User talk:Bawolff

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Current | Prehistoric times to Sept 2006 | Sept 2006 to mid Feb 2007 | Feb 2007 ↔ June 2007 | June 2007 ↔ January 2009 | January 2009 ↔ April 2010 | March 2010 ↔ May 2024

I'm somewhat busy in real life, and as a result, it may take me until the weekend to respond. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Ez Review with IE6

Hi Bawolff,

Do you know of any easy way to run the peer review gadget when using IE6? Alas, that's the default browser here at work to cope with some systems that can't readily be updated to suit better browsers.

It seems that with the Vector skin I can't get the drop-down menu to let me at it. I'd be happy just to pull up a page in any namespace (MediaWiki?) and plug in the article name. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^talk 16:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I havn't done significant (read any) testing in IE6, but no reason why it should not work. Just go to whatever page you want to review, and type javascript:Bawolff.review.start() in the address bar, and hit enter (this also skips all the checks to make sure you're not reviewing an already published article, so make sure not to double publish something). Alternatively you can add the following code to your special:mypage/vector.js:

addOnloadHook(function () { if (document.getElementById(Bawolff.review_i18n.trigger_id) || Bawolff.review_i18n.trigger_func()) { addPortletLink("p-views", "javascript:Bawolff.review.start();void%200;", Bawolff.review_i18n.review_tab, "ca-peerReview-2", Bawolff.review_i18n.review_tab_tooltip); } });

cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:53, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

auto-lead generator request

Hia Bawolff, I was wondering if I could request a new feature for the lead generator? Basically, what I'd like is to have an option to use the infobox image for a lead if there's no embedded image in the corresponding article. Right now, if an article doesn't have an embedded image, then the default WN logo appears on the lead, which in my opinion looks abysmal. (does that make sense?) Earlier today, several leads had the logo after Shaka published some articles, and I had a little fight with him in IRC because I got upset that he doesn't like to add an image manually. :-( Anyways, I don't know how easy or if it's even possible do implement something like that, but thought i'd ask anyway. Cheers. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

If you give me a list of infobox (or category) -> image, its very easy. Its harder to make the script look inside the infobox to find the right image (i guess i could make a script to generate the infobox-> image list...). Currently it recognizes the following infoboxes:

Bawolff.leadGen.imgMap = { "UK" : "Flag of the United Kingdom.svg",
 "United Kingdom": "Flag of the United Kingdom.svg",
 "United States": "Flag of the United States.svg",
 "Canada": "Flag of Canada.svg",
 "Mexico": "Flag of Mexico.svg",
 "Computing": "Computer-aj aj ashton 01.svg",
 "Google": "Google logo png.png",
 "Obituary": "Wikinews tag obituary.png",
 "Science and technology infobox": "Science-symbol-2.svg",
 "Science and technology": "Science-symbol-2.svg" }

Bawolff ☺☻ 19:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, that doesn't seem to be overtly difficult, although I'd prefer that we used maps as opposed to flags ... Thanks though. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:41, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Errors

Per your request:

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: unknownerror: Unknown error: ``$1 <238:http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ABawolff%2Fmwapilib.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&scrver=5>

--ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:39, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Review gadget problem

Problem with passing Body of Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan found in Moroccan lake:

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: internal_api_error_DBQueryError: Database query error <undefined:undefined>

Benny the mascot (talk) 18:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. In big letters with an intimidating red border this time. On Double bomb blasts kill at least twelve in northern Caucasus. C628 (talk) 16:22, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Now with Make Lead. "A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: badtoken: Invalid token <undefined:undefined>" Same article. I don't think Google Chrome likes Wikinews very much. :( C628 (talk) 16:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The invalid token one is possibly the fault of my gadget, the other two are definitely the devs fault. If it continues to happen, let me know. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Same as above, on Four dead after US helicopter crashes in Afghanistan. Didn't show up on the "latest news" column on the main page, at least not initially, even after purging it. I'm sorry, I should really remember to review stuff using Opera and not bother you. Thanks, C628 (talk) 03:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. That article didn't show on the main page because EPR did't sight it; I sighted it, a bit later, after I noticed it under Newsroom#Articles improperly published. --Pi zero (talk) 04:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Make lead

"A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: TypeError: Object doesn't support this property or method <undefined:undefined>" Just after posting UK Prime Minister announces date for general election to main page, lead three, which worked fine. Message came after page reloaded. Using Internet Explorer. Cheers, C628 (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Make lead posting to wrong page [resolved]

• Hey.... when using make lead, I set it to lead 3 and when I saved it set the article to lead 1. That's a problem Irunongames•play 13:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it did. at 13:39 you used make lead to update lead 3 to Clashes leave eighteen dead in Thai capital - [1], three minutes prior, at 13:37, Rayboy also updated lead 1 to Clashes leave eighteen dead in Thai capital [2]. Thus it looked like you updated lead 1, when really you updated the third lead, and the first lead was just coincidently changed to the same article by Rayboy8. I looked through your contribs, and it does not appear that you touched lead 1 prior to writing this message, so I'm chalking this one up to coincidence. (I geuss in order for this to happen, it means make lead is a popular success :D ). Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Feedback Thought

In cases like this where it isn't going to LQT. Perhaps adding a --~~~~ sig would be in order? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. (It originally did that, then i turned it off for lqt). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia privacy policy

Hi Bawolff, I comment here on your blog post on rating system (your blog is somewhat restrictive in identifications allowed for commenters). Anyway: Nice work, rating system. I am however a bit worried by the extension publishing ip addresses of all visitors that do rating, does that comply with our privacy policy? Cheers, Erik Zachte (talk) 07:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't publish who says what, only their comments to threads. The js isn't recording anything special, it is just the same if they hit edit & save. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 08:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, agree with Shaka. A non-registered user's IP would have been revealed anyway if he had edited a page. The official WMF policy page has more info on this stuff. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Erik (/me feels honoured, important people are talking to me) - I'm not intemently familiar with our privacy policy, so I don't know for certain, but given that the extension was enabled in the first place I would assume so (for the ips that appear on special:ratinghistory ). I just made some of the front end more visually appealing, the core extension itself was written by werdna and enabled ages ago. I did add the comment box, which I have no idea if it should be considered any different from editing a page. It did not occur to me that it would be, but again I don't have intimate knowledge of the policy. I really hope it is not in violation of the policy. Bawolff ☺☻ 14:20, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Easy Peer Review Error Messagw

Bawolff,

Got the following error when reviewing this article:

"A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: TypeError: Bawolff.review.isError is not a function <521:http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-easyPeerReview.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&270z52> browser=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)"

Thanks, Calebrw (talk) 02:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that the reviewed template was added to the collaboration page of the article, but the {{publish}} template had to be added manually to the article. Calebrw (talk) 02:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Should be fixed now. Slightly too much of the point counter code got disabled after the contest ended. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The following came up as I reviewed Fourteen dead in two attacks in Somalia:

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: TypeError: Result of expression 'Bawolff.review.isError' [undefined] is not a function. <undefined:undefined> browser=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16

Benny the mascot (talk) 02:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

probably have just a cached version of script (same issue as above). try doing a hard refresh before reviewing your next article. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm still having a problem with creating the comments pages. (Check my recent reviews if you don't understand what I'm saying) How exactly does one do a hard refresh? Benny the mascot (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if i'm butting in here, but as Bawolff seems to be away, thought I'd pop in. Shift+refresh button should do it on most browsers. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm using an iPhone. ;) Any other suggestions? Benny the mascot (talk) 14:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure. You could try the following:

• Navigate to some page that is currently up for review:
• In the address bar type:

javascript:location.reload(true)

• Hit enter

Not sure if that will work, but it might. If that doesn't work, let me know, and we'll try something else. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Nope, doesn't work. I think I'll try using my PC next time, just to check whether this is just a problem with my phone. I'll keep you posted. Benny the mascot (talk) 14:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Anything like a possible now?

(OK very short paragraphs but it is basically still breaking news) SatuSuro (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Paragraphs should really be longer... Bawolff ☺☻ 02:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Overcat is a crime on other wiki's - is it allowable here? (Australia and Western Australia) SatuSuro (talk) 02:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what overcat means, but i assume you mean putting it in subcategories and the parent categories. Over here we use categories in a slightly different manner. Because we are a news site, if someone looks up category:Australia we assume they want the latest news for australia, not just the latest news for things about australia that don't fit in another category. Thus we have a more categories the merrier philosophy. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

- we have an as reliable Geosciences australia :) http://www.ga.gov.au/earthquakes/SatuSuro (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

lol. Geoscience australia is just as good. I used USGS as i knew the url off hand, and some of the sources were saying different things, so better to go to a more direct source. feel free to change it if you want. By the way, when writing the article, make sure to put the most important details near the top (injuries come before background about the tetonic stabiltity of the region) (inverted-pyramid style) Bawolff ☺☻ 03:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah well I thought for all the geographically challenged who either edit or read here or elsewhere - regional context might be on... but hey i have to get off - could you factor in http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/earthquake.pl?title=W%20of%20Kalgoorlie,%20WA.&;magnitude=5.0&;depth=0&;station=KMBL&;xy=121.429,-30.830&;date=20,04,2010&;time=00,17,09&;bg1=eqrisk_lm&;zoom=500 please ? - thanks if you can - cheers - the real world beckons SatuSuro (talk) 03:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm accoding the that source, the page is only available for 90 days, which seems kind of stupid (It also doesn't preform any validation. For example here is a magnitude 11 earthquake - [3]. if they're dynamic i'm not sure why it is not valid after 90 days). Bawolff ☺☻ 03:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

BTW - thank you very much for your considered patience with a newcomer - it is appreciated - have been registered for a very long time - but first try of sorts - thank you SatuSuro (talk) 03:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. We are all new at one point. Welcome to Wikinews. 03:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hope you dont mind - I have left a comment at the admin general page, julians talk and figure somebody might need to create a remedy for such - if one gets in unchecked - wow - every phenomenon known to 'uman kind might have a seer telling us he is here (or she depending on the contents of theirtheir breakfast I suppose) - I would suggest a remedy might be something like WP:SPAM on wp en - as it does link to a blog SatuSuro (talk) 04:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, thats fine. The main thing is that its unclear if we should moderate comment space or not except in extreme cases. This is more a case of potentially spam then anything else. I think i'll leave it for now, and let others decide. It is kind of an edge case. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

heheheh I like thatmaybe san diego slipping slowly into the pacific - on the edge literally :) SatuSuro (talk) 04:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions in regards to flagged revisions and comments

Hi, I would like to ask some questions in regards to flagged revisions. Is it correct that unregistered users will only see articles and article updates once they have passed the review process? We are just setting up a wiki for our organisation and need some good quality control. It would be great if you could let me know how it works. I find the documentation on mediawiki hard to understand...

Also, I am wondering what 'wikinews' did in order to create the 'comments' column. We would like to have an 'expert talk page'-column (only for registered users) and then a talk page-column for everyone in our wiki... I am wondering what we would need to program. Did wikinews install an extension to get this additional 'comments' column?

Thanks for your help! Juttavd (talk)

Expanding Ticker

Hi Bawolff
I've tried to expand your ticker to my wiki but I failed. I copied MediaWiki:ticker2.js, the MediaWiki:common.js and MediaWiki:common.css rows but nothing appears. I've exported similar stuff before and I kinda know the basic, but I failed on this. Do you have any ideas why it wouldn't work out? I would be very thankful for answers and advices.
-- Nintendere (talk) 19:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. To make it work, change line 36 (or somewhere around there) of you Common.js from

addLoadEvent(function () {if ((window.disable_ticker2 !== true) && (document.getElementById("singleTickerForPage") || document.getElementById('enableTickers'))) importScript("MediaWiki:ticker2.js");});

to

addOnloadHook(function () {if ((window.disable_ticker2 !== true) && (document.getElementById("singleTickerForPage") || document.getElementById('enableTickers'))) importScript("MediaWiki:ticker2.js");});

Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very, very much! It works. Thanks again for your fast help!

Nintendere (talk) 20:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Audio News Briefs file issues

I seem to be having some issues with the news brief files and naming conventions. First of all, when I go to Category:April 19, 2010 the news brief takes up the entire top of the page and everything else that is linked to that date is at the bottom (this is an issue for all dates starting on April 15). Also, there is a problem with the April 19th news brief itself. You mentioned in your comment to me a couple of days ago that we use the News briefs:Monthname day, year not News briefs:Monthname, day year. I must have just put a comma in the wrong place, but now there are 2 pages - one is News briefs:April 19, 2010 and the other is News briefs:April, 19 2010. I see there is a redirect but, well, .... I think I'm just confused because now I don't even know how to ask the question :)

If you have a few moments, if you could look at what I'm doing wrong then I'll fix it all up, but I'm just so confused now I don;t even know where to begin.

Thanks for your help

Turtlestack (talk) 16:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Javascript analysis for forensics

If I can get you some Zeus 'sploit code & logs, tonight or sometime tomorrow, how fast can you work out what its doing? -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^{alt-talk • main talk'} 12:32, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Depends on what its doing, how complicated it is, how obfuscated the code is, etc. I can certainly try. The javascript part is probably only a minor part of the virus though. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Widget bug

Bawolff, I received the following in EZPR today:

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: badtoken: Invalid token <241:http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ABawolff%2Fmwapilib.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&scrver=6> token=5a6f0e030c1c99ca553e592ae2d2e9d2+\; browser=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

The article also failed to autosight. Cheers, Tempodivalse [talk] 23:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've got the same problem too. --Diego Grez ^{let's talk} 00:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thats odd, as it says its submitting a token (but then erroring on lack of a token)... I'll look into that further. Possibly an issue with the api itself. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

So far can't reproduce. Tell me if it continues to happen. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Contest

Shouldn't the review script be fixed to add to the new article log and reflect the new point values and user cat naming? --Mikemoral♪♫ 23:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I broked it

Yeah, this showed up on Make Lead: A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: TypeError: pageText is undefined <81:http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ABawolff%2Fsanbox%2FleadGenerator.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&scrver=7> browser=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) --Patrick M (TUFKAAP) (talk) 04:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Which page were you trying to use make lead with (that error can happen when it has trouble finding a lead paragraph). Bawolff ☺☻ 13:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Use of the secure portal

Review works on the secure portal; Makelead doesn't. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

[4] was done from the secure portal, so works for me. What error are you getting? Bawolff ☺☻ 03:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Done Link was wrong, should be fixed now. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity, is there any way to stay totally within the secure site? I notice that if I click a commons or enwp link I invariably end up off the secure site, and logged out. Not particularly good. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I came across some js on Wikipedia that would automatically correct URLs. w:WP:JS I think. Mikemoral♪♫ 22:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I've imported 'pedia's js as a gadget. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Weird EPR behaviour

On this article EPR posted 2 reviews of the article. I didn't click the back button or anything, so I'm not sure why that happened. I'm using FF3.6.3 if that helps. This has happened to me before, but I've never been certain before that I hadn't accidentally clicked "back", and screwed with the script. Gopher65_talk 02:06, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

You can read all this if you want. It's all relevant, but it's a giant rambling mess, and it will probably just confuse you, so I struck it out. Gopher65_talk 02:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Whoa. Also the revisions on the "Revision XXXXXXXX of this article has been reviewed by Gopher65" part are totally screwed up now. That's odd. When I failed the article it didn't have an image. In fact, the second review listed there (the first "pass") is actually the revision that I failed. The final version that I passed is the last one reviewed, and the first one, the one that says "failed", is actually in intermediate revision that I never reviewed... Gopher65_talk 02:25, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll note that at one point I attempted to review the article, but there was an edit conflict and it didn't go through (I checked the talk page after the review failed". But, strangely, the version I tried to review actually *isn't one of the ones listed there*, and is actually the version directly before the intermediate revision that I didn't pass.Gopher65_talk 02:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

<unindent> So that was a random ramble. Here's my detailed description of the chain of events:

• 1) I fail this article. (rev 1020964)
• 2) He fixes article. (rev 1020972)
• 3) He clicks the "move article to review" button on the "tasks" template and has a very strange Javascript, browser, ISP, or other error. The article is somehow reverted to the pre-review rev 1020957. (rev 1020977)
• 4) He notices something is different, but thinks that it was just the image gone missing. He readds image. (rev 1020979)
• 6) At the same time I try and review the article, thinking I'm reviewing his fixed version. I edit conflict with his "readd image" edit.
• 7) We have a "WTF just happened" discussion on IRC and then I revert the article to his fixed version for him. (rev 1020983)
• 8) I push the "move this article to review" Javascript button on the "tasks" template. (rev 1020984)
• 9) I review the article. (rev 1020987)
• 10) I notice the extra review template, and the mixed up revision numbers on all three review templates. None of the templates have the correct revision number.
• 11) I post here.

Gopher65_talk 02:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, here's what i think happened (not sure, this is all really odd):

1. At 01:24 G628 moved the article to review using button. This worked fine.
2. Gopher65 did some copyedits
3. Gopher65 failed article at 01:34, (this worked fine)
4. C628 does some edit
5. C628 moves back to review using the button at 01:53 (this is where bad stuff starts to happen)
   • For some reason, that acts on the revision from 01:23 not 01:48.
   • This is the revision from last time C628 moved it to review
   • Thus perhaps the revision was cached
6. Gopher65 tries to review that revision, but there is an edit conflict with C628. For some reason, the peer reviewed message gets posted to talk page (shouldn't have happened probably), but article is not published, not sighted, and opinion page is not created.
7. Gopher fixes up the issue from the broken move to review, essentially reverting things
8. Gopher reviews, everything works.

So basically there were two issues:

• The move to review button got the wrong revision. (probably cache related) This is surprising, i need to look into that futher.
• Easy Peer review's edit conflict handling somewhat sucks. Its always sucks and should be fixed.

Bawolff ☺☻ 02:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

A bug to be squished

I found [bug 6092]!!!

If fixed, and my guess at the code is right (haven't looked, see timestamp), You could use {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP:{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Lead n}} in your date arithmetic, and either drop the number of leads parameter for a 'degrading' portal, or just have it as a maximum value.

Ideally, and it may already be possible, you can do a check if the page exists as well.

Oh, and looking at your code - that is what's wrong with it; the leads are embedded within the portal page itself. If someone just changes one, when three were previously auto-suppressed, then they'll all reappear.

Late here, you try and make sense of which magic words need hacked, I look at your code again, my over-cluttered brain thinks back to assembly, using macros, and avoiding the crud that came with imposing C, Java, and C++ syntaxes everywhere. Same as HTML was supposedly not readable enough, wikimarkup was born, and we're futzing with templates like mine. :S

P.S. Not hacked below the leads, yet... -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^{alt-talk • main talk'} 02:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} is the current time right now (subject to caching). I think you're thinking of {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}. The fix for that bug was reverted by tim with the comment "Reverted r49575, {{revisionid:...}} due to unresolved CR comments and the general cache-breaking insanity of the concept.". The bug if fixed would probably help with this, however even if fixed today, it would take a while to become live on Wikinews (and in all probability, it will not be fixed for a little bit), thus we probably should not hold out for it. I put all the lead templates directly in the template call because it can detect when edited. I figure that if anyone edits the portal, they can remove the old leads. There's also the issue of where we put the lead template subpages - in the category namespace seems wrong, but putting it in a different namespace from the category also seems wrong. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

p.s. You can check for page existence using {{#ifexist:some page|exists|does not}}. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Right. So, ...

1. All Portal templates constrained to a maximum of one lead (I don't trust people not to bollox a multi-lead template.
2. I see if I can log into bugzilla from work, read that stupid bug-reversion, and clarify what I posted at OMGam.
3. We need a MakeLead for the Portal template, but let me work on mine. I'll save my now-functional 1..5 lead code.

I will properly document the templates I've been creating, and then we can talk about what we need to do to put this everywhere. I, personally, and if the bot can be hacked together quickly enough, would favour the whole lot being changed to redirects to categories - but only if a few people are committed to taking the next step to getting professional portals set up. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

If we can make WN:ML work for portals (a definite future goal, but not something happening this very instant), the concern of people messing around with multi-lead portals where one of these leads is super-old could be mitigated by WN:ML checking how old the leads are, and removing old ones. I don't think the bot would take too much effort to hack up. I definitly agree that are portals have looked way too unprofessional for far too long. I like the idea of them fitting in stylistically with the main page. Bawolff ☺☻ 10:18, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

<edit conflict due to me having to evacuate in fire alarm drill> I was just trying to add an afterthought that a portal-specific makelead could fix the problem. I'm going to keep working on my look-n-feel solution, but a single-lead version should be "mostly hackable" from that right now. For the full-blown thing, I've got the conditional inclusion of 1..5 leads working fine. Now I'm on to tweaking out some of the other bits 'n' pieces.

A passing query would be, is there any way to put the date of an article in the DPL in really small text, and a condensed format? Eg [YYYY-MM-DD].? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

yeah, its slightly hackish though, and must be done in the external css. Basically put the dpl in some div with a specific class name, and then do div.yourclass li {font-size:smaller;whaterever else} div.yourclass li a{ font-size: normal} . Bawolff ☺☻ 11:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Is that havkery that'd shrink [date] and leave the following, linked, article title? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, basic idea is select all the list items that make up a dpl, shrink them, then unshrink anything in a link, leaving just the date shrunk. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:24, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Moar Wikicode questionzzzz

Can you look at Template:NewPortal/Header. How do I make the "graphic" parameter work and put a flag over the top of the existing graphic? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Define over-top. Like where the wikinews logo background is currently? In the middle like in the new years version [5]? Bawolff ☺☻ 22:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Er, perhaps I should've used the word "overlaid". That is, in-line like the text and on top of the background graphic that's in the template.

Oh, and I borked the table code around the damn thing.

The next thing I want to do, and have two days off to hack about with (dependent on getting a doc's appointment for some strong painkillers), is to develop DPL-based content templates to replace where we've most popular, original, &c. That, for a geographic portal, would be the main Politics & conflicts, Health, Crime and law, &c. topical areas as seen on the current Africa portal.

Like all programming languages, the issue with wiki markup using heavy parserfunction stuff is practice. As you'll see in the current version, I am managing to get a lot of the complexity moved down a level or two. I've yet to be brave enough to suss out {{tasks}} and re-use that wackiness to have Portal:United Kingdom drill-down into regions; however, you can probably see where I'd like to go with that.

Lastly, 1. where's/what's the ticket code? 2. We can do most-popular in categories, right? The latter is much further down the priority list, but a full portal-system implementation should be able to include "most popular in Europe/North America/...". -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^{alt-talk • main talk} 00:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

yeah, wiki-table syntax is less than ideal. Personally i prefer html tables to it. parser functions in general have the problem of no variables. In ordinary programming if you have some complicated thing you do var complicatedThing = blah(); in wikisyntax you can't do that which reduced readability. The whitespace being significant (sometimes) also doesn't help readability. {{tasks}} is actually fairly simple. just one giant switch statement. for the dpl content templates, you might want to look at {{portals suck}}, it will be similar to what you want to do. I'll have a look at the graphic. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Also, ticker code is at {{ticker}}. It can take any wiki list as a ticker. {{Popular articles}} could concievably be made per-category, would require coding though (not that much though), also has larger issue that some categories simply will not have any popular articles at a given time. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs! :P

If wikisyntax was Turing-Complete, you could wreak havoc with poor coding.

P.S. Thanks for the pointers! I'll likely pick up more, and bug you once I've had some sleep. Must also devote some time to watching "Going Postal". -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^{alt-talk • main talk} 03:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

P.P.S. I can't figure out why the DPL is partway down displayed lead 1 on Portal:Scotland. What it should now be compared to is the actual main page; I have started moving the more complex, and extablished, coding into subpages. So, it should just be getting the formatting tweaked. Is that solved by saying ShakataGaNai three times? :P -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /^{alt-talk • main talk} 03:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

lol, all things are solved by invoking shakataGaNai's name. I hate to disappoint you, but supposedly wiki-syntax is turring complete (even before tim added parser functions. something to with the fact you can use a parameter to specify the name of another template to be transcluded can be exploited to make an if statement or something). The dpl is in the middle as tables default to a vertical-alignment of middle. to make it go to the top you have to apply the css vertical-align: top to the table cell containing the dpl. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

ok, I looked at the graphic problem. I removed the float (the left value in the image syntax). I also made the link a local one, so as to work on the secure server. You may want to fiddle with the size and vertical-alignment of the image (however baseline (Default) seemed to be the best vertical alignment in my testing). Bawolff ☺☻ 06:36, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Shaka would've trouted me... MediaWiki:Common.css/Portal:Scotland was missing. Can I do Portal:* for the CSS? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

At that point we put it in the main css. (you can do by namespace in the main css, but really its not the best idea. people don't like it when things behave differently on different page. Its better to use the subpage thing for specific testing, and then when ready for prime time, but it into mediawiki:Common.css. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• It is looking quite promising for me having this 95% finished in my couple of days off. I could really do with getting a 'private' chat with you and Shaka in IRC to nail down specifications for tools to maintain portals and have stale leads "degrade" elegantly.

At the moment, I'm abusing Portal:Scotland - so far, so good. That's geographic, and on that front I'd want to be able to have Portal:Europe have drill-down into individual country portals. On a topical side, I'll likely abuse Portal:Health, or Education, and have that drill-down into 'continent' portals.

This is going to be quite, quite, complex, but,... gotta keep ahead of the bot on my edit count. ;-) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:32, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

lol. Bawolff ☺☻ 14:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Additional comments tab

Hi Bawolff,

I have a question in regards to setting up the additional 'comments' tab.

You suggested to try the extensions 'CommentPages' or perform a js-hack. It seems that we couldn't get the commentary-extension to work, so I am wondering if you are happy to send me the code and instructions for the js-hack?

A bit more details about what we need:

First of all, we only want to have this additional 'Comment'tab in one of our customised namespaces. The namespace is called 'guidelines'. Everyone has 'read' access to articles and discussion, but only certain groups have editing permissions for articles in that namespace and the respective 'talk'-column... We are using 'Lockdown to restrict those permissions.

So is it possible to set up this additional 'comment'-tab in the 'guideline' namespace only and give everyone access to post comments there? However, they only have reading access for the articles and discussion of the 'guidelines'-namespace?

Not sure if you get what I mean, but let me know if anything comes to mind.

Hi. So you want to give people the ability to post comments to a certain namespace, but not the ability to read the comments that they post? I'm not sure if you can grant edit privs without read privs, but if you can make lockdown do that, then you should be able to make it work. It would probably work much better if people were allowed to both read and edit the comments namespace, as mediawiki really wasn't designed for allowing editing without reading. For the javascript code, do something like (you may have to make sure i got the plural right on the namespace names):

The following js in mediawiki:common.js

addOnloadHook(function () {
 if (wgCanonicalNamespace === "Guidelines" || wgCanonicalNamespace === "Guidelines_talk") {
  addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?action=edit&section=new&title=' + 'Comments:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'New comment', 'ca-comments-tab', 'Post a new comment on this guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 }
 if (wgCanonicalNamespace === 'Comments') {
 addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?title=' + 'Guidelines:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'Guideline', 'ca-guideline-tab', 'View guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?title=' + 'Guidelines_talk:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'Talk', 'ca-guideline-talk-tab', 'View guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 }
});

The following css in Mediawiki:Common.css

/* replace the 100 after the body.ns- with whatever namespace number you use for the public_comments: namespace */
body.ns-100 #ca-talk {display: none}

Note the above code won't make redlinks for non-exisitant pages, for your use i don't think thats important. Also this assumes the skin is Monobook. some other skins won't work as good with this code. Bawolff ☺☻ 09:06, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry, I probably wasn't too clear with my description about the user rights. Everyone should definitely be able to post and read the comments that they post in this additional comment-tab. However, they only have reading permission for the 'guidelines'-articles and default 'guidelines'-talk pages. This additional tab should basically collect 'public' comments.Juttavd (talk)

In that case it should work fine. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Just by looking at the code as a layperson, I am wondering if the suggested change in Mediawiki:Common.css would hide all talk-pages. This is definitely not what should happen. The regular 'talk column' should still appear when you are in the 'guidelines'-namespace.

Also, if we call the new namespace 'Public_comment' do I need to change everything that is 'comments' in the code you sent to 'Public_comment"?

So it would read:

addOnloadHook(function () {
 if (wgCanonicalNamespace === "Guidelines" || wgCanonicalNamespace === "Guidelines_talk") {
  addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?action=edit&section=new&title=' + 'Public_comment:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'New public comment', 'ca-public_comment-tab', 'Post a new comment on this guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 }
 if (wgCanonicalNamespace === 'Public_comment') {
 addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?title=' + 'Guidelines:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'Guideline', 'ca-guideline-tab', 'View guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 addPortletLink('p-cactions', wgServer + wgScript + '?title=' + 'Guidelines_talk:' + encodeURIComponent(wgTitle), 'Talk', 'ca-guideline-talk-tab', 'View guideline', null, document.getElementById('ca-talk'));
 }
});

Could you have a look at the modified code and send any corrections?

If we implement the code, can we jump back and forth between article, talk and public-comment-tab as seen on wikinews?

Last question: If we set up the custom namespace 'Public comment', do we still need to create 'Public_comment_talk" even though we don't want it or is this already specified in the code of the hack?

Sorry about all those questions. Thanks in advance. Juttavd (talk)

yeah, you still have to create the extra namespace. Mediawiki expects namespaces to come in pairs, and doesn't work well without the associated talk. However with this code the tab won't appear for it, and it will be mostly invisible. (for example on wikinews we have comments: and comments_talk:, but most people don't know comments_talk: exists) Bawolff ☺☻ 01:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

p.s. as a side note, we (here) also now use liquid threads for the comment namespace, it might be something you might consider looking into. (can't remember if i mentioned that previously) Bawolff ☺☻

Thanks for clarifying. So the code that you sent me includes the 'supression' of the 'comments_talk' pages? So is it ok if I change everything that reads 'comments' in the js-code to 'public comment? I think I need to learn code. Would be so much easier to understand it all...

Regarding Liquid Threads: Not sure if we can install it. I understand that you would need console access?! Unfortunately, we don't have that with our current web host, but we might be able to convince them to install it for us. I really like that extension...

yes, feel free to change the namespace names to whatever you want them to be. In the code above, the part that goes into mediawiki:Common.css is the part that suppress the links to comments_talk: page (Which no that I look at it is actually wrong..ok, fixed now, but you'll need to change the namespace number to whatever namespace you're using for the public_comments namespace). As for liquid threads - yes it requires shell access to install. This is to add tables to the database. Technically if you sql access you can do that by hand without the shell, but its a little more difficult (you have to add db prefixes to table names, and such). Bawolff ☺☻ 06:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Arabic MakeLead

Hi there, Idk if you still remember me, I asked you a while ago to work on the Arabian Make Lead. Anyways, You posted on my talk page that i need to add

importScript('user:Bawolff/leadGen.js')

on the bottom of this page Common.js, But since I can only view the source and not able to edit, what do you think i should do ? Please reply on my Arabic Wikipedia page, Thanks. --عمرو (talk) 04:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi my friend! So sorry for disturbing but as you can see, Make Lead is not working on there It just looks different than the one you have, I'm sorry but what else do i have to do to make it working well? --عمرو (talk) 20:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey :) Thanks alot its working now :) But as you mentioned before, Google translate sucks! Please whenever your not busy do the following:

In English Make Lead	In Arabic One	Should be	Note
Make Lead	التحديث يؤدي المادة	أنشئ كخبر رئيسي	button
Lead Number	التي تؤدي	مكان الخبر
Summary method	موجز الأسلوب	موجز العرض
1st sentence	1 الجملة	الجملة الأولى فقط
1st2 sentence	2 الجملة	أول جملتين
1st paragraph	الفقرة 1	أول فقرة
1st 250 letters	الأولى 250 رسائل	أول 250 حرف
1st 500 letters	الأولى 500 رسائل	أول 500 حرف
Make Lead as _#_	_#_ كما تؤدي إنقاذ عدد	أنشئ كخبر رقم _#_	Button. Number should be after the text
Refresh Preview	معاينة مجدد	حدث المعاينة	Button
Current Leads:	مقالات الرصاص	الأخبار الرئيسية الحالية	Table
Article	المادة	الخبر	Table
Position	موقف	الموقع	Table
Age	عمر	منذ	Table
And in the lead number field, Top-Left = أعلى يسار. Top-Right= أعلى يمين. Bottom-Left = أسفل يسار. Bottom-Right = أسفل يمين

Thanks a lot! Let me know if you need anything :)--عمرو (talk) 22:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

A local JS function....

Hi Bawolff,

I received something like this:

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: badtoken: Invalid token <undefined:undefined> browser=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.375.55 Safari/533.4

What's it?

Thanks,--Notnd (talk) 10:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi. That happens when using one of the javascript gadgets that edit the wiki, and it fails. Normally if this happens it happens during easy peer review, as easy peer review is rather complicated and doesn't handle errors well. However considering you are not a reviewer, it probably happened after pressing the "Change this article from developing to requiring review" button, which is quite rare (can you confirm thats one it happened?). I'll have to look into the cause further. Thank you for reporting it. Bawolff ☺☻ 10:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Pernickety EasyPeerReview suggestions

Hey there. Could I be very annoying and ask for two tweaks to the EasyPeerReview system? One is minor: could you add a space between the tick/cross and the confirmation message at the end of every (un)successful review? Secondly, is it possible to refresh the page before displaying the message: so that the final "product" is shown straight away instead of having to hit F5 to make sure that what happened was meant to happen? Regards, — μ 23:08, June 1 2010 (UTC)

Sports Prefixes

Could you please take a look at Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Sports_Prefixes. Please give your thoughts there. Calebrw (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar!

		The Guidance Barnstar
		This well deserved barnstar is awarded to Bawolff for his tirless work on IRC helping editors. Thank you so much for your continued dedication and kindness. Rum (talk) 00:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Tool not sighting

[6] this article was reviewed, and published, but the tool left the article un-sighted. Thoughts? -- Cirt (talk) 23:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, [7] this. --Pi zero (talk) 02:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Another. --Pi zero (talk) 04:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

IRC JavaScript

Would you please change that line to:

src_attr.nodeValue = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://") + "webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23some-channel&uio=MT1mYWxzZQ9a";

Liangent (talk) 03:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

for mediawiki:Irc.js? or some other script?Bawolff ☺☻ 19:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Small questioon about ticker

Sorry for disturbing you, but I just wanted to ask a question regarding the Ticker code. I've incorporated the ticker2.js onto another wiki and I was wondering on whether it's possible to remove the "Latest News (full list):" bit. I tried removing some part relating to it in the common.css before but then "nullnullnull" was displayed:". --Bigboss4 (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

You can do something like:

<div id="singleTickerForPage" class="isATicker Ticker_speed-5 Ticker_strLeft-%20 Ticker_strLinkText-%20  Ticker_strRight-%20">
*First item
*Second Item
*Third Item
</div>

which makes:

• First item
• Second Item
• Third Item

Bawolff ☺☻ 20:08, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Username change

Thank you for the username change.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:39, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions

Please adjust your recent change to Common.css to use span.mw-fr-reviewlink to hide the link but not hide whole lines in user contributions. Thanks. 99.31.118.187 (talk) 21:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC) responded on wc. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

review gadget

"A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: Error: Error: 0 <undefined:undefined> browser=Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; U; en) Presto/2.5.24 Version/10.53" My internat was having a bad night, that probably has something to do with it. On 'Bloody Sunday Inquiry' publishes report into British Army killing of activists in Northern Ireland. Cheers, C628 (talk) 02:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thats an odd error. I'm not sure how it could have an error named "0". Thanks for reporting it. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:57, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

ER Error for ya

A local JS function experienced an error on an API request. Please leave a note at User_talk:Bawolff. Details: unknownerror: Unknown error: ``231 <241:http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ABawolff%2Fmwapilib.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&scrver=7> browser=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729) Calebrw (talk) 16:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

yay! one that is not my fault. Thats an error on the mediawiki (api) side. Tell me if it happens again. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Got a new JS gadget project for you.

So I've got an idea for a new gadget for you to make, I call it "Auto-sight". A little JS that watches for every time you click "save" on an already sighted page, and sights the edit you just saved. I realize it might be tricky to implement, I can't think of how to get around the page reloading issue off hand, but then again I don't do much JS or MWAPI interaction. I also realize you're busy with other things and GSOC... but if you have an idea for how to do this / some time to do so... it would be _greatly_ appreciated. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 19:54, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

We could just ask for bugzilla:23948 reversed. ;). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not even gonna get into the stupidity of that.. Maybe a separate group? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 20:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

At the very least it would be nice if stuff not in the main namespace was auto-sighted. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:05, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Well main name space is exactly what I want to sight. Why do I need to take several extra steps to sight something where I'm simply correcting the title of a source? In general, people are always going to sight their own edits... so this entire thing is SNAFU. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:42, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

New gadget! basically just adds that review this revision checkbox but for pages already currently reviewed. The most annoying part of this no auto-sight thing is rolling back to a sighted revision does not sight (which this gadget doesn't help). Bawolff ☺☻ 21:56, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

OS done

You can haz OS. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 02:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Whee. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Dwarves vs Dwarfs

All agreed that this can go somewhere - I believe you have a collection...

<Scots_Don>	Floro had advice from invisible dwarves
<gopher65>	hehehe
<gopher65>	Ah the dwarves:)
<Scots_Don>	Dwarves! Dwarves! Dwarves! They provide sage advice when legislating from the bench.
<Dendodge>	Dwarves = Dwarfs
<Scots_Don>	Pshaw!
<Scots_Don>	Not a word I use often
<Scots_Don>	[[wikt:dwarves]]
<Wikilink2>	http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dwarves
<Dendodge>	Dwarves is the version Tolkien used
<Dendodge>	In all other contexts, one should use dwarfs
<Scots_Don>	Thank you J.R.R. Tolkien for indoctrinating me with a spelling error :P
<Dendodge>	:P

I'll point Amgine at it too, I'm sure it'll amuse. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:41, 22 June 2010 (UTC)