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Searching page history?
Is it possible to search page history without starting from a specific page? I don't mean Help:Page history#Searching and exporting histories or WP:WikiBlame, which require a page as an input. My guess is that it is not supported due to the immense data that would have to be indexed. Searching Help talk:Page history/ returned one result that did not help. Thanks! Flatscan (talk) 04:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- @Flatscan: If I understand you correctly, a SQL query using the
text
table may help. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 05:55, 30 June 2022 (UTC) - ... which you can't do without downloading the database dump yourself, as the text table isn't replicated on Toolforge. Graham87 06:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- And it wouldn't matter anyway, since last I checked Wikimedia wikis use external storage. Anomie⚔ 11:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for the replies. Per WP:Database download, a history dump would take considerable effort just to download. Flatscan (talk) 04:22, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- And it wouldn't matter anyway, since last I checked Wikimedia wikis use external storage. Anomie⚔ 11:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Signature using ifeq, present on 800+ pages
The signature of editor Lambiam present on these 800+ pages contains #ifeq code that I think was supposed to be substed at the time of its insertion, but it apparently was not. It is IMO messy, and it is somehow generating a transclusion of the editor's User talk page on each page in which it is used. It looks like it needs careful replacement by someone with AWB and the knowledge of the right thing to replace it with. – Jonesey95 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:41, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- That page jumped out at me in the query results too. —Cryptic 23:49, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- The call to Module:Redirect would cause the transclusion. Izno (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
- This is what it should be replaced with (spaces cause no harm):
- NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 01:52, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- Please do not replace the broken signature with anything fancy such as the above. Just replace it with a standard signature. "
Lambian ([[User talk:Lambian|talk]])
" would be fine. Johnuniq (talk) 08:07, 1 July 2022 (UTC)- Because of the substitutions, I believe that would result in only
[[User talk:Lambiam|Lambiam]]
being actually saved to the page, but at that point, one might as well insert that directly. Rummskartoffel 19:17, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- Because of the substitutions, I believe that would result in only
- Please do not replace the broken signature with anything fancy such as the above. Just replace it with a standard signature. "
Vector 2022 recent header portion changes
Anyone has any idea why was the header (.mw-body-header) and article toolbar (.vector-article-toolbar) were swap around recently? Previously the article toolbar was displayed before the header but now it is header first then article toolbar. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 01:58, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- This was a deliberate change by WMF. Izno (talk) 03:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- T303549 ATDT (talk) 03:37, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- That's a weird change in my opinion with the rationale they gave in the tracked task ... maybe I gotten use to the old layout which has been the same placement for ages. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 05:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- It's an odd change, and it'll take some getting used to, but I think I like it. For some reason, it looks better to me. I'm reminded of the advice I got from the developer of a forum I used to frequent ten years ago: "give it a week". Take a week to get used to it. If you still don't like it, then it's time to look into what specifically you don't like and what can be improved. --rchard2scout (talk) 08:14, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- That's a weird change in my opinion with the rationale they gave in the tracked task ... maybe I gotten use to the old layout which has been the same placement for ages. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 05:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Overlapping texts in vector 2022
Hi, in the new vector 2022 and for articles like Tehran, Tokyo, and other cities, and on top right part of article, the texts "Read Edit source View history TW" and coordinates data like "Coordinates: 35°41′21″N 51°23′20″E" are overlapping on each other. Please make them unoverlapping. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 06:48, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
defining favorite website in Wikipedia:Book sources
On Wikipedia, ISBN links point to Wikipedia:Book_sources, where users can select various libraries and bookstores where the book in question may be found. Back in 2005, Lunchboxhero shared a script which allowed users to be taken directly to a predefined library or bookstore upon following an ISBN link, obviating the need to select it manually from the "Book sources" page every time. Unfortunately, the script does not appear to work anymore. Looking at the associated talk page, it seems like this is because it is using deprecated parameters. As I'm not a programmer, I don't know how to fix the script, but perhaps others are willing to take a look? Pablo (talk) 11:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Pablo Those issues were both resolved last year, and the script works fine for me. It looks like you have both Lunchboxhero's script and independent code both trying to do the re-write in your monobook.js, so they might be interfering with each other (and while Lunchboxhero's script will work with 13-digit ISBNs or ISBNs with dashes, the code you have at the top of your monobook.js won't). Also, because you put this in your monobook.js and not your common.js, it will only work when you're using the monobook theme. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:22, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Recovering deleted redirects
Hey, tech folks,
I've run into this question before, both on my talk page and at WP:REFUND, and since I have a little extra time this morning, I thought I'd bring it to WP:VPT. Is there any way to locate redirects that once existed but were deleted when a page has been deleted? I know that if you know the exact name and namespace of a page, you can go to Special:Undelete and search for it there. But it won't tell you what pages redirected to that page.
Some admins, like myself, use Twinkle to do all of our page deletions and Twinkle will delete redirects (but not redirect talk pages) when you delete a page so if you know what administrator deleted Article X, you can search for Article X on their Deletion log and see what redirects were deleted at the same time. Alternatively, broken redirects can appear at User:AnomieBOT III/Broken redirects, so if you know the rough period of time that Article X was deleted, you can go see if any broken redirects appear on this list at that time. But both of these methods can take a lot of time and don't cover broken redirects that are tagged for deletion by editors patrolling and tagging pages for speedy deletion.
This situation comes up more than you would expect and here's one scenario. Suppose Vandal A moves Article X to Article Wacky Page title. Typically, when move vandalism is addressed, the page mover doesn't leave a redirect behind. But Wikipedia's bots are very efficient and as soon as Article X was moved to Article Wacky Page title, all of Article X's redirects were changed to point to Article Wacky Page title. Without a redirect left when Article X gets returned to the proper page, all of those adjusted redirects are now broken and, if not spotted and fixed, they can be deleted either by a bot or admin as broken redirects. Or, and I just saw this happen, all of the articles created by Editor Q were deleted because they were suspected of being a sockpuppet. But, it turns out they weren't a sockpuppet! So, the articles were restored but what about any redirects that were deleted at the same time? If Editor Q created them, they can be found in their Deleted Contributions but not those that might have been created by other editors. In the event of these situations happening, it would be nice if there was a feature that captured what redirects to Article X existed before they were deleted as broken or as redirects to a deleted page.
I don't think these "snapshots" exist on Wikipedia but I just thought I'd check in in case there is some resource that exists that I don't know about. Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 18:36, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
- In case it wasn't clear, when you repair a page move that was vandalism, always leave a redirect behind or check What Links Here to see if there are redirects that were altered and change them back to point to the correct target! The redirect from Article Wacky Page title can always be deleted once the redirects have been changed back. My PSA for the day. Liz Read! Talk! 18:42, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Botched edit-conflict resolution lost page history
When I began copyediting 2020–2021 Slovenian protests, the infobox indicated that the protests continued into 2022. I moved the page to 2020–2022 Slovenian protests before stupidly continuing to edit the lead, edit-conflicting with myself. I resolved the edit conflict as best I could (should've hit "Cancel", mistake #2), but somehow lost the previous page history. When I didn't see any sourced info that the protests extended into 2022, I moved it back to the original title; the previous history, however, is still gone. My attempted resolution of the edit conflict may have been a de facto cut-and-paste move, for which I apologize; I can't find the previous page history to fix it. Any help appreciated. All the best, Miniapolis 01:45, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Miniapolis: The previous page history appears to be deleted under the title 2020–2022 Slovenian protests. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, but I don't know how it happened or how to get it back. I just undid a double redirect I fixed after the page move. Miniapolis 02:11, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- What happened was that you moved the page, then overwrote the redirect left behind from that move, then moved it again and deleted the initial article with all the history to make way for the first move. I've listed this at Wikipedia:Requests for history merge since that's probably easier than trying to explain the complicated process involved in fixing it. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:17, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- Restore the revisions in the old page at Special:Undelete/2020–2022_Slovenian_protests, then use Special:MergeHistory with the source page as the old title and the destination page as the new title. Izno (talk) 02:19, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, but I don't know how it happened or how to get it back. I just undid a double redirect I fixed after the page move. Miniapolis 02:11, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Talk pages on mobile
Note: Originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Editing on mobile devices#Concerning the part where it says mobile users can't see talk pages
Can users on mobile devices now view talk pages? There seems to be some confusion on this; see the linked discussion. ― Qwerfjkltalk 12:16, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Qwerfjkl Talk pages were enabled for logged out mobile web users in October 2021, Phab:T293946. I think logged in mobile web users have always had access to talk pages. I'm not sure how the apps handle talk pages. 192.76.8.85 (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Change password option on special:preferences did not work
I searched for my special:preferences to change my password, and I clicked the change password option. Then I changed my password. But it didn't work. Why? After that, I have only changed my password by logging out and clicking "Forgot password" since I enabled my email address on Wikipedia, so I successfully changed my password. My question is, why does the "change password" option in my preferences not work? —Princess Faye (my talk) 15:18, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Princess Faye Special:ChangePassword should work. When you go there it should first prompt you to log in with your current password, then let you change your password. Are you using a full browser, the mobile web view, or a mobile app? — xaosflux Talk 15:35, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: I used mobile web view, I never used the app. I will tell you what I have experienced. So I went to my preferences and clicked the "Change password" option. It redirects to another page, of course, but before you change your password, you need to type in your current password, so I did that. So after that, it redirects to another page again. Of course, I now need to type in my new password. And last, I clicked Change Credentials. So to be sure, I logged out of Wikipedia and tried logging in again with my new password, but it didn't work. So to log in, I typed my former password and that worked. —Princess Faye (my talk) 15:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Princess Faye OK, so you eventually got to the "Change Credentials" page and tried to change your password, entered it and confirmed it. After you hit save did it give you an error or just go back to settings? Those steps worked when I just tried them. When you say you were on mobile web, was your URI "en.m.wikipedia", or were you just using a browser on a mobile device? Did you click on the "desktop" view either at the bottom of the screen, or in your browser settings? Were you on a "big" mobile screen, like a tablet, or a small one like a phone? — xaosflux Talk 16:49, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: Yes, your summarization is right. I'm using "en.m.wikipedia" using Google Chrome. I did not click "desktop view" nor the desktop view settings on my browser. I'm using a big-screen mobile device. Well, this might just be an isolated technical error that happened on my device, but I still successfully changed my password using the "Forgot password" technique, and not in the "Change password" option in my preference. I hope this is okay. —Princess Faye (my talk) 17:07, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Princess Faye OK, so you eventually got to the "Change Credentials" page and tried to change your password, entered it and confirmed it. After you hit save did it give you an error or just go back to settings? Those steps worked when I just tried them. When you say you were on mobile web, was your URI "en.m.wikipedia", or were you just using a browser on a mobile device? Did you click on the "desktop" view either at the bottom of the screen, or in your browser settings? Were you on a "big" mobile screen, like a tablet, or a small one like a phone? — xaosflux Talk 16:49, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: I used mobile web view, I never used the app. I will tell you what I have experienced. So I went to my preferences and clicked the "Change password" option. It redirects to another page, of course, but before you change your password, you need to type in your current password, so I did that. So after that, it redirects to another page again. Of course, I now need to type in my new password. And last, I clicked Change Credentials. So to be sure, I logged out of Wikipedia and tried logging in again with my new password, but it didn't work. So to log in, I typed my former password and that worked. —Princess Faye (my talk) 15:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Possibility to condense notifications of mass deletion discussions?
I was recently given no less than thirty notifications of deletion discussions at once, all related to a mass deletion discussion (see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 July 2#Template:VR-K color) by User:Gonnym (ping intentionally left out as Gonnym is not really at fault here). This cluttered up my talk page and caused me to accidentally overlook a discussion I had not answered yet.
Might it somehow be possible that when such a mass deletion discussion is started, each editor involved in the discussion is only given one notice, possibly containing links to each of the pages (in this case, templates) nominated for discussion? JIP | Talk 00:19, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- There's a wider issue here: we need a tool to create a nomination for many related pages at once. Twinkle does an excellent job of creating each nomination individually but combining them is a pain, often hampered by multiple edit conflicts with early responders as they paste their response into each nomination in turn. Certes (talk) 00:36, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I know I've personally asked for Twinkle to be updated to handle that. Doing mass template or category nominations is just a pain atm. AWB is an option, but can work but only if you know the same editor is the creator, however that requires you to manually check each page which makes AWB moot. Gonnym (talk) 08:42, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Something like VisualFileChange on commons? It gives a single notification for a bulk action, such as [1]. DMacks (talk) 17:07, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Re-ordering a large table, possibly off-wiki
One-party state has a huge table which was created in Dec 2019 when 4 separate tables were combined. It makes sense to have them in one table, but the previous listings weren't merged, just added end-to-end, so it is now in 4 A-Z sequences. I thought I had a technique to sort the table by copying it out into csv and then into Excel, sorting, and replacing, but that technique lost all the links, flag images, and refs.
Obviously the table can be sorted in real time when looking at it, but it would be better if the code of the table, and thus the default display, were in a logical order.
So: Can someone please either:
- Point me in the direction of simple tools to sort a large table, or
- Do some clever editing on this table yourself, to sort it A-Z by country.
I've raised it on the article talk page, where I mentioned another couple of possible sort orders, but as the original tables were mostly sorted A-Z by country I don't think this is controversial. The article had a sudden peak in pageviews last week, as it was the target of "Redactle" puzzle.
Thanks. PamD 09:53, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- > "
Obviously the table can be sorted in real time when looking at it
": Mobile users don't have sort option. :( —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 10:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)- They do since last week :) phab:T233340 the wub "?!" 11:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yay, they do! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 20:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- They do since last week :) phab:T233340 the wub "?!" 11:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I attempted this but it's not easy to automate. Presumably it should be sorted by country, so "Tinoquista Costa Rica" appears under C, but there's no easily extracted clue that in this case the second word determines the sort order. Certes (talk) 10:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PamD, @Certes, maybe D:WD:OpenRefine? ― Qwerfjkltalk 12:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Certes: If you could do the heavy lifting of sorting them by whatever is there, I could go through and upgrade the minority of countries which need a {{sort}} added to fix their alphabetisation. Ah, thinking about it, a better plan: if I go through and add those {{sort}}s anyway - they'd always be needed for re-sorting back to A-Z after sorting on any of the other fields - would you then be able to re-order the code? PamD 16:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- The more I look, the more puzzling it gets: I can't see what it's sorting on at the moment. Possibly the name of the "flagicon"? Puzzling.
- If you sort the first column,
- {{flagicon|Romania}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Legionary Movement.png}} [[National Legionary State]] seems to sort as "Romania" (so presumably being picked up from the "flagicon" field, as the only mention)
- {{flagicon image|Flag of Cameroon (1961-1975).svg}}{{flagicon image|Flag of Cameroon.svg}} [[Cameroon|Republic of Cameroon]] sorts as "Republic of Cameroon"
- {{flagicon|Upper Volta}} [[Republic of Upper Volta|Upper Volta]] sorts as Republic of Upper Volta" (so UV and Cameroon differ: one filed by displayed title, and one by target article title)
- [[Communist-controlled China (1927–1949)|Yan'an]] sorts as "Yan'an" despite not having a flagicon..
- If you sort the first column,
- Can anyone explain how this sorting is working? I wonder whether it uses the country with which the flagicon is associated, and the displayed text if there is no flagicon? PamD 16:33, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I tried sorting the table using some find-and-replace magic, but the columns do not have consistent sort keys. If someone adds consistently formatted
|data-sort-value=
entries to the cells in the first column of the table, I should be able to sort it manually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I tried sorting the table using some find-and-replace magic, but the columns do not have consistent sort keys. If someone adds consistently formatted
- The more I look, the more puzzling it gets: I can't see what it's sorting on at the moment. Possibly the name of the "flagicon"? Puzzling.
- I've had a go at adding data-sort-value using Wikidata and some manual fiddling. Anomalies like how to sort Benin/Dahomey and various Chinas remain. Certes (talk) 21:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Making it impossible to edit. Latest version of Chrome. Doug Weller talk 11:22, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Works for me. Does it help to reload the edit window with Ctrl+F5 (not F5 alone)? What is your skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? Does it happen if you log out? Does it happen in ? Please link an example edit url. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter Ctr5F5 doesn't help. Vector legacy skin. Doesn't happen logged out or in safemode. Example: Doug Weller talk 14:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- It's Chrome specific, just tried Firefox where it works. Doug Weller talk 15:11, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- It may be a script issue with User:Doug Weller/common.js, User:Doug Weller/vector.js, or something enabled in preferences. Try previewing a blanked version of or . You don't have to save the blank version. My edit links enable safemode but safemode disappears when you preview. A previewed user js file only loads the previewed version. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter thought I'd solved it, but a preview of my common.js has the same problem. Ditto vector.js It's erratic, I just tried to edit 3 articles, 2 no problem, one the same issue. Doug Weller talk 15:20, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter Switching to Vector 2022 gets rid of the problem but I hate the wasted space. This is a new problem, something's changed somewhere, and I did nothing in the past few days. Doug Weller talk 16:25, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter thought I'd solved it, but a preview of my common.js has the same problem. Ditto vector.js It's erratic, I just tried to edit 3 articles, 2 no problem, one the same issue. Doug Weller talk 15:20, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- And I found the problem. I'd added BitDefender's anti-tracking extension to Chrome. Remove that and no problem. Maybe they updated it recently. Doug Weller talk 15:16, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Nope, see above. Doug Weller talk 15:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- And Mono breaks at least one script, the one that gives me details about an editor at the top of their talk page. It's too useful to give up. I really prefer the legacy version of Vector, does that make me a Luddite? Doug Weller talk 16:04, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Have you smashed up any textile machinery lately? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Not this month. Doug Weller talk 05:51, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- Have you smashed up any textile machinery lately? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- And Mono breaks at least one script, the one that gives me details about an editor at the top of their talk page. It's too useful to give up. I really prefer the legacy version of Vector, does that make me a Luddite? Doug Weller talk 16:04, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Nope, see above. Doug Weller talk 15:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- It may be a script issue with User:Doug Weller/common.js, User:Doug Weller/vector.js, or something enabled in preferences. Try previewing a blanked version of or . You don't have to save the blank version. My edit links enable safemode but safemode disappears when you preview. A previewed user js file only loads the previewed version. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:15, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- It's Chrome specific, just tried Firefox where it works. Doug Weller talk 15:11, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- @PrimeHunter Ctr5F5 doesn't help. Vector legacy skin. Doesn't happen logged out or in safemode. Example: Doug Weller talk 14:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Just got the message "Error contacting the Parsoid/RESTBase server (HTTP 504)" when using reply
Why is that? Doug Weller talk 11:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Some servers are down. Replying without the "reply" tool still works. —Kusma (talk) 12:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- This also includes the visual editor on desktop for me. When I tries to save the page, it takes forever to save and would timeout, saying "Error contacting the Parsoid/RESTBase server (HTTP 504)". It doesn't work even when I purged the cache (both "?action=purge" and browser), log out and back. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:29, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
-
- Anything that requires parsoid is broken; this includes the visual editor. —Kusma (talk) 12:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Working now. Doug Weller talk 12:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Amazing! CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Working now. Doug Weller talk 12:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- Anything that requires parsoid is broken; this includes the visual editor. —Kusma (talk) 12:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- I found incident documentation for this outage: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incidents/2022-07-03_shellbox_request_spike (unfortunately it has few details). My vague understanding is that something related to
<score>
handling overwhelmed the servers, causing failures in unrelated places. Matma Rex talk 16:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
SUL failing consistently
Ever since my Firefox upgraded itself recently (I'm now on FF 102), SUL is failing. I am logged in on English Wikipedia, but when I go to any other WMF site, such as meta or commons, I'm shown as logged out. I've tried explicitly logging out on en.wp, and logging in again to get a fresh login cookie, but no joy. Is this a Firefox bug, or MediaWiki? Is there a phab: ticket? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:00, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- This is phab:T226797. There is no simple solution. The Firefox team recommended rebuilding the auth system, which is being looked into in the Auth experiments 2022 project.--Snævar (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- You might be able to get it working again if you disable "Enhanced Tracking Protection" for SUL sites. To do that, click the shield icon at the left end of the URL bar while on the site, then click on the switch next to where it says "Enhanced Tracking Protection is ON for this site". The page should then reload and you should be logged in. Rummskartoffel 21:40, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
How to draw a timeline?
I want to create a event timeline image. I see WP:EasyTimeline, but I get the impression that's not how people do these things these day. Are there better/newer tools? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
- True. EasyTimeline will be removed eventually. Use either Extension:Graph or HTML based graphs. The largest and most feature rich templates are Module:Graph for Extension:Graph and Module:Chart for HTML. There are also smaller templates. It depends on your usecase which one is more suitable. Snævar (talk) 12:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Submit an edit request
Could the big blue button at {{Submit an edit request}}, which is used in (I think) MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext, acquire a little extra text? I'd like it to say "Submit an edit request for changes to {{FULLPAGENAME}}". My hope is that this would discourage people from submitting requests to the wrong page. Or even something like "Submit an edit request (not for changes to articles)" for requests outside the mainspace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- There are very few misplaced edit requests, and generally the people making requests aren't reading any of the instructions anyway. That said, it doesn't hurt to add even more text. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:50, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Very few in the mainspace, maybe. But see also [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], not to mention the apparently endless supply of empty requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, 8 out tens of thousands, and they all look to have been been appropriately handled. I don't think adding even more text will help the thousands of blank requests that are created despite the instruction text in the edit window and the pre edit request explanatory page. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 08:41, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Very few in the mainspace, maybe. But see also [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], not to mention the apparently endless supply of empty requests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think it will add anything since the page title will be shown at the top of the page, and it states "This page is..." quite clearly, implying that the edit request that would be submitted is specific to the open page. Longer text only adds more text for users not to read and could end up with a multi-line button on width limited smaller screens. Clear and concise is normally the best approach. There is no "Read {$pagename} article | Edit the {$pagename} article | View the history of the page {$pagename}" as the three main buttons at the top of a page for a reason. Terasail[✉️] 00:58, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- If someone does incorrectly place an edit request, a responder only has to notify the user of the error, either with
{{EP|mis}}
or a personalised reply. I am not sure that the problem is common enough to require this change where a responder can just guide the user to the correct place. Terasail[✉️] 01:05, 4 July 2022 (UTC)- AFAICT we usually just blank them, rather than notifying or explaining. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- My understanding was that only empty edit requests or clear policy violations were blanked rather than simply misplaced requests. Terasail[✉️] 13:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- I'm sure that's the usual practice for articles, but consider, e.g., the first one I linked above, which was reverted three minutes after it was posted. This might not be the best practice, but it does not seem to be unusual, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Unambiguous self promotion normally is immediately reverted. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:45, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Autobiography does not say that you should revert a newbie who is trying (however misguidedly) to write an autobiography. I'd rather that this newbie, and all the others as well, had known up front that clicking this particular blue button would do them no good at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Unambiguous self promotion normally is immediately reverted. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:45, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- I'm sure that's the usual practice for articles, but consider, e.g., the first one I linked above, which was reverted three minutes after it was posted. This might not be the best practice, but it does not seem to be unusual, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- My understanding was that only empty edit requests or clear policy violations were blanked rather than simply misplaced requests. Terasail[✉️] 13:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- AFAICT we usually just blank them, rather than notifying or explaining. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- If someone does incorrectly place an edit request, a responder only has to notify the user of the error, either with
- I know its annoying to deal with others' mistakes, but this expectation that we often put out there that people should not make mistakes (and that adding text will help them not to make mistakes) seems unachievable to me. Mistakes are how people learn. We need to give people the opportunity to learn, or they won't even be here at all. This is after all Wikipedia, not the paper version of Encyclopedia Brittanica. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:02, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- As a general rule, I'd say that substantially reducing text would help. Most people probably look right past the oblong gray blur of text there, but if they read anything, they read the text on the button itself.
- Another good approach would be offering options. Perhaps we need one button that says "Request a change to the {{FULBASEPAGENAME}} page" plus another button that says "Ask for help with another page or something else" (maybe pointing to the Teahouse). If you only give people one button, they'll use it for everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- This is a good point. We also see that with uploading. Ppl primarily care about uploading and not about licenses etc. So they will choose whatever allows them to achieve their goal. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- If there's a page getting hit particularly often, you can try changing the notice for just that page by creating an appropriate subpage of Template:Editnotices/Protection/. Anomie⚔ 10:59, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- WP:V brought me here, but the problem is more diffuse than that. Also, Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Verifiability already exists. WP:Nobody reads the directions, so it probably doesn't do much good. It particularly won't do much good when the one bit that the person sees says "Submit an edit request", with no indication that this means "an edit request for this specific page, which is probably not the one that you want, and not for a generic queue that will ultimately get routed to the right place". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- If there's a page getting hit particularly often, you can try changing the notice for just that page by creating an appropriate subpage of Template:Editnotices/Protection/. Anomie⚔ 10:59, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- This is a good point. We also see that with uploading. Ppl primarily care about uploading and not about licenses etc. So they will choose whatever allows them to achieve their goal. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Need review of recent contents of a category
Could somebody who has the ability to work with past dumps run a scan and provide me with the contents of Category:Austro-Hungarian films as of the last available dump date before June 27, 2022? It's been erroneously emptied out, so I need to reconstruct it. The output can be saved to my sandbox at User:Bearcat/Random.
(I tried processing a dump myself this afternoon, and failed hard.)
Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 01:36, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- The Internet Archive has a snapshot from 30 April.[13] PrimeHunter (talk) 03:22, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- See also "Category membership" at Help:Watchlist#Limitations. In an alternative account with a small watchlist I can see around 80 removals by Qwerfjkl (bot) since 23 June. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:29, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- @Bearcat, I'm planning on mass reverting any edits by the bot that removed more than one category, and handling them separately, probably with a pywikibot script. It would be easier for me to handle these along with all the other pages, so could you hold off on reconstructing the category (unless it's too late)? ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:01, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Stray Brackett
I just created an article titled Battle of Punished Woman's Fork. (The article is still a stub, but I'm expanding it.) At the end of the summary paragraph is a stray bracket. In trying to edit the article, I can't find the bracket to delete it. Can somebody delete it? Thanks. Sorry to be so incompetent. Smallchief (talk) 11:06, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Ignore the request. The stray bracket seems to have disappeared when I added more text. Another unexplained riddle of technology? Smallchief (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- It didn't disappear but remained at the end of the article which only consisted of the summary paragraph when you posted. Your added text just meant that the article ended later. I have removed the bracket.[14] PrimeHunter (talk) 11:46, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
How do I disable the new drop down box for Add Topic
This has to be one of the worst ideas ever. It keeps adding "no wiki" in the middle of sentences, and makes it a lot harder to just add a simple topic, because you have to go in and delete what it added that you didn't want. It's horrible. How do I disable it completely? — Maile (talk) 12:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- "go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion and turn it off". DuncanHill (talk) 12:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you — Maile (talk) 13:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC)!
- You're right about the new drop down, btw. DuncanHill (talk) 13:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Is there a way to switch default to "Source editor" in the Add topic/reply system? The "visual editor" is non-intuitive for anyone who understands the markup. Source editing also shows a live preview below, so new editors won't find it hard to use. And it's better for them to learn by doing too, as many templates all over Wikipedia still do not support visual editing. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 13:46, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- You're right about the new drop down, btw. DuncanHill (talk) 13:16, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you — Maile (talk) 13:13, 4 July 2022 (UTC)!
- @Maile66, it looks like you made your first-ever edit in the Reply tool here at VPT, and were put into the wikitext source mode by default. Your next edit was also here, and it looks like you switched to the visual mode (maybe trying out all the buttons?). It looks like you never switched back. The Reply and New Topic tools use the same settings, so if you switch to the visual mode for Reply, you'll be in the visual mode for New Topics.
- Fortunately, if you don't like it (or if you want to add templates to your comments), the switch is easy and sticky: Just click the "Source" tab, and it will automatically remember your choice until you change it again. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:39, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for looking into this. I'll try to remember to never use the Reply option again. — Maile (talk) 01:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- You can turn it off in prefs if you want, but you could also just switch it to source mode, and the other one will follow suit, too. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:03, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for looking into this. I'll try to remember to never use the Reply option again. — Maile (talk) 01:48, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Tech News: 2022-27
19:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Pending changes again
Is it clear why this edit on a pending changes protected article was automatically accepted? The user is not autoconfirmed and has no flags. Thanks. Ymblanter (talk) 20:19, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Not sure, however please note that phab:T234743 has been open for a few years about pendingchanges not working, sometimes. — xaosflux Talk 21:27, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Are they not autoconfirmed? From what I see they have been since 2021. Terasail[✉️] 21:29, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- MySun is autoconfirmed, the edit prior to theirs was accepted - so yes, this appears to have worked properly this time. @Ymblanter: why do you think they are not AC? — xaosflux Talk 21:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- Note, that article is also SPP, so everyone editing it will be autoconfirmed, making the PC1 mostly moot. — xaosflux Talk 21:53, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- MySun is autoconfirmed, the edit prior to theirs was accepted - so yes, this appears to have worked properly this time. @Ymblanter: why do you think they are not AC? — xaosflux Talk 21:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Glitches on Featured and good articles when using scripts
See here about an odd glitch in the duplicate link checker, that is only affecting Featured and good articles. There is a similar glitch, also only on Featured articles best I can tell, in the prose size script installed in tools. It is also generating duplicate info, only on FAs. So perhaps the glitch is not coming from the scripts, but from something else in the FA or GA template? The writer of the dup link script hasn't edited since Jan and hasn't responded; maybe someone else can locate the issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
- @SandyGeorgia: Line 17 currently is:
var $content = isVisualEditor ? $(".ve-ce-documentNode.ve-ce-branchNode") : $(".mw-parser-output")
- It should have been:
var $content = isVisualEditor ? $(".ve-ce-documentNode.ve-ce-branchNode") : $($(".mw-parser-output", "#mw-content-text")[0])
- I'm unsure how this will help you (other than forking the script yourself) if its author has been inactive for quite a while. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 02:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- I was hoping someone would find instead that the error was in one of the templates, in which case we could fix it. I guess we're stuck. Thanks for looking ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:59, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Interface admins will take bug fix edit protected requests. You should file one at the appropriate talk page. Izno (talk) 04:16, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thx, Izno, but it still makes no sense to me why both of these scripts are failing only on articles that have a GA or FA template? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Basically, Evad was looking for a (supposed-to-be) single element that bears a class named
.mw-parser-output
(without the leading dot). This class marks the outputs of the wikitext parser, which is the content of the page, and, unfortunately, indicator templates (e.g. FA/GA star, {{pp}} etc.). NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 04:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)- Ah, thanks again. I do not know where or how to request these be fixed by "interface admins". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- I've made an edit request. Many thanks to all of you for taking a look at this! Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:07, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- The change for indicators to output .mw-parser-output is also fairly recent, so that is why these scripts have had issues only lately. Izno (talk) 06:59, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- I have been unable to figure where to find the host of the prose size script that I have installed in tools on the left-hand side of screen ... sorry, techno-dummy ... but that needs similar attention. Over at WT:FAC, I am told any of these people can do the fixing:
- (Special:ListUsers/interface-admin) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe this is it? Wikipedia:Prosesize ? I know I installed it way back when DrPda wrote it, so maybe I have an old version or something? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- I have been unable to figure where to find the host of the prose size script that I have installed in tools on the left-hand side of screen ... sorry, techno-dummy ... but that needs similar attention. Over at WT:FAC, I am told any of these people can do the fixing:
- Ah, thanks again. I do not know where or how to request these be fixed by "interface admins". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Basically, Evad was looking for a (supposed-to-be) single element that bears a class named
- Thx, Izno, but it still makes no sense to me why both of these scripts are failing only on articles that have a GA or FA template? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
$($(".mw-parser-output", "#mw-content-text")[0])
seems unnecessarily complicated. Wouldn't$("#mw-content-text .mw-parser-output").first()
do the job? Nardog (talk) 07:03, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
aligning table right
I've tried and searched and tested but I cannot figure out how to align a table to the right margin. Does someone know how to do this? Thank you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2021%E2%80%932022_inflation_surge#table
soibangla (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- Do you mean aligning the text in each cell (H:TABLE#Cell content indenting and padding recommends
style="text-align:right"
) or moving the whole table to the right of the screen (like H:TABLE#Float table left or right)? DMacks (talk) 10:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
Help with redirect in JavaScript
The website xinhuanet.com has thousands of links that a redirecting to the home page. For example http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-09/11/c_137460450.htm .. viewed in a browser it first redirects to http://www.xinhuanet.com/webSkipping.htm then to the home page. The webSkipping page contains an error message in Chinese The content you viewed has expired and been archived; thank you for your attention to Xinhuanet. This is simple enough. However if you view the page with JavaScript disabled (or with curl), the underlying content is still there - it has not been "archived". Further, looking at the JavaScript code there appears to be some kind of logic decision involved in determining when the webSkipping page is served versus the actual content, something is triggering the redirect that is yes or no. I'm not too familiar with JavaScript can anyone make out what might be happening? Maybe it works from Chinese IPs? Or the redirect expires at some point? Ultimately would like to determine if these pages should be converted to archive URLs or left alone. -- GreenC 16:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- @GreenC: Here's the script they use: pageCore.js. According to this file, if you access a page whose URL doesn't contain
content_
, you will be redirected to webSkipping.htm (and then the home page). Comments are mostly encoded so I'm not sure why this was used. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 03:05, 6 July 2022 (UTC)- This unicode converter says 是å¦ä¸ºcontent_ç»†æ½ means
术否为content_绠揽
. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 03:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC) - User:NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh: Interesting, thanks. It's weird because even links with content_ redirect: http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2009-04/09/content_11152862.htm .. I'm beginning to think this site just has a lot of dead links and soft-404s and not overthink too much. Some sites can bypass redirects by using a new URL such as changing "/c_" to "/content_" but that doesn't work either. -- GreenC 03:42, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- I accessed that link and was not redirected anywhere. It simply showed me a banner. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 04:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- This unicode converter says 是å¦ä¸ºcontent_ç»†æ½ means
"Create new section" tab and new editing interface
There has been a new editing interface added for the "Create new section" tab. There was an option to revert to the classic interface but this has disappeared. Why/how do I get it back. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 03:24, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- Disable "Enable quick topic adding" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thankyou PrimeHunter. I would note that the interface interferes with WP functions (eg AfD) that require adding a subst template. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:03, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
I do a lot of date format auditing and the majority of the time, the templates that create that hidden tracking category are plainly visible in the article. One in a great while though, the source of the hidden category is a mystery. In other words, the template isn't actually in the article, but is usually transcluded from another (navigation) template. With this article though, I haven't found the {{Use dmy dates}} template on any of the templates in the article. Is the issue me? Dawnseeker2000 10:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
- It's coming from Template:Cardiovascular reference ranges (transcluded as {{Cardiovascular worksheet}} from Ventricle (heart)#Volumes). Looks like someone added it without
<noinclude>...</noinclude>
back in 2012. Anomie⚔ 10:31, 6 July 2022 (UTC) - @Dawnseeker2000 it is coming in via Template:Cardiovascular reference ranges, via the redirect from Template:Cardiovascular worksheet in the "Volumes" section. — xaosflux Talk 10:33, 6 July 2022 (UTC)