, and disabled all Beta Features. Also tried with and without "Show edit toolbar" under Editor preferences. -84user (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• This is a wikEd thing (may be part of something else too). When you say you "disabled" do you mean you unchecked all wikEd boxes on the gadget page or clicked the icon in the top right corner to disable? Cacycle may be able to help with this question... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 18:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I use Vector, but don't think something like this is skin-dependent. "Show preview before edit box" is checked; it's there, but now I have to scroll up from the edit window to read it. Oddly, though, I can't seem to disable wikEd (I don't have wikEdDiff checked); when I uncheck wikEd on the gadgets-editing menu, save, shift-reload to purge the cache and return to it, it's checked again (and my original problem persists)! Thanks for the help and all the best, Miniapolis 20:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Finally disabled wikEd, but since the problem persists I'm going to re-enable it. Miniapolis 20:57, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

...But when I really disable wikEd (not through Preferences/Gadgets/Editing/Save, but by clicking the icon at the top right of the page), the problem goes away; Technical 13, I think you're on to something. Damn, I really like wikEd; maybe I can learn to live with this :-). Miniapolis 21:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I have not tried them with wikiEd, but there are at least a couple of user scripts which might ease the pain:

• Floater – Adds a floating toolbar at the top of the window with commonly used items from the toolbar at the top of the page, includes a "Top" link that moves you to the top of the page in one click.
• goToTop – Adds a link at the bottom left of the window to go to the top of the page in one click.

Another option would be to have the preview display below the edit box (user preferences). That way you just scroll down through it. Also, there are a number of keyboard shortcuts, some of which will move you around the page. Examples of these are the "Search box" shortcut key will jump you to the top of the page in Vector, and any skin that has the search box at the top of the page; and the "Edit box" shortcut key to jump to the edit box. — Makyen (talk) 06:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all the advice, although I try not to overuse scripts. Think I can live with this, or get used to life without WikEd :-). All the best, Miniapolis 19:04, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• I actually leave wikEd in a "disabled" state because it doesn't get along with code editor and creating new user talk pages with WikiLove (just an annoyance, not an actual bug), and then turn it on only when I want to use features. Just a thought, and I've thought about writing a little snippit of code to move the icon in the page's top corner to a static/fixed position in the lower right corner of my screen with a z-index of ∞ or some such ungodly high number when &action=(edit|submit) and then if you turn it on to edit, clicking save will shut it off again until you want it the next time or something... I'll let you know when I do that as it will make it stupid simple to leave turned off and only activate when it is wanted... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 19:37, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Underlines versus fractions

{{resolved}} - discussion continued, so let it go :-) . OP is answered. -DePiep (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I am creating a link like this: 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in. Is it possible and advisable to interrupt the underlines at the fraction (denominator)? I found that class="nounderlines" doesn't seem to work on parts of a wikilink. -DePiep (talk) 18:34, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

There is no such class, but even with an inline styling (text-decoration: none;) it does not seem to work. — Edokter (talk) — 20:05, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

@DePiep and Edokter: Yes, it's not possible to "undo" a text-decoration rule (used internally by the browser for underlines, strike-throughs and some more exotic things), unlike, say font-weight or text-transform. That's because it's not applied to the individual characters, but to an entire text "box" (which can in fact be seen in the original example here). My explanation is probably not very clear, but consider the difference between 1⁄2 (where the entire "box" is striken) and ¹⁄₂ (where every character is striken separately). Matma Rex talk 20:47, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, not possible then. For Edokter: Main page and Main page. -DePiep (talk) 20:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

You lost me here. — Edokter (talk) — 21:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Using FF 27.0.1, the second link is not underlined on hover. — HHHIPPO 21:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) why not use 4 ft 8½ in ? (the " ½ " can be found under "symbols" in "special characters" in toolbar). it will not help for +22⁄7, but (almost) everything with denominator of 2, 3, 4 and 8 is there (½ ⅓ ⅔ ¼ ¾ ⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Please don't use ½ etc, see MOS:FRAC. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: i looked at MOS:FRAC, and did not see recomendation not to use those. what i *did* notice, though, is that {{fraction}} uses ½ etc., so for the OP, just replacing {{frac}} with {{fraction}} would solve the issue (i.e., instead of [[standard gauge|4 ft {{frac|8|1|2}} in]], use [[standard gauge|4 ft {{fraction|8|1|2}} in]], resulting in 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in ), as long as the fraction is one of those (or 1⁄6, 1⁄9 or 1⁄10 ). peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 14:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS:FRAC states "The use of the few Unicode symbols available for fractions (such as ½) is discouraged entirely, for accessibility reasons among others." Also, your examples of {{fraction|1|9}} → 1⁄9 or {{fraction|1|10}} → 1⁄10 show as boxed hex codes for me, which is an accessibility problem for a sighted reader. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:41, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: i missed the "unicode" line, but this makes MOS:FRAC inconsistent, because the 2nd bullet says

• Correct: A History of the World in 101⁄2 Chapters is a novel by Julian Barnes.

which renders as ½. regarding 1/9 and 1/10, which, as you note, are missing from some character sets (i see them in google chrome on one machine, and see the "unknown char" square with chrome on another computer, like you indicate) - maybe we should remove them from {{fraction}}... regarding accessibility - i thought that {{fraction}} uses abbreviation to improve accessibility, no? peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:01, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I raised some concerns with {{fraction}} well over a year ago, but there was no firm conclusion. The discussion is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility/Archive 3#Template:Fraction but some comments went to Template talk:Frac#Template:Fraction and accessibility instead, despite WP:MULTI. Please bear in mind that the template has been heavily modified since then, and so my comments (such as those about one-seventh etc.) should be read in the context of the template as it stood at the time.

Personally I never use {{fraction}} but use {{frac}} instead, which I am informed is somewhat more accessibility-compliant. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:26, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

{{Fraction}} has been deprecated since, and should no longer be used for that very reason. — Edokter (talk) — 19:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 4) DePiep, you misunderstood I believe. Edokter said it is not possible to interrupt the underlining, not that it is impossible to eliminate it completely. At least that is how I read it. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 21:19, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's how I read it. No problem, clear to me. Edokter also said: "There is no such class" (about "nounderlines"). With my Ff27, the second of the two Mainpage links who uses that class, does not have an underline, while it is blue & clickable. Also: found "nounderlines" in MediaWiki:Common.css. That class is used in {{Punctuation}} btw, with intended effect for me. But this is all I can tell. -DePiep (talk) 21:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

So it is... completely overlooked that. — Edokter (talk) — 21:50, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Another venue is {{smallfrac}}, which does not sink below some line (bottom of x letter). So {{smallfrac|8|1|2}} → Template:Smallfrac. From the OP issue example: [[standard gauge|4 ft Template:Smallfrac in]]. Looks somewhat better but shifted to me. The code is a bit an (interesting) construction. I would not use it in a 10k template. -DePiep (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Please not yet another fraction template... It doesn't look good either; the denominator overlaps the slash. — Edokter (talk) — 22:17, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree. -DePiep (talk) 22:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Strange manual archiving

Might not be the place this should be posted, but has anyone noticed an IP Special:Contributions/10.4.1.126 is going through a whole slew of pages and manually archiving large chunks at random? Does anyone know if this is some Wikimedia person doing this? — Maile (talk) 02:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

it's lowercase sigmabot, logged out. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive260#Possible bot malfunctioning?. –xeno^talk 02:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure it's Lowercase sigmabot III, Xeno? I know that Legobot also does archiving... — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 02:46, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Legobot does archive indexing, not archiving. Graham87 07:17, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Legobot has only made one archive indexing run in the last 11 months. However, it does have many other tasks which are active. — Makyen (talk) 09:28, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@Technical 13: Once it became clear that the MiszaBot family were down permanently (their last edits were on 2-3 October 2013), Legobot did do some archiving of pages marked with {{User:MiszaBot/config}}, but Legoktm only ran it as a special on three or four occasions (these included 22 October 2013 and 16 November 2013) - AFAIK it was started manually, and not put into the cron. After Lowercase sigmabot III went through BRFA and was authorised to carry out archiving, Legobot did not need to do any more archiving, and so Legoktm has not started any further archiving runs for that bot.

@Graham87: the archive indexing function of Legobot has not functioned correctly (if at all) for about a year now: there are several threads about this at User talk:Legobot/2013. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:34, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Template syntax

Dear almighty technical people, I have stumbled across a relic of a time long-ago when wiki-pages and templates were manually formatted, and their meaning could only be divined by those already gifted by 'the sight'. Consequently I'd be very grateful for any help unpicking this template: Template:Infobox muscle, I want to add a section using the 'below' parameter that is bold and italic and reads: Anatomical terms of bone . --LT910001 (talk) 08:39, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're after, but I've had a go at answering your request at Template:Infobox muscle/sandbox. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:03, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for. To implement this change, do I just copy and paste the code into the original infobox? --LT910001 (talk) 09:18, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

That's right. But don't you want Anatomical terms of muscle, rather than Anatomical terms of bone? This is Template:Infobox muscle, not Template:Infobox bone, so adding an article about bone anatomy seems like a mistake to me. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:50, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Anatomical terms of muscle is indeed what I was looking for. --LT910001 (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I've added it to the main template. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:26, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Weird

If one goes to the article Dawes (band), at the very lower left of the browser appears the phrases in very strange manner:

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

If you hover the cursor over it, it goes away. But when you reload the page, it will come back. I notice the source for the glitch is likely the band's official website, which has the identical phrasing at the same place.[1] How is this website glitch getting onto our page? Is this the new face of spam? Is it only on Safari? What is up with this, as I have never seen anything like this before? Doc talk 16:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• Nothing out of the ordinary on Firefox, but doesn't sound like something browser-specific. Is there maybe some setting about automatically previewing links that's causing the issues? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 17:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• (ec) I don't see it, nor can I find any chages that may have caused this. What you see may be caused by your browser. Do you have any web browser extension/plugin installed that asks you to evaluate websites or something? — Edokter (talk) — 17:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• It sometimes takes a few scrollings before it appears - and it is at the very bottom left corner, just like the band's website. It just happened again when I tested it. I'm on Safari 7.0.2; but I have never seen a browser error like this. Doc talk 17:08, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

  Kindly disregard - it's not likely something wrong here. Thanks. Doc talk 17:18, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I see it neither at us nor the band's site. The first result of the Google search webrep currentVote noRating noWeight says "WebRep is an Avast! anti-virus browser plugin". I guess you have that installed. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I do: thanks for finding that! It "bled over" to more than one window. I will deal with it now. Thanks again :) Doc talk 17:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

What sorcery is this? Mischeviously broken file red links.

Someone's been messing with the code again; links such as File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf do not currently lead to a page where I can click to see the deletion history. This breaks things and needs to be fixed. --Elvey (talk) 00:30, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that is how it has been for quite some time now and that is why I threw together User:Technical 13/Scripts/fileRedlinks.js which you can use by adding:

importScript( 'User:Technical 13/Scripts/fileRedlinks.js' );// [[User:Technical 13/Scripts/fileRedlinks]] makes image redlinks work like page redlinks.

to your common.js. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 00:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, workaround and dupe fix. Any idea where the code sorcery that is responsible for this can be found? --Elvey (talk)

I think you're mistaken; things have gotten worse or are more complicated; see here - While File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf takes me to Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard, File:CBB-layout-problem.gif does take me to to a page where I can see the deletion history. WHY!?! Why is this deletion history being hidden from editors? --Elvey (talk) 01:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

This search indicates that this is a recurring problem that needs to be fixed! But it didn't help me find the code that is responsible for this. Please help me. I'd like to get a better handle on the thinking behind it before filing a bug over it.--Elvey (talk) 02:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

It's possible to bypass this bug: To view the deletion history of File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf, instead of clicking on the red link, paste the file name into the search box. Then, click on the red link (where it says "You may create the page "File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.") This works even if I am logged out. -- Diannaa (talk) 03:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Per mw:Manual:$wgUploadMissingFileUrl, if http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php under 'wgUploadMissingFileUrl' added 'enwiki' => '//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload' then I think File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf would go to

[2] instead of [3]. So the upload wizard would be replaced by the default upload form, and the latter displays the deletion log (and actually places the file name in the upload form). PrimeHunter (talk) 03:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I use the script described at User:Equazcion/SkipFileWizard (without the "Option"). This means that if I click either of the file redlines File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf or File:CBB-layout-problem.gif, they both behave the same: I get a page headed "Creating File:whatever", with two pink boxes: one beginning "Wikipedia does not have a File page with this exact title", the other beginning "A page with this title has previously been deleted", and the deletion log is in that second pink box. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:49, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Redrose64 Thanks but Technical 13 already provided a workaround, and that's NOT what's needed. This search indicates that this is a recurring problem that needs to be fixed! Thanks, PrimeHunter! Wow, that file gets edited a lot. I have to look up Bug 42263 but have to run right now. --Elvey (talk) 03:30, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Template:Bug, which was reported by Scott, is titled "Update $wgUploadNavigationUrl on en.wikipedia" and claims to have already been resolved as fixed. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 20:23, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

We are discussing red file links which are controlled by mw:Manual:$wgUploadMissingFileUrl. mw:Manual:$wgUploadNavigationUrl controls where "Upload file" in the sidebar goes. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems that Template:Bug was recreated when Special:Upload replaced Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard. I'm considering whether it's appropriate to simply reopen 6909, and I welcome guidance / suggestions someone taking other action. I guess the fix to that by @Raymond:, and/or Raymond himself could be of help here.--Elvey (talk) 02:10, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping :-) But sadly I cannot help to fix this bug in the UploadWizard. I like the UploadWizard but it is widly written in JavaScript which I do not like. Raymond (talk) 11:51, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

(Yeah, Template:Bug is tangential; I followed blame tools onto a wrong path to figuring this out.) --Elvey (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

What the …? This is no longer true! Yesterday, I wrote that "While File:New Jersey Dry Town Listing.pdf takes me to Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard, File:CBB-layout-problem.gif does take me to to a page where I can see the deletion history." but today, that's not true. Both take me to the upload wizard. WTF? (In the interim, I enabled and reverted the workaround; I suppose it's possible caching or memory problems are to blame.)--Elvey (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Both have taken me to the upload wizard the whole time. Did you earlier click a link at Wikipedia talk:File Upload Wizard/Archive 3#Reader feedback: why is this a crummy upload ... with a colon in front like File:CBB-layout-problem.gif? That behaves differently. If the file exists then it goes to the file page instead of displaying the file, for example File:Example.jpg. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I have noticed that the : in front produces the behavior more like what I think people want - like the fix to Template:Bug provided for a time. Not as I recall, but as I said, I suppose it's possible caching or memory problems are to blame. But perhaps the best solution is to revert the default to Special:Upload from Wikipedia:File_Upload_Wizard, as you suggested. There's a so much content that is policy compliant but can't be uploaded properly with the wizard. It's more hindrance than help in my experience. Wonder if there were any metrics compiled pre vs post rollout to evidence a net positive impact of the change.--Elvey (talk) 02:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

So someone needs to submit a patch to take advantage of this ehancement which allows us to set the default to Special:Upload for redlinks, instead of inheriting the default from $wgUploadNavigationUrl, as you suggested, for review? I guess that's the next step. I see the discussions here and here indicate consensus that Special:Upload is where red links should go. --Elvey (talk) 19:04, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Strangeness in the Add citation thingy

Since yesterday I've been having problems with the "Insert Citation" functionality (you know, "Cite" on my javascript toolbar). The citation templates fill in properly, but when I click "Add citation" I get kicked back to the editing window (which is normal) but without the citation being added. I found that if I do "Preview citation" first (and then I double-click so at least I save the plain text), and then click again to the proper place in the edit window, and then click "Add citation", that it works properly. But this is real irritating. Drmies (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

No help on your issue, but I notice the same is true for disabimg tools - you have to preview first. I seem to recall there being a reason for this. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

You're not the only one; I don't do the preview thing, but I have noticed that if you don't click, after composing the citation, where it's supposed to go, it goes poof when you click add - I assume it's somehow trying to add it inside the citation-building box, 'since that's where the cursor is'. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to be sure, you have the option "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" turned off on your preferences, right? If so, it is probably a problem to be fixed at MediaWiki:RefToolbarLegacy.js, which BTW still uses deprecated code:

• The old global mwCustomEditButtons should be migrated to mw.toolbar.addButton(s)
• The global insertTags should be replaced by mw.toolbar.insertTags

And since these functions are defined on module mediawiki.action.edit, this dependency needs to be loaded first (when in edit mode), with mw.loader.using.

Helder.wiki 19:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Collecting statistics on PROD

Looking over the many articles posted to PROD, I find that a large minority, perhaps as high as 50%, are questionable, and a smaller subset, perhaps 20%, clearly fail the criterion. This is supposed to be backed up by a "last chance save" by the deleting admin, but there appears to be no statistics on whether or not this actually occurs.

Given that there doesn't seem to be any closing requirement other than deleting, and that the PROD can be removed by anyone at any time with a similar lack of record keeping, I'm wondering if anyone might suggest ways to collect statistics on this? Theoretically the search would be something to the effect of "how many articles have had a PROD tag applied, how many of those were ultimately deleted, how many were not". My concern is that the last, perhaps most important, part may be difficult to collect - how would one find edits that remove PROD tags specifically?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

DumbBOT, run by User:Tizio is going through the PRODed articles every six hours. I guess it should be possible to modify that bot such that it collects some statistics: count how many articles are entering and leaving the list, and for the leaving ones, check if the article still exists. This will miss articles that are unPRODed or deleted before the bot sees them, and getting historical data is a completely different task involving serious database digging, but it could be a start. — HHHIPPO 17:45, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, that seems like a reasonable solution. I'll talk to Tizio. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

What criterion is there for PROD to fail? Anyone can PROD an article for any reason, unless it's been PROD'd or AfD'd before. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, in theory, you are required to "have a valid reason for deletion" and to believe that the deletion would be "uncontroversial". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Javascript to warn you about various things when editing

When I edit a page, like I do now, it would be very nice to have a Javascript to show some warnings like:

• This page contains the text "Text1"
• This page does not contain the text "Text2"

And probably some other kind of warnings that editors might consider useful. Of course, the program should allow me to define "Text1", "Text2", etc, somewhere in it's preferences. For example, at this moment I am editing a lot of articoles for adding DEFAULTSORT. When I edit a page, I would like to know if it contains a certain template, which has to be removed - in case it exists in that page. It's a waste of time to try with CTRL + F on every page I edit, especially when I have to remove more than one template or text. I need the program to warn me about it automatically. Is it possible to create such a script? Or there might be some browser addons for that? Probably such a task it's doable with GreaseMonkey. —  Ark25  (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

You could use pt:WP:APC ("Automatic Page Corrector") to define a list of find/replace rules (e.g. finding a few templates and replacing them by the empty string), but that script doesn't have automatic warnings. Helder.wiki 18:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Quick template needed

Can someone here make up the template {{R from Merger}} which would do exactly as {{R from Merge}} now does (so they could basically be interchangeable)? This would help us mergists—who often do merge and redirects quickly and on the fly—and who really, really hate going back to fix such a minor issue. Thanks, GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 20:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• No because CSD:T3 says it would just be deleted right away anyway... I think that what you are looking for is a simple redirect from {{R from Merger}} to {{R from Merge}}. As such, I've created that for you. Let me know if I missed something. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 20:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

You created a double redirect which didn't work. I have fixed {{R from Merger}} to redirect to {{R from merge}}. This means {{R from Merger}} and {{R from Merge}} have identical code and behaviour as requested. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:04, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

That's all that was needed. Thanks folks! GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 22:45, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

While we're on the subject: Thanks for merging pages. The biggest source of the merge backlog is not a lack of discussion or consensus, but a lack of people who are willing to bother with the sometimes complicated "merge the articles" step. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Notification bug

Hi. I received a notification (screenshot) that said Joe Graham was linked from [No page] (not sure how to properly format that link). There are a couple of issues with this. I don't appear to be watching Joe Graham and the second link is obviously bad. Killiondude (talk) 20:12, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• "linked from" means that you created the title, in this case by a copy and paste move from someplace else. As for the [No Page] link, what happens when you click on that? Does it take you to any of the pages listed on Special:WhatLinksHere/Joe Graham? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 20:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Ah. I didn't think about the page creation. That makes more sense (but still strange to be notified if I've decided not to watchlist it). As for [No page], it literally tries to take me to a Wikipedia article at that title, which I linked earlier. It comes up with a "Bad title" error. Killiondude (talk) 20:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• You can shut notifications off for all page creations on Preferences → Notifications → Notify me about these events → Page link, and then you will only get notified about changes to those pages if you add them to your watchlist. As for it taking you to Special:Badtitle (which ironically shows up as a redlink but is a real page, which may be a separate bug of its own), that is a bug in the system somewhere. @Kaldari and Bsitu: any ideas? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 20:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Killiondude: The [No page] link probably means that the page was deleted and oversighted (unless there is some other bug going on). Due to the nature of how the Echo notifications work (in a queuing system outside the database), the notification itself can't be recalled, but the reference to the page can be scrubbed on display. Sorry it's so confusing. Kaldari (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Kaldari, could the [No page] link take the user to more explanatory relevant page like MediaWiki:Oversight-nodiff, one of the rev- system messages, or one of the revdel system messages? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 21:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, but it may require a bit of extra hackery as I'm not sure how difficult it will be to make it have a different page title from the destination. It's probably trivial, but if the feature works by just passing a single page title param through a hook, it may be slightly more complicated. I haven't looked at the code in a while though, so I'm not sure. Kaldari (talk) 21:12, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Kaldari, thank you for the explanation. That makes sense as a possible reason. If it could link to a page that T13 listed that would probably be a better use of a link. At the very least this should probably be documented on a help page somewhere. Thanks again to both of you. Killiondude (talk) 03:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks

When I click on my Reflinks link, I am getting a page not found message from toolserver. It was working fine yesterday. Anybody know if the url has changed or if it has been taken down for maintenance? The link I use (installed in my browser toolbar is "javascript:location='//toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py/'+(typeof wgPageName!='undefined'?wgContentLanguage+':'+wgPageName:)+'?client=bookmark&citeweb=on&overwrite=simple&limit=20';"). Thanks danno_uk 21:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Same here. Except I have bookmarklets for Checklinks, Reflinks, Dablinks, Commonfixes, Altviewer, & Page Watchers, and all of them are giving me a 404. Perhaps down for maintenance? meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 22:29, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I should probably note it was working for me roughly an hour ago, it just stopped suddenly. But I have no idea what caused it. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 22:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Same here, it doesn't work. Any insights, please? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 23:07, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

3 hours later & still the same, Any idea on the cause?.... →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Toolserver is down for scheduled maintenaince that apparently is taking longer than expected. --Tim Landscheidt (talk) 01:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Solaris user land boxes"? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 01:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

a) You're right. b) roots are unpredictable :-). Join #wikimedia-toolserver ^connect if you want to ask them yourself. --Tim Landscheidt (talk) 01:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Hehe, used to be a sysadmin for more than a few years, so I know very well how things easily can go wrong. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 02:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I like "Solaris user land boxes" and pledge to use it in an edit summary within the next seven days. That should cause some consternation in the Recent Changes queue. danno_uk 03:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

BTW that script will break on many pages, because it doesn't url encode wgPagename. Should be + encodeURIComponent(wgPagename) + —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:49, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Discrepancy in page size calculation

I've just noticed that this edit by John of Reading (talk · contribs) shows as (-12) in the watchlist, but (-13) in the page history and the user's contribs. What might cause this discrepancy? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC) amended Redrose64 (talk) 13:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm. I reproduced the discrepancy. No idea. But at least it's not you.

Ah, wait. May or may not be relevant, but watchlists use different schemes:

• If you click on the "prev" on the page history, it gives https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Substitution&diff=598811576&oldid=598811544
• while the watchlist "diff" will give https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Substitution&curid=21438123&diff=598811576&oldid=598811544

Could that be it, maybe? The &curid=21438123 piece? I'm just guessing here... meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 12:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Totally different possibility: The carriage return in the second edit John of Reading reverted: [4]

Maybe it's a heuristical calculation? I mean, WikiMarkup treats two ↵ Enter strokes as a line break (2 bytes), but if it was stored in UTF-8 maybe it was progammed in as the single 
 character (1 byte)? meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 12:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I just thought to check the user contribs: it tallies with page history. A visual check of the edit shows that 11 visible characters were removed: "<ref me h" is nine, and "me" is two. The newline that was also removed should count as one, since MediaWiki stores newlines using the UNIX convention of a 0x0A linefeed, no carriage return. A hex dump of the previous version

1FD0  65 72 65 64 2E 0A 0A 3C-72 65 66 20 6D 65 20 68   ered...<ref me h
1FE0  0A 3D 3D 3D 41 72 74 69-63 6C 65 20 74 61 6C 6B   .===Article talk
1FF0  3D 3D 3D 0A 2A 6D 65 20-7B 7B 74 6C 7C 74 6D 66   ===.*me {{tl|tmf
2000  72 6F 6D 7D 7D 2C 20 7B-7B 74 6C 7C 74 6D 74 6F   rom}}, {{tl|tmto
2010  7D 7D 0A 0A 3D 3D 3D 55-73 65 72 20 74 61 6C 6B   }}..===User talk

reveals no control characters other than the linefeeds. So my impression is that the watchlist is correct in showing a reduction of 12 bytes, but the history and contribs are wrong. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Don't mean to be a bother, but how do you do a hex dump? Can anybody, or does it require special privileges? meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 07:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I have Windows XP and do a lot of work through the command prompt (because I go way back to MS-DOS 3.3 which worked all the time unlike some modern software). I used debug to get the actual hex dump, but first the data needs to be obtained and prepared.

Extended content

I obtained the raw source of the previous and current revisions of the page using wget "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=raw&ctype=text/plain&title=Wikipedia:Substitution&oldid=598811368" wget "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=raw&ctype=text/plain&title=Wikipedia:Substitution&oldid=598811544" wget is a utility for retrieving web pages without letting your browser loose on them. action=raw&ctype=text/plain tells MediaWiki that you want the actual Wikitext, not the rendered HTML. I renamed the retrieved pages using ren "index.php@action=raw&ctype=text%2Fplain&title=Wikipedia%3ASubstitution&oldid=598811368" wps_prev.txt ren "index.php@action=raw&ctype=text%2Fplain&title=Wikipedia%3ASubstitution&oldid=598811544" wps_cur.txt to make their names less unwieldy, and because debug expects filenames to be in the old 8.3 format. Next we need to locate the first byte that differs: fc /b wps_prev.txt wps_cur.txt | head -n 1 head is a UNIX utility that can be obtained for MS-DOS. The line returned from that is 00001ED7: 3C 3D so the discrepancy begins at offset 0x1ED7. However, debug expects that the file being loaded is a COM file, where the entry point is always CS:0100 - so it loads it there, thus all of the byte offsets (including those that I gave on 9 March) are reported 0x0100 higher than their real positions. We therefore need to inspect beginning at CS:1FD7, but for convenience I always start on a 16-byte boundary - easily produced by altering the last digit to zero: debug wps_prev.txt d1FD0 q debug wps_cur.txt d1FD0 q The d command dumps 128 bytes beginning at an offset; the q command exits the program. This should now show C:\wikipedia>debug wps_prev.txt -d1FD0 14F5:1FD0 65 72 65 64 2E 0A 0A 3C-72 65 66 20 6D 65 20 68 ered...<ref me h 14F5:1FE0 0A 3D 3D 3D 41 72 74 69-63 6C 65 20 74 61 6C 6B .===Article talk 14F5:1FF0 3D 3D 3D 0A 2A 6D 65 20-7B 7B 74 6C 7C 74 6D 66 ===.*me {{tl|tmf 14F5:2000 72 6F 6D 7D 7D 2C 20 7B-7B 74 6C 7C 74 6D 74 6F rom}}, {{tl|tmto 14F5:2010 7D 7D 0A 0A 3D 3D 3D 55-73 65 72 20 74 61 6C 6B }}..===User talk 14F5:2020 20 6E 61 6D 65 73 70 61-63 65 3D 3D 3D 0A 41 6C namespace===.Al 14F5:2030 6C 20 6F 66 20 74 68 65-20 74 65 6D 70 6C 61 74 l of the templat 14F5:2040 65 73 20 6C 69 73 74 65-64 20 69 6E 20 5B 5B 3A es listed in [[: -q C:\wikipedia>debug wps_cur.txt -d1FD0 14F5:1FD0 65 72 65 64 2E 0A 0A 3D-3D 3D 41 72 74 69 63 6C ered...===Articl 14F5:1FE0 65 20 74 61 6C 6B 3D 3D-3D 0A 2A 20 7B 7B 74 6C e talk===.* {{tl 14F5:1FF0 7C 74 6D 66 72 6F 6D 7D-7D 2C 20 7B 7B 74 6C 7C |tmfrom}}, {{tl| 14F5:2000 74 6D 74 6F 7D 7D 0A 0A-3D 3D 3D 55 73 65 72 20 tmto}}..===User 14F5:2010 74 61 6C 6B 20 6E 61 6D-65 73 70 61 63 65 3D 3D talk namespace== 14F5:2020 3D 0A 41 6C 6C 20 6F 66-20 74 68 65 20 74 65 6D =.All of the tem 14F5:2030 70 6C 61 74 65 73 20 6C-69 73 74 65 64 20 69 6E plates listed in 14F5:2040 20 5B 5B 3A 43 61 74 65-67 6F 72 79 3A 55 73 65 [[:Category:Use -q

I just trimmed that down a bit. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:33, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Admin dashboard

I have the Admin dashboard on my User:Peridon/links page. Normally, when I open the page, the dashboard opens with it. Today, it's just coming up as a blue link to Template:Admin dashboard which I have to click. Not a big deal, but puzzling. No-one's done anything to the /links page or the template since last year, and I've not changed any settings on my computer or altered my preferences here. (Monobook, XP Pro in Classic mode, Firefox 20) Peridon (talk) 12:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Just the same in Vector... Peridon (talk) 13:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That is because the template has become too large to be transcluded. Werieth (talk) 13:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That I don't understand... No-one's edited it since December. Peridon (talk) 13:04, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The template itself doesnt need to be edited, as the size comes from all of the different pages that get transcluded together. When the total size of the different pages being transcluded gets above a specific size mediawiki wont transclude it. Werieth (talk) 13:07, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template_limits#Post-expand_include_size Werieth (talk) 13:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yep, User:Peridon/links is currently in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded, and after checking in my sandbox I can confirm that the post-expand include size is also exceeded when {{admin dashboard}} is the only thing on the page. Not sure what the cause of that is, though. I don't see any smoking gun edits from the list of transcluded templates. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the code, the admin dashboard transcludes seven subpages of WP:PERM, which must be quite a big hit to the post-expand include size. Is there a summary generated anywhere that can be used instead? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The real killer is {{rfplinks}}, since there is one on every single permission request. Either that should be simplified, or the delay between closure of a request and its archiving should be shortened. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• The real killer is the navboxes, they always are. I've already added a parameter to {{Admin dashboard}} to not transclude the "new administrator" navbox unless |newadmin=yes is exclusively set. I'll add some other customizing parameters to the template so that it will be customizable as to showing the various WP:PERM sections. It will work such as the perm page won't show in the template unless there has been an edit to that page in "x" amount of time unless the admin says they don't want to see any perm requests at all by setting |showperm=no. Otherwise the showperm parameter will accept a numeric value in the number of seconds (or perhaps more flexible, not sure yet) since last edit. I'll add full documentation when I'm done. The "new admin" turning off should fix the immediate issue, I hope. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 15:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. And it's back to normal now. Peridon (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Pretty much. Please do check out Template:Admin dashboard and read the documentation. I've added some options to be able to have sections not transclude if inactive for a shorter period of time than normal archiving allows or disable sections all together. Please let me know if you want me to add more customizability in other sections and I would be happy to. For example, if you never bother with PERM requests, you can get rid of that section, or if you only want to see if there has been activity in the last 3 days for "Template Editor" requests, you can set that section to 3 days. I'm now realizing I need to tweak the code a hair more, as right now it is set that showperm overrides the specific parameters, but showperm is hard defined in the template (which calls the sub-template) so the individual ones won't currently work... Fixing now. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 19:37, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Err, RfA seems to have gone, and the admin counts too. Peridon (talk) 21:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'm still working on trimming various parts... Everything will be back by default (unless you opt-out of sections) when I'm done. No worries.. I just trimmed about 230 bytes from rfp links... More to come... I agree that the current archiving on some of the RFP pages is too slow. The major one seems to be Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. Archival after three days there would seem appropriate and take a HUGE chunk out of the inclusion size. I don't see a archival bot template on the page, so I'm assuming we need to ping the bot's operator to make a hardcoded change someplace? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 22:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Archiving on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed appears to be performed manually. This appears to be the case on multiple pages in the Wikipedia:Requests for permissions hierarchy. Most recently, @Armbrust: appears to be the one that does it.

It appears that upon archiving, the requests are split into different pages based on if they are approved or denied. Those archive pages are further named based on the month and year and put under the Wikipedia:Requests for permissions page. While ClueBot III could, probably, be configured to split the archiving based on approval status, doing so would require using two instances of the bot template each with different values for |archivenow=, |archiveprefix= and |key=. Such configuration would not allow the dwell time on the page after approval/denial to be specified. The bot would just archive any with the specified text (e.g. {{Already done}}, {{done}} and {{not done}}) the next time it ran on the page. This is probably preferable to someone having to manually archive on a continuous basis. Because the archives would not be under the originating page, a |key= would need to be generated prior to enabling the archiving or the bot will put the archives in its default location ({{FULLPAGENAME}}/Archives/). — Makyen (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

User:KingpinBot used to archive the Confirmed page. GB fan 00:44, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk page

Can someone fix my talk page? Whenever I check it, it comes up almost blank. I think it has something to do with the templates on it. I also need to archive it, but that is another matter entirely. :) ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 18:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks normal to me. Can you post a screenshot of what the problem is? Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:55, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The section "The Signpost: 01 October 2012", which is the only one prior to Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot was hidden behind all those boxes at the top. You could just see some of the text peeping through the gaps between; some of it was concealing part of the TOC as well. I fixed it by removing two </div>, which suggests that User:Editorofthewiki/Navigation and User talk:Editorofthewiki/Header might contain some malformed HTML. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

You fixed the problem, thank you. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 00:45, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Template transclusion counter

The transclusion counter at http://toolserver.org/~jarry/templatecount/index.php?lang=en&name=Boys_Night_Out&namespace=10 seems to be out of service. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, well, it is on Toolserver. Have you informed Jarry1250 (talk · contribs)? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. I'll have to migrate it shortly, I guess ([5]). - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 23:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply - Now https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py/Template:Collapsible_option is not working to check for redirects to Template:Collapsible_option. --Jax 0677 (talk) 07:30, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

First-time sort-click problem in table

In the table at Malaysia Airlines Flight 370#Passengers and crew, when clicking on the sorting button for the "Nationality" column for the first time, nothing happens because the nationalities are already listed in alphabetical order by default. Is it possible to make it so that it instead sorts in reverse alphabetical order the first time you click on the sorting button? Heymid (contribs) 19:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

@Heymid: Nope. Bug 15403 is a request for that feature. Matma Rex talk 19:50, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

AFC -> Wikidata

The AFC tool could be used to start Wikidata entries. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Wikidata for more. Help from a coder would be appreciated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

transcluded_changes tool

I have started getting Error 404 reported when trying to run transcluded_changes.py. The url I have been using is https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/transcluded_changes.py?page=Template:WikiProject_Caves. Has the tool moved or been withdraw? Thanks. Langcliffe (talk) 22:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Panic over - it's come back. Langcliffe (talk) 13:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Recurrent Server Problems, Evening on US East Coast

[this refers to this thread above]

We have regional consensus, then, that there is a problem with server performance every evening on the US East Coast. Is there a problem in the late afternoon on the US West Coast? Is there a problem in the small hours of the morning in the UK? Is there a problem in the morning in East Asia and Oceania? If so, then the problem is strictly time-dependent. If the problem is, as suggested, localized to the region and the time, then it does have something to do with load-balancing in the data centers. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:19, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I have experienced similar issues in Texas. Not the US East Coast, but close enough that it could still be a regional issue. --Allen3 ^talk 01:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I have had the same problems again this evening at about 2130 EDT / 0130 GMT in Washington, DC. That is, there has been a problem every evening for more than a week. As Allen3 says, it may be regional, if users in Texas are going through servers in Florida and users elsewhere are going through servers in California. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I continue to have problems with slow loading and complete hangups on real time changes. It is very difficult to monitor and counter vandalism when this happens, not to mention discouraging. Donner60 (talk) 02:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-11

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent software changes

• The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf17) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 13 (calendar).
• You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all Wikiquote projects. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [6] [7]

VisualEditor news

• It is now easier to edit templates. Complex tools are now in the "advanced" mode. [8] [9]
• It is also easier to edit images. You now have more options and they are explained better. [10]
• VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. They are now smaller and animated to be different from actual blank lines. [11]
• We have improved the tool to add special characters. The buttons are now larger. More changes are coming. [12]
• You can now use new keyboard shortcuts to undo the last action, clear formatting, and show the shortcut help window. [13] [14] [15]

Future software changes

• You will soon be able to use a Beta option to show a shorter list of language links. That way, Universal Language Selector will only show languages that are relevant to you. You will still be able to search for other languages. [16]
• CirrusSearch will soon automatically index newly imported pages. [17] [18]
• It will soon be possible to use CSS to style buttons in templates on all Wikimedia wikis, without needing JavaScript. [19]
• An IRC discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation Language Engineering team will take place on March 12 at 17:00 UTC on the channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [20]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

502 error on Reflinks

I've been trying to get onto Reflinks but every time, whether I use the link on WP or the direct web address, it comes up with a 502 bad gateway error message. What is wrong? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Its something at their end, not yours. Its going to be a sit and wait job. - X201 (talk) 09:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Project page not transcluding large template properly

Hi all, I am trying to add User:Mr.Z-man's excellent new "Popular pages" list to the WikiProject Palestine front page, but I can't get it to work. As soon as I swap it in the page doesn't work any more.

Perhaps because the list is too big? Just wondering if you have any idea how I can fix it. I didn't realise there was a limit on these things.

Oncenawhile (talk) 10:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/Popular pages is too large. Due to 1500 transclusions of {{class}} and {{importance}} it couldn't even render to the end on its own page so it was in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. As a test I have replaced its source by the result of using Special:ExpandTemplates on that source. It can now display fully at Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine/Popular pages, but it can still not be transcluded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine when it's passed as a parameter to a template there. Template include size grows when content is passed around. Wikipedia:WikiProject Lebanon/Popular pages and Wikipedia:WikiProject Syria/Popular pages have the same problem and fail on their own page. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

CIDR range contributions broken?

If I enter a range into Special:Contributions, it only finds a single result, and then stops. This is on both /16 and /24 ranges. Examples;

searching for 109.157.154.0/24 returns only 109.157.154.90; there are IPs with contributions scattered across that range (109.157.154.104, 109.157.154.114, etc.)

searching for 197.132.0.0/16 returns only 197.132.99.7 (there are many more that should be shown).

When this worked, it used to show the results in reverse "alphabetical" order (i.e. X.X.X.99, X.X.X.98, etc.) So it looks like its finding them all, but then only showing the "first" in its list. Tested in Firefox 27 & IE10, Windows 7. Black Kite (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• Note:Can someone have a look at this or should I enter it as a bug? It's quite a major issue for admins who are looking at possible collateral damage when considering a rangeblock. Black Kite (talk) 20:41, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'll look at this after I get out of class... This is actually a gadget, so it will need to be handled on wiki and the developers would WONTFIX any Bugzilla report for a gadget. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 21:04, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• A week ago, I made a change to MediaWiki:Gadget-contribsrange.js, at the request of someone at talk (I don't understand Javascript at all). I'm totally unable to determine whether or not I made a good edit, except for assuring you that it was clearly a good-faith request by a tech-savvy user. Since Technical thinks that this change was responsible for your problem, I've self-reverted. It would help if someone would analyse the results and announce whether or not the problem's resolved. Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Can't display web page after clicking 'Save page'

It's happening over and over to me that I create or answer a proposal and as soon as I click 'Save page', the Internet Explorer 9 browser can't display the web page and I would like that problem fixed. After that problem, I then have to click 'Read' then click 'Leave page' to see my proposal. That problem doen't seem to be happening much in articles or talk pages. My proposals don't get lost from losing an internet connection but I still don't like it. Blackbombchu (talk) 02:53, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "proposal" exactly? Asking as it's unclear to me how to reproduce the problem. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:57, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

It seemed to me that most of the time if I made any edit at all in the 'Proposals' section, it would not display the web page after I clicked 'Save page.' That problem did not happen to me when I made another proposal today. Maybe you have a better internet server or internet browser that makes you unable to reproduce the problem I was experiencing a lot. If you're not using wireless, you could try unplugging the internet cord while you're on the edit page then click 'Save page.' Blackbombchu (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Maintenance category for articles with circular references?

As per WP:CIRCULAR, Wikipedia should never be used to cite itself. Is it technically possible to have a maintenance category populated with articles that have circular references? This seems like a good idea. It would be populated with articles that contain references like

<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepultura}}</ref>

or

<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluffernutter</ref>

or

<ref>[[Dragonslayer]]</ref>

among other possible scenarios. There is a inline template about circular references (see {{Circular-ref}} but I don't see its point and just started a conversation on its talk page about that. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:49, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I suggest asking at Module_talk:Citation/CS1. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:10, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I was going to suggest the same. We can add Wikipedia link detection to CS1 templates. I can't see any way to detect such a link in <ref> tags not using a template unless Cite is changed. --  Gadget850 ^talk 12:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Do note there are rare cases where a citation to Wikipedia is appropriate, for example reference #6 in Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. I'd expect you can find more examples looking through Category:Wikipedia and its subcats. Anomie⚔ 14:21, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, most refs contain wikilinks along with other text. Differentiating <ref>Source: Wikipedia article on [[Dragonslayer]].</ref> from an explanatory footnote or a citation to a real source that happens to link to an article is basically impossible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

This is true, which is why such a category could only contain candidates for improvement, which is the case with basically all the maintenance categories. (As a side note, I've started to really dislike explanatory footnotes mixed in with actual references and have started to prefer them in seperated into their own named group, especially when there's a large number of references.) Jason Quinn (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Flcikr/creative commons photo SOLVED

Hello, I would like to get this photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/12966001753/in/set-72157641943868053 into the infobox on this page KLOS C. The photo has creativecommons permissions, as I have seen often used here on Wikipedia via Flickr but I am unclear on how to move a photo from there. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Juneau Mike (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry to say it, but as per Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria the image in question is not usable on Wikipedia. The issue is that the image in question is available under a CC-BY-NC license. Creative Commons licenses are not all alike. The one used for this image does not allow for commercial reuse. The restriction on commercial reuse makes the image non-free from a Wikipedia perspective and, as it is (theoretically) possible for someone else to take a picture of this ship, Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria#Policy does not allow the image to be uploaded under a fair use provision. --Allen3 ^talk 18:13, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Issue finding simple change in large blocks

A single character change in a large block of text such as this diff can often be tedious to locate. In this case a comma was removed after "waxy" in a 2,700 character paragraph. Is there a way of making such a change more visible? I do a large amount of RCP and often quit in exasperation attempting to find such changes. Thank you Jim1138 (talk) 20:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

The use of the wikEdDiff gadget can make finding this type of change much easier. A button is added below the normal diff view. When clicked, the diff is displayed in an additional, alternate style which makes finding such changes much easier. You can enable the gadget from the gadget page in your preferences. At least for me, the use of this gadget makes the change in the diff you mentioned immediately visible. — Makyen (talk) 21:29, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I added the following to my user css a long time ago to make the difference more obvious:

td.diff-deletedline .diffchange,
td.diff-addedline .diffchange {
    /* Maybe my display contrast is bad, but I can hardly see the highlight. */
    background:#f88;
}

You could copy it into your common.css if you want. Anomie⚔ 23:34, 11 March 2014 (UTC)