Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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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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Number of watchers

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T336250

If you go to ?action=info for any page, you will see a table with various statistics, including two lines about how many people are watching the page, e.g.:

Number of page watchers	375
Number of page watchers who visited recent edits	12

For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?action=info for this page.

I am finding that the ratio shown here is not at all unusual for older articles, but the first line gets more attention from editors. They think "hundreds of editors are watching this page", when they should be thinking "almost nobody is watching this page". Is there a way we could remove/hide the irrelevant number from this info page? Or should we just change MediaWiki:Pageinfo-watchers to something like "Total number of watchlists (includes inactive editors)"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we should localize that message. This topic was recently more broadly discussed in meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Notifications, Watchlists and Talk Pages/Change information about the number of watchers on a page. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

phab:T336250 is open about this. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: It's certainly possible, the system message is MediaWiki:Pageinfo-watchers. We haven't created this, so we presently use the MW default message. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m one of those who ‘think "hundreds of editors are watching this page", when they should be thinking "almost nobody is watching this page"’ ...

I think we should have that “second line” added to these pages (or replaced the “first line”):

• https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Contents
• https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=latest-20&pages=

--Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I bet someone here could write a .css script that would blank that out, or rename it to something like "This is the wrong line – ignore it". I checked a bunch of Special:Random pages, and most of them showed no data, due to there being too few people watching the pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

For hiding that row on the page information page on Wikipedia, try #mw-pageinfo-watchers { display: none; } in one of the .css files. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Novem Linguae. That seems to have worked for me. That suggests that iff we ever decided that we wanted to do that globally, it could be done in (e.g.,) global.css. I'm going to try this out for a while. I suspect that I'll like it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

#til:

If it's on <30 watchlists, no number is given for either item (the second item is simply suppressed).

If it's on ≥30 watchlists, an exact number is given for both items.

If the second number is zero, it says "There may or may not be a watching user visiting recent edits" instead of a second number. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way we could remove/hide the irrelevant number from this info page? I would not support removing this. Presenting both numbers, and letting the user decide which they want or need, seems like an acceptable status quo here. The less than 30 thing for non admins is for security reasons. Admins can see both numbers at all times. The linked phab ticket mentions changing the second message to mention 30 days explicitly. I could get behind a change like that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Under what circumstances do you think it would it be useful for to you to know that the watchlists associated with 1,991 mostly inactive (and sometimes actually dead) include the defunct Wikipedia:WikiProject Contents?

The number of active editors presently watching that page is a single-digit number. I can understand why that number would be useful to know, but not why the first has practical value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, pages can be watched actively, without the user being considered active there - such as through email or syndication. — xaosflux ^Talk 08:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Or by looking at the watchlist but not visiting the links. Nardog (talk) 09:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that the scenario Nardog describes is far more common than the one Xaosflux describes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

That was an argument against hiding the total number of watchers. I was echoing Xaosflux. Nardog (talk) 05:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I've never spent much time reading about the internal mechanism, but I believe that it works like this:

• If you have some pages on your watchlist, and then get permanently locked out of your account, you are "a watcher" for all of those pages forever, even though you can't actually watch anything from that account.
• If you have some pages on your watchlist, go to Special:Watchlist, close the tab without clicking on any link or visiting an article at all, and then get permanently locked out of your account, you are counted as "an active watcher" for all the pages on your entire watchlist for the next 30 days (including pages that did not have any changes made, so they weren't listed at Special:Watchlist on the day that you visited that page).

This means that there are 9 active editors with this page on their watchlist, of which an unknown number – but it is quite possibly zero – actually looked at the page in question during the last month.

So Xaosflux says, yes, there may only 9 editors who have that page on their watchlists and actually went to Special:Watchlist at any point during the last 30 days, but maybe a few more people also get e-mail messages about changes to articles on their watchlist, so the "9" might be a slight undercount.

The scenario you describe – visiting the watchlist but not checking every page – is certainly common. The "9" is probably an overcount, if the goal is to know whether anyone actually checked the specific page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I don't believe merely viewing the watchlist makes you an active watcher. — Qwerfjkltalk 07:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

You're correct. The count uses the same "first unseen timestamp" data used for highlighting of unseen edits on the history page. If a revision older than the configured age would be highlighted, the user is not counted as having visited recent edits. Viewing the watchlist or history page doesn't reset that, while visiting the page itself will and viewing old revisions or diffs may. Anomie⚔ 11:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I have corrected the errors I introduced last week to Help:Watchlist ("Number of page watchers:  3,644; Number of page watchers who visited recent edits: 29; Number of editors who noticed my error:  0").

The "visited recent edits" should probably be changed to "visited the page recently". I think most editors will interpret this as "checked a diff" (i.e., the edit) instead of "clicked on the article" (e.g., displayed the page via Special:Random). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Does hovering over the diff with WP:POPUPS count as "visiting" the edit? I rarely click on anything unless the popups diff is unclear, or I want to investigate the history. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't reset the "first unseen timestamp" (a fact that I've found particularly convenient). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I would interpret "visited the page recently" to mean "visited the current version of the page recently". I think the natural assumption is that "page" without a qualifier refers to the current version. isaacl (talk) 16:59, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Would you feel the same about "visited the page during the last 30 days"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think referring to a time-bound period does change the natural assumption to having viewed the page as it appeared at the time of viewing during the specified period. I don't think it would be interpreted as having checked a diff. isaacl (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I like the idea of having clarity.

BTW, I'm finding that I'm happy with the script @Novem Linguae wrote for me. I'm still sometimes startled to see that there's only the one line, but it gives me the information that I want, and if for some reason I need to see the number of inactive accounts, it's only one incognito/private window away. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Why does the talk page visual editor not have a "cite" button?

Am i missing something, or is it impossible to automatically cite urls from the talk page visual editor? Yes, you can use the source editor, but is there a specfic reason why this is? Is there any way to get a more featured editor on the talk page visual editor? MarkiPoli (talk) 12:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if it's intentional, but the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+K (Cmd+Shift+K on macOS) still works for this. the wub "?!" 13:17, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, i noticed that too. Its still annoying not having a full featured editor exactly the same as the main page editor MarkiPoli (talk) 09:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

There's some things that're not allowed there because they don't work well in list-indented discussions, but mostly it's because of space constraints for the toolbar. The compromise is that the things left out are more on the power-user end (e.g. citations are very rarely used in discussions), and we hope that power-users will be able to use keyboard shortcuts and sequence triggers for these things. (You can press ctrl/cmd + ? to see all the options here. Or type \ if you're in visual mode for a nifty command-palette...) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Or edit the full page in source mode with all the bells and whistles of course. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but they said they already knew about that. :D DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@MarkiPoli, it's at least theoretically possible. Look at this diff (noting that @DLynch (WMF) has not yet promised to maintain it for the rest of my life). Since we can add a special character button from the visual editor, it should be possible to add other buttons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a need for this. Could you give me an example? Thanks --- thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 19:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

If you want to make a citation so that others can easily see it and potentially copy paste it into the article if useful (if its part of a discussion and can't be immediately put in the article for some reason i.e. its contentious). Also, a gaping flaw that's worse in my opinion is there's no real way to even insert templates at all in the replier (it literally says that wikitext is not allowed in the visual reply editor when it doesnt say this in the article editor). Is there any way at all to insert templates in the visual talk page editor without switching to source? MarkiPoli (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

AFD Stats not updating grid templates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T363077

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T362732

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352010

AFD Stats not updating on the individual grid templates — Maile (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66 It looks okay to me. Can you describe in more detail the problem that you are experiencing? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:33, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The top listings are from yesterday, the 15th. I have made two deletes today that are not showing up there. The change is usually instantaneous if I reload the grid page. — Maile (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66 Per toolforge:replag, there is currently about 2 hours of lag on the enwiki database replicas that all toolforge tools use, likely related to the database maintenance mentioned in #pagelinks normalization above. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:12, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll just wait out. — Maile (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

And now it's up to over 4 hour lag and my Quarry and bot reports are not updated. I hope this is not a maintenance tasks that takes several days. Work will just pile up. Thanks for pointing out the message from yesterday. I assume this will affect database and bot reports and not article content, right? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just re-checking, and it's now been 4-plus hours for me on the above AFD Stats. — Maile (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Liz and Maile66: do you think we start a bug report? Found this thread through my watchlist and looks like it is a bug that should be reported. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Do you know how to do that? This might affect even more processes than we've mentioned above. — Maile (talk) 22:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66: This page is a good start. You should follow the instructions there to create a Phabricator account, then you can create a bug report. If you need me to, I can, and I can give you the link. If you or Liz does, please put the link in this thread, I'd like to keep track of it. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@TheTechie: that would be great if you would start it. — Maile (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I will when I can, and will drop the link below. I'll be sure to ping you. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:52, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Done, see here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T362732 thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 23:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, TheTechie, for starting this but the bug report just mentions AFD stats, not Quarry queries or any of the bot reports. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I edited my original post. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 01:48, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

 Thanks I added my issue. Seems I already had a Phabricator account. It's been such a long time since I was over there, I had forgetten. — Maile (talk) 23:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, my primary participation is subscribing and following problems not filing reports. The discussion there goes over my head once it stops being English and starts into code. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks like it's fixed. Now finally, I can view my mainspace edit count without 1 day of lag. Stay safe, thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 00:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

As of today, April 24, the issue has returned. I have filed Phabricator Task T363077, hoping this resolve it once and for all. — Maile (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

This issue cannot be resolve[d] once and for al[l]. There will be spurts of replag lasting a few hours to a day from time to time, for the foreseeable future. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:10, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

And my understanding is that these Phabricator tasks are not helpful - with only one exception I can think of replag has been due to deliberate database maintenance that the people involved are aware of the impact of, and it will resolve itself when its done. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. At last, someone has given us some insight on how this works. — Maile (talk) 21:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, looks like I was mistaken and this report was helpful, and this replag instance was a real standalone bug not an expected consequence of database maintenance. So, I guess you can report it, but sometimes you will get "this is a known issue that the DBAs are working on" ("DBA" is an acronym for database administrator). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:29, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for all this insight. I have previously come across "this is a known issue ... " and usually just back off on those types. — Maile (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

As of right now, this has not yet been resolved. — Maile (talk) 11:31, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

maybe resolved at ~16 UTC. see phab:T363077#9733128. Jeremyb (talk) 15:27, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

 Great! Wow - it's working today. Thanks. — Maile (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Database replication lag

Replication lag

The database on which this query was executed has a synchronization delay with the wiki. This can be caused by maintenance or incident on database, and should be resolved soon. The modifications that was made in last 20 hours on the wiki are not taken into account in results bellow.

Just bellowing here to make sure that someone in charge is aware of this, and working to resolve it. Every time I've checked in for the past several hours, the lag has grown longer; there is no sign as yet that it's started to get shorter again. I searched for a Phabricator, and couldn't find any. Would like to have some idea of the meaning of "soon" in this case. wbm1058 (talk) 14:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Wbm1058 See the #AFD Stats not updating grid templates discussion above or T352010. Per the phab ticket, it should resolve itself in the next 2-4 hours. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:41, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Aha, I didn't find this because T362732 "enwiki_p database replica has stopped updating" doesn't match the search string "replication lag".

I was pinged to the #pagelinks normalization discussion, but that discussion did not warn me that the process of "normalizing" pagelinks would temporarily abnormalize database replication. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

"normalize" in this context refers to database normalization. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T363077

Lag is now 12 hours and rising again. Certes (talk) 10:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I noticed that too. Also discussed above at #AFD Stats not updating grid templates.

"FWIW, this is a data corruption issue. Last time it happened on sanitarium hosts the whole system went down for a week. I'm trying to figure out if I can avoid re-cloning the whole host (which would take a lot of time, potentially weeks) and only reclone the corrupted table but there is no easy way to do this AFAICS." wbm1058 (talk) 10:51, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

maybe resolved at ~16 UTC. see phab:T363077#9733128. Jeremyb (talk) 15:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"Reviewed an image suggestion" user log entry

Does anyone know what "reviewed an image suggestion" means and its use? See this user's log for an example. S0091 (talk) 20:35, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be coming from the Android app. I can't find the option to try it out, even in the Alpha version, but at first glance this seems to be a privacy violation. We've never publicly logged pages that people were just viewing (or previewing an edit for) but decided not to edit. Is it being disclosed, up front and clearly, that the choice not to edit will be visible to the whole world? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@DBrant (WMF): How can I try out this feature? All I see under "suggested edits" is "Article descriptions", "Image captions", and "Image tags". And is my assumption correct, that we are logging when someone decides not to edit a page? If so, are they told that their username, along with the page they were viewing, is being publicly logged? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, for some reason it doesn't work for me on the enwiki or testwiki, but I found it on the desktop site at es:Special:Homepage. I was told that Your answers improve future suggestions. but for all I would know, that just means I'm training an AI or something. There was no indication that by clicking "Submit", this log entry would be created, and my name would be publicly recorded. This feature needs to be disabled. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

• This is a "growthexperiment" log type. Pings to @Trizek (WMF) and KStoller-WMF: who can hopefully point to the documentation. Notably, @Suffusion of Yellow: this doesn't say it is about "viewing" but about "reviewing" so I'm assuming there was an affirmative user action performed here other than reading. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:07, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  You're asked if an AI-selected image should be in an article. If you click "Yes", you're given an opportunity to add it. If you click "No", you're asked why, but not told that your "No" is going to be made public. This is equivalent to logging every time someone previews an edit, and then abandons it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think that is a bit of a stretch. Patrolling essentially is similar in nature and we don't warn from the interface that those actions are publicly logged either. I do see however that the barrier to entry is significantly lower here, so some additional caution might indeed be warranted. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping! The Android app is indeed using the same underlying API as the Growth team, but their implementation is a little different: Android/Image_Recommendations I'll follow up with that team and ask them to review this discussion. Thanks, - KStoller-WMF (talk) 16:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @S0091@Suffusion of Yellow@TheDJ and @Xaosflux,

@DBrant (WMF) is under the weather, I think I've coordinated with each of you before at some point, but I am Jaz the PM for the apps.

"Reviewed an image suggestion" means that someone determined that an Machine suggested image for an article is either adequate for an article, and the subsequently adds that image OR the image is not adequate (rejected). The reason it is important to track is so that we can remove bad recommendations from the stack that we share with the Growth experiments. Do we need to publicly log this information? Probably not, I am investigating why we are showing rejecting a suggestion publicly, if there isn't a super compelling reason, I will ensure we suppress the public log but still send the API call that is necessary for the feature.

As far as accessing the feature, you'll need to be:

• Logged In
• Set your app primary language as one where you have more than 50 unreverted edits

If you follow these steps and are still unable to see the feature, would you kindly file a task and screen record the steps you are taken, because that would be a bug. The feature is available in both the Beta version of the app and the production version.

The requirement of having over 50 unreverted edits for the language wiki you are using the feature in is the implementation difference that @KStoller-WMF. Under the hood and the flow of the feature is the same, however who has access to it is different. The Growth implementation is available to new editors on select wikis and we use the same API. New editors do not have access to this suggested edit task on the app.

The onboarding and guidance for the feature on Desktop is not the same as on Android. For example, on this screen we do let users know that their answers improve future suggestions.

Once DBrant is back in office (fingers crossed he's feeling better tomorrow) our team will update this thread about removing the rejection log. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't like putting using my main password on my phone, so I had used an alternate account with only a few edits. Honestly I spoke too quickly when I said "this feature needs to be disabled". So long as the messaging is changed to be more like MediaWiki:Thanks-confirmation2 ("Publicly send thanks?") I don't think the log needs to be removed. The problem with "Your answers improve future suggestions" is that it sounds like I'm training an AI ("select all squares containing Sarah Connor"), or taking an anonymous survey. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Suffusion of Yellow this is helpful, digging into the code we were able to determine the rejection log is coming from the Growth Experiments API, which means the rejection log publishes for the Growth Experiment implementation as well. We are going to coordinate with them on next steps to see what makes sense regarding the public log. @ARamadan-WMF will follow up with the link to any phab tickets should they be created to make the rejection log private.

In the meantime, I've created task T362935 to update the copy in the UI for the app should the decision be to keep it public. I've subscribed you to it @Suffusion of Yellow, I welcome all of you to subscribe and comment on the proposed language change. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Suffusion of Yellow and the WMF team for digging into this! S0091 (talk) 15:52, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello @S0091, @Suffusion of Yellow!

This is Amal Ramadan, I am Sr. Movment Communications Specialist supporting the Mobile Applications team; I wanted to provide you with an update: both the Growth and the Apps teams are going to discontinue publicly logging rejections. If you're interested in following the progress of this change, please subscribe to ticket T363002.

Thank you for initiating and engaging in this conversation.

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @ARamadan-WMF another question. If they add a suggested image, the tag "#suggestededit-add-image-top" is included in the edit summary (example). Are both logging and tagging really needed? It seems like overkill (maybe?). If both are not needed, then I suggest using the edit summary as it is more transparent to editors than it being buried in logs. S0091 (talk) 18:26, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually, we are aware of this, and actively working on making the change; the work progress on this can be found in this ticket T360164, I tried to sign you up, but couldn't find your account. You can follow to stay updated instead.

--ARamadan-WMF (talk) 08:52, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand these edit summaries

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T360164

that I've seen pop up recently, like the following:

#talk-full-source-editor and #talk-topic on Talk:Robert E. Lee.

They don't quite make sense to me and don't seem to be telling me anything useful about the edit. Anyone care to explain? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 19:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be more of phab:T361495. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:57, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh interesting. So it's the Android and iOS apps appending these strings to the edit summaries? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The two examples provided by Shearonink can be found in the source code of the iOS app. —⁠andrybak (talk) 12:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Could there be a stopgap solution for the Graph module until its replacement is developed?

It has been 1 year since Graphs were disabled due to security vulnerabilities in the extension. The update plan as of now is to completely replace the Graph extension, because the other solutions to upgrade it were found to not be feasible. This process has only just started to gather the members necessary and will not start in earnest until July, per the update posted. This extension will then obviously take time to develop. In the meantime, there's 18k articles, per Category:Pages with disabled graphs, with data that is completely inaccessible unless you view the page source. We could either put the data in a table so at least the data is there, in an expando if there are many rows. We could even have a link to an external graphing service that graphs it visually on a separate page (Quickchart.io being an example that works simply, simply putting the data in JSON format in the URL.). Thoughts? MarkiPoli (talk) 15:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

See relevant discussion, including a couple replies from WMF staff, at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-03-29/Technology report and its talk page. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:13, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, the situation with the graphs is mentioned and discussed at the WMF section of the Village pump. —⁠andrybak (talk) 13:30, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Help with phabricator ticket -- Unable to login on iPhone with Passkey Enabled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358771

6 weeks ago I did a deep dive for 1-2 days helping to debug, reproduce, identify the root case and help formulate a fix for the following issue. [1] This issue affects any user using webauthn aka 2FA security tokens across wikimedia. @Reedy (WMF) was very responsive and back-ported a fix from another repository. The fix was committed March 5.

Could I ask your help getting more detail on what the next steps are to integrate and deploy the fix? Tonymetz 💬 20:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

cc: @Novem Linguae Tonymetz 💬 20:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing anyone on the English Wikipedia can do about problem with webauthn directly. See Help:Two-factor_authentication#WebAuthn. I suggest no one use this method with any account they care about. There is now a ticket open, so some developers may eventually work on phab:T358771. If you want to personally work on this see: mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

my issue is more about getting help from WMF to deploy the fix that is ready to go. maybe this is better for village pump WMF Tonymetz 💬 21:08, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Patches are primarily deployed by volunteer developers not "the WMF". There are currently over 70 tasks open for OATHAUTH alone, most of which are significantly older. This isn't anything specific to the English Wikipedia, so none of our noticeboards are the right venue. You could email the mailing list that has a team of volunteers that look over technical matters relating to MediaWiki software and interface - this team can be reached at mediawiki-llists.wikimedia.org. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed this is the wrong venue, but the fact that patches are as usual not getting reviewed in a timely fashion is ridiculous. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Patches are primarily deployed by volunteer developers not "the WMF". It might be more accurate to say that patches are auto-deployed by the weekly train for most repos. And a combination of volunteers and wmf do both the patch writing and the patch approvals. What's needed here is a patch approval (+2). Which can be a lot of brain power, because it involves wrapping your head around the ticket and the code, reviewing the patch code, and loading up the patch code in a localhost environment and testing it. But sadly, many repos are backlogged or do not have active maintainers or do not have any wmf team currently assigned to them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there more information on how to apply to be a maintainer? I had assumed we were blocked by WMF. I’m happy to help contribute as a maintainer if it would help. Tonymetz 💬 23:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

First, you'd need to write a bunch of patches in gerrit for the repo you want to apply for. Do you have a gerrit account yet? Then you'd also want to get the support of the existing maintainers. Seems like an existing maintainer is a little frustrated with you in the linked phab ticket, so would need to mend that. Finally, when those two things are looking good, you'd ask the community for +2 of that repo via a Phabricator ticket. Example. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:57, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

thanks for the guidance and the example that's helpful. i'll look into it. Tonymetz 💬 03:37, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Cursor keeps teleporting to the very start of the box I'm editing whenever I press shift

Is there any way to make the cursor stop teleporting to the beginning of the line or paragraph if I press shift? Shadow311 (talk) 00:47, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

did you think that was enough information for anyone to know what box you're referring to? See mw:How to report a bug. Jeremyb (talk) 01:59, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

At the same time, maybe the answers at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 208#When editing, pressing shift causes cursor to jumps to start of edit text box are helpful. – 143.208.238.228 (talk) 03:05, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Jeremyb-phone, literally the box that you type in when you press reply. Shadow311 (talk) 17:08, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

also thanks 143.208.238.228, that's what I was talking about. Shadow311 (talk) 17:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like mw:Extension:DiscussionTools is the box you're using. According to the linked thread, turning off the GoogleTrans gadget may fix the issue. Can you go ahead and try turning off the GoogleTrans gadget via Special:Preferences and report back? –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Shadow311, if you didn't have the GoogleTrans gadget enabled, then it might be phab:T316838. Please ping me if that's the case.

If you do have GoogleTrans enabled, and you need to keep it enabled, then there's a chance that you could bypass this bug, in the Reply tool and New Topic tool only (e.g., not in the visual editor, which you don't seem to be using) by going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion and turning off "Enable editing tools in source mode". You'd lose the whole toolbar, including the button to @ ping someone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Lua error

i keep getting a Lua error everytime I try to put a picture, is there a way to solve this issue? thanks Cassopeia ...talk?... 18:37, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

First posted in Wikipedia:Teahouse#Lua error. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Please always say which page or code a question is about. I guess it's about User:Penny(Cassopeia) where you used {{Portal image banner}}. Like many image-displaying templates, it takes raw file names as parameters and not image code: {{Portal image banner|Zinnia elegans with Bombus 01.JPG|...}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:24, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Process template parameter in Lua before MediaWiki does its thing

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Lua § Process template parameter in Lua before MediaWiki does its thing

 – 10:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Requesting pictorial, video or tutorial help

• Request: To provide /update pictorial, video or tutorial help on how to use Template:Citation#Quote.
  • The policy regarding these types of quotes is briefly covered at WP:FOOTQUOTE.
• Description: In the visual editor, under the 'cite' button, you first put in the basic parameters (sometimes just a URL is sufficient to get started), then scroll down the list of fields to find the one named 'Quote', which is a text box you can enter the quote into. (This is too verbose does not seem to save first time readers from confusion)
• Why needed:

as a help in verification if needed

WP:VERIFY states "..Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up. .." When we refer to academic sources many times those are not easily accessible to readers / copy editors and also who wish to verify. Specially in contentious topic area providing original quote from the source remains easier for transparency and verification and saves a lot of misunderstanding, stress and time.

When some user urged me to provide quotes from sources it took me months to understand what that user was urging about and how to do that although it is very easily accessible in visual editor.

When I also urge other editors I find they are confused what I am requesting all about.

I do have strong perception that updating related help pages with pictorial, video or tutorial help can save lot of hassle.

Idk if this is the right place to seek help in this respect, if not then please guide me where to make this request.

Bookku (talk) 13:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bookku, I think you need to read Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Cost. We are not required to make it easy to check sources.

Also, quotations are not sufficient. If an editor were willing to put false information in the article, then that editor could just as easily put false information in the quotation field of the template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for introducing me to WP:RSC and also share your concerns and part of it is certainly matter for consideration under project WP:REFCHECK. I wish to discuss these concerns further at WT:REFCHECK after couple of months since presently I am going bit busy.

I had come with above request with a perception that User interface feature is already available and it is just a matter of improving 'How to manual'. Thanks anyways. Bookku (talk) 01:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

IP Information feature issue on the English Wikipedia on iPhones

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T363118

When I click on an IP address's contributions and click on the IP information window, it shows The IP information could not be retrieved. even though it works on other wikis, such as the Simple English Wikipedia.

This issue can only affect users who use iPhones and not on computers, so is anybody who uses this beta feature experiencing this issue when using it on their iPhone (including me)? Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 03:34, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Does the tool work on the Simple English Wikipedia when on your iPhone?

It personally works for me when using my android phone. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:03, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't have an iPhone, so I cannot personally test this. The tool displays the The IP information could not be retrieved. error on any kind of "generic" error, which doesn't have a defined message. This could suggest that the request has not been getting through to the servers. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:06, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it works on simplewiki on my iPhone. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 16:08, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Smells like an API error. Are you using a browser on your phone, or the official Wikipedia iOS app? Are you still getting the error right now? Is it one IP only (please share which one if you can), or all IPs you try? –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I am using Safari, and this applies to all IP addresses. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 16:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide a screenshot so that we can see your skin, screen size, what page you're on, if you're logged in, and what IP you're trying to view? Also, does the problem go away in WP:SAFEMODE? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:33, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The screenshot is here. About the IP addresses, this do not matter since the error applies to every IP addresses' contribution pages, and for safemode, the issue still persists. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 22:47, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

 Administrator note: SS removed per WIPTIG. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:16, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Which guideline? "IP information" refers to "information obtained through this tool", so nothing covered by the guidelines is disclosed in the screenshot, no? Nardog (talk) 10:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I second this. If this violates something, we should WP:IAR here. It's just a screenshot of an error message. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:22, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Oops, too many screens open, the screenshot with the successful results would have been the problem, but that is in phab not here. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I've removed it in phab just in case. Should be all set. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:30, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I've filed phab:T363118 for you to help get dev attention. They may be able to search server logs to help see what the bad API query is. Please reply to devs if they ask you questions there since they are the most likely to be able to debug this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Codename Noreste: Are you able to edit from the same device and browser? I get the same error if I try to view the IP info when my IP is hardblocked. Perhaps this has something to do with iCloud Private Relay? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

To your question, my answer is that I edit from the Safari browser in my iPhone and I don't have iCloud+, so iCloud Private Relay is not enabled for my iPhone. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 00:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think SoY's question is if you get a block notice when you try to edit articles on this device. SoY suspects that you might be editing from a blocked IP range and wants to rule it out. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:22, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

My other answer would be no, since I'm not currently hardblocked. Codename Noreste 🤔 La Suma 00:26, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Someone else in the phab ticket was able to reproduce. Also on iphone and safari. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Edit summary search

I've been using the standard tool for edit summary search, https://sigma.toolforge.org/summary.py but unfortunately it's not working correctly. For example this search ("timesofindia.indiatimes") returns zero results, even though I made 2,344 edits (eg. Special:Diff/1220101115/1220148337). Are there other similar tools? -- GreenC 13:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

None that would have seen that edit. —Cryptic 14:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok that explains it. Thanks. -- GreenC 19:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@GreenC: You already reported the problem at User talk:Σ#Edit summary search. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Integrating one template into another

I hope I'm posting this in the right place, I'm happy to repost elsewhere if it would be better. I want to integrate template:Party name with color into template:STV Election box candidate2. This has arisen in, for example, South (European Parliament constituency), where there's a microparty called The Irish People contesting. It's a non-notable organisation, but is registered, so has an entry on Module:Political party/T. It has a disambiguation to distinguish it from various newspapers collected under The Irish People. In tables that use template:Party name with color, its shortname is invoked. See, e.g., List of political parties in the Republic of Ireland#Parties with no elected representation. However, in the election results table at South (European Parliament constituency) or 2024 Kerry County Council election#Kenmare, the disambiguation is visible, because the STV candidate template only uses the shortname if the page actually exists. I think the best solution would be to invoke Party name with color itself in template:STV Election box candidate2, but I'm not sure how best to do that without breaking the code. Thanks for any insights! Iveagh Gardens (talk) 17:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Would it solve the problem if the STV candidate template used the shortname in all cases? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:24, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I tried to do that with this edit, but ended up breaking the links in all cases. Could you see a means to include the shortname linked if there is an article, not linked if there is not? Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

This should do it. I've put that in the sandbox so you can test it before deploying if you wish — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Martin! Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I have redirected The Irish People (party) to List of political parties in the Republic of Ireland#Parties with no elected representation. The existence of the page name appears to have solved the issue for this party. I don't know what is supposed to be listed at Module:Political party/T if a party has no page. The documentation doesn't even say that the page name should be given if there is a page, but I guess so based on examples. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that does fix it, although I'm not sure the existence of a page is required. It can be useful for once-off microparties that have become defunct, as with Seniors Solidarity at 2009 Fingal County Council election, to have an entry there, without needing a page. In ten years, if The Irish People is no longer registered, it might not even warrant a redirect. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Easier way to mark an edit as minor

The minor edit button is very small and not very mobile or laptop trackpad friendly. Its too bothersome for me to actually use it. I do mark these edits as minor in the edit summary with the letter "m". Leaving "m" in the edit summary should tag the edit as a minor edit. This would encourage use of the minor edit button for minor edits and help declutter the watchlist (for those that filter minor edits from their watchlists). How easy would this be to from a technical standpoint? Schierbecker (talk) 18:33, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't help with the change you're proposing, but in case it helps, there are actually some more accessible ways to toggle the "minor edit" checkbox: you can click (or tap) its textual label as well, not just the box; or on a laptop, while writing the edit summary, you can press Tab and then Space to move to and toggle the checkbox. This works with all other checkboxes on Wikipedia too, and also in most other websites and apps. Matma Rex talk 21:10, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Then there's Alt+⇧ Shift+I. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:02, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Or you could just not use it. Using it is never required. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm rather inclined not to use edit summaries either! Just trust me, bro! Schierbecker (talk) 06:23, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Ticking the minor button is a "just trust me" move. Just trust me: it's minor, and nobody with the default watchlist settings needs to pay any attention to this... WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-17

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

• Starting this week, newcomers editing Wikipedia will be encouraged to try structured tasks. Structured tasks have been shown to improve newcomer activation and retention. [2]
• You can nominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 April. It will be on all wikis from 25 April (calendar). [3][4]

Future changes

• This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents of Special:MyPage/vector.js to Special:MyPage/vector-2022.js. There are more technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia. [5]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there a convenient functionality to merge/extend Lua arrays?

I know I could iterate over the second array and append the values at the end of the first array, but I thought "hang on, there must be a closed function/method like Python's list.extend defined somewhere"... Am I right? Alexis Coutinho (talk) ^[ping me] 20:30, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Hahahahaha Lua is not batteries included. You are perhaps looking for Module:TableTools or Module:Set. Izno (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I had checked Module:TableTools to no avail. I guess I could use the "union" functions from Module:Set, but that seems like overkill as those are not optimized for arrays. I think such simple function should be added to Module:TableTools. Ideally, it should actually be in the standard Scribuntu table library, alongside table.concat... Alexis Coutinho (talk) ^[ping me] 22:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

That's one of the functions in the Lua standard library, not added by Scribunto. Your other options besides the modules are 1) iterating over table 2 and table.inserting into table 1, or 2) doing it with indices. Izno (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I've proposed adding it to TableTools here. Alexis Coutinho (talk) ^[ping me] 00:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Anyone know why this is happening?

This isn't really a problem, per se, but I'm just curious if anyone has a similar thing going on. When I go to Template talk:Did you know (and only there; I've tried this on other talk pages of templates as well and all of the other namespaces work fine), my toolbox on the left side of my screen (I use vector legacy dark mode) turns white. I tried switching to light mode, and nothing happens. Is anyone experiencing something similar?

The image on the left is my screen in light mode, and the image on the right is my screen in dark mode. ‍Relativity ⚡️ 00:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@Relativity: It's caused by importScript('User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js') in User:Relativity/common.js. I haven't examined exactly why User:Shubinator/DYKcheck.js has this effect but it only affects users with both that script and dark mode so it's not important when the sidebar is still readable. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Thank you. Wow, I never would have guessed. ‍Relativity ⚡️ 23:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

History indexing

I got a revdel request for removal from page history of some relatively innocuous adolescent pranks from a couple of years ago. The requester is concerned that it could be found by search engines. I haven't been able to replicate it, and I seriously doubt that search engines care about history like that. In order to reassure the requester that they can quit worrying about it, can somebody clarify whether and to what extent article histories are or aren't indexed or considered by search engines? Acroterion (talk) 13:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Nearly everything that starts with /w/ is disallowed to be indexed by search engines in our robots.txt (see what is robots.txt). E.g. google site:en.wikipedia.org inurl:/w/index.php. There could be theoretically ways to circumvent this, but I haven't found any Google results for old versions and diffs. Jack who built the house (talk) 14:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Diffs and old revisions also have noindex in the HTML so Google and other compliant search engines will not index them if they come across them in other ways at Wikimedia sites. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC).

Thanks, that's what I thought. I'll reassure them, since their request really doesn't meet revdel criteria. It's the kind of silly thing I'd have done at 16 if we'd had an editable online encyclopedia. Acroterion (talk) 15:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Early access to the dark mode (mobile web, logged-in)

Hi everyone, as announced in November, the Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on dark (sometimes also called night) mode. Now, we have released the feature for logged-in users of advanced mobile mode across all wikis for testing purposes. But don't worry, the new feature is not disruptive! (See the "known limitations" section below.) It's just important for us to work together with you before we release this feature to a wider audience. Our goals for the early rollout are to:

• Show what we've built very early. The earlier you are involved, the more your voices will be reflected in the final version
• Get your help with flagging bugs, issues, and requests
• Work with technical editors to adjust various templates and gadgets to the dark mode

Go to the project page and the FAQ page to see more information about the basics of this project.

Known limitations of the initial release

• Currently, dark mode is only available on mobile, for logged-in users who have opted into advanced mode, as an opt-in feature.
• Gadgets may initially not work well with dark mode and may have to be updated.
• Our first goal is making dark mode work on articles. Special pages, talk pages, and other namespaces have not been updated to work in dark mode yet. We have temporarily disabled dark mode on some of these pages.

What we would like you to do (the broad community)

If you have questions - ask us! Also, where appropriate, consider linking to the Recommendations for dark mode compatibility on Wikimedia wikis. We would like to emphasize that the recommendations may evolve. For this reason, we are not suggesting to create your local wiki copies of recommendations. At some point, the copy could become different from the original version.

What we would like you to do (template editors, interface admins, technical editors)

When most bugs are solved, we'll be able to make the dark mode available for readers on both desktop and mobile. To make this happen, we need to work together with you on reporting and solving the problems.

1. To turn it on, use the mobile website and go to the settings part of your menu and opt into advanced mode, if you haven't already. Then, set the color to dark. (Later, we will be allowing the device preferences to set dark mode automatically).
2. Next, go to different articles and look for issues:
   • If you have noticed an issue with a template but do not know how to fix it
     1. Go to the recommendations page and find a relevant example
     2. If no relevant example is available or you're not sure of the fix, contact us
   • If you want to debug many templates in dark mode
     1. Go to https://night-mode-checker.wmcloud.org/ and identify templates that need to be fixed. The tool flags the top 100 most read articles.
     2. Go to the recommendations page and find a relevant example
     3. If no relevant example is available or you're not sure of the fix, contact us
   • If you want to identify problems beyond the top 100 articles.
     1. Install the WCAG color contrast browser extension (Chrome, Firefox) and visit some articles. Use it to identify problems
     2. Go to the recommendations page and find relevant examples
     3. If no relevant example is available or you're not sure of the fix, contact us
   • If you have a bug report for dark mode that is not related to templates
     1. Take a screenshot of what you are observing.
     2. Contact us. If possible, please write down your browser version and operating system version.

Thank you. We're looking forward to your opinions and comments! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Why is USS Triton (SSRN-586) cascade-protected?

Resolved

USS Triton (SSRN-586) is currently showing as cascade-protected, claiming that it is transcluded on the main page and various related pages. While it is linked from Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, it does not appear to be transcluded anywhere (and pages that are just linked shouldn't be cascade-protected). Is this a known bug of some sort? :Jay8g [V•T•E] 00:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Because {{USS}} -> Module:WPSHIPS utilities checks if the page it is linking to is a redirect, which registers as a transclusion. I would not call this a bug - every individual step is working as it should. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:30, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not any more, that template was unnecessary in that blurb - I've replaced it with wikitext. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:41, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Weird URLs

What causes or is the source of URLs like these? (left side of diff)

• Special:Diff/1216454912/1220485647

192 pages. Looks like a conspiracy of Google and VE but cdn.ampproject.org is involved somehow also. -- GreenC 02:21, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It indicates that Accelerated Mobile Pages are being used. MrOllie (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Google will sometimes prioritize amp links in mobile search results so I see them being passed around. At least it's easy to find the original URL. Skynxnex (talk) 02:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1220148479/1220489087 .. more garbage. 156 pages. 192+156 = 348 pages. I'll check with AWBREQ. -- GreenC 02:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Someone had been making a bot for this, but it's been a while since their last update: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval#DoggoBot 10. – 2804:F1...E7:923 (talk) 04:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

These query strings are for server-side tracking, usually they may be safely removed. I'm sure that I've seen a bot removing them. I don't think that VE can be blamed at all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:52, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

What am I missing (translcudes redlink that doesn't appear in source text)

I was fixing a few issues on Narendra Modi and noticed that under "Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page" it has Deputy Leader of the House in Lok Sabha (what links here from the target shows the same thing[6]). But I can't find any mention of it in the source text. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It's coming from the infobox for sure, even just this snippet causes that to occur:

{{Infobox officeholder
| office2             = [[Leader of the House in Lok Sabha|Leader of the House, Lok Sabha]]
| deputy2             = anything
}}

— xaosflux ^Talk 18:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah it's building the link by adding 'Deputy' to the wikilinks. If you put Test in office2 it will try to use Deputy Test. But why does it appear as transcoded? Wikilinks aren't transcoding, and I can't see why it's happening in the infobox code. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There are many layers there, it looks like this is coming from a nested template, that is then using a hack via {{Linkless exists}} to attempt to see if that page exists. In short, you can ignore it or develop an article for that title. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It's in Template:Infobox officeholder/office, probably the line which transcludes {{Linkless exists}}.--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Implications of temporary accounts and sensitive IP addresses

The blocking IP addresses essay was linked from WP:AN recently (for reasons unrelated) and it had me thinking:
How will temporary accounts affect the potential blocking of sensitive IP addresses (i.e. IPs assigned to major government organizations and also 'may be a good idea to notify the committee' IPs like major corporations or ones with technical implications like WMF/WEduF IPs)? To quote that essay, it currently says "If you block an IP address in any of the following ranges, you are required to immediately notify the Wikimedia Foundation Communications Committee."
Is the procedure here going to be that every admin is supposed to check the IP address of temporary accounts to see if it's sensitive when blocking? Or does it not matter too much?

... also, should I have made this in WP:VPP? – 2804:F1...7D:5C91 (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

These addresses are already affected by autoblocks, right? At first glance, I don't see how this would be any different. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Huh. Didn't pause to consider what was done currently with actual accounts using these IPs... right so it's one account per cookie, even if they use the exact same IP... so that means, blocking a temporary account would only affect that device (until their cache was cleared) and autoblock the IP(IPs?) used (I'm not actually sure how long autoblocks keep autoblocking IPs for, but maybe that's intentional).

Not sure if that has public relations implications, I guess not. On that note, maybe if it turns out to be a problem to have temporary accounts (that will be mandatorily/automatically created on editing) using sensitive IPs being blocked then MediaWiki:Block-autoblock-exemptionlist could be used to mitigate that - looks like a lot of WMF/etc IPs are there already. – 2804:F1...7D:5C91 (talk) 22:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I did not know that page existed. Thanks. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:29, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't either, followed the #Shared and dynamic IP addresses section, through the autoblock problem link (the 'Disabling autoblocking' section). – 2804:F1...7D:5C91 (talk) 22:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I am pretty sure you will only be able to range block temporary accounts by blocking their ranges. So you will still bump into the standard "are you blocking a sensitive range?" Izno (talk) 22:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll stop replying so much, but: The explanatory essay currently says if you block an IP in the ranges you should inform the committee, not if you block the ranges. This is mostly echoed in the actual policy WP:BP#IP address blocks.

Though as SoY said, this would already happen with an account (and only a CU with reason to check would know), so maybe this is a non-problem. – 2804:F1...7D:5C91 (talk) 22:42, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

And the explanatory essay was also written two decades ago. We can adjust as necessary. This is pretty low down on the list of "how do we deal with temporary accounts when that hits us". Izno (talk) 00:42, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Why isn't the auto-archive working on this article talk page

Someone please with more mental bandwidth than I have right now, take a look at Talk:Lucille Ball and fix it? Why isn't the bot creating and then archiving to a Page 2? (and when I try to use the archive code-thingy I have installed, Archive 1 instead of 2 comes up...) Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 22:04, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The archiving is setup to to archive anything older than 30 days, with a max archive size of 100k, and leaving at least one thread on the talk page (so it doesn't appear blank). There been nothing to archive since April 2022, and the current archive is still smaller than 100k so there's no need for a second archive yet. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah ok...I was mis-reading the "page size" stuff then - my bad. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 02:14, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

No supported authentication methods available when trying to log in to toolforge

I normally log in to toolforge using PuTTY and WinSCP, and a year or two ago I set it up (I don't remember how, except that it was a pain to do) to use a passphrase that checks a local key file on my PC. This has been working fine ever since. Today I got a message from WinSCP on connecting saying that the host key had changed (I forget the exact message). After a bit of research I trusted the host and connected successfully, using the passphrase as usual; I can see the usual directory structure for the tool I run. I then tried PuTTY and got the same message, said yes, and now the host won't let me connect. When I use the saved session I get "No supported authentication methods available" and then "Server refused our key". This surprised me because WinSCP is perfectly happy with the connection. Any help on how to get connected again would be much appreciated. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Update PuTTY to the newest version and it should be fine again. hgzh 07:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

That worked. Should have thought of that myself. Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:55, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Earlier versions of PuTTY have a security vulnerability [7]. Everybody should update to the latest version. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:19, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Do all bots not handle edit conflicts?

Diffs: <archive>, <ANI>. The bot claims it archived 5 sections, and it did do that, but it removed 6 sections (one that had just been created). The post was recreated by the author, so there's no active problem - but is that a problem that happens with bots, or just this one? Or is this just a 'once in a blue moon' event? – 2804:F14:8092:9F01:61D4:EA42:137D:5C91 (talk) 02:58, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Bots can detect edit conflicts, by setting baserevid or basetimestamp, see the API documentation. But if a bot only takes a fraction of a second between loading the base revision and making the edit, they can probably "get away" with not doing this before anyone notices a problem; what are the chances of an edit slipping in the gap? That edit was nine seconds after the previous one, so perhaps something was slowing down the bot. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:33, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I filtered the contributions of the bot a bit, for the last 50000 edits or so (I lost count, it was 5000 contribs at a time), found 4 other instances:

- 00:00, 18 April 2024: ANI, archive

- 12:00, 9 April 2024: ANI, archive

- 00:01, 4 April 2024: ANI, archive

- 17:10, 10 February 2024: [MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages], [archive]

So not that many, but it does happen. Hm. I don't know what to do with this information, but thanks for answering. – 2804:F1...7D:5C91 (talk) 04:31, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Bizarre category order

I just added William Whitehead Watts to Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of London using Wikipedia:HotCat. In the past when I have done this sort of thing the new category appears last in the list of categories at the bottom of the page. For some reason it is displaying as the first on this one. Why is this and how can I stop this unwonted and unwanted behaviour? Browser = Edge on Win 11, skin = Monobook. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 13:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

That article was already in that category before your changes. It is applied automatically by Template:GLS Presidents. The reason it is listed first is because that template is used before any of the other categories are defined — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:49, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Well that would explain why I didn't see it was in that category, nobody would expect it to be listed before the dates. Is it common for templates to do that? It strikes me as unnecessary and confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DuncanHill (talk • contribs)

WP:TEMPLATECAT says: "However, it is recommended that articles not be placed in ordinary content categories using templates in this way." But there are still many templates doing it. Some of them have a parameter for Wikipedia:Category suppression but not Template:GLS Presidents. You could use {{Suppress categories|{{GLS Presidents}}}} and manually place the category where you want it. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

DuncanHill, if you manually add the category to each of the pages transcluded by the template, the category assignment code can be removed from the template per WP:TEMPLATECAT. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I tried that and got "template loop detected". @Jonesey95: I'd happily add them to the category, but haven't the faintest idea how to remove the category assignment code from the template. Something to do with includeonly or noinclude? DuncanHill (talk) 15:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill just remove the part of the code that has the category, don't add additional parts to the template. Gonnym (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Gonnym: so remove all of <includeonly>{{main other|[[Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of London]]}}</includeonly><noinclude> [[Category:Presidents of the Geological Society of London| ]] </noinclude>? DuncanHill (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

yes if you want to also remove the template itself from that category. If you want to keep the template in the category leave the noinclude section. Gonnym (talk) 15:26, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 16:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

{{Suppress categories|{{GLS Presidents}}}} is code which can be placed in an article using a template which automatically adds categories. Then the template wouldn't have to be edited, but the code would be needed in all articles where the category is unwanted. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:12, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Search suggestions seem to be missing obvious choices

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T363516

Earlier today, I went to look up the article on Sonia Sotomayor, a current justice of the US Supreme Court. But to my surprise, as I started typing her name into the search bar, the search algorithm didn't seem to recognize her as a possible destination. By the time I had "Sonia So" typed in, the first suggestion was Sonia Soto (a two-sentence stub about a translator), followed by imperfect matches for the search term; once I'd typed in "Sonia Soto", it only suggested the translator; I didn't get pointed toward Sotomayor's article until I'd typed in her entire name. My first assumption was that the article title had a diacritic or something that would cause Sonia Sotomayor to be a redirect rather than the article title, but that turned out not to be the case.

I was curious whether this was a more widespread problem, so next I searched for Antonin Scalia, and had similar issues (when I typed "Antonin Sca", the first suggestion was Antonio Scarfoglio). Trying again, I searched for Joe Biden; when I typed "Joe Bi", the first suggestion was instead Joe Biden Supreme Court candidates. At this point, my suspicion was that the search algorithm was choosing to suppress the articles of political BLPs specifically - but then I found two counterexamples soon afterward. Bill Clinton showed up successfully as the first suggestion for "Bill C", whereas Reese Witherspoon was nowhere to be found when I typed "Reese With" into the search bar. Searching some other topics shows that it's not limited to biographical articles either: I had similar problems trying to search the articles for All Eyez on Me, Chemistry, and Norway, as well as for more niche topics like alkaline noodles. The search problem isn't universal, but it's affected the majority of the titles I've checked, across various obscurity levels and topic areas.

I've tested this on the desktop site and on the app, and found the same issue occurring on both platforms. I haven't been able to identify any clear commonalities between articles that are affected by this search issue. Does anyone know what might be going on? ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Similar, Paula Vennells was raised earlier on the Help Desk. DuncanHill (talk) 15:09, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I am unable to reproduce any of the above problems. When I type the first few characters of the names of any of those people or articles, I get the expected article as one of the first two results (i.e. "chem" shows "Chemistry" as the second result). – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I am getting the same problems. Edge on Win 11, Monobook. DuncanHill (talk) 16:46, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

For reference, the hardware I've tested on includes Google Chrome on Windows 7, and the Wikipedia app on an iPhone 13 Mini (running iOS 17.4.1). I just now tested the Wikipedia mobile website (using Safari on the same iPhone) and reproduced the issue there as well. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:37, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting the same behavior both in my Firefox Wikipedia search bar and on the desktop site. Some pages, like Abbott Elementary, don't get suggested unless the full title is typed in with correct capitalization. Jak86 (talk)(contribs) 18:33, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting this problem with Duocylinder. TypoEater (talk) 18:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The bug apparently depends on the datacenter you connect to, which depends on your geographical location. Using the WikimediaDebug extension, I can reproduce the problem when connecting to eqiad, but not when connecting to codfw. I filed this as T363516. Matma Rex talk 18:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I am in the UK. I have no idea which data centre that is. DuncanHill (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I am also seeing this: Searching for David Gilmour gives me David Gilmour Blythe, David Gilmour (historian), and David Gilmour (writer) by the time I've typed "David Gilm" but not the Pink Floyd guitarist whose page is just "David Gilmour" until I've typed the entire name, and even then it gives it as "David gilmour". Doc Strange^MailboxLogbook 19:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Happens here too. Also happens with Google, Brazil, United States. All only show as suggestions when typed out in full. – 2804:F1...07:DBA8 (talk) 19:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Now 'sonia sotomay' suggests Sonia Sotomayor, but 'Sonia Sotomay' doesn't. Is that normal? – 2804:F1...07:DBA8 (talk) 21:10, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Works on the api url Matma Rex used in the report, but doesn't on rest.php, which is what my browser is trying. – 2804:F1...07:DBA8 (talk) 21:20, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I see the correct results for 'Sonia Sotomay' now, when connecting to either eqiad or codfw, and when using either rest.php or api.php. I think you might have looked when the index was in the middle of rebuilding, and rest.php may be cached more heavily. Can you try again in a private / incognito browser window? Matma Rex talk 21:25, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I only browse on incognito anyways, but I closed it and reopened it and tried it again on the link I used above, still no results

edit: It's working now... guess it was just more cache.

– 2804:F14:8092:9F01:3468:323E:5807:DBA8 (talk) 21:40, 25 April 2024 (UTC)*edited: 21:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Redlinked category on js page

The latest run of Special:WantedCategories features a nonsense Category:+, generated by the use of [[Category:+]] text in User:HovigTheEditor/common.js — but since I don't have "editing other users' js pages" privileges I can't fix it. And while I don't particularly understand what the code is there for, it might very well be there for a perfectly valid purpose, but would still have to be coded in a way that it isn't causing the js page to become directly filed in a redlinked category itself since the text is obviously not intended to actually categorize things as plus-sign per se. So could somebody with the necessary privileges look into fixing this? Bearcat (talk) 18:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:07, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Template assistance needed

If any template coding gurus here have the time or desire to assist at Template talk:GTA table#Is this table getting too wide?, it would be greatly appreciated. We have run into a minor formatting concern, and for the most part, have agreed on a new format that will solve the problem. Unfortunately, we need some technical assistance to move forward. Thank you. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 20:41, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Lua date formats

Hello everyone, does anyone know how to get Lua accepted two date format at the same time? That is. YYYY-MM-DAY and DD-MM-YYYY. I have tried my all to get them both work together at the same time in lua module Wikipedia but that's impossible for me. Only one type of date format can only work at the same time.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 06:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Accepting a date like 01-02-2020 would not be a good idea at Wikipedia where some would think January 2, 2020 while others would see 1 February 2020. Where is this needed? Johnuniq (talk) 08:09, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

alright thanks for telling me that, I'm build a new dynamic and multipurpose infobox in lua by integrating all functionality in one Template, but the current programed date format is in something like 01-02-2020 so which date format is well acceptable for Wikipedia?
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 09:43, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-DD

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:05, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

See more at MOS:DATEFORMAT. YYYY-MM-DD is the only allowed format using a number for the month. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:04, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter noted that, I have changed it, thanks for your reply.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 12:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 12:45, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Module:Date accepts a variety of dates formats, for example, 2024-04-27 or 27 April 2024 or April 27, 2024 (all allowed at Wikipedia) and only allows valid dates. Johnuniq (talk) 03:47, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Got it, Thanks very much for pointing out.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 05:00, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

seconding YYYY-MM-DD which is not only the most logical but also sorts properly and is an international standard jp×g🗯️ 19:00, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Why are we going through this again when MOS:DATE was settled years ago? We don't use all-numeric dates except in certain special situations, and even then, only CCYY-MM-DD is permitted. If you want that changing, WT:DATE is the place to do it but (i) make sure that you inform WP:VPP; (ii) be prepared for massive kickback. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah I see, well I wasn't actually aware of the standard at first I'm now familiarising with the policy.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 04:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

DOI-based unreliable/deprecated tagging error

Resolved

Please see the note I left here; there seems to be an implementation error in the tagging system for deprecated sources based on DOI. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 13:10, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Strange line breaks in external URL?

I'm seeing external link URLs have line breaks is the middle of the URL. The example shown is from Special:Permalink/1221061666#c-RoySmith-20240427164200-Hawkeye7-20240426124700. The URL is marked up as:

<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="external free" href="https://peterbondspace.com/" target="_blank">https://peterbondspace.com/</a>

and the applicable CSS according to Chrome is:

.mw-parser-output a.external.free {
    word-break: break-all;
}

Is there some (good) reason break-all is being used here, or is that just a bug in the CSS? RoySmith (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

This is apparently intentional; see phab:T327334. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

It is to avoid urls from overflowing the viewport and infoboxes etc. This only applies to direct links, with no display contents and without wikicode [] surrounding them. Because we know so little about the length and context of a link (think 140 continuous characters for a link component sometimes), we have to be a bit more forceful with their linebreaking. Normal 'external' wikicode links break on word boundaries, because in those situations people generally have been more deliberate with placement and for display names, words are generally a lot smaller. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:23, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense, thanks. RoySmith (talk) 19:04, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@RoySmith well from what you highlighted, the css style seems to be applied to the url link text and not the url itself otherwise the url won't work nor even be accessible because no gap or space are allowed in the url . The word-break:break-all; in css means that it will adjust every items in their html container once they reach the maximum width limits, thus preventing them from overflowing, as you highlighted here,<a>https://peterbondspac
e.com/ </a> this was treated as the link text and not the url itself
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 17:34, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Using Firefox 125.0.2 and Windows 10, when logged out, I see the offending wrapping in the example of the original post. This also occurs if I switch skin to legacy Vector (by inserting &useskin=vector into the URL), Cologne Blue or Modern. But if I switch skin to MonoBook (in a similar manner), I then get no wrapping. It's therefore a skin thing. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Graph:PageViews

I have an idea that would remove several thousand talk pages from Category:Pages with disabled graphs, by changing Template:Graph:PageViews to display a link to https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/. If you know how to do (what I think is) straightforward template work or otherwise have views about this, please see Template talk:Graph:PageViews#Change this to a link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Strange bug on Flag of Russia article

Is anyone else also seeing this bug on Flag of Russia? There are two major headers saying "User:CheezDeez ON TOP" that appear inside the infobox (this user is also blocked for sockpuppetry, but I don't think they have ever edited this article). I can't find anything in the wikitext that might produce this text, and the bug also doesn't show up in preview mode either. Liu1126 (talk) 13:41, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I was reverting all these edits when it was happening (in this specific case, Special:Diff/1221172528), but it seems this article didn't refresh when I undid the changes. I gave the page a null edit, and the content is fixed again now. Aidan9382 _(talk) 13:44, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it. Thanks for reverting! Liu1126 (talk) 13:48, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi! I noticed the same issue in the Haaretz article (Template:Literal translation) and the Tiger article (Template:MirrorH). I see you've already reverted the vandalistic changes to both templates, but the articles I linked don't appear to have been refreshed yet. Could you refresh them as well, or otherwise let me know how I could do that? Thanks! Wavevari (talk) 15:17, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and fixed those pages. The process is called a null edit, though purging the page normally would probably also work. Aidan9382 _(talk) 15:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the fixes and for the additional information! Wavevari (talk) 15:30, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

It’s the same for the Vagina article. Autisticeditor 20 (talk) 17:40, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

never mind Autisticeditor 20 (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Erroneous page archiving by ClueBot III

ClueBot III (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log · edit summaries) seems to be occasionally archiving pages incorrectly to Archives/_1 and ignoring the configuration on the page. Examples from various namespaces: 1, 2, 3, 4. This was reported on the ClueBot Commons talk page yesterday by @MrPersonHumanGuy: ping. Other examples can be found in the contributions log. Local Variable (talk) 13:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

The four pages have one things in common: inside the {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}}, the first part of the |archiveprefix= parameter does not begin with the name of the page that is being archived. For three of the four, this is because a page move occurred at some point in the recent past and the archiving config wasn't amended to suit; in the case of User talk:Spiderjiu it's because the archiving was set up badly. The other main archiving bot, lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), guards agains this by refusing to archive a page when the first part of the |archive= parameter does not begin with the name of the page that is being archived. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@K6ka has since updated the docs to advise editors to change the template when moving the page (I'm not overly optimistic editors will heed that warning). Local Variable (talk) 23:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

“Request Desktop Site” on IPad does not work

I would like to use Desktop mode while on my iPad (IPad Air gen 4, IpadOS 17 , safari)

Although I have “request desktop site” selected, Wikipedia redirects to Mobile (en.m.wikipedia.org)

How can I use desktop Wikipedia on iPad? Tonymetz 💬 17:22, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@Tonymetz: "request desktop site" is a feature in some mobile browsers. I don't know whether it's supposed to work with Wikipedia. The normal way to choose the desktop version of Wikipedia is the "Desktop" link at the bottom of pages in the mobile version. The link is made by MediaWiki and not the browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

In fact, the browser feature does not work. phab:T60425 is the task for it. Izno (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks I’ve subscribed. 11 years let’s keep our fingers crossed. Thanks for the tip on the desktop link I see it now. It had been cut off by my iPad keyboard bar. Tonymetz 💬 22:06, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

There are userscripts that will auto redirect you from the mobile to the desktop site, User:Þjarkur/NeverUseMobileVersion for instance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Removing gap between templates

After updating the template styling of my user page, I managed to get most things as I wanted except for a gap between the "Start tab" template and the bordered box that comprises the rest of the page. Is there a way I could put the bordered box into the template, or make an adjustment to how they are configured, to remove the gap between them? -CoolieCoolster (talk) 23:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

@CoolieCoolster i have seen your page, are you referring to the gap between the "start tab" and your userboxes section, if so then I can help you with that or can you be more specific and explain properly? You may discuss with me on my talk page if I didn't respond here on time.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 05:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I meant the thin white line that appears between the template that creates the tabs and the section that encloses the rest of the page's content. As I reused the format on the other three tabs, each one has the same white gap. -CoolieCoolster (talk) 05:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

OK the thin whit

line e u are talking abo are you referring the start tab or your userboxe table? t
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 05:29, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Above that; it splits the dark red section at the top in two.-CoolieCoolster (talk) 05:41, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Pretty not much clear, but see what I found so far.

• there is a huge gap between the start tab and your userboxes section may be making it look unsatisfying since you applied the same background color to both of them
• there is also a thin line that appears at the start tab when scrolled from either left or right. But except that I couldn't figure anything else.

Thisasia  ^(Talk) 05:54, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing the first issue you described is what it is; both halves using the same color is intentional, as ideally I'd like to find a way for the content of the page to be within the box connected directly to the tabs, but doing so while also having a border around the page seems to be a conundrum. -CoolieCoolster (talk) 06:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright I do have solution for that. If you do permit me i will edit your page directly, and after that if that's not what you described we can find further. But first of all, take a look at the top of this page, it has similar start tab as yours and the start tab isn't separated from the rest of the page unlike yours that splits, check and tell if this is actually your point.
Thisasia  ^(Talk) 07:02, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Move the closing div tag to after the table...then reduce the border width? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 07:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Someone did that for me earlier today it seems, so the issue has been resolved, but thanks for the help! -CoolieCoolster (talk) 18:52, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Curious ephemeral js error

I turned on the "display js errors" gadget a few days ago. Today I got an error something like "unhandled exception missing ) for argument list line 23". Since the gadget pop-up fades away quickly, I refreshed the page a few times to try and select and copy the error. I then took a look at the source: line 23 is (for me) }];});});</script>. After looking at this I tried again to copy the error, but it had gone. I compared the script which runs from line 6 to 23 before an after the error with an on-line diff, no apparent difference.

Anyone know why this might have happened? All the best: Rich Farmbrough 08:34, 29 April 2024 (UTC).

Help with regex statement

Hi, I need help with the following regex, which I did not write and don't understand well enough to fix. That statement is:

(?<!/)(?<!\\?url=)https?://(?:[\\w-]+\\.)*wikisophia[.]org[\\w/.\\-#?&=]*

The intent is to match all URLs such as:

http://wikisophia.org/index.php?title=Constitution_Act,_1871_(annotated)

But not archive URLs such as:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010101010101/http://wikisophia.org/index.php?title=Constitution_Act,_1871_(annotated)

https://webcitation.org/fgT654?url=http://wikisophia.org/index.php?title=Constitution_Act,_1871_(annotated)

Currently the regex is only partially matching and returning:

http://wikisophia.org/index.php?title=Constitution_Act

..anything after the "," is not matched. Same if there is a ":" or other similar characters.

Suggestions? -- GreenC 19:21, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

You need to add the relevant characters (possibly escaped?) to [\\w/.\\-#?&=]. Izno (talk) 19:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)