Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla.

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk.

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The article that won't die

There is a particular article Aaron Sanders, that appears to be stuck in a month old version according to toolserver and Bots that read the database. It was deleted on May 8, recreated and redeleted a few weeks later, and then I recreated it as a redirect, but it still shows up in searches such as this, this or Dashbot's list. It is very strange. I've asked here before, tried doing a purge, but nothing's helped. Can someone get into the toolserver database and update this file? Thanks. The-Pope (talk) 13:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I did a null edit (clicking on the edit tab, and then on the "Save page" button without making any changes). Lets see if that helps here - I know it fixes some problems.. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:10, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I've tried null edits, actual edits, purge edits, deletion, recreation but this indicates that the database last change time is updated, but the file size and categories are still as per over 2 months ago. Still not fixed. The-Pope (talk) 17:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone who has access to the deepest darkest corner of the database assist? Or are us mere mortals just going to keep trying the same thing over and over again, in a futile search for a different result from the same actions? The-Pope (talk) 04:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find somebody to take a look, with caveat: I'm not even sure who to ask about this one. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

She found me. :) I've passed it on to the Director of Operations, who hopefully will make sure it gets added to someone's queue. I'd caution you, though, that this one doesn't appear to be a critical level incident, so it may take some time... but if you'd like an update on the status, feel free to email me directly. philippewikimedia.org. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

There's a toolserver bug report (https://jira.toolserver.org/browse/TS-997) and comments on another report (https://jira.toolserver.org/browse/TS-783) which may be related. As well as Aaron Sanders, toolserver is still showing Nautical Science and RS-422 (possibly the redirect deleted for the page move) in the speedy deletion category. Peter E. James (talk) 23:37, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info and the other similar dodgy articles. I understand that it isn't a high priority issue, I just wanted to get it on someones list! The-Pope (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• just a heads up I just confirmed that this is not a WMF bug, it is in fact a toolserver bug. I will be notifying River (a TS root) about this again. Hopefully this can be fixed. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 13:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Images not refreshing

It's been a few days and the images on this page are not refreshing/purging. Any idea on how to fix it? SharkD  Talk  18:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The servers that deal with image thumbnail generation are acting up (again). Wikimedia knows where to spend its money. Killiondude (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Likely the dreaded Bugzilla:28613. It's been showing a lot lately, and all attempts to pinpoint the problem have failed so far. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Once upon a time there was a wiki with thousands of tiny little feet... SharkD  Talk  05:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Also this image that I uploaded hasn't propagated any thumbnails: [1] Craig Pemberton (talk) 16:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

If you visit that page - or anything else on Commons - right at the top you'll see the message "System notice: There is currently a problem with thumbnail generation when images are replaced/updated, a solution is being worked on." so it is a known problem; the message has been showing for a few days now. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:18, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Redrose64, I see it now. It could be more prominent and ideally visually similar other warnings or error messages on Wikipedia.Craig Pemberton (talk) 18:30, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

New Menu ↔ Tabs toggle

I need testers for a new script that will eventually replace the MenuToTabs gadget. This script lets you toggle between the Vector dropdown menu and tabs, eliminating the need to check/uncheck a setting or gadget each time. Simply clicking the arrow will switch between the menu and tabs. It works on all dropdown menu, even Twinkle, and remebers its setting per menu. Add the following to your vector.js:

importScript('User:Edokter/MenuTabsToggle.js');

Make sure to disable the MenuToTabs gadget before using this script. Any and all comments welcome! — Edokter (talk) — 11:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you meant to say that it should go in , so I've edited your message above. Revert me if I'm wrong, of course! —DoRD (talk) 16:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

You're absolutely right! — Edokter (talk) — 16:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• It does not work for the "page and user" menu gadget (User:Haza-w/Drop-down menus) which doesn't use a standard menu setup (and probably needs a rewrite to be more compatible with Vector).
• The easy-block script (User:Animum/easyblock.js) I use also appears to be incompatible with your script. Its entire menu drops down at once and covers some other tabs.

Otherwise, I like the idea and it seems to work well. —DoRD (talk) 16:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• The Toggle does not interfere with the "page and user" menu, which is good.
• Easyblock should use mw.util.addPortletLink for it's main menu item, then it should work. — Edokter (talk) — 16:52, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I need some help from a jQuery animation expert. The tabs now fade while the menu rolls up and down. But I want the tabs to slide. I'm having a very hard time pulling this off (despite jQuery's claim of easiness); every time I get the tabs to slide, the menu no longer animates or is entirely screwed up. I really could use some help. — Edokter (talk) — 13:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Article feedback

Hi folks,

This is just a headsup - the Article Feedback tool will begin gradually deploying today. The Operations team will be monitoring for site performance, but if you have any problems, you might drop into IRC and let someone know... Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

For the record:

• The IRC channel to report technical issues is #wikimedia-tech (connect)
• You can also give your feedback about the tool on mw:Talk:Article feedback

Helder 22:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to opt out of this monstrosity for me? I realize there's a vast conspiracy to make Wikipedia as slow as humanely possible, and that's fine - not a bad plan - but surely I don't have to participate if I don't want to? What's the opt-out code or button to click on this one? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 10:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

You can opt out through your preferences. Currently the bottom box on the Appearance page, it says, "Don't show the Article feedback widget on pages" --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

More detailed statistics

For some time I've been thinking about additional parameters to be displayed in Special:Statistics, particularly the number of lists and outlines, which would help to figure out the "standard" encyclopedic content (in other words, making Statistics able to distinguish between "standard" paper encyclopedia entries and list/outline pages). The total number of biographies in statistics may be also handy. Thoughts? --Brandmeister t 00:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for asking. I have wanted: number of redirects (if possible), and number of redlinks (even if an estimate) as statistics to estimate the "missing articles". The number of biographies is a great idea, but the number of lists seems too nebulous, and perhaps the count of outlines (as "Outline of France"?) should just be a category count. In general, I like the idea of adding more statistics; the page is already so large that such additions will not "overpower" the page. Meanwhile, as an off-topic issue, I wish we had a parser variable for "{{USERIMAGESIZE}}" to get the current user's default image thumbnail size number (such as "250" for 250px), because we cannot autosize unframed images without "thumb" forcing the outer frame to appear. Anyway, using category counts:

• {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Living people}}   → 1,089,761
• {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Outlines of countries}} → 263

So, it might be good to just link to a broader essay page titled "WP:Counts of major categories", which will show the major categories with counts of current articles, such as the total count of pages (above) in the BLP "Category:Living people". -Wikid77 (talk) 20:23, revised 00:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

we cannot autosize unframed images without "thumb" forcing the outer frame to appear - this is already available, just use "frameless" instead of "thumb". The only downside is that you can't caption it. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Firefox editing screen

Has something happened in the last 24 hours to the editing interface? All of a sudden, the editing screen under Firefox 4.0 is much more complex, with a WYSIWYG-style toolbar, which is not my preference. I see this style screen when I use Safari on a Mac, but I've never had it on Firefox on a PC before. What's changed, and how do I change it back? Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind, it looks like WikiEd got turned on somehow. For some reason it has been functional under Safari, but Firefox only started recognizing it today, undoubtedly a problem on my end. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I was going to ask if you had WikiEd enabled. On a side note, I'll point out that FF 4 is obsolete and will no longer be maintained (see Firefox#Release history) so you should seriously consider upgrading to FF 5. Cheers ​—DoRD (talk)​ 13:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I'll look into updating. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

List of Eminem songs

Hi, I started a list of Eminem songs here: User:OlivierBrisson/List_of_Eminem_songs. When I created the table, it said it's had a limit of lines I could use. I'll clearly need more lines than the limit it said, so I just wanted to know if it's possible to make an exception for this page, or something to give me unlimited lines?

Thanks a lot!

--OlivierBrisson (talk) 18:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't answer your technical question. You did a lot of work on this, but check out Wikipedia:YOUTUBE#Linking_to_user-submitted_video_sites, just in case! GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I have moved this thread to the bottom per WP:TPG. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:37, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I haven't heard of such a line limitation. What exactly does the message say? Does it occur when you hit "Save page"? Can the page be saved when you get the message? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• I put end-table token "|}" at the bottom of user-page "User:OlivierBrisson/List_of_Eminem_songs" and perhaps what will allow numerous more rows to be displayed within that wp:wikitable. I have no other suggesions. -Wikid77 13:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Maintenance of dead ELs

When a web domain no longer provides the desired resource, but the equivalent is hosted elsewhere, I would like to track down usage of the former on Wikipedia so that I can replace it with the latter. The specific case is http://nrekb.nationalrail.co.uk/ - is there a tool available which will list Wikipedia pages containing one or more links to that domain? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Special:LinkSearch is what you're looking for. Jenks24 (talk) 17:26, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Modifying the Article Ratings feature

I just rated Liberty, Kentucky, becoming the first user so to do. When I view the ratings, I find that there has been "1 ratings" of each type. Is there any way to modify the feature to have it read "1 rating", or is that something that requires a developer since there's no Article Ratings template? Nyttend (talk) 17:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I tried it (the message is MediaWiki:Articlefeedback-report-ratings), but apparently JS texts don't have support for our PLURAL keyword yet. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:24, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Known issue: bugzilla:29323. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:26, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Having problems implementing custom CSS

I'm trying to fix the problem of IPA text being rendered in a barely legible font by changing the font to Lucida Sans Unicode. I use the Monobook style. I run Firefox 5.0 on Windows XP SP 2. (Incidentally, this problem only occurs on my desktop computer at home. Strange.)

I first tried adding the appropriate CSS to User:Athelwulf/monobook.css and reloading one article (Quebec French phonology) to see if it worked. Nothing changed, even after purging the server cache and bypassing the browser cache. I double-checked that my CSS was right, and even tested it by trying display: none;, again with no changes even after purging and bypassing. Consulting Help:User style didn't help.

What's that one critical detail that I'm sure I'm missing? — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 22:26, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, to clarify: The problem of IPA being barely legible (not the problem with implementing custom CSS) only occurs on my computer at home, in case that's an interesting detail to anyone. — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 22:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Most probable cause is that .ipa should be all caps: .IPA. Does it work now? — Edokter (talk) — 19:05, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Not exactly. It's strange, as the page loads, I see the font correctly rendered, but as soon as the page is finished loading, the font changes back to the almost illegible font. This completely baffles me. Is there a reason it would do this? — Athelwulf ^[T]/_[C] 06:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Glacial Loading Speed

I have spent more than 10 minutes many times today waiting for a page (Watchlist, Ref Desk, this one) to download. Is there a problem bigger than just my ISP and/or computer? Anyone else having problems today? Bielle (talk) 23:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Country articles fail to load on the secure server

I have no idea what is causing this, but when using the secure server (enforced by the Firefox HTTPS-Everywhere addon), most enWP articles on countries fail to load, instead giving the following error message (this one, for example, received from https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/United_Kingdom):

Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET /wikipedia/en/wiki/United_Kingdom.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

---

Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.12wm1 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g Server at secure.wikimedia.org Port 443

I could understand if this happened on articles randomly, but I only seem to experience it on articles about countries. And it is intermitent—the other day, for example, Canada worked fine, but today it does not.

Does anyone have any idea what may have caused this, and/or how to fix it? Dendodge _T\^C 14:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm too getting the "Error reading from remote server" message. From my experience, this happens because you're trying to open a big article at the secure servers, which I believe may be slower. I don't think there's anything you can do about it. If you change to the normal servers, it may work better. HeyMid (contribs) 14:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I usually do. It just struck me as unusual. However, I'm not sure the size of the page is anything to do with it (or at least not the only factor), since ‎List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters (which Special:LongPages states is the longest article on the wiki) loads just fine. Dendodge _T\^C 15:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

This comment explains the issue: pages with a lot of templates take longer to load because the templates need to be parsed. My belief is that there is a limit regarding the rendering time (at least on the secure servers), maybe to avoid server overload, and because the secure servers probably are slower, this causes a server timeout. If you go to the edit page of Great Britain, you'll see that this article has a lot of templates to load, whereas the longest article you link to doesn't have that many templates. HeyMid (contribs) 15:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Enabling download/information bar for images

Hi all, as you may be aware, in Firefox and Chrome, all Commons images include a bar above the image with several links reading "Download, Use this file, Use this file, Email a link, Information". Per discussion at User_talk:Dcoetzee#Image_size, I want to enable this bar for images on the English Wikipedia, including En pages showing images that are actually on Commons such as File:Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg. My primary motivation for this is that I upload some very large images, up to 100 MB, and it is not useful for most users to download the full-size image (and for some, prohibitively costly), so I wish to provide Download links for reduced-resolution thumbnails. Some of these images are uploaded locally for copyright reasons, such as File:František Kupka - Katedrála - Google Art Project.jpg. I would also like to figure out what it would take to get this working in Internet Explorer (I'm a coder and can help but have no idea what this feature is called or where it's implemented). Thank you! Dcoetzee 18:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Where is this "download/information bar"? I have looked at several Commons hosted images and cannot see anything like that. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

It's default for logged out users and opt-in for logged in users. Killiondude (talk) 21:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Opt-in how? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's in user preferences, but I honestly can't find the setting. It's also not available in Internet Explorer right now, as I mentioned. Dcoetzee 19:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to appear when in the Monobook skin (at least for me) - it is replaced by a bar giving links to

File              File history                   File links            Global file usage             Metadata

which might be the reason why you don't see it, Redrose? I wasn't able to find the setting to enable/disable it either. --Kateshortforbob _talk 15:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

You are correct: the "File/File history/File links/etc." bar appears to be the equivalent of a TOC for file pages. Curiously, I need to be both viewing the file on commons and using Vector skin for the "Download/Use this file/Use this file/etc." bar to appear instead. Compare these four views of the same file: (i) en.wp, Monobook; (ii) en.wp, Vector; (iii) Commons, Monobook; (iv) Commons, Vector - the "Download/Use this file" thing only appears on the last one. I use Firefox under Windows XP, but these four links should allow comparison from any platform/browser combination. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:33, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Correct, it is only enabled on the default skin of MediaWiki Commons. Not on english wikipedia, and not on monobook. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Have just noticed: when you go to a commons image under Vector skin, the page initially displays with the Monobook-style "File/File history/etc." bar, and inside a second it changes to the "Download/Use this file/etc." bar. I suspect that is related to one of the other things that annoyed me so much about Vector and made me go back to Monobook: clicking "Edit" shows the Monobook-style edit window with toolbar, and a split second later both change their format and position, as per #Turning off the "helpful" editing bar? below. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Huggle experiment

Hi everyone. I just wanted to post a notice on-wiki about a short experiment the WMF Community Dept. is running with the cooperation of Huggle developers.

This is a project of the Summer of Research team at the WMF. The quick explanation: for a few days we’re trying an experiment where we test level 1 warning templates that are explicitly more personalized and set out to teach new editors more directly, rather than simply pointing them to policy and asking them not to do something. (We based the new content partially on the experience of people who've done lots of vandalfighting on the team, as well as the work of our researcher who is a professor of rhetoric and composition.)

In order to get a statistically significant sample size, we’re using a randomized template generator through Huggle to apply one of eight templates. All of them can be seen here, but the rundown is that set is A/B testing the standard level 1 warnings compared to three variants:

1. Instructional messages (that teach the new editor a little about the community and what to do going forward to improve their editing)
2. Personalized messages (that introduce who reverted them, why, and what they should do to improve their editing or get answers to questions)
3. All the templates with or without images (because we don't know what effect they have)

The templates are applied randomly and seamlessly through Huggle; people using the tool to revert and warn will not notice a difference at all. (We did a pre-test with an active Huggler to try them out initially.)

It’s only going to run for a few days (starting tomorrow if all goes as planned), since at full steam that’s enough Huggling for us to get a proper sample size. Then we’ll revert back to the standard Huggle templates and analyze the data to see if the people warned with the new templates were comparatively less likely to keep making mistakes and instead actually do constructive things like leave edit summaries and use the Sandbox.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the test, the templates themselves, or how to replicate it in other areas warning templates are used. If you want to try the same style of alternative warning styles in other areas outside Huggle, give a shout and the research team is happy to help. If you want to opt out for the few days of the test, you can add the following to Special:MyPage/huggle.css: warning1:{{subst:huggle/warn-1|1=$1|2=$2}}

Thanks, Steven Walling at work 00:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Should a template similar to {{z1}} be added to the warnings, so we can track how many warnings were delivered? --Σ ^talk_contribs 05:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a great suggestion. We were working on a different tracking system, but now also have:

{{z49}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 0

{{z50}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 1

{{z51}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 2

{{z52}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 3

{{z53}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 4

{{z54}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 5

{{z55}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 6

{{z56}} → {{Uw-vandal-rand1}} case 7

Thanks again Σ. :) I'll make sure that the list of users is readily available on-wiki so anyone else interested can take a look at the effect they had. Steven Walling at work 17:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

This template needs some debugging. For starters, I don't think you can nest "includeonly" tags inside "includeonly" tags; but there seem to be other problems as well. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Stu seems to have fixed the includeonly problem. If there are other specific ones, let us know. Steven Walling at work 18:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I stripped out all the interior includeonly tags and replaced them with noincludes that split up the subst functions, but that didn't work out. We did test the version of the template that had multiple nested includeonly tags, and it worked. Were there any other problems? StuGeiger (talk) 18:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I was fooled by the mess at the foot of Template:Uw-vandal-rand1. It all seems to work if you subst it. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the inner includeonly tags, but did not replace them with noinclude tags. This should work fine. —mc10 (t/c) 02:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

irrelevant Interwiki links

In the article Swietlan Kraczyna the interwiki links are for the category in which the article falls, not for the actual article itself. How were they generated? How should they be removed? DGG ( talk ) 07:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

They have been fixed with this edit. Quite simply, the category pages were transcluded instead of being linked. This is possibly as a result of misunderstanding, see this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Advanced InterWiki template

Hi. The Wikibooks has the best InterWiki horizontal template - b:Template:Associated Wikimedia. I look in the Wikipedia there is the Template:Sister project links. Is there more useful template (horizontal or vertical)? Could you please create a new template similar as the b:Template:Associated Wikimedia template? --Averaver (talk) 15:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

It's a good template for Wikibooks, but I'm not sure a template like b:Template:Associated Wikimedia would work here: it looks similar to the navboxes that are at the bottom of most articles, and this would just be clutter (versus the smaller sidebar version). EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:05, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Grammar Mistake on Rate This Page Feature

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Article Feedback Tool

 – Subsection is Wikipedia talk:Article Feedback Tool#Grammar Mistake on Rate This Page Feature Helder 16:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Narrow tabs gadget?

I've already ticked the "Gadget: Appearances" to get "+" instead of "New Section". But with the addition of the Wikilove heart (yes, I know I could choose to suppress it), at my preferred page width the "View History" is hidden on a dropdown menu. Is there an existing Gadget, or could someone write one, to reduce the width of various tabs: I'd prefer "History" or "Hist" for "View History", "Talk" for "Discussion" (I think that used to be the case?). Or lose the "Read" tab which seems redundant (yes, I know it's been discussed elsewhere, but to me it serves no useful purpose). Can anyone help, please? PamD (talk) 10:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I've just found a partial solution by ticking another gadget: "Display the drop-down menus for page actions, such as 'Move', as tabs (Vector skin)". That moves both "Move" and "View History" back into sight, at the cost of losing... "Read", which I don't need anyway. But if there's one more tab introduced (like Wikilove), this solution won't work at this page width unless I can get narrower tabs. PamD (talk) 10:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm currently working (99% finished actually) which lets you collapse each tab section seperately. It may not be exactly what you need, but in the future it may contain an option to shorten the tabs. See the MenuTabsToggle script on my user page. — Edokter (talk) — 11:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Might I suggest that you switch back to Monobook? The tabs are smaller, and there's more room for them too, because they don't get squeezed over by the search box (that being in the left margin). --Redrose64 (talk) 11:36, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

In preparation of a gadget (or other solution), here's a script to put in your vector.cssjs:

/* Compact Vector tabs */
$( document ).ready( function() {
  $( 'a', '#ca-addsection' ).text( 'Add' );
  $( 'a', '#ca-history' ).text( 'History' );
  $( 'a', '#ca-viewsource' ).text( 'Source' );
});

— Edokter (talk) — 14:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the various replies.

• Edokter's work-in-progress sounds useful - I await developments.
• Redrose64: helpful suggestion, but I think I'd rather stay with Vector as the default as it makes it easier to explain things to most other WP readers if we're using the same skin. (And I've got used to the search box in its new place, after some time!)
• I tried creating my vector.css with the code here, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect. Maybe I need other stuff in the vector.js too? But thanks for trying to help. Having found my own partial solution I'm OK for now. Thanks. PamD (talk) 18:34, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• My bad... it should indeed go in vector.js. It should work now. — Edokter (talk) — 19:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks, that's great. I've even abbreviated "History" further to "Hist". It all makes for a better editing experience than I've been having lately. Thanks. PamD (talk) 22:30, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle#friendlytabs.3F if using monobook  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Turning off the "helpful" editing bar?

Sorry to sound like a noob, but when I edit a page, at first I just have a large textbox to type in. Then, one second later, a bar appears across the top of the editbox, with stylized B and I and Link icons, etc., and at the same time the text in the textbox changes size. (I'm using Chrome, with Vector skin.) The trouble is, sometimes I've already clicked in the editing textbox and have begun typing, and when the bar appears, my textbox loses focus. I don't ever use it that bar... is there any way to turn it off? (Perhaps in my common.css or something?) Thanks, – Quadell ^(talk) 12:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

You can turn off the editing bar in Special:Preferences in the "Editing" tab - uncheck "Show edit toolbar (requires JavaScript)," and then click the "Save" button at the bottom. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 12:58, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! (It so happens that I had to uncheck the "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" checkbox as well.) That worked. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

"View history" > "History"

There are a lot of people asking for ways/scripts/gadgets to maximize the real estate used by the Vector tabs. I think a small way to help is to change the "View history" tab to simply read "History"; this is just as clear and would IMO not hurt usability in any way. — Edokter (talk) — 13:59, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

People who 'want to maximize real estate' are 0.2% of the users that do a lot of administrative work. They can use a Gadget to change this very easily. We shouldn't compromise on usability here. 'History' is a rather confusing term for most common reader, the original usability study showed. Reading and Editing are concepts they know, but 'history' is totally unfamiliar to many users as a concept, and people were afraid to 'change history' of the article for instance. 'view' invites people to click, because it is a 'readonly' action. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't buy that. "Article History" might convey more meaning than "History", but the word "View" adds little if anything to the understanding. I'm with Edokter. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tagishsimon (talk • contribs) 22:30, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said above, I wasn't seeing "View History" displayed at all when using my preferred window width (desktop-proportioned window rather than the full width of my laptop). I think a short visible name is probably much more usable than a long name hidden in a dropdown menu. PamD (talk) 22:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Tagishsimon. A friend of mine asked me to “go to the view history”. He thought it was a noun: the history of the view. Clearly the term is very confusing. It should read “article history” or “previous versions” or “previous edits” or something similarly unambiguous. — Timwi (talk) 13:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

changes view not showing changes

In Google Chrome on Mac OS X Snow Leopard when I view changes (such as here) the unchanged version is still what shows in the page below the changes panes. Is anybody else experiencing this problem? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 18:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep. Windoze XP, Firefox. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed after purging. — Edokter (talk) — 19:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Hiding empty value template rows

I made a template for another media wiki project, which I have placed here to look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MattGagnon/template

Basically, all I really need is help with making this template hide the rows that do not have any information provided in them. In other words, if I leave something blank, such as office 2, 3, 4, 5, etc..., I don't want those rows to show up. Currently, when I leave those blank, the information still shows up. I am not a professional at this, and I did find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conditional_tables but I think that the jargon and descriptions are JUST a tad over my head for me to get it working myself.

Would really appreciate some help fixing this template. I'm assuming it doesn't take much more than the insertion of a little code here and there. Help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattGagnon (talk • contribs) 00:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you use {{Infobox}}. –droll [chat] 05:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand, I'm basically asking for technical help on MAKING an infobox, and as I said this is for another media wiki project... however I have had this same need a number of times when making new templates on Wikipedia, so if anyone can help me, it will be a significant help to me in making infobox templates here, as well as there.

I'm assuming this isn't a difficult solution. I'm willing to do the grunt work of editing my template, if I could at least get some more straight forward instructions on how to create conditional rows. What I found was slightly over my head, as I said. MattGagnon (talk) 13:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Please unblock www.vbs.tv or explain why it’s blacklisted

While attempting to create a new article I was blocked from linking to my only source for the information because its domain is blacklisted. The message that informs the user about the blacklisting should also list the reason(s) for the blacklisting. Otherwise it is like saying “No, you can’t add that, because we say so. Go away.” Not very nice. Please remove the domain from the blacklist or explain why it’s on the blacklist and why this link should not be added. Thanks! — Timwi (talk) 13:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

See WP:BLACKLIST for general information. The actual blacklist is at MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and as you can see, it's quite lengthy and has no provision for explanations. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Article assessment not updating

I'm pretty sure this is not because of the Job Queue, which does not seem overloaded. Yesterday at 17:24, I reassessed John Karlen to upgrade it from a Stub class to a Start class. It still says Start class on the Talk page. However, the main page is still showing as Stub class. I'm wondering why the upgraded rating does not show on the main page. In the past, it was a job queue issue, but can't be that now. Maile66 (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Google's crawling of secure.wikimedia.org.

Searching the English Wikipedia with google for "foo" <http://www.google.com/#q=site:en.wikipedia.org+foo> gives 15 200 results, but doing the same search on the secure site <http://www.google.com/#q=site:secure.wikimedia.org+foo> gives only 1 hit. I expected the latter to give many more since it would be for all the languages, and that I'd have to include a "inurl:/en/" like: <http://www.google.com/#q=site%3Asecure.wikimedia.org%20inurl%3A%2Fen%2F%20foo>.

Turns out that <https://secure.wikimedia.org/robots.txt> requests no crawling. Anyone know why, and why there is still 1 hit (searching for anything seems to show only 1 hit). -- Jeandré, 2011-07-21t14:22z

Is it to prevent articles coming up twice: once for en.wikip and once for secure.wikim? -- Jeandré, 2011-07-21t14:22z