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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

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This tends to solve most issues, including improper display of images, user-preferences not loading, and old versions of pages being shown.

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This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See task 3864. There is an `accesskey` property on it (default to `accesskey="f"` in English). Logged-in users can enable the "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page" gadget in their preferences.

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Tech News: 2024-21[edit]

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

Recent changes

The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. [1]
New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description. [2][3]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [4][5]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 23:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Based on a quick search, it looks like the heading change will affect almost 300 scripts, many of which have inactive maintainers. Some arbitrary highlights from the top of the list include:

Plus many, many more. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:22, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A quick way to test these scripts right now, is to enable the Parsoid beta option (which already uses the new html structure) and to disable DiscussionTools, which uses a partial form of the new heading structure. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:39, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, you can already see it in Parsoid mode (but note that there are other differences – e.g. Parsoid output has <section> tags around each section, which may require a separate set of updates in some scripts).

Disabling DiscussionTools doesn't actually change anything though. The HTML structure is the same whether it's enabled or disabled, only the styles are different. Also, note that it uses a "hybrid" heading structure currently when using the default parser, as you say, but it uses the new structure when using Parsoid.

So in short, you can just use Parsoid mode to test these scripts today here on English Wikipedia, but beware that there may be extra issues. But if they work with Parsoid, they will work with the new headings too. Matma Rex talk 11:25, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The technical 13 script was blanked, so we don't have to worry about that one.

Will the fact that they're rolling this out for only some wikimedia-deployed skins at this time make the patch more complicated? If I'm reading it right, the scripts may temporarily have to support both heading styles. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:16, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does, and they have to. Matma Rex talk 11:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At a glance, it seems that User:Mr. Stradivarius/gadgets/SignpostTagger.js already supports the new style, as it uses $( '#bodyContent h2:first' ).text() as a backup if $( '#bodyContent h2:first span.mw-headline' ) doesn't exist (line 291). — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed RFUD-helper. Thanks for the ping. – SD0001 (talk) 18:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is going to break both my edit request scripts, I will try to fix them at the weekend. Terasail ^[✉️] 18:41, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gadget-autonum (Auto-number headings)[edit]

I'm assuming ~ and feel free to correct me if i'm wrong ~ that something about this deployment is why headings no longer have numbers (for me)? Will it be possible to go back to that at some point? I find long pages almost impossible to navigate around without numbered headings, so will have to learn a new way of working if it won't be possible. Thanks, Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LindsayH: No, that was removed a while ago. You may try the "Auto-number headings" gadget here. Nardog (talk) 19:31, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you're speaking about the table of contents, Vector 22 does not provide numbering. Vector, Monobook, and Modern do.

If you are speaking about each actual heading, then indeed the preference is gone and indeed there is a gadget for it now. You have correctly identified that gadget as needing to be updated for this change. It looks like the necessary change to the snippet (documentation) has already been made, so someone needs to port that here. Izno (talk) 19:59, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Izno, helpful. I'd assumed it was a script/gadget, as so many appeared to be affected above. I shall patiently wait in hope

Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 11:51, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LindsayH. I think I fixed this gadget for monobook/timeless/modern with this update. But there is still a double number bug on some talk pages on vector/vector-2022. Will work on that next. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You star! Thanks for the notification (and, of course, for fixing it). Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 06:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News – User:Enterprisey/archiver.js[edit]

I've been testing my fork of Enterprisey's script – User:Andrybak/Archiver. Example edits: 1226884323, 1227442551, 1227443165, 1227444165. So far, the script doesn't seem to be affected. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

✅ Another successful test with random things (including cases, which were mentioned in bug reports): Special:Diff/1227451320. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The obsolete nowrap attribute[edit]

See this edit and User talk:Awesometd#nowrap. The nowrap attribute on a td element, already deprecated in HTML 4 (December 1997), was marked as obsolete in HTML 5 (October 2014). The user says that they are copying its use from other pages, so does anybody know where in Wikipedia such usage is recommended or even suggested? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it's suggested anywhere. A few cases may have been added long ago and some users just copy what they saw in other articles. The user is right that it's used in 2024 F1 season. Unsurprisingly it's also in previous seasons. It's common to start such pages with a copy-paste from another season. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At a first estimation there are about 10k uses of it; I'm sure someone can refine that. Izno (talk) 15:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's many more obsolete attributes still being used in tables, such as align or bgcolor. If we truly want to get rid of them, the solution would probably be to extend the Linter extension, so that they'll be listed at Special:LintErrors. That's probably a discussion to be had over at WT:LINT. --rchard2scout (talk) 07:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One could easily ask as well where in Wikipedia such usage is deprecated or discouraged? I'm pretty sure the amount of editors that read the HTML5 instructions prior to editing articles is rather low. You can't just assume that everyone is always aware of what parameters have become obsolete.

I am a regular editor of the Formula 1 Wikiproject and I remember us starting to use that parameter because it is more practical and intuïtive than the nowrap template and takes up less memory. The fact that it never produced any technical issue, nor was there any message that it is obsolete. This is litterally the first time anyone give an indication there is a problem. Why isn't this advertised more to the relevant WikiProjects? Like another person pointed out here, if these things would be flagged as LintErrors they would not be used. But I do wonder why such a simple, well working parameter was made obsolete.

We are well-intentioned people, so I'm sure that if you invite a couple of editors from the relevant WikiProjects, explain the issue and tell us what the correct CSS code is, per the HTML5 documentatien's recommendation, we'll set out to deal with those obsolete parameters. As a side note, I think the Superbike article has even more issues, like the usage of external links.T v x1 21:53, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This one is actually pretty easy to switch, we have a CSS class nowrap that you can change whatever templates to use instead. Izno (talk) 23:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And what is that CSS class nowrap? T v x1 10:26, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The CSS rule is

.nowrap,
.nowraplinks a {
  white-space: nowrap;
}

and it's already set up for you. You use it in a table as e.g.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Demo table
|-
|class="nowrap" | Row 1 Column 1 || Row 1 Column 2
|}

This applies the class to one specific cell. It can also be applied to a whole row at once; or to the entire table. Doing those isn't such a good idea, you may cause excessive sideways scrolling. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:55, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What about style="white-space:nowrap"? T v x1 23:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does the same thing, but (i) it's more to type; (ii) less easily remembered; (iii) more easily broken e.g. by omitting or mistyping that hyphen; (iv) more difficult to apply cascading styles to. In general, class= is preferred over style=.

As for "why such a simple, well working parameter was made obsolete", it's part of the overall plan for HTML, going right back to the mid-1990s, that HTML should concern itself only with semantics, and leave styling to style sheets. Accordingly attributes that have no semantic meaning and affect only the style - other than style= itself, were first deprecated and then made obsolete; similarly with elements like <font>...</font> that affect only the style and have no semantic meaning. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 05:46, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

New Gadget for viewing CT images[edit]

We at Wiki Project Med have built a gadget to view stacks of images such a as CT scans, which you can see here[6]. We are wanting to install it on EN WP.

Previously mentioned to User:MusikAnimal here who want to verify community consensus first.

We have an earlier version working on Commons[7]. Based on Template:PD-medical we have collected a few thousand complete CT and MRI scans of various conditions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James about how many pages would this need to run on? We are currently experimenting with our very first implementation of Template Gadgets (see a couple sections up) right now, which I imagine would be the way we would want to implement this (and most certainly not by hooking a full page text analyzer in to common.js). — xaosflux ^Talk 18:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A template gadget version has been copied to mediawiki.org as a demo. See mw:Template:ImageStackPopup Bawolff (talk) 19:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So User:Xaosflux sounds like it only loads when a specific category is present already. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:21, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James yes, where said category would come along with a template that would wrap whatever is being used. It sounds like all instances of this would use some template so that part isn't hard. What order of magnitude of pages would you expect this would get used on? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:23, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:Xaosflux few thousand at most, Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:44, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The mediawiki version is quite a bit better.

For a default gadget, i'd have some concerns about the accessibility of the play button. It's not a button, and it's also not labeled.
Similar for the pager and slider in the window. This is unlabeled. It should have accessibility labels to make it possible to understand what the slider does.
The play button positioning and sizing might need a little bit more work, it seems kinda off (esp on iphone)
Might want to hide the play button on media print
Good to see that media credits are being linked.
Seems to work on mobile, but could use some additional spacing at the top controls, they are really difficult to hit because everything is so close together now.
Closing the dialog. All MW dialogs currently have close at the top (an old pattern i note due to mobile usage favoring thumb interaction at the bottom of a dialog). This does create an inconsistency, but i'm not particular concerned.
The whole ImageStackPopup-viewer is inside a label element atm. I think that's an accident?

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:27, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User:TheDJ We have added labels. Let me know if what was done is sufficient? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:06, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we can use gitlab instead of mediawikiwiki for development? It can probably serve as the version which wikis copy from. I created a blank project at gitlab:repos/gadgets/ImageStackPopup, and can extend SDZeroBot 13 to support tracking updates from gitlab. – SD0001 (talk) 09:14, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's been some accessibility improvements in the latest version. Button is also now hidden on print. The label thing and the close button at the bottom seem to be due to using OO.ui.alert. I'm not sure why OOUI does it that way for alert boxes. Bawolff (talk) 13:18, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Synced local fork from upstream. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:57, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James, As one of our professors often says, "One view is no view in Radiology." From a content perspective, I am confident that these imaging stacks will enhance the quality of our radiology related articles. Looking forward to seeing this implemented soon. _signed,511KeV ^(talk) 19:03, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moral support for the idea, bug-report for the implementation: the stack is scrolled by a left–right slider, but when hovering over the image the stack scrolls when I move the mouse up-and-down and not side-to-side. DMacks (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given the bird's-eye view with the line indicating the location of the specific scan is an up-and-down position, having the slider be side-to-side is confusing. Everything needs to be in sync. DMacks (talk) 00:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've forked ImageStackPopup over for anyone that wants to test it out in sandboxes etc, you can either manually opt-in to it in the "testing and development" gadget section, or you can load it to a page with the ?withgadget query parameter. From discussion above, this seems like it will need some extensive testing and tweaking. Nothing should currently be placed in to an article that is dependent on this right now, as readers will not be able to make use of it yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:55, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Vivarium template gadget being currently tested is much simpler, and we will make sure our roll out of template gadgets is done carefully. Additional discussion around if these should be able to be opted out of should also occur (i.e. not making them default+hidden). For a default here, we'll likely also use a fork, we have a bot to monitor remote changes and flag for promotion that can be used. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:58, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The test version on Commons loads 250 images. Given how heavy these images are, this seems like a bad use case for a gadget and should potentially be in some sort of video instead, which won't try to download that many images all at the same time. Izno (talk) 00:24, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That does seem like a lot if its all hitting the browser right away. Something that heavy sounds like it would be better to paginate and be done in mediaviewer perhaps. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:28, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the images get downloaded only after the user hits the play button, so only users who want to see them do the download. Perhaps that could be improved with a progress loading bar or something or the ability to cancel. The goal is to allow users to directly compare all the images all at once, so i'm not sure pagnation would work here. I agree that as a long term solution, transfering as a video with p-frames/temporal compression would probably be much more bandwidth efficient. Bawolff (talk) 05:43, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, just to be clear, this gadget does not exist on commons. There is a separate gadget on commons called ImageStack, which is the inspiration for this gadget, but its a totally different gadget. Bawolff (talk) 09:46, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect. Got it working here on EN WP User:Doc_James#CT_scan_viewer. Agree a bit of fine tuning is still required.

I like the idea of a progress loading bar. As User:DMacks suggests lets move the scroll bar to the right of the image. We will need a naming convention for these pages User:Doc James/Appendicitis CT Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:43, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

this link can be used to manually enable to gadget once for others that want to see this without doing the opt-in. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps[edit]

We have implemented a bunch of the suggestions made above, see this link. Any further comments or can we have this go live and start using these in main space? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:38, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ping User:TheDJ and User:DMacks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:39, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking very nice, but I still think it needs a bit more work for mobile. I'd still say that my fingers are not 3mm x 3mm. Additionally the right positioning of the controls now gets into the scroll zone, which is possibly even worse. I can trigger the rubber banding of the scroll area, and if I zoom in, we overlap with the scrollbar of the viewport. If you switch to desktop skin on mobile, you have the same, but zoomed out 6 times so you really do need that zooming and scrollbar. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:33, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about we use swipe right / left on mobile to move through images? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns about consistency in direction of scrolling are resolved. For the record, I'm using a desktop machine. DMacks (talk) 05:32, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Phantom redirects[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T331127

I'm running into the recurrence of a problem I've brought here a few times before, where an incategory search of Category:Living people for drafts or user sandbox pages that shouldn't be in it offers up several pages that aren't actually pages in the category but cross-namespace redirects to real articles, which resulted from an editor adding categories to the page while it was still in draft or user space, and then moving the page into mainspace shortly afterward. That's a relatively common occurrence which doesn't usually cause any serious problems, but every once in a while it causes situations like this, where for some reason the redirect lingers in the categories despite not actually having any categories on it.

In the past I've usually resolved this by redoing the move: I would move the page back overtop the redirect, wrap the categories in the {{draft categories}} wrapper to disable them, and then move the page back into articlespace again, which usually worked to get the redirect out of the category — but of the four such redirects currently showing up in the search, I've already done that on two of them, meaning even that trick isn't working anymore.

Additionally, I need to note that there are four phantom redirects currently showing up in the search, yet the results counter at the top of the page is claiming that there are eight pages, meaning that there are four more phantoms I can't even find.

Because Category:Living people is a megacategory with millions of pages in it, it's not a category I can search manually for draft or user pages — it has to be done as an incategory search, which means I can't just work around permanent speed bumps and need the tool to be clean. It might also be related to the replag problem that's been discussed above, because even the normal categorized drafts or userpages that I pull out of the category the normal way are taking longer than usual to clear from the search as well — but could somebody look into whether there's any way to fix it? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Replag is currently around five seconds, so that's not it. It wouldn't affect searches on the live site anyway.

If I query the database for members of Category:Living people that are in namespaces user, draft, or their corresponding talk, I get no results. All four of the current false positives in search (Draft:Amre Hamcho, User:Miminity/Yoshinobu Yamakawa, User:Minmarion/sandbox/voice, User:WikiOriginal-9/David Hinds (gridiron football)) were moved within the last 24 hours. And neither a null edit nor an actual edit (both to User:Miminity/Yoshinobu Yamakawa) helped. Taken together, these lead me to guess - with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of how the search backend works, mind you - that it's only the search indices that are out of date.

I suppose it's worth checking back in a day or so, without your move/edit/move workaround, to see if they clear up themselves. Failing that, I can build a database report for you, which might be more convenient than the search. (That is, unless you're worried about search results, too, not just what appears on the category page.) Any other categories to check besides Category:Living people? —Cryptic 18:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: Have you tried this?

Navigate to the redirect that is incorrectly listed at Category:Living people
Edit the redir page to add [[Category:Living people]] and save it
Edit the redir page to remove [[Category:Living people]] and save it

Does this work to delist the redirect from Category:Living people? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't Bearcat (talk) 00:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Font size bug - mobile[edit]

Hello, I have question. For quite some time now, The font size is not correctly shown when I want to see it on visual editing (i mostly work with filmografies of actors) - basically, I want to change font size from 100 to 80, and its not working at all. It stays same. The whole filmography also gets bigger sometimes for some reason when I want to edit it only by visual editing. I remember there was a discussion about this long time ago but I dont know if there was any improvement. I work on mobile, so I dont know whether pc users have this problem as well. If there is any sollution or way how to make it work, feel free to comment your suggestions. Thx in advance. Kesseder (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This search has timed out. You may wish to try different search parameters.[edit]

I'm getting this error pretty frequently lately when opening my watchlist. Maybe a third of the time over the past several days. Anyone know what this is? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reset your filters, so the page has to do fewer calculations ? Your watchlist is probably really large, I assume. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:22, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhododendrites: It could be several different things, or more likely, a combination of these.

A large number of pages are listed at Special:EditWatchlist/raw
A significant proportion of pages listed at Special:EditWatchlist/raw have been edited recently
Some of the pages listed at Special:EditWatchlist/raw have recieved large numbers of edits recently

Things to try:

Go through Special:EditWatchlist/raw and remove pages that you're no longer interested in
If you are watching a high-traffic page (like WP:ANI), unwatch it
At Watchlist options, try
- reducing the period of time to display
- applying some of the "Hide" options
- selecting one namespace (possibly with its Associated namespace enabled) rather than all

HTH. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:41, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I do have a very large watchlist (17k pages), but this issue started happening all of a sudden a few days ago and the list has barely changed in recent weeks. I don't think I've ever once seen the error before then. It's also inconsistent. If I just refresh a few times, it'll display. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:44, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But the software and servers change all the time. If you are up to those numbers, even half percent of change in performance on that side can easily push you over an edge. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhododendrites You can try User:Ahecht/Scripts/watchlistcleaner to clean out unneeded or stale pages from your watchlist, but with 17k pages you may have to let it run overnight. I've only tested it on about half that many pages. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 01:53, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Frankly, though, I don't want to change my watchlist. It's huge, yeah, and includes a ton of e.g. deleted pages, but I like being able to see when something is recreated or when someone edits a page from way-back-when that probably shouldn't be edited anymore. Edits to inactive pages sneak through too easily sometimes. I'm just kind of surprised that I've had a massive watchlist for years (I became an active editor playing with counter-vandalism tools and AWB, so built up a huge watchlist early) and it's never caused a problem. Of all the things that use memory on Wikipedia, it's volunteers' watchlists that need to be limited? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:29, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Almost everything is limited. It’s just that most people don't know about that because they hardly ever run into those limits. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:23, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The likelihood of a timeout can vary depending on how much load the servers are under. More load, more likelihood of a timeout. Watchlists are actually the single most database intensive feature on Wikipedia, probably by a fairly wide margin. On smaller wikis, adjusting the time period to search can help a lot but on a wiki the size of Wikipedia not so much. (Essentially there are two methods of calculating the watchlist depending on if the number of changes in the time period being search is smaller or larger than the amount of entries in your watchlist. On Wikipedia you'd probably have to set that super low before it made a difference because so many edits are happening all the time). Most of the other filters (including total number of results to show) don't make much of a difference most of the time, although there might be edge cases where they matter. Bawolff (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this background. Did not know they were the most database intensive feature, but I guess that makes sense. So I take this to mean the only way to fix it is to remove pages from the list? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Desktop and mobile view on same page[edit]

I just got a new Windows 11 laptop. When I start using Wikipedia, it shrinks the display area (but not the very top menu bar} to about 2/3 of the available width, then below the normal desktop view it shows a sort-of mobile view of the same page. See screenshot to the right. Wikipedia still looks fine on the old laptop. Is this a bug or some obscure configuration problem? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:46, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You installed this (old) script which does this: User:קיפודנחש/mobile-sidebarcopy.js. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:10, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I thought it was something dumb like that. Taking out the old script fixes the problem. Both laptops are fairly up to date Windows 11, but there must be some difference in their configuration. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Broken parsing/HTML generation near math tags[edit]

Look at the vertical spacing here. The source code has a single blank line to separate the paragraphs, as usual, but the result is terrible. Moreover, examining the HTML DOM in both Firefox and Chrome reveals that the end on the first paragraph ("In fact...") is actually outside any paragraph tags, but there's an empty <p></p> between "...Killing form)." and "This cross-product..." (which apparently creates that huge gap). A similar situation can be seen in the next section as well (before "Alternatively, one may...").

I've noticed that vertical spacing around <math> some time ago became noticeable broken in some cases (seemingly regardless of <math display="block"> or : <math> and blank lines before/after). Initially I was expecting that somebody else will notice that quickly and repair, then I forgot and was lazy to investigate, but this outstandingly wrong occurrence made me think that it must be at least reported... — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 09:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest making screenshots, because I’m not sure what you mean with ‘terrible’ —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:52, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've made screenshots at archive.is (to be sure that it's not my local problem):

using the current default Vector (2022) skin,
using the previous default Vector legacy skin.

Now it seems to me that even though the "legacy" skin didn't have so obvious problems, they were still present, but partially hidden because paragraphs didn't have bottom padding added (for what reason?) in the new skin. Please also take a look at some tests with comments that I've made in my sandbox:

with Vector (2022),
with Vector legacy.

Examining the DOM again reveals that the generated HTML is not correct (or recent versions of both Firefox and Chrome can't parse it properly, which is unlikely). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 01:11, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the screenshot. So "the result is terrible" means a few mm extra whitespace. Your link [8] uses <math display="block">. We add whitespace to that with code in MediaWiki:Common.css:

/* Make <math display="block"> be left aligned with one space indent for 
 * compatibility with style conventions
 */
.mwe-math-fallback-image-display,
.mwe-math-mathml-display {
	margin-left: 1.6em !important;
	margin-top: 0.6em;
	margin-bottom: 0.6em;
}

Compare to a safemode link where local CSS like MediaWiki:Common.css is ignored. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:23, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Paragraph spacing is the subject of much recent discussion in phab:T362939 after the WMF changed paragraphs to use padding rather than margin. I would guess this is the issue you have identified. They intend to fix their previous decision making. (Apparently a math-specific one is phab:T361273 but that probably should be closed duplicate.)

As for a bad DOM, that's probably phab:T182041. Izno (talk) 02:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, phab:T182041 is apparently the root cause (made more obvious by phab:T362939 changes), reported many years ago, but nobody really cares... Would it be too difficult to use <span> instead of <div> to make it work properly? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 04:07, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Detecting transclusion through a redirect[edit]

In Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 May 22#Template:Edit semi-protected a reason some editors, including myself, are opposed to merging is that the merged template will no longer be able to work properly if used on an unprotected page (which can happen in the case of an unprotected WP:ARBECR page, for example). SilverLocust put it like this: If these were all redirected to one template, then there would be a loss of functionality unless someone knows how to tell a module not merely which wrapper is invoking a module (since there would only be one merged wrapper), but rather which redirect is being used to transclude the wrapper that invokes the module (and I don't think that is possible). So, is that right? Or is there a way to detect which redirect is used and merge the templates without any loss of functionality? Nickps (talk) 14:07, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nickps The module could use getContent() to get the text of the current page and then search it for one of the redirect templates. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:30, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would oppose that as confusing and probably inefficient. Editors expect it to make no difference whether a redirect is used. If we really want a certain "redirect" to behave differently then don't make it a redirect but a wrapper which passes a certain parameter. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and that's exactly what has been done (but is proposed to be undone by merging the templates). Certes (talk) 13:56, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recent change somewhere in Wikipedia/Wikimedia has broken chart labels in Module:Chart[edit]

Something changed recently and now all charts generated by Module:Chart have broken and the top text label no longer displays properly. As you can even see on the help page for the charts, the top label of the chart has half the text chopped in half. I can't track down why this would have happened. Does anyone know where this could come from? It didn't use to do this a few weeks ago and nothing has changed on the page itself so it must be inherited from elsewhere on wikipedia. I've tested with Firefox, Safari and Chrome and all seem to have this issue so it doesn't appear to be limited to certain browser versions. Looking at archives on archive.org for some pages, it was still working as of the beginning of May but haven't found any page archives within the last few weeks yet. Here's one example of what it should look like. And here's what that section looks like currently. Ergzay (talk) 06:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Through some asking questions I found that apparently a "overflow-x: auto;" media query was added globally across wikipedia, something that is very wrong to do. Anyone know where the code is for this so a bug report can be filed? Ergzay (talk) 07:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that gerrit:c/mediawiki/core/+/1035574 moved the "noresize" class from the Minerva skin to core code loaded by all skins. Anomie ⚔ 10:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

update Credits[edit]

Who is responsible for running the maintenance script updateCredits.php, and how often is it run? wbm1058 (talk) 15:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generally it is run once per major MediaWiki release by those making the release. So every 6 months or so. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, next up in 1.42, expected later this month. Thanks! wbm1058 (talk) 14:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2024-23[edit]

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

Recent changes

It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [9]
The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [10]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Kadazandusun (w:dtp:) [11]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [12][13]

Future changes

Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 22:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are images transfers to WikiData working? (repost from help desk)[edit]

I use Wiki Shoot Me to take photos for Wikipedia while I’m traveling. Typically you can identify articles that need photos by looking for yellow dots indicating Wikipedia articles and larger red circles near by indicating WikiData items without photos (as previously these seemed to sync). In two cases recently I noticed articles with CC-licensed images placed correctly in the lead and appropriately sized that did not have their photos synced with WikiData: National Hotel (Q65056276) and Wet Mountain Valley (Q7989973). I know the page image is being picked up because they display correctly on Special:Nearby using their coordinates: National Hotel and Wet Mountain Valley. It looks like they’re just not making it to WikiData. - Scarpy (talk) 05:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any bot or tool which scrapes Wikipedia articles for suitable images to import into Wikidata. This may be an idea worth exploring, but there would be plenty of false positives. For example, on an article about an artist, if we do not have an image of the artist it is common to include a picture of one of their well known works instead. This would not be suitable for importing to Wikidata, and I can't think of a reliable way for an automatic process to detect these. Perhaps a semi-automated tool (which makes suggestions but requires manual review) is the way to go? I suggest you post at Wikidata:Project chat for a more informed response. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:50, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I found WDFIST which seems to do something like this — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:53, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanking other users[edit]

The link for thanking other users for their edits H:THANK is currently not available on my browser based interface. Am I missing something here? ♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:51, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well that's bizarre, it's back again. It was definitely missing earlier today.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:35, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ianmacm, if you're using different devices, different networks, proxies, VPNs, or any combination of these, then you might be affected by an IP range block. The "thank" links are hidden in such cases. —⁠andrybak (talk) 18:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's useful. Maybe something along these lines could be added to H:THANK, as I read through this page and could not figure out why the thank link did not show up.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]