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Reduce the size of non-edited portions when showing changes
Forgive me if this has been asked before, I couldn't find any record of it. Can we reduce the size of non-edited portions when showing changes?
If you select 'Show changes', the edited text is shown. Either side of the edited text is non-edited text. For an example of what I mean see this edit.
Sometimes the non-edited text is so large that it makes it difficult to see edited text above and below. This is particularly a problem if you do multiple small edits throughout an article. You then have to scroll up and down to see the changes. I was told that this was an API issue but I don't really know who has control of that. How do we reduce the number of visible non-edited words/characters? Lightmouse (talk) 19:59, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
- In general, articles should have smaller paragraphs, so that less text is show in the diff before-versus-after blocks. A trick I have used is to save as 2 separate edits: the first edit adds line breaks or adjusts the blank lines (most people don't care about extra line breaks); then the 2nd edit has the real changes to see during a diff. Decades ago, people realized how the size of the multi-line diff-bracket affects the comparison to re-sync lines, so that diff-bracket needs to be a user-specified option, especially in lists where the data is similar, and the diff-bracket is the wrong size so that old lines, which should be considered unchanged, are instead shown as part of a larger difference. There are so many simple changes which could be made to simplify double-checking of edits, but perhaps copy 2 revisions of a page to your PC and use diff-tools to compare versions in your disk files (and count the number of changes, etc.). -Wikid77 20:02, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hi. Are you referring to the ugly practice of using nbsp’s to force line-height in empty cells? Indeed, I wish there was a way to make that stuff disappear.
- Perhaps some <tr> class to identify rows which contain gray cells (td.diff-context) and facilitate hiding them in one’s monobook.css. That would make the line-number headings unreliable however, so you probably would want to suppress those as well. ―cobaltcigs 16:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I don't think that is what I'm talking about. Am I the only one that sees this as an issue? Lightmouse (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
- This is the "context" of the change. Maybe there's some smart css that will reduce it for you. Rich Farmbrough, 17:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC).
Is the size of the context within the scope of Wikipedia or is it a Wikimedia thing? Lightmouse (talk) 17:05, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- The default diff-bracket seems larger than I remembered: it is displaying TWO unchanged lines above and below the changed line, where a blank line can count as one of the unchanged lines. I made 2 edits to "Boulder, Colorado" while aligning the infobox keywords, and the 2nd edit forced a line break to trigger a diff; note how the differing text is surrounded by 2 unchanged lines (paragraphs) above and 2 lines below: Boulder-diff-link]. An option for "set unchanged-text size" would be a good option to have under Special:Preferences (as opposed to some of those other rather useless options). A long unchanged line could be shown truncated as "<...>" beyond the unchanged-text size. I don't know who to contact to help sort out their priorities as to what features should be preferences. I'm still in shock about the 40-depth expansion limit in the 21st century! -Wikid77 20:29, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. Does anybody know how to reduce the amount of unedited text? Lightmouse (talk) 10:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Couldn't type edit summary or search
If you look at my contributions from just before midnight UTC on January 4, I couldn't type edit summaries. There were other things going on and I don't know why I had so much trouble correcting the template when advising an IP of a contribution that was not productive (edit conflicts were a big problem even though I was the only one editing and I thought I clicked on "preview" rather than "save"). The only other hint (probably making this a Computing reference desk question) is that when I tried to turn the unproductive contribution blue to delete it, the cursor became a dot with an up arrow above it and a down arrow below it. I also couldn't copy and paste because that's what would happen.
It was a library computer which gave me some message about Internet Explorer 8 when I signed on. I think this message meant the computer had it. They should probably be told about the problem, whatever it is.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
- Turn it blue? What are you talking about? As before, this is for discussion Wikipedia technical things, not for solving your IT problems. If you think someone needs to be told, tell them yourself - it has nothing to do with Wikipedia. The cursor you describe sounds like the middle button scroll function, so you were probably using the mouse wrongly. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- I wasn't doing anything wrong. The mouse was broken. I was trying to get some advice on what might be wrong. And the problem, whatever it did, DID affect Wikipedia use; therefore it is a legitimate Wikipedia technical problem.
- And when I say "turn it blue", that should be obvious. If I want to delete a section of text from Wikipedia, I turn it blue. The mouse is supposed to do that. It did not.18:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions ·
- The usual term for 'turn it blue' which people will recognize is 'highlight'. To produce the cursor you describe (a dot with an arrow above and below), usually one clicks the scroll wheel on the mouse. This puts the cursor into a scrolling mode, where if you move the cursor to the top or bottom of your screen it will scroll the page of text up or down. This scrolling mode can be turned off with another click of the scroll wheel. Testing under Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Vista, the scroll mode is also turned off by any other mouse click, but I can't confirm what might happen under other Windows versions.
- I would speculate that (as this was a public computer subject to less-than-tender use) the scroll-wheel-click is sticking, and it may sometimes be difficult or impossible to turn off the scrolling mode. If the button is stuck and the mouse can't return to its normal mode, you won't be able to click or highlight normally. The problem you were experiencing almost certainly had nothing to do with Wikipedia, but was rather a hardware problem on the public computer. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Right, but we have a symptom of a problem which is actually affecting the ability to use Wikipedia. At least in a search for what might be causing such a problem, this section might come up.
- We still don't know why I couldn't type edit summaries or type in the search box.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, but it seems to be a problem that's easily fixed — replace the defective hardware. There isn't anything that needs to be done on Wikipedia's end. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:32, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
- I would suggest that you were unable to select the edit summary and search boxes, if your mouse was stuck in autoscroll mode. Rich Farmbrough, 19:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC).
Nowiki-slash for fewer if-logic worries
I have found, now, what other people have known about the nowiki-slash tag ("<nowiki/>"): it preserves spaces or "#" (or ":" or "*
" or ";") to deter the newline bug. I finally joined the resistance movement of "Wikipedians worrying about performance, now, for carefree wikiwork later" (anti-WP:PERF), and discovered many people have already solved massive performance problems in the MediaWiki software. Now, any if-logic can be written as super-robust, without worries about color hex codes (such as: #f8eaba
) becoming auto-indented, numbered lines:
- "{{#ifeq:x|x|<nowiki/>{{{color|#f8eaba}}}<nowiki/>}}" → "#f8eaba"
Now, any if-logic can generate a space " " as a result:
- "{{#ifeq:{{showspace|yes}}}|yes|<nowiki/> <nowiki/>}}" → " "
I recently also created more utility templates, Template:Xifeq, Template:Xifnoteq and Template:Xifexpr as quick if-logic functions to bypass whatever glitches in #ifeq & #ifexpr. So, if any other bugs are introduced into future changes to the parser functions, then those if-logic templates can be adjusted to still be reliable (hopefully).
Meanwhile, the "<nowiki/>" tag can CANNOT be used everywhere, because it is highly unlikely the MediaWiki software will screw it up as well. I use had used it to separate nested braces "{{{{{}}}}}" as in "{{val|{{{x|{{{x2|54123}}}<nowiki/>}}}<nowiki/>}}" without affecting the results, but calculations were ruined by nowiki tags. Also, it can truncate wikilinks: [[common sense|common-sense]]<nowiki/>less, as "common-senseless". Anyway, nowiki-slash is just one of many semi-great ideas discovered by people who have been worrying about performance and finding great ways to make things much easier. More ideas later. -Wikid77 07:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC), revised 14:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- A disadvantage of nowiki tags is that they affect any subsequent string comparison, see m:Template:Ifeqnw#Limitation.--Patrick (talk) 09:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. I never would have expected nowiki tags generate internal hidden characters, which do affect the results:
- "{{padleft:|1|<nowiki/> <nowiki/>}}" → " "
- "{{padleft:|1|<nowiki/>abc<nowiki/>}}" → "a"
- "{{padleft:|1|<b/> <b/>}}" → "<"
- "{{#expr: 3*<nowiki/>10<nowiki/>}}" → "Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ""."
- "{{#expr: 3*<nowiki></nowiki>10}}" → "Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ""."
Just when I thought they wouldn't screw up nowiki tags, they had already done so, long ago: embedding invalid characters in calculations. Kids don't do this: Don't ever write a twisted, convoluted markup language like MediaWiki or its twisted preprocessor. The most logical assumption was that nowiki tags simply stopped the expansion of the text, not that they embedded special characters which are left inside to kill calculations or cause comparisons to mismatch and fail. Those results are just more bugs as to how it should have worked, logically. The nowiki tags should only be used in limited cases, not in calculations, at the present time. -Wikid77 14:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- More like "kids, don't play with things you don't understand". The way the preprocessor, and the parser, work is to chop out bits of wikitext that they've finished processing, and replace them with strip markers: {{padleft:|40|<nowiki/> <nowiki/>}} produces , which you can see is most of a complete strip marker. The
<nowiki>...</nowiki>
block is seen by the preprocessor, and snipped out and replaced by a strip marker; the control character you see at the start of the marker (there's one at the end as well) is there precisely to be impossible to generate in actual text; it is impossible to create a 'fake' strip marker in raw wikitext. The contents of the block are processed (escaped in this case to prevent any further parsing) and stored separately in the parser output. A<ref>...</ref>
or<source>...</source>
block would be treated in exactly the same way: {{padleft:|37|<ref>Foo</ref>}} produces . At the end of the preprocessor stage, all the strip markers are replaced with their contents, and all is well. Except here, where you have horribly abused a bug in padleft (a bug deliberately left unfixed, I might add, precisely in order to allow string manipulation) to cut off bits of the strip marker, meaning it is not recognised as complete and is not replaced with its processed contents. I can't show you what the end of the strip markers looks like because if you leave the whole marker, it is correctly replaced by its contents. {{padleft:|140|<ref>Foo</ref>}} produces : three complete copies of the strip marker are replaced by their processed contents, and one half marker is exposed in the output. Happy‑melon 17:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)- Thank you for describing the complex internal processing of the inserted markers. I will use that to explain to the "kids" so they can better understand the issues. -Wikid77 20:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
- Other advice would be: "Don't expect a markup language to make a good programming language". Markup languages are designed for presentation; calculations and comparisons are secondary features. Mr.Z-man 23:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well, conditional text formatting and typesetting is based on comparing text and making calculations, such as counting lines-per-page or incrementing header numbers in a Table of Contents. I don't know what else to say, except perhaps: "Computers: they're not just for reading email any more". The markup language should allow defining over 1,000 macros, nested hundreds deep, plus defining local variables (including line, word or page counters). Those features can be provided by a relatively simple one-pass preprocessor. The expansion limit of 40 nested templates is an unfortunate choice for the current complex template processing. I would raise to 60 (or perhaps 100). Regardless, it should be easy to allow a simple macro scripting language which defines local variables: we know templates consider "{{{x|25.0}}}" to be local when "x" defaults, but MediaWiki cannot retain that value of x as "25.0" for use later, only when passed into a template. I am not advocating we require macros to have strong typing, exception handlers, or concurrent macro processing. We just need simple math, string operations, reliable if-logic comparisons, and local variables to hold the results to display on a page. -Wikid77 20:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
- Need parser function to set a parameter: Since templates do not yet have "local variables", but have parameters (set when a template is invoked), perhaps a new parser function {{#set: x|25.0}} could be created to simply insert "25.0" into parameter {{{x}}} as if it had been passed into the template. -Wikid77 14:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Any plans to upgrade to simple macro scripting
There has been talk of changing to a more capable, simple, mainstream macro scripting language to allow quick, easy typesetting macros which work reliably. The current markup language is so error-prone and limited that users have written many extremely complex templates to perform the simplest of tasks, in an effort to avoid MediaWiki or parser-function quirks. Some obvious questions:
- Are there essays about upgrading to a quick scripting language?
- Is Javascript or some other browser language a better option?
- Could the other language be triggered by a top-line switch?
- Could conversion of parser-function templates be automated easily?
- How many times faster could a macro scripting language format articles?
Currently, despite the ongoing problems, people have coded 4 million or more cases of using "home-made" string templates to support typical macro-style typesetting routines. There is obviously a major need to move to modern technology, so I am wondering what plans are being made to move forward, and which pages describe the alternatives. -Wikid77 19:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- There is one "essay" about upgrading to a quick scripting language. Ruslik_Zero 20:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- There is no fixed plan atm. The holdup is the lack of an experienced developer that has enough skill, free time and a thick enough skin to actually take on such a huge project. Most volunteer devs are only casual contributors doing patch work and other small incremental work. Paid devs have plenty of other work. LUA is the most often suggested scripting option as far as I know. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- There was an objection to using things like Lua because they create a dependency on an executable or a PHP extension that would need to be compiled. This would make Wikipedia content unusable on some crappy shared hosting service where users don't have shell access or PHP is restricted from running other programs. So any scripting language would need to be implemented in pure PHP, even though we wouldn't use that implementation. Personally, I think that's stupid. But, its unclear whether that restriction is still in effect, or who would make the decision on it. Mr.Z-man 23:21, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- There is no fixed plan atm. The holdup is the lack of an experienced developer that has enough skill, free time and a thick enough skin to actually take on such a huge project. Most volunteer devs are only casual contributors doing patch work and other small incremental work. Paid devs have plenty of other work. LUA is the most often suggested scripting option as far as I know. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Need parser function to set parameters: Meanwhile, since templates do not yet have "local variables", but have parameters (set with values when a template is invoked), perhaps a new parser function {{#set: x|25.0}} could be created to simply insert "25.0" into parameter {{{x}}} as if it had been passed into the template. That would allow storing partial calculations, or setting status variables, such as {{#set: gotmatch|true}} to avoid all the duplication in the current template markup coding. -Wikid77 14:37, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- See the following requests:
- and also the proposed solution:
- But, quoting Chad H., "Getting it enabled on Wikimedia sites requires consensus, and approval/review by a senior developer".
- So, is there anybody against that? Helder 14:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Rampant VolkovBot - 'am truly fed up by now
User:VolkovBot continues to add it:Fistula acquaria to Roman lead pipe inscription (and the German and French articles), even though the Italian article has nothing to do with epigraphy. I asked the operator of VolkovBot to stop his bot from adding the article - but his workaround did not work. Even removing simultaneously all language versions, as proposed, does not help, since some dude on the French WP decided otherwise.
I am fed up by now combating a rampant bot and I don't want a single user in another language version to decide on the interwiki links for all language versions (which effectictively is the case, since a single addition, as that by the French user, triggers the bot to add the Italian link to all language versions). It cannot be the case that human users are thrown into the battle against a stupid and unrelentent bot. Either the bot gets it or it should get its plug pulled. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- have you tried just <!--commenting --> the offending interwiki links? ΔT The only constant 20:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
- Also worth having a go at just adding {{nobots}} or
{{bots|deny=VolkovBot}}
, since it uses pywikipedia it may be complaint with this (depending on options) - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)- Nobots should be a temporary fix only. There are a few cases (Monocieous/Monecieous springs to mind) where it has been hard work getting the interwikis sorted "permanently" but in my opinion it is worth it to avoid having a growing number of articles with crufty bot-directive templates on them. Rich Farmbrough, 16:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC).
- Your workaround does not work, Rich. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- In what way doesn't it work? Rich Farmbrough, 18:40, 9 January 2011 (UTC).
- Theres another wrong Interwiki by volovbot here [1]·Maunus·ƛ· 10:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- In what way doesn't it work? Rich Farmbrough, 18:40, 9 January 2011 (UTC).
- Your workaround does not work, Rich. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- Nobots should be a temporary fix only. There are a few cases (Monocieous/Monecieous springs to mind) where it has been hard work getting the interwikis sorted "permanently" but in my opinion it is worth it to avoid having a growing number of articles with crufty bot-directive templates on them. Rich Farmbrough, 16:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC).
safesubst documentation does not make sense
- Moved from Help talk:Substitution. — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Could someone who understands safesubst:
please rewrite that section of Help:Substitution? It is utterly incomprehensible at the moment. It does not make it clear what safesubst:
is even for, let alone how it works or how to use it. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
- Concur. Even I have trouble understanding even its concept. — Edokter • Talk — 12:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- I understand it, but I'm not sure how to rewrite it to make it clear. I can try to explain it to you, maybe between us we can rewrite it.
- The problem is in making a template that works correctly both when transcluded and when substituted. Consider a hypothetical template {{hello world}} that should display "Hello, world!" if no parameter is given, and "Hello, world+name!" if a parameter is given.
- One way to write that is "
Hello, world{{#if:{{{1|}}}|+{{{1}}}}}!
". It will work correctly when transcluded, and when substed it will look correct but the page's wikitext will contain "Hello, world{{#if:|+{{{1}}}}}!
". We don't want that parser function showing up in the wikitext! - We can't just throw "subst:" in the template code, becuase that would subst it as soon as we saved the template. We have to hide that subst until the template is actually used, e.g. with <includeonly>.
- We can get the substed text to be correct by changing the template to "
Hello, world{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#if:{{{1|}}}|+{{{1}}}}}!
", but then a transclusion displays "Hello, world{{subst:#if:|+{{{1}}}}}!
" in the page! - The old solution was to make the template be "
Hello, world{{{{{subst|}}}#if:{{{1|}}}|+{{{1}}}}}!
". This works right on transclusion, and if you pass a parameter|subst=subst:
when substuting it works right then too. But that's not really good, because then people have to remember to specify|subst=subst:
or it gives the same ugly wikitext as in #1. - We can't change the behavior of "
<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>
" to work like we want it to, because that would break other things. So "safesubst:" was created to be like subst except that it doesn't screw things up when used like in #3. So now "Hello, world{{<includeonly>safesubst:</includeonly>#if:{{{1|}}}|+{{{1}}}}}!
" works just like we want, correct on transclusion and leaving the page wikitext as "Hello, world!
" when substed. - Another slightly shorter way to do basically the same thing as "
<includeonly>safesubst:</includeonly>
" is "{{{|safesubst:}}}
", i.e. making "safesubst:" the default value of the parameter with an empty name. Of course, that does allow someone to do {{subst:hello world|=}} to give wikitext like in #1 or {{hello world|=garbage}} to really screw things up, but it's unlikely anyone would do that.
- One way to write that is "
- Did that make any sense? Anomie⚔ 17:41, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'm afraid not... For me to understand it, I must first have a clear concept of what safesubst: exactly does in it's simplest inception, as that is the core piece of information that is missing form the documentation. For example, it is completely unclear what this code does: safesubst:{{{1}}} during both transclusion and substitution. Once that becomes clear, I would have no problem undersatanding its more complex incarnations. — Edokter • Talk — 17:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- As Kotniski already noted below, safesubst and subst do the same thing except that
{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>foo}}
when transcluded will display "{{subst:foo}}" while{{<includeonly>safesubst:</includeonly>foo}}
will in turn transclude Template:foo. Anomie⚔ 19:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- As Kotniski already noted below, safesubst and subst do the same thing except that
- I'm afraid not... For me to understand it, I must first have a clear concept of what safesubst: exactly does in it's simplest inception, as that is the core piece of information that is missing form the documentation. For example, it is completely unclear what this code does: safesubst:{{{1}}} during both transclusion and substitution. Once that becomes clear, I would have no problem undersatanding its more complex incarnations. — Edokter • Talk — 17:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I've just been trying to tidy up other parts of Help:Substitution, and chucking out a lot of fairly meaningless or useless text, but there's still a long way to go (expert help would be appreciated). I think if the whole of the page were to be written to make sense, then the safesubst thing would fit into it quite logically. But first you have to understand the problem which it's trying to solve, which is kind of described elsewhere on the page, but not very clearly at present. (AIUI safesubst does exactly the same thing as subst, except in the kind of situation Anomie describes above - I'm guessing that safesubst causes substitutions to be performed after transclusion, while ordinary subst can only happen before transclusions.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- If I'm understanding the code correctly, it seems that subst and safesubst both allow template replacement during the pre-save transform (PST) phase (i.e. substitution), but safesubst additionally allows template replacement during the parsing phase (i.e. transclusion) where subst doesn't. Anomie⚔ 19:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Here's a testcase that I knocked up based on the above description: User:This, that and the other/subst and safesubst. Notice that only the final bullet point under each heading (safesubst:
) produces the correct output every time (i.e. when transcluded AND when substituted). I think the main problem with safesubst:
is its rather opaque name. It would have been better to call it substonsubst:
or something. Still, we're stuck with it as is. — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- I think an input/output table with the simplest input would be most clear. — Edokter • Talk — 12:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well you have explained the function of safesubst: to me well enough, I have looked at that documentation page a number of times, and improved what I could, but it never explained the salient point of safesubst: so I could never improve the wording, it's good to see it getting done properly.
- I would like more detail (maybe a footnote) on "We can't change the behavior of "
<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>
" to work like we want it to, because that would break other things." I believe it would be worth a fair amount of breakage to do away with the subst:/safesubst: distinction. Rich Farmbrough, 18:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC).
I've done a major revamp of the page Help:Substitution, including (I hope) a better explanation of safesubst. Experts on the subject are invited to take a look, check I haven't made any major errors or discarded anything important (there's still a link to the Meta page which contains the more extensive text). Non-experts are invited to see if they now understand it any better (and what still needs to be made clearer).--Kotniski (talk) 12:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'd like some mention of the importance of placing the
subst:
immediately before the template name, without intervening spaces or newlines. I've carried out some tests, and found that there are some fairly simple rules, but these rules vary depending upon whether it's templates, or variables/parser functions. These rules are:- A space or a newline is permitted between the
{{
and thesubst:
- For templates, a space is permitted after the
subst:
- For variables and parser functions, there cannot be a space after the
subst:
- Newlines are not permitted after the
subst:
in any situation.
- A space or a newline is permitted between the
- It might be simpler to state "Do not place spaces or newlines after the
subst:
". --Redrose64 (talk) 13:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)- You might also want to mention the
{{{|safesubst:}}}
idiom. I know{{{subst1|subst:}}}
is mentioned, but{{{|safesubst:}}}
isn't obviously the same deal. Anomie⚔ 14:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)- Thanks, I'll add those two things to the page. I'm also planning on doing some off-and-on tidying work on Help:Template, which seems to be another hugely overgrown page (though at least it's a bit more understandable than Help:Substitution was). --Kotniski (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- You might also want to mention the
I can actually understand it now! (Although I'm a programming enthusiast, so I can't speak from the perspective of those not burdened with extra technical knowledge.) Thanks. — This, that, and the other (talk) 06:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Does Wikipedia have an IP recording utility I can use?
Hello, I'm a journeyman level editor and I edit by fits and starts depending on when the spirit moves me so I haven't really advanced in skill level. I have been editing primarily from the secure site for a number of months. It appears that the login program used sometimes kicks me out so that I will do an edit thinking I'm still logged in but then find that the system has recorded it as an anonymous edit. When this happens I like to go to the Talk User:IP number talk page and leave contact info. But my ISP uses dynamic IPs so sometimes I lose track. The same happens when I'm at work and can't log in and do an edit (very rarely nowadays since my company changed servers).
So my hence my question: is there any easy to use utility program hidden in the bowels of Wikipedia which I can use to track my lost IP edits and go back and leave contact info on the talk pages? Trilobitealive (talk) 15:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- Only those with CheckUser rights could do that, and probably not in this circumstance. See User:Gadget850/FAQ#Logged out for some hints on the logged out issue. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. That was what I was afraid of. I don't want to apply to become an admin or to get more user rights, (I still don't know what to do with Reviewer rights for instance) I just want to try to keep up with my own edits. Will look at the link you gave on the logged out issue. Trilobitealive (talk) 16:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- The FAQ was helpful but I see "the poor man's checkuser" doesn't seem to be working right and I wonder if it is due to the fact I use the secure server?Trilobitealive (talk) 16:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
- Let's face it, the poor man's checkuser isn't very helpful. It bases some (all?) of its data on edits like these, so it's only useful for careless users like our friend Jimbo :) — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:10, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- LOL! Thanks folks.Trilobitealive (talk) 15:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- If you are looking for anonymous edits by you, you don't need checkuser to find these edits. You just need to figure out what IPs you'd have used during those eras (which Checkuser couldn't find anyway). Generally ISPs have a limited IP subset range (depending on ISP and market). It can range from (generally) a pool of about 256 IPs to around half a million (for something like Comcast in Los Angeles, or an Italian ISP). If you repeatedly hit a place like this while rebooting your modem, or check a website that keeps historical data on you (gmail keeps a bit), you can discern the range to some degree, and then use a Wikipedia scanner (or the CIDR gadget in Special:Preferences) to find them. --Splarka (rant) 22:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. Will see what the CIDR gadget can do. Trilobitealive (talk) 01:02, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- Never mind the CIDR gadget. I can't even READ the Classless Inter-Domain Routing page. The last hardware program I wrote was for a 300 baud modem so I'm a bit dated in my computer skills. I'll just have to hit up the whatismyip.com site, which is what I've already been doing when I have the time. Trouble is, they expect me to actually work when I'm at work so that cuts down the time I can edit Wikipedia. Maybe that is a good thing.Trilobitealive (talk) 01:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- Splarka's suggestion actually isn't too hard. In my (limited) knowledge, I usually just replace the last placeholder with an asterisk (on Special:Contributions) and it finds all the contribs within that IP's range (at least, I think so). Killiondude (talk) 08:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- If you are looking for anonymous edits by you, you don't need checkuser to find these edits. You just need to figure out what IPs you'd have used during those eras (which Checkuser couldn't find anyway). Generally ISPs have a limited IP subset range (depending on ISP and market). It can range from (generally) a pool of about 256 IPs to around half a million (for something like Comcast in Los Angeles, or an Italian ISP). If you repeatedly hit a place like this while rebooting your modem, or check a website that keeps historical data on you (gmail keeps a bit), you can discern the range to some degree, and then use a Wikipedia scanner (or the CIDR gadget in Special:Preferences) to find them. --Splarka (rant) 22:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- LOL! Thanks folks.Trilobitealive (talk) 15:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- Let's face it, the poor man's checkuser isn't very helpful. It bases some (all?) of its data on edits like these, so it's only useful for careless users like our friend Jimbo :) — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:10, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- Next time, ensure login: Trilobitealive, before you login again, click on "login for 30 days" BEFORE entering your username, to remain all day or a month. If you cannot risk 30-day login, then logout after several hours, and re-login to avoid a login timeout which stores your IP address. Also, when you edit a page, put a 4-tilde (~) live username signature at the TOP OF THE PAGE you are editing: that way, during edit-preview, you can see if you get logged out after being away several hours (or days). If you forget to remove the 4-tilde (~ ~ ~ ~) signature in an article, don't worry: someone else will remove it for you, soon enough (tolerance for Wikipedia's 2-month and 6-month vandalism hacks has made people tolerant of even simple mistakes). It is more important for you to keep edits attributed to your username than leaving a few signatures in articles, where most people really just skip over that when they are reading. It is not unusual for an article to be viewed "27,000" times before people fix spelling or grammar. Most people come to read topic details, regardless of typos. Anyway, please try to use your login username when you want to keep track. -Wikid77 22:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- I installed Gadget850's green-save-button thing on 4 March 2010. I no longer notice that it's green; but I do notice when it's grey. This means I've become logged out; and when this happens, I start Wikipedia on another browser tab, log in there, return to my first tab, click "Show preview" and the save button turns green again, so I can safely save with the edit attributed to my login. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Reverting
I don't know if it's Twinkle, Chrome or what, but if I go to history and click on the latest version and say 3 versions back to compare, I don't get the 'Restore this version' in Chrome but I do in Firefox. I've also lost Twinkle's rollback. This seems erratic as sometimes I don't have the problem. Dougweller (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- It's probably best to bring this to Wikipedia talk:Twinkle since they are more familiar with Twinkle's code. Gary King (talk · scripts) 01:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia and Google sitelinks
Hi, normally I don't talk here much but today in fiwiki we encountered quite frustrating situation with Google Sitelinks:
If Finnish person search Wikipedia from Google our sitelinks are "Pussy, Sex, Talking Machine, Adolf Hitler, Justin Bieber, Sodomia..." (you get the point, not very flattering topics). If person search Wikipedia using Deutch sitelinks are "Science, Technology, History, Arts and Culture..." (excellent result!). If user search Wikipedia using English instead of sitelinks Google shows Wikipedia search.
I tried to look http://de.wikipedia.org source to locate possible place where these sitelinks could be manipulated, without luck. Because English Wikipedia has largest user base I hope that here are some SEO experts who could help fiwiki to get rid of inappropriate sitelinks. --Agony (talk) 20:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- No, I don't see any reason to believe this is a virus, just Google giving poor site links (as mentioned in their article it's an automated process, it's possible someone is abusing it somehow to purposely make it give those links) (link to Google search). Seems to be Google's problem. - Kingpin13 (talk) 21:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- Are those the current most common search terms by Finnish googlers accessing Wikipedia? Rjwilmsi 22:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- I did wonder about that as well =p. All the topics are fairly high interest, "Sodomia" and "Khagendra Thapa Magar" seem the oddest, ranking just 807 and 3884 in traffic (so not necessarily reflective of people's search terms, see here too (which isn't necessarily reflective of what people are searching for on Wikipedia), with this seeming to be the most interesting term, shot up in volume just recently, with news reference volume staying very similar. Of course that could be unrelated to Wikipedia.
Also check out the regions, looks suspicious?(or not - language)), while the rest all rank higher than 100. But it seems that sitelinks are based more on the architecture of the site itself. Of course, Google are rather secretive about how they actually get them.. - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)- What about
EnglishWikipedia main site http://www.wikipedia.org which offer Wikipedia search instead of sitelinks? Could this be implemented on Finnish Wikipedia too? --Agony (talk) 07:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- What about
- I did wonder about that as well =p. All the topics are fairly high interest, "Sodomia" and "Khagendra Thapa Magar" seem the oddest, ranking just 807 and 3884 in traffic (so not necessarily reflective of people's search terms, see here too (which isn't necessarily reflective of what people are searching for on Wikipedia), with this seeming to be the most interesting term, shot up in volume just recently, with news reference volume staying very similar. Of course that could be unrelated to Wikipedia.
- Are those the current most common search terms by Finnish googlers accessing Wikipedia? Rjwilmsi 22:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- No, I don't see any reason to believe this is a virus, just Google giving poor site links (as mentioned in their article it's an automated process, it's possible someone is abusing it somehow to purposely make it give those links) (link to Google search). Seems to be Google's problem. - Kingpin13 (talk) 21:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
- According to stats.grok.se those terms are not most popular in articles in finnish Wikipedia. Of course this is not what's searched in Google. --Harriv (talk) 08:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Configuration of collection extension
Hi!
According to README.txt of Extension:Collection, there is an option $wgCommunityCollectionNamespace
for defining the namespace used for "community collections". Since it was created the Book namespace (See 1 and 2), shouldn't that variable be update instead of using the MediaWiki:Coll-community_book_prefix (== "-")? Helder 14:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Edit counters not working for Unicode usernames
For the past couple of months, Luxo's, Soxred's edit counters and Yet another edit counter, are not working for unicode user names. For example - this user's soxred page comes up like this. It used to work earlier (i think i last checked in november 2010). Is there a way to get around this?--Sodabottle (talk) 16:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- You can try contacting the tool owners directly, or file a bug in the ticket system of the toolserver. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Ogg media files request
Hi,
Is it feasible to introduce two new parameters into the Ogghandler? They would be to view/listen to a chosen portion of the original; something like:
|starttime = 0:00:00
|endtime = 0:00:00
I think this could reduce the amount of space used up by derivatives of larger files with points of interest at a particular portion (I think an example of what I mean is here, and the movie files really take up a lot of space, although I cannot verify at the time) This could also have other applications for verifying particular parts of the media without getting lost in the rest. I imagine the specified parameters to either point to the positions (as in having the original file load) or truncate the selected part; either way I think this is a capability that would be beneficial to a lot of projects. - Theornamentalist (talk) 17:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- You can create authored clips using Sequencer. Still in beta, but mostly works. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks DJ, I did not know about that tool. I am curious though about building a parameter to point to a start and an end within a clip. That tool saves the file separately, which takes up a lot of space. Is messing around with the script something someone is willing to do? I hate coming in here and asking, yet never being able to return the favor directly. - Theornamentalist (talk) 18:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- The way of feature requests is: bugzilla: —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- The way of feature requests is: bugzilla: —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks DJ, I did not know about that tool. I am curious though about building a parameter to point to a start and an end within a clip. That tool saves the file separately, which takes up a lot of space. Is messing around with the script something someone is willing to do? I hate coming in here and asking, yet never being able to return the favor directly. - Theornamentalist (talk) 18:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Book Creator
I am attempting to create a book but when i download it as a PDF it says that the file is corrupt and cannot be retreived and when i download it as an ODF it downloads a blank document Admiralalexmann (talk) 19:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
- What are the names of the pages in your book? (Book:English language works fine for me.) Sometimes one of the pages contains a strange bit of wiki markup that prevents the book creator from working properly. PleaseStand (talk) 02:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at this? For some reason, there is a problem creeping up between endnotes #66 and #67. I cannot figure out what the problem is, much less how to solve it. All I know is, the numbers are being thrown off, leading to further problems in other parts of the page, as references that do not match examples have been removed as seemingly irrelevant. Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? Thanks for your time. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 21:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- Er, what problem? Which browser and OS are you using? Works for me Windows XP with IE 7.0.5730.13, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 8.0.552.224, Opera 11.00 --Redrose64 (talk) 21:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- Fixed it Gary King (talk · scripts) 21:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
"You have new messages" missing
For the past week or two I haven't been getting a "You have new messages" banner when my talkpage is edited. I don't recall editing my preferences or anything, but who knows. Is there any setting in preferences that controls the talkpage banner? (I'm sure there is stuff like that in personal CSS as well, but I definitely have not edited my monobook.css or anything like that.) I am currently in China, where Wikipedia (and the internet in general) gets wacky sometimes, so I don't know if that might be the problem. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
- It's not showing because you moved your user talk page, so everyone gets redirected to User talk:Rjanag/10 instead of User talk:Rjanag. Gary King (talk · scripts) 01:45, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Ah, right. I forgot about that. Thanks! rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
generating dab articles
Is there a good way to find pairs of articles "X people" and "X language", to verify that "X" is a dab page rather than a rd to just one? It's likely that many won't be categorized. Thanks — kwami (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- The following is a list of all “X” where articles “X people” and “X language” exist, neither is a redirect and “X” is not a disambiguation page, generated using a query on the toolserver. Svick (talk)
Query and its results
|
---|
mysql> select substring(page_title, 1, length(page_title) - 7) as name from page where page_title like '%\_people' and page_namespace = 0 and page_is_redirect = 0 having (concat(name, '_language') in (select page_title from page where page_namespace = 0 and page_is_redirect = 0)) and (name not in (select page_title from page join categorylinks on page_id = cl_from where page_namespace = 0 and cl_to = 'All_disambiguation_pages'));
+------------------+
| name |
+------------------+
| Abenaki |
| Abipón |
| Achi |
| Acholi |
| Aja |
| Akatek |
| Akha |
| Alabama |
| Alagwa |
| Ambelau |
| Anuak |
| Apiacá |
| Aragonese |
| Argobba |
| Arikara |
| Atayal |
| Awakatek |
| Aweer |
| Ayi |
| Babuza |
| Bai |
| Bariba |
| Basay |
| Basketo |
| Biloxi |
| Birhor |
| Bit |
| Bonda |
| Buru |
| Burunge |
| Buyang |
| Cahuilla |
| Carib |
| Cebuano |
| Chaga |
| Chamalal |
| Chané |
| Chewa |
| Chokwe |
| Chopi |
| Cuman |
| Daasanach |
| Datooga |
| Daza |
| Dhivehi |
| Digo |
| Dimasa |
| Dinka |
| Djabugay |
| Dorze |
| Edo |
| Embu |
| Enets |
| Fipa |
| Fur |
| Ga |
| Garifuna |
| Gogo |
| Gorowa |
| Grebo |
| Gros_Ventre |
| Gumuz |
| Gusii |
| Gwere |
| Hehe |
| Herero |
| Hiligaynon |
| Hong_Kong |
| Igbo |
| Ikwerre |
| Inupiat |
| Inuvialuk |
| Iraqw |
| Jakaltek |
| Jur_Modo |
| Kaingang |
| Kallawaya |
| Kamba |
| Kambaata |
| Kanoé |
| Kanuri |
| Karajá |
| Karamojong |
| Karbi |
| Kavalan |
| Kayeli |
| Khanty |
| Kharia |
| Kiga |
| Kipchak |
| Kissi |
| Kombe |
| Kongo |
| Konso |
| Krio_Dayak |
| Kru |
| Krumen |
| Kunama |
| Kven |
| Kw'adza |
| Kwama |
| Kwavi |
| Kwegu |
| Lahu |
| Lai |
| Lak |
| Lengue |
| Leonese |
| Lisela |
| Logba |
| Logo |
| Luguru |
| Luhya |
| Maasai |
| Maguindanao |
| Mal_Paharia |
| Male |
| Mambwe |
| Mandar |
| Mangbetu |
| Mararit |
| Marathi |
| Masaba |
| Masalit |
| Masbateño |
| Matumbi |
| Mbugwe |
| Meitei |
| Mi'kmaq |
| Mian |
| Midob |
| Mocoví |
| Moru |
| Mossi |
| Mozabite |
| Mundari |
| Murle |
| Mursi |
| Ndau |
| Ngbandi |
| Ngizim |
| Nkoroo |
| Northern_Ndebele |
| Nso |
| Nuer |
| Nung |
| Nupe |
| Nyakyusa |
| Nyangatom |
| Nyaturu |
| Nzema |
| Ogba |
| Oldest |
| Olu'bo |
| Opata |
| Oropom |
| Paiwan |
| Pangasinan |
| Pare |
| Pitjantjatjara |
| Plain |
| Pokomo |
| Pumi |
| Puyuma |
| Q'anjob'al |
| Rakhine |
| Rama |
| Rendille |
| Rohingya |
| Romblomanon |
| Rukai |
| Saek |
| Saho |
| Saisiyat |
| Samburu |
| Sauria_Paharia |
| Secoya |
| Serer |
| Shatt |
| Shawia |
| She |
| Shilha |
| Shilluk |
| Shubi |
| Siraya |
| Siwi |
| Slavey |
| Sonjo |
| Sumo |
| Sungor |
| Surigaonon |
| Tagalog |
| Tanchangya |
| Tehuelche |
| Tektitek |
| Telugu |
| Temein |
| Tima |
| Tingal |
| Tiv |
| Toposa |
| Tsou |
| Tugen |
| Tujia |
| Tumbuka |
| Ulch |
| Urhobo |
| Uw_Oykangand |
| Uyghur |
| Vedda |
| Venda |
| Vengo |
| Warao |
| Waray |
| Wellemmedan |
| Wiyot |
| Yaaku |
| Yaghnobi |
| Yalunka |
| Yanesha' |
| Yaruro |
| Yeyi |
| Yugh |
| Zaghawa |
| Zarma |
| Zenaga |
| Äynu |
+------------------+
227 rows in set (30.77 sec)
|
Infobox new lines
How does Template:infobox create new lines in its coding? I dont see any |- that you regularly have in templates.
Is it something in the subpage Template:infobox/row?
I would like to create an infobox, but instead of the entries going up and down, they would be horizontal, across the page.
thank you in advance. Adamtheclown (talk) 10:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- It looks like in 23 January 2008, the |- was changed from |- to <tr>,[2] Looking at the coding, this <tr> was moved to Template:infobox/row, where it is still today. Thanks. Adamtheclown (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Template trouble
I have a template: Template:Items.
{| |- !{{{help|}}} |{{{Age|}}} |{{{Anchor|}}} |{{{hello|}}} |} This data in the template goes on each row of a table. Each use of template:items creates a row, for example:
The problem I am having is trying to get all of these templates into one big table. I want the table to look like this:
How do I get copies of the same template into one big table, so they are interconnected and the spacing on each filed is the same? I solved this problem before with advanced parsers such as: {{#if:{{{{{1}}}|out=found}}|[[File:help.png|15px]] {{{{{1}}}|out=found}}}} But I know there is an easier way to do this. I hope I explained this correctly. Adamtheclown (talk) 18:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC) |
Solved, I simply removed the {| and |} from Template:Items then made the header template open and had : |} at bottom of all templates. Adamtheclown (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
More noindex,nofollow
Every deleted page needs to have <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" />
in its HTML header. See this discussion.
Now if I write Category:Nasirabad District, this resolves to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Nasirabad_District&action=edit&redlink=1 and the target page has the required meta robots
line. But I can also get to the page using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nasirabad_District , which is probably what Google is doing. When accessed in that way, the page does not have meta robots
but I think it ought to. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 18:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
So what? Did you actually read what I am requesting? I think that a URI of a deleted page such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARI_BALTISTAN should have noindex,nofollow set and it currently does not. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 01:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I don't believe I made any comment on what you requested; I merely clarified that deleted articles are indeed treated no differently to extant ones; all edit screens are noindexed, whether or not they are deleted, and no view pages are, whether or not they are deleted. I generally agree with you that they should be. Happy‑melon 10:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for bringing this up. Basically, the issue is "Wikipedia sockpuppets of x" categories, where a user had their real name as their Wikipedia name and now when someone (presumably employers) do a google search of them, the Wikipedia page comes up. The linked discussion above is the second such request that has been made, the first of which I noticed when going through empty categories at one point, and the second having been this one when someone e-mailed me about it. Even though it's a deleted page, it would be nice to have something there preventing indexing. VegaDark (talk) 01:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
The issue is far wider than that. It is a general one of trying to get Google to forget about deleted articles. Never mind one person fussing over having been accused of sock puppetry. I am thinking about the hundreds of spam articles we delete every day. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 01:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Filing this in bugzilla, if there isn't already a bug for it, would be a good first step towards getting this noticed and fixed. I would expect it to be a very simple fix. Happy‑melon 23:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
HTTP 404
Cracked it - I hope! In the (article) namespace, deleted or never-existed titles return an HTTP 404 Not Found code. This a stronger signal to a search engine than noindex,nofollow. But in the Category: namespace all pages return 200 OK. (I have not checked any other namespaces.) I assume the idea (misguided in my view) is to support cases where articles have been put in a certain category but no category page has been created. I have raised this ticket at Bugzilla proposing that all deleted or never-existed categories should return a 404 code. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 18:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- Not quite correct. Any category that has ever had any pages in it will return 200, even if it is now empty; a category page for a category that has never had any pages in it will return 404 under the same conditions as pages in "normal" namespaces. Anomie⚔ 23:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Pending Changes on talk pages
How can we implement pending changes on talk pages? Mine is continually vandalized by a sock IP, so I don't want them removing stuff, but I do want legit IPs to be able to leave queries. CTJF83 chat 20:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Maybe if you weren't so in-your-face with that flag? Some people have problems with that sort of thing (not me) --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well I'm not giving in to harassment from bullies...now, do you have an answer to my question? CTJF83 chat 21:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:User pages#Protection of user pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- My user page is protected all the time. My talk page, however, where the harassment occurs is not always protected (I prefer it to remain unprotected) so the harasser can freely vandalize my talk page. That's why I want pending changes on talk pages, so he (User:Brucejenner) can't remove stuff from my talk page. Oh, and as for blocking, he has well over 100 blocked sockpuppets, and apparently won't stop creating them to vandalize/harass LGBT pages/users. CTJF83 chat 21:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- User talk pages are not protected unless they are very heavily vandalized (i.e. > once per 5 minutes) and even then that is only temporary. Prodego talk 00:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- My user page is protected all the time. My talk page, however, where the harassment occurs is not always protected (I prefer it to remain unprotected) so the harasser can freely vandalize my talk page. That's why I want pending changes on talk pages, so he (User:Brucejenner) can't remove stuff from my talk page. Oh, and as for blocking, he has well over 100 blocked sockpuppets, and apparently won't stop creating them to vandalize/harass LGBT pages/users. CTJF83 chat 21:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:User pages#Protection of user pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well I'm not giving in to harassment from bullies...now, do you have an answer to my question? CTJF83 chat 21:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Upper page limit for deletions
I have a question about the page limit for deletions. I've several times noticed that user talk pages with under 5,000 edits—often considerably under—display the "can't be deleted" message, supposedly because they have over 5,000 edits. I just noticed this with User talk:Mbz1, which has suddenly started displaying the message, [3] though it has 2,700 edits. [4] Does anyone know how these messages are generated, and why pages with just a couple of thousand edits are displaying it? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- I believe it's an estimate of db row count, rather than an exact value (which could be an expensive query in its own right for enormous pages), so it's more order-of-magnitude than a precision measurement. Happy‑melon 22:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'm wondering what would cause that message to appear and disappear. That same talk page, five minutes beforehand, did not display the over-5000-message. Then suddenly it did. And then later it didn't again (or, rather, the archive that page's edits were moved to didn't). That's why I'm wondering whether these messages are automatically generated, and what causes the change. I've noticed the same issue with other user talk pages in the past. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Can't stay logged in using Google Chrome
Foe some reason I can't stay logged in while using Google Chrome but can in IE. This problem started <20 minutes ago and I have used Google Chrome while editting Wikipedia for >1 year. I click log in, put in my password, get 'Login successful' page, then I go to another page and I'm no longer logged in. The same thing happens if I log in on the secure and standard server. J04n(talk page) 01:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I can't duplicate this - I'm using chrome 8.0.552.224 on Windows Vista - tried both the "regular" and "incognito" modes with both my regular account and this one. Perhaps it's a different version of Chrome - can you give your version & the OS that you're working with and perhaps someone with a similar 'flavour' can duplicate this. Skier Dude2 (talk) 02:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'm also using 8.0.552.224 but on Windows XP. I tried uninstalling Chrome and reinstalling it but it didn't work. J04n(talk page) 02:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Try logging in at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:Userlogin for now. Prodego talk 04:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- No good, IE and Firefox work fine, can't stay logged in on Chrome. J04n(talk page) 05:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'm having the same problem, I'm using Google Chrome 8.0.552.224 on Windows 7. Powergate92Talk 05:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well Powergate92, I'm sorry for you but glad that it's not just me... J04n(talk page) 05:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just updated Chrome to 8.0.552.237, still not working on regular Wikipedia but it is working using the secure Wikipedia. Powergate92Talk 06:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hmm, well I'm also using chrome (10.0.634.0), I have no problems, and I don't recall having any in the past. If it is a bug with chrome it's a bug with chrome, nothing we can do. It isn't in my version. Prodego talk 06:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Also fine on 9.0 Have either of you been fiddling around with your cookie settings recently? Try taking a look at Tools>Options>Under the bonnet>Content settings>Cookies and make sure they are allowed and not blocked. - Kingpin13 (talk) 06:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Fixed! I emptied my cache and cleared all browsing data and it's back to normal. Thanks everyone J04n(talk page) 06:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I cleared the browsing data and that fixed it. Thanks! Powergate92Talk 22:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Also fine on 9.0 Have either of you been fiddling around with your cookie settings recently? Try taking a look at Tools>Options>Under the bonnet>Content settings>Cookies and make sure they are allowed and not blocked. - Kingpin13 (talk) 06:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hmm, well I'm also using chrome (10.0.634.0), I have no problems, and I don't recall having any in the past. If it is a bug with chrome it's a bug with chrome, nothing we can do. It isn't in my version. Prodego talk 06:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Just updated Chrome to 8.0.552.237, still not working on regular Wikipedia but it is working using the secure Wikipedia. Powergate92Talk 06:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Well Powergate92, I'm sorry for you but glad that it's not just me... J04n(talk page) 05:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'm having the same problem, I'm using Google Chrome 8.0.552.224 on Windows 7. Powergate92Talk 05:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- No good, IE and Firefox work fine, can't stay logged in on Chrome. J04n(talk page) 05:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Try logging in at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Special:Userlogin for now. Prodego talk 04:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I'm also using 8.0.552.224 but on Windows XP. I tried uninstalling Chrome and reinstalling it but it didn't work. J04n(talk page) 02:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I can't log in using Firefox or Chrome. I can log in using MSIE and i can log in using Firefox and Chrome using https.
- Cleaning my Firefox and Chrome cache doesn't help. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I was (am) also getting this problem, so I reported it on bugzilla:26706. Helder 13:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- If I can throw my hat in the ring, I'm not getting the issue on Chrome 9 for Ubuntu. Are you sure the solution isn't to actually file a bug with Chrome? Also, if I can patronize everybody and remind you to turn on cookies, and also clear your cache and cookies. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
edittols and move
Is there a way to have MediaWiki:Edittools show up on Special:Movepage ? (I'm not suggesting it here, I'm shopping for advice to do this on nv; so — any idea how this could be done?) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 06:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- You can probably transclude the edittools in one of these messages. — Edokter • Talk — 14:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- thanks. I'll try that. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Hmmm nope. Doesn't work. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- thanks. I'll try that. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- I don't like that idea: it would make those tools to show up in even more places, and thus it would be sent for even more people who can't use it at all! Edittools only works for those who have javascript, so it should only be dowloaded by users with javascript, preferably using AJAX, as in English Wiktionary (Preferences / script). See also bugzilla:11130#c12 and commons:MediaWiki_talk:Edittools#Duplication_of_special_characters. Helder 14:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
URL issue
Somebody kindly remind me how I use a URL like http://www.google.co.uk/search?q="David+Allen+Green"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q="David+Allen+Green"&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=nws:1&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn&fp=acdf426d122b1dae without it breaking? (It's for a talk page) Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:51, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Use percent-encoding for any character that "breaks". Anomie⚔ 12:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks, but I though there was a template, or some magic code, for wrapping such URLs? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps you were thinking of {{urlencode:}}. — Edokter • Talk — 13:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps, but that's not what's needed: http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Fsearch%3Fq%3D%22David%2BAllen%2BGreen%22%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26aq%3Dt%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial%26client%3Dfirefox-a%23q%3D%22David%2BAllen%2BGreen%22%26oe%3Dutf-8%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26tbo%3Du%26tbs%3Dnws%3A1%26source%3Dog%26sa%3DN%26hl%3Den%26tab%3Dwn%26fp%3Dacdf426d122b1dae Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps you were thinking of {{urlencode:}}. — Edokter • Talk — 13:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks, but I though there was a template, or some magic code, for wrapping such URLs? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I found a useful URL encoding/ decoding tool. It helps to remember not to encode the "http://". Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- There is also {{google}}, but it will take some fiddling to get it to use the UK site. —DoRD (talk) 16:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- And as apparent in {{google}}, you don't have to include the entire url in urlencode:. — Edokter • Talk — 17:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Strange behavior when indenting nested tables
Hi!
I'm curious: does anybody knows why this happens? Is it the expected parser behavior when indenting tables like that? Helder 14:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Template:Bug Happy‑melon 14:38, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks! Helder 16:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Mobile Wikipedia error
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, [no address given] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Server at en.m.wikipedia.org Port 80
Comment
I get the above error on mobile version of site. Error seems permanent. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC) I am able to access the site through the secure.wikimedia.org (that's how I can post here) but no access apparently to any page through the en.wikipedia.org because of above error. In the pass I had chosen the option to never use the mobile version of the site. Still set with cookie perhaps. Using an iPhone with OS Version 4. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Mysterious 'Grey' Bar at top of pages
Has anyone else experienced this? I've been getting this slim 'grey bar' at the top of the pages, on & off. It appears right under the project page, discussion, edit this page, history, watch directives. GoodDay (talk) 03:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- Yes - I've seen it off and on for the past few days when I'm logged on (IE8 running on Win XP).Nigel Ish (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
can't wikilink within <ref>
?
After revising the text of the first <ref>
that appears on Cult of the Holy Spirit, it seems there's some snafu with the wikilink I inserted. Content within [[square brackets]]
appears as plain text instead of a link, but for the life of me I can't figure out why... Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.246.119.98 (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- Linking works, but you're not allowed to use the WP:pipe trick within refs, for some reason (this is no doubt one of those bugs that we've been waiting for years to get fixed). --Kotniski (talk) 11:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- The pre-save-transform parser is not applied to the contents of tags; subst and signatures don't work either for the same reason. It is indeed the longstanding Template:Bug, which has just seen in its sixth New Year. Happy‑melon 12:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Reference glitch
Take a look at footnote #3 on Harmony House. Why is the citation template puking on the URL? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 19:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- It was missing the article title and using the bare url. I have fixed it. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 19:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
- Derp. It's always something blatantly obvious. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 19:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)