Misplaced Pages

Hopefully resolved through Bug 13624 -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge log

What is the world is the merge log for? It has no entries and says its for page histories that have been merged. MBisanz 04:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

svn:trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialMergeHistory.php, in essence the automatic merging (as in you don't have to delete, move and restore) of page histories. It's still experimental and as such isn't live or documented anywhere but this obscure page. MER-C 07:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm sure we'll need a policy if this goes through. And a user-right of who can merge page, and of course a page merge review O goody, more bureaucracy! Maybe even a Merge Committee MBisanz 07:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd assume it would be just for admins, and simply a shortcut for what we already do with delete/move/restore. -- Ned Scott 08:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm vaguely aware that Special:MergeHistory has been created, but it doesn't actually do anything at the moment. (It doesn't work for administrators just now, most likely it was disabled by making it not available to anyone or dev-only while they test it.) I think part of the reason that it's been created may be that there were plans somewhere (not entirely sure how advanced they are, this might just have been a bright idea that someone had several months ago and then forgot about, because this is just something vague from the back of my memory) that would mean, among other things, that the delete/move/restore method would no longer work for merging page histories. --ais523 08:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Coordinate template.

Please examine the coordinates for Naval Air Station Alameda. You will find the page has coordinates (on the top right) that are incorrectly stated. It claims that the N/S component is 122 Degrees. That is incorrect. It is also outputting a space in the link before the first number. Magnus tells me this breaks the lookup tool causing it to use 0N, 0W. Will (Talk - contribs) 14:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC-5)

 Done There was an extra "|" in the coor code. I changed it into an coord at the same time. It could've been done by using "inline,title" in the infobox coord, but that resulted in a small font title. – Leo Laursen – ☏ ⌘ 09:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

No capital letter

I moved euphoria (gaming software) to Euphoria (software). When I click the latter link the article displays as euphoria (software) - with no initial capital letter. Can someone explain why? Thanks? - X201 (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

There is spare {{lowercase|euphoria}} in the top of the page. Names cannot start with a lower case in MW, so we use the template to cheat. ffm 14:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Ah, got it. Thanks. - X201 (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

sortable dates

I have absolutely no idea where to post this, so I figure I'll start here.

With regards to sorting dates with the "wikitable sortable" table class: Would it be possible to force the "YYYY-MM-DD" format when formatting dates that are wikilinked? In particular, I'm looking at List of Registered Historic Places in Barnstable County, Massachusetts (and literally hundreds of similar historic places lists). Right now, sorting the date columns depend on your WP prefs. For example, my format is "MMMM, DD YYYY", and so it puts "April 1, 2008" before "March 31, 2008" simply because A comes before M in the alphabet. tiZom_(2¢) 15:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

{{dts}} is all you need I think --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Bots expanded to include opt out of messages

I have just expanded Template:Bots to include the capability for users to select to opt out of specific types of messages (or all available types). Bot and script owners are encouraged to implement this feature as well as all of Template:Bots features if they had not previously done so. This will eliminate users needing to know what bots are leaving them messages, and just select not to receive messages in general (at least from bots/scripts). If you have any questions or comments (or a item that should be included on the opt out list (excluding the limitations)), then let me know or post on the talk page. MECU≈talk 16:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This is just a heads up, letting those who may not know, bots are not required to follow {{bots}} or {{nobots}} so bots may or may not respond to that template. β 21:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

CSS vs coordinates

At Template talk:Coord#Display problem I found that coordinates inside infoboxes are being shown in different screen locations than those outside infoboxes. I think the CSS triggered by table styles is affecting the {{coord}} output. Can a CSS person take a look? I suspect a coordinate style might be a solution. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Infobox margin issues

I'd noticed recently an odd whitespace issue with Infoboxes. At first I thought it was, as usual, a problem with extra linebreaks in the template page. Not so. Turns out that back in February, it was suggested that the .infobox class from Common.css get a margin top because it clashed with the {{ambox}} template.

What people didn't notice is that in the absence of {{ambox}} or {{otheruses}} derivatives, this cause any text following infobox to receive extra margin at the top, creating odd spaces where there had been previously none, most notably at the top of articles, where the 0.5em combines with the 0.3em bottom margin applied to "#bodyContent h3" by the Monobook software stylesheet (in this case, the concerned layout bit is the "" text) to create almost a full line of whitespace that gets quite annoying between articles. I haven't noticed any issues with headers (use of these boxes after headers is not nearly as frequent), but it is almost certainly present there too.

I'm not sure what is the best way to deal with this. Possibly we could alter the en: Monobook.css to give #siteSub a 0.5em margin, which instead of adding to, would collapse into the Infobox margin where present, and otherwise be a 0.5em margin on other pages. Header issues could be partly dealt (depending on browsers) with by using the adjacent sibling combinator (hx + .infobox etc.). Any other ideas/opinions? Circeus (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest the following

table.ambox + table.infobox {
 margin-top: 5px;
}

explanation of syntax. I'm not sure if all browsers support it, but if they don't, it won't make things any worse then they were a couple of weeks ago. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It'd be supported for everything but IE (not sure about the beta v8). We want the extra margin in that specific case to be there for everyone, but its removal everywhere else might not be possible for everyone (my solution would leave space elsewhere than the top of article, but that space is currently present for these people anyway). Circeus (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Namespace background colors

There is a discussion taking place here regarding the background colors used in the Monobook skin per namespace. Feel free to comment there. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Older version of article when not logged in.

Hi!
When I visit the article Largest urban areas of Norway when I'm logged inn, I'm being forwarded to the latest version of 29. mar 2008 kl. 02:25.
But when I visit the same article when not logged inn, I'm being forwarded to the version of 26. mar 2008 kl. 11:14.
Why is that? I've tried it on both my laptop and desktop, so it's not just a cache problem. Any of you got the same problem? --Kjello0 22:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:PURGE the server cache. ffm 22:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Using DEFAULTSORT on Talk pages?

I can't seem to get {{DEFAULTSORT}} to work on Talk pages. I'm trying to sort the names at Category:Top-priority biography (core) articles since I enjoy using this category as a work list. The names are currently sorted using listas, which from reading Category talk:Biography articles without listas parameter, is currently broken. Anyone able to tell me why {{DEFAULTSORT}} does not work on Talk pages, or can someone show me a Talk page with the magic keyword working? (P.S. I am using the magic keyword and not the template.) Gary King (talk) 00:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Many project templates use PAGENAME in the category line itself, which overrides defaultsort, and I think some even include {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}}. A biography with only the WPBIO template should work with listas, no? Gimmetrow 00:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Adolf Hitler is sorted incorrectly at Category:Top-priority biography (core) articles even with listas. Same with Che Guevara. Gary King (talk) 01:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing here, from previous SNAFUs along these lines, but it tends to be to do with the order of templates on a page. I had a long discussion about this at Template talk:WPBiography/Archive 4#DEFAULTSORT and listas problems. I tried to provide a summary here. Hopefully this will help. Listas is not broken, just, shall we say, not fully implemented and maybe broken because of the failure to clearly delineate the way listas, DEFAULTSORT and PAGENAME interact. Carcharoth (talk) 01:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I found the problem. It was {{todo}}. If I move that above {{wpbiography}} then problem solved. Gary King (talk) 01:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And as Gimmetrow rightly surmised, that template has a {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}} bit, which (to be more precise) is a case of a secondary (further down the page) DEFAULTSORT over-riding an earlier one. I think. Carcharoth (talk) 02:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Removing items from logs

Hi. About 15 minutes ago, I performed a request for east718 to check a function he was making to prevent vandal page moves (like the GNAA ones). The resulting blocks, I can live with. I'd prefer not to have the move in the log, however: it's got a propensity for WP:BEANS. Sceptre 02:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Grab Tim or Brion from this list . MBisanz 02:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Such things are only used for severe situations. Voice-of-All 05:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

True, considering I have only a suspect inkling at what that means, and even that requires a large amount of my adminy knowledge, I don't think there is a major issue here, that won't also be a major issue the first time its used on a real vandal. MBisanz 05:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Strange error - "Replaced by addPortletLink()"

I've just started received this pop-up notice when loading pages:

Replaced by addPortletLink()

It appears four times in a row as a pop-up message in Firefox (2.0.13) before the body of the page appears. This has just started in the past few minutes - are there any changes to the software or scripts before I start disassembling my monobook code? --Ckatz_spy 04:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Omegatron used to have a function called addlink which was a wrapper for addportletlink, and this function is still used by a few user scripts. Omegatron replaced this with an alert recently. Gimmetrow 05:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

function addLink(where, url, name, id, title, key, after) {
   // addLink() accepts either an id or a DOM node, addPortletLink() only takes a node
   if (after && !after.cloneNode)
       after = document.getElementById(after);
   return addPortletLink(where, url, name, id, title, key, after);
}

You can add the above wrapper to your own monobook, before any loaded scripts, and it should work. From your monobook, it looks like the three scripts from Bobblewik and the one from user:js depend on addlink. Gimmetrow 05:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this for js or css. Well I'm stupid. CAn you just install it into my page please? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Removing Bobblewick's code resolved three of the four errors (I wasn't really using it anyway). I'll try the js script next to conform, before installing the workaround. Thanks for the quick replies. --Ckatz_spy 05:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Monobook.js. Sorry, I should have specified. Blnguyen, you added it fine, then removed it. However, you don't need it, since Omegatron's wrapper is the second-to-last load in your monobook. Just remove it; I've already fixed Dr pda's prosesize script to use addportletlink directly, so it doesn't need addlink. You'll probably have to "reload" your monobook after a change. Try shift+refresh or some other variation from WP:BYPASS. Gimmetrow 05:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just gone back to basics. Dr pda was never working for me anyway. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I found the last issue with my scripts - js's "diff.js" is fine, but the addLink call appears in AndyZ's peer review script. (That's a useful one, too...) --Ckatz_spy 05:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I saw addlink in user:js/watchlist.js. AndyZ's uses it a few times, so until someone changes it, suggest using the workaround. Gimmetrow 06:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

That addLink() is an internal function, not related to this issue; I already renamed it to avoid possible confusion in future. —AlexSm 19:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been getting this too. I just blanked my monobook.js file and purged my cache, but I'm still seeing the error message twice per page I try to load. Is there something else I need to do? — Dulcem (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. Made a null edit to my monobook, and that seems to have fixed it. — Dulcem (talk) 08:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have this problem too - message appears once per new page opened. I have added the above wrapper to my Monobook and by-passed the cache and quit and re-opened. Still there. Any help appreciated. Ben MacDui/Walk 11:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm still having it also, even after wiping out my monobook and restarting my browser. I tried making a null edit to the monobook also. Any other ideas? Ealdgyth - Talk 14:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Second restart of the browser did it, I think. Finally. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've tried all the suggestions here and still have this problem, even after multiple re-starts. — Zaui (talk) 16:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's gone, but I took everything out of my monobook except popups and had to restart my computer. — Zaui (talk) 16:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I give up. I completely cleared out my monobook, refreshed, restarted twice. I need my monobook tools back; someone pls wake me when it's over (I had six tabs open in the middle of trying to promote/archive FAC, lost it all ... <grrrrrr ... > ) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Can we create a list here of the scripts that are affected ? Then we can check which ones are fixed and which ones are not. It really is easy to fix these scripts, and personally I stand with Omegatron on this. It's about time that people started converting to addPortletLink. That mediawiki javascript code has been available for some 2 years or so now. I'm not an admin, but i will gladly help any admin to make the appropriate changes to userscripts if needed. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

addLink scripts

• User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js
• User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/dates.js
• User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/unitformatter.js
• User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/datebits.js
• User:Js/watchlist.js — not related
• User:Dr_pda/prosesize.js  Done

I think it was a bit irresponsible for Omegatron to do this edit. —AlexSm 19:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

Oops. I didn't realize people were importing scripts from my userspace.

I did a cleanup of my monobook.js last night, and I changed my personal addlink function to that alert so that I could make sure I had migrated all my own personal scripts to the built-in function. I didn't realize other people were using it. (I had copied it from User:Trilobite/Tools)

I have reverted my changes so they should work again. — Omegatron 22:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)j

I'm still getting this error message. Morphh 23:00, 04 April 2008 (UTC)

I edited my monobook.js page, then restored it... no more issues. (before doing this.. I had purged the monobook.js page but it did not correct the issue). Morphh 23:04, 04 April 2008 (UTC)

You have to bypass your browser's cache. — Omegatron 23:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit Button for the Lead Section Disappear

After I add an link for the lead section of a page, I got an edit button for the lead section on the top right corner. However, this button disappears every time I purge. How to solve this problem? --Quest for Truth (talk) 11:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know whether you can get the lead section edit link and the purge url at the same time. But you can just click the article tab (or whatever it's called in the namespace), or manually remove ?action=purge from the url. If the purged version is not displayed afterwards then reload the page. Or just click the edit link which will load the current section in the edit window even if you saw an old page. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki transclusion?

Is transclusion from, say, Wikisource or Wikiquote into Misplaced Pages possible? In my case, I've come across an article (Porphyria's Lover) which has a "Poem Text" section, despite there being a perfectly reasonable rendition of the poem already available at Wikisource. I feel that the poem has more chance of being edited and maintained at Wikisource and so think that it would make more sense to have the text in the Misplaced Pages article synchronised with that over at Wikisource. However, I have, as yet, been unable to achieve this. Could anyone help?

Alternatively, if you feel that the "Poem Text" section in the Misplaced Pages article should be deleted altogether as it goes against a Misplaced Pages policy, please say so and point out what it is that it goes against. It Is Me Here (talk) 16:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki transclusion is disabled in Misplaced Pages. See Misplaced Pages:Help desk/Archives/2007 May 12#How can I use my templates that are on en.wikipedia on en.wikinews? Apart from content problems like vandalism, it would also create technical problems and not work for some legitimate users of Misplaced Pages data. See Misplaced Pages:Lyrics and poetry. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Block not shown in user block log

Recently I blocked User:Matt09pv. However, the block doesn't show up in his and my block log, while it appears on the Ipblocklist and I get the 'already blocked' error if I try to re-block the user. Does anyone else have the same problem, or is it just on my side? Regards --Oxymoron 17:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, strange. Voice-of-All 19:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Later I saw that a page I deleted around the same time (Flalahahaaha) also has an empty deletion log (altough I'm sure I deleted it).

Maybe it's a bug related to the announced basical changes of the MediaWiki software regarding logs (which e.g. would show page protections and moves on watchlist) or the inclusion of oversight functions into the Wikimedia Corecode? But I think these MediaWiki changes aren't in effect yet. --Oxymoron 19:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You're correct, that code isn't live, per Special:Version. However, it is possible (occurs very rarely) for things to not get logged (bugzilla:12129 for patrol log, but possibly the same error occurs for other log types?) – Mike.lifeguard |  20:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Scripts

Could anyone explain to me which script from my monobook.js file had this " Replaced by addPortletLink()". warning message every time when I turned to a new page including while it's loading, I've replaced my monobook with just two scripts at the moment and it seems to be fine but wondered which one it was so I know I shouldn't re-add them. Terra 18:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

See the above thread #Strange error - "Replaced by addPortletLink()" --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, didn't realize a discussion was taking place on this section. Terra 19:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:BYPASS and it should work again. — Omegatron 23:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Changing e-mail address and unified login

So, I change and confirm the e-mail address in Special:Preferences. For the rest of the session, I can check back, and the new e-mail address will be listed. When I log out and log back in, however, the e-mail address has reverted back to the old one. This happens on other wikis with my global account, but not with an account not attached to a global account. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone know of a solution? WODUP 21:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

From what I've been told, to change your e-mail address for a unified account, you must change the e-mail address for every account that is unified, and then all new accounts will use the updated e-mail address. There's currently work being done to simplify this process a bit. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

So because I have an account on hz.wikipedia, a closed wiki with the database locked, I can't change my e-mail address right now. Is there a bugzilla bug that I can follow to know when it's fixed? WODUP 19:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Reported as bugzilla:13660. WODUP 18:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Expanded watchlist feature request

On the expanded watchlist, I want an option to hide multiple edits with "(0)" characters changed. Those are almost always vandalism reversions, and when they aren't, they rarely matter much. I already go out of my way to skip those, and I'm always upset when I accidentally click on one. Thanks! Listing Port (talk) 21:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: Related discussion on VPR - Neparis (talk) 20:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Here you go: user:js/markZeroEdits highlights (and optionally moves to bottom) zero size collapsed edits that look like reverts. Comments are welcome at the talk page. —AlexSm 23:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Accessing Commons problem

Sometimes I can't access Commons, though it's not something that affects all other users at that time necessarily. Any ideas why? And is there some workaround? Ty 01:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the fact that Wikimedia's servers are located in a few places around the world, so if one location is down for a bit, only the areas served by that server or group of servers is affected. WODUP 04:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

URGENT action required, please: browser issues with eng.WP alone

Someone appears to have introduced a bug into WP's javascript in the past day or two. Here are posts at the Apple support site (Safari section). I'll have to curtail my WP input unless it's fixed! It's a major bug.

Topic : Bizarre message box confronts me at English Misplaced Pages alone

ME: "I use the English Misplaced Pages site a lot. I've made no technical changes to my Mac or connection or settings at the site, but since this afternoon, every time I open a page there, a small message box comes up with the Safari icon: "http://en.wikipedia.org" "Replaced by addportletLink()". I have to hit the "OK" button exactly three times, and only then is the page displayed. This problem doesn't occur on any other Wikimedia site (Commons, foreign-language Wikipedias, etc). I've cleared the cache, re-installed Safari 3.1. I'd be very grateful for tips."

FIRST RESPONDENT: "I'm seeing the same message box popup for every page I navigate to on Misplaced Pages. It seems something about Safari has changed in the last week to make it behave strangely on a number of websites."

SECOND RESPONDENT: "I'm having the same issue on Windows with IE. I haven't fired up my mac (10.5.2) to see if it has the same issue."

THIRD RESPONDENT: "I'm using Firefox 3 beta 5. I have to click OK once. It just started today. No idea how to solve it, but I'd say it's a bug introduced by someone editing Misplaced Pages's javascript. I'm betting it'll be solved in a few days. As a temporary fix, you can just log out, if you're only browsing. Or, you can change your skin (in "My Preferences", click "Skin" and change to Modern, or something)."

TONY (talk) 01:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You should report this on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org. FunPika 01:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a monobook.js problem. I suggest clearing your monobook, clearing your cache, and then replacing the scripts one by one until you find the one that caused the problem; I had the same problem. Keilana| 01:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#Strange_error_-_.22Replaced_by_addPortletLink.28.29.22 Assuming it's the same thing, now that Omegatron has replaced the original code, clearing the cache in Safari should take care of it. Gimmetrow 01:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Short answer, Tony, Omegatron's change affected your Bobblewik scripts. Gimmetrow 01:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Do I have "Bobblewik" scipts? What are they? I remember something about that ages ago, but they didn't seem to work. How can I remove them? (If it's a single action, perhaps you could help this techdummy here?). TONY (talk) 01:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

All fixed after cache clear (I'd cleared cache initially with no benefit, so Omegatron's actions have done the trick). Thank to him and to Gimmetrow. TONY (talk) 01:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

BTW. You have these userscripts installed in your monobook.js page. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing this folks. Ben MacDui/Walk 08:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

For the record, this ain't my fault.  :) Other people were importing my personal scripts inside their own scripts without my knowledge. I've reverted so they should work now, but we should go around migrating scripts to the new syntax. (Might reduce page load time a little, too?) — Omegatron 20:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Crazy for caring, please tell me I'm not insane at seeing...

Please take a look at Smiley#Internet_use, in particular at the second isolated paragraph (pasted here so you know which one I mean):

The Wingdings font also includes a smiley: Smileys and emoticons are often used on Internet forums.

Looking at this in IE7, there is no space between the first two links and the word following. So I tried FireFox and same thing. Opera and same thing. But when I cut-n-paste above, spaces separating link and word!

Hey, I even updated both FireFox and Opera and retested. Is this just one of those things and I should go bay at the moon to feel better? Shenme (talk) 07:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I saw it too. I was rather confused. Then I saw the extremely malformed Wikitable on the line above it. Someone mangled the table of Unicode smileys a while ago, and what they left there didn't display on the page but apparently weirdified the next line. I've fixed it now. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Must have been the things like ';&' and ':&'. I could see where something like that accidentally copied verbatim would confuse HTML parsers? Thanks. (Though now I wonder about the sanity of the parsers....) Shenme (talk) 08:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Message box won't stay hidden

I can't get the new message box ("Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2008 are now open.") to stay hidden. I'm using Firefox, and have all cookies enabled, but though the message disappears when I click hide, it returns when I go to a different page. IE6 seems to be ok. Any suggestions? —  Tivedshambo  _(t/c) 08:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine on IE7, if that's any help. Happy‑melon 11:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Add #siteNotice { display: none } to your user CSS. MER-C 03:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

User rights

First of all, would it be possible for a dev to give me a copy, either publicly or privately, of the english Misplaced Pages's $wgGroupPermissions array? I'm currently updating Misplaced Pages:User access levels and, combined with mw:Manual:User rights#Default rights, having the raw settings should allow me to make sure I get everything right. Many thanks in advance, Happy‑melon 11:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, a few other questions about userrights on en:w:

1. Are Special:Makesysop and Special:Makebot deprecated by Special:Userrights, or are they still used by bureaucrats?
2. I believe that bigdelete is restricted to the developer group, but the developer group is deprecated and empty. Does this mean that bigdelete is actually unusable on the english wikipedia, and big deletions are carried out manually by the devs using shell/root access?
3. Which of the following permissions are explicitly revoked when the user is blocked?

   apihighlimits, block, checkuser, delete, deletedhistory, makebot, makesysop, markbotedit, oversight, renameuser, undelete, unwatchedpages, userrights

More to follow I'm sure. Happy‑melon 12:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I can answer question one. Makesysop and Makebot are still available to be used, and haven't yet been deprecated. Bureaucrats can use either one. Majorly (talk) 13:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/ <-- Look for InitialiseSettings and CommonSettings. Nobody currently has the bigdelete right, and as of yet, nobody has needed it (to my knowledge). In theory, the only action that should be allowed when a person is blocked is self-unblocking. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

From testing on my own wiki, when blocked: block, checkuser, deletedhistory, oversight, hiderevision, userrights, unwatchedpages, mergehistory, deleterevision, renameuser, apihighlimits, nuke, and siteadmin all seem to work when blocked. delete, undelete, markbotedit, review, and stablesettings do not work (Wikimedia doesn't currently use all of these, some are related to the new revision deletion system and flagged revisions) Mr.Z-man 21:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks to you both. I never realised that all the wikimedia wikis were configured from the same config files - what a mess!! Thanks for that test, Z-man - I was half tempted to block myself for ten minutes and go on a whistlestop tour of the admin tools, but I didn't really want to impinge on my block log :D. mw:Extension:Nuke has such a cool name, even if it is of questionable utility!! Happy‑melon 21:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

A mess? Have you ever tried to maintain 500 LocalSettings.php files? -- Tim Starling (talk) 06:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

pwnt. ~Kylu (u|t) 06:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

You got me :D! I was thinking more of CommonSettings.php, complete with commented-out hacks from 2005 and fragmented manual additions to various black- and white-lists. But then again, you've got much better things to do with your time than tidy a config file that only a handful of non-devs will ever see. Happy‑melon 09:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

More questions:

1. How, if at all, are the "founder" group permissions different to "steward" permissions?
2. Bureaucrats can grant both sysop and bureaucrat flags, but only stewards can revoke them, right?
3. Although the chances of it ever happening are remote, if a user was promoted to bureaucrat without first becoming an admin, would they be able to delete/block/protect, etc? My intepretation of the permissions array is not, but I'd like to be certain

Happy‑melon 10:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

1. Not different at all (except stewards on Meta can desysop on any project; local founder can only desysop on the local project they are founder on.
2. Right. This can be fiddled with though, and the norm is actually to allow bcrats to revoke (on non-WMF wikis)
3. No they wouldn't be able to. Majorly (talk) 10:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. My rewrite is complete - do take a look at Misplaced Pages:User access levels and let me know if I've made any mistakes, or if there are things that could be explained better. Happy‑melon 14:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The founder group exists because some people on this wiki wanted to give Jimmy some kind of mark of respect in the form of a group assignment, but were in conflict over which exact group that should be. I created the founder group as a compromise. The user rights are arbitrary since he generally gets what he asks for anyway. There's no such thing as a "local founder", Jimmy is a steward on meta and so can desysop people anywhere. -- Tim Starling (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think there is, since he desysopped Zscout370 locally. Majorly (talk) 21:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes he did, but you said "local founder can only desysop on the local project they are founder on", a statement which clearly does not apply to Jimmy since he can desysop anyone anywhere. Life is complicated enough without introducing such semantics. -- Tim Starling (talk) 21:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for that clarification. I did notice that the founder group was only assigned on enwiki; I was going to ask about that, but it all makes sense now. Happy‑melon 22:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Javascript included from external page

Hello, I want to get an external table editor working. When I included those lines to my monobook.js it worked fine. The thing is that I want to add some individual preferences and so I copied the code from to User:Eneas/edittable.js and changed my monobook.js. The problem is that the script doesn't work anymore with those changes. Could anybody help me please? --Eneas (talk) 12:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Try doing importScript('User:Eneas/edittable.js'); instead. The reason is that it's not raw code (User:Eneas/edittable.js is a HTML page whose contents are a JavaScript script). There's a way to get just the raw code but I've forgotten it. x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, scrap that, found it. Use this as the URL if you want to use your method: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:Eneas/edittable.js&action=raw x42bn6 Talk Mess 19:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thx --Eneas (talk) 11:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Canton of Champagne-en-Valromey

Does anybdy have any reason this article looks like it does? Editorofthewiki 14:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like something surprises you but I don't know what. Do you have a more specific question, for example involving what you see and what you were expecting to see? Maybe it's no longer relevant. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an issue involving the right line of that huge table - it's got the background color but no borders or content. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 04:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Template Infobox Canton de France wasn't complete, so it swallowed the next table. Fixed now, I think. – Leo Laursen – ☏ ⌘ 07:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, that was exactly what I was talking about. Editorofthewiki 20:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

what is that thing...

What is that thing on the top write of some articles? I wanna make one for my first article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dchs vamp (talk • contribs) 19:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

An Infobox? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

inclusion in tables

Hi, this a bit of vanity, but I've earned it, for once! I have a list of articles on my user page and have spent two days getting an article to Good Article status (my first). I want to include the GA icon, as in {{GA-Class}} in the table, but it messes up, showing the formatting as well. Any ideas how I can do this? Thanks. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Unless I misunderstand, something like this should do it: A Hard Day's Night (film) (taken to GA ) -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant. Thanks. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 04:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Popups and green Monobook

don't mix well, because cream color of (Lupin's) Popup background clashes with black background of the dark-screen Monobook. Any suggestions? (I find it useful, but can I change the color scheme?) ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 04:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes you can, using this code added to your Monobook.css, changing the hex colour values with your own:

Hope this helps.Harryboyles 05:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Will try. Thanks! ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 02:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

If you remind me later, I will add it to the script for you. Prodego 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Time of orange bar

So I went to my university computer lab one day and decided to log into wikipedia (when I should've been writing a paper). When I clicked the login screen I saw a notice bar, which was weird since it was logged out. I clicked the view messages and it was a warning to the IP of the machine for vandalism from Feb 15. This was 2 days ago. What I'm wondering is: how long does the "new messages" message stay in the system, and should it expire at sometime after the last talkpage post. Would there be any longterm performance issues with Mediawiki tracking millions of talkpage notices to be put up, when the IP or user may never log in again? MBisanz 07:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it just be the case that WP checks

• has the IP read the latest posting to its talk page
• what is the latest diff to show (not the text, just the diff numbers)

That isn't a lot of information to remember, and once stored can be saved forever. It might be more overhead to run some process to clean out 'old' information. Shenme (talk) 09:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

My thought was more that if the IP doesn't have messages, it would view a cached version of the page on the squid server. But if it has messages, it would have to regenerate teh page from the webserver. MBisanz 13:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there some way to keep Google off pages we don't want to be found easily?

A sockpuppet has just made it clear that google links to indef-blocked user talk pages. The question is, can we keep it away from the pages somehow? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If the mediawiki search tool wasn't so awful, we'd be quite happy to lock google out of everywhere but the mainspace - it can be done easily with robots.txt - but google is too useful as a search tool at the moment. Happy‑melon 14:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

See also Meta element#The robots attribute, but I don't think it's possible to use NOINDEX, NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET in Misplaced Pages. I have seen short discussions with no result about permitting exclusion of user space from search engines. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

While I understand the desire to keep some pages off of Google, I miss the days when I could search all of Misplaced Pages via google. The problem was that people were googling their names and finding their AfD(closed as a non-notable garage band) as their first google hit. It could be extended to talk pages, but I would rather it did not as it helps in tracking down things. _(1 == 2) 14:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Article talk is already excluded by Google (as the only namespace). It appears Google did it by themselves. See Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 19#Namespaces as subdomains. I don't think all userspace should be excluded but maybe there should be an option to exclude a given page by placing something there. It appears Misplaced Pages doesn't use mw:Extension:NoRobots. If that changes then maybe it should be ignored in article space. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Javascript LI menu

I've been trying to modify the Add LI Menu script, which turns navigation tabs into a drop-down menu, to make the toggle of the menus occur on click instead of on hover, but have thus far had no luck (I'm still learning JavaScript). Any attempts to root out the problem would be appreciated. Here are the scripts I'm relying on:

• User:Bob/script/addlimenu.js - a slightly modified version of the original
• User:Bob/script/portlets.js - the menu in question starts at the comment /* ======= DB MENU ======= */

I already know the menus work on hover, so there's really no need to check out the CSS. Thanks as always, — Bob • (talk) • 18:25, April 6, 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I got it working. I had incorrect syntax for adding events. — Bob • (talk) • 21:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Logged out while editing

It has happened to me a couple of times that I've been logged out while in the midst of protracted editing of an article, so my edits are saved under an IP. Is there anything I can do to prevent this (without having to think about it every time), and if not, is this something that is worth filing as a bug/enhancement? Ma_chups 01:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to use the secure server (https://secure.wikimedia.org), which may work. Try it! ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 03:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

This user script should prevent the submission of an edit if you're not logged in:

addOnloadHook(function() {
    var editform = document.getElementById('editform');
    if (!editform) return;
    editform.action += '&assert=user';
});

This uses the Assert Edit extension, currently enabled on Wikimedia wikis. It can be added to User:Matchups/monobook.js. Note that it won't work if you're logged out when you view the edit page; it only has utility if you somehow log out after opening the edit page but before submitting. If you're logged out when viewing the edit page, a message (MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning) will be displayed on the edit page (see also this wikitech-l thread). Gracenotes § 04:01, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added it, but haven't had a chance to test it yet. I was thinking of putting in &assert=false as a test that the hook was being properly triggered and all, but realized that if I did so, I might not ever be able to get it off! So I will just wait and hope it does the right thing. Ma_chups 18:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Asking for advice

(moved to Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#another_use_of_POV_tags_and_other per comment below, to discuss what policy says about using those tags. I hope this centers the debate on the actual use of the tags)

(ec) This is not the right place to raise issues like this: this page is for technical questions about wikimarkup, the MediaWiki software, personal settings, and the like. I suggest you move this thread to Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts. Happy‑melon 20:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

New editors need better help with footnotes

Take a look at United States Naval Academy history for April 7 starting at 14:46. While it's funny to read from an experienced editors point of view, it must have been quite frustrating for the newbie who was quite exasperated trying to do things "right." I'm not exactly sure what needs to be done here, but I experienced the same sort of problem myself.

I suspect something under the edit page, maybe larger than the tiny helps that are there now.

For those not wanting to spend the time, the article above has the poor newbie trying to get his footnote to be numbered "correctly" by assigning a number himself and sticking it under "references." I mean, it makes sense, though I admit that most of us figured out the area was inexplicably blank when we went there to do the same sort of thing and that was a clue something was up.... Student7 (talk) 19:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

That's why something like this, discussed here, needs to be implemented - the cite.php extension was clearly better than its predecessor, but it also clearly can be improved. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's at appropriate that new editors can add in sourcing in stupid-simple style: <ref>http://www.example.com/citedpage</ref> and let both experienced editors and bots (there's at least one that seems to be able to replace the above with a {{cite web}} at a basic level). Let's put it this way: we should strongly encourage them to drop in links and sources when they can, but formatting and the ref system they should only start to concern themselves once they are comfortable with it. Improper use of citation templates by a newbie should not be a reason to bite them. --MASEM 15:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Lord knows, we're not biting them. The system is. The sequence above was interrupted by a kindly editor who gently asked the user what exactly was he trying to footnote (not exactly obvious, though we had the "footnote number" he assigned and could probably guess a range). John Broughton's suggestions may be worth considering. BTW couldn't read the example because of poor resolution on my screen but it sounds like a great idea. Newbie needs to be told something and not left guessing and fumbling around. Masem's idea is fine too, if we could convey that to them, maybe on the "welcome to Misplaced Pages" for those who have logged in? Would also emphasize the need for reliable footnotes which many users haven't quite "got" yet. Student7 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Disappearing underscores in "C" code

Hi there; the following example (originally modified from Function pointer) illustrates a curious issue, evidently caused by iffy CSS, in which underscores on lines followed by a line extending at least to that point, disappear when wrapped in a <code lang="c"></code> tag. The following are all "M_PI" rather than "M PI":

Insert non-formatted text here

... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... shorter line

I can testify that this happens in Windows in both Firefox 2.0.0.13 and IE 7.0.5730.11 (with the default Wiki skin).

Not critical, but slightly odd and irritating! I don't know who maintains this CSS but I imagine it's a line-spacing thing or something equally banal. Carl Turner (talk) 21:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

PS: If this is in the wrong place... sorry.

That is because you're doing something very weird there. <code> is a valid whitelisted html tag, so the contents of that tag are parsed. However, every line inside is indented, which means it gets parsed as a <pre> block. However, since <pre> is a block level element and <code> is inline, tidy cleans it up to:

<pre><code lang="c" xml:lang="c">... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... shorter line</code>
</pre>

This means, the <code> block is inside the <pre> block, and <code> has a background style applied to it, which crowds up above the line above it, hiding the underline. Another way to visualize it:

... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... ... M_PI/4
... M_PI/4 ... ... M_PI/4
... shorter line

Perhaps you meant <source lang="c">? This is an XML parser hook, and the contents are not parsed by the wiki (code doesn't have a lang parameter, but source does). --Splarka (rant) 07:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Font/table style used by the image thumbnail template?

Occasionally I don't like the formatting of the image thumbnail template, especially since it is limited to only one image. I would like to create my own little collection of images using the wikitable system.

However, when I do this I cannot figure out how to make my own custom design to have the same text styling as an official image thumbnail.

For some reason using <small>foo</small> is not good enough. This does shrink the description font as you can see in my example, but it still leaves a wide ugly whitespace between each line, and I cannot figure out how to remove that gapping.

I would also like to duplicate the single-line table border and the little "enlarge image" image to the right of my text so that it looks very much like a normal single-image thumbnail.

I don't yet know how to access the image thumbnail template used by the automatic thumbnail maker.

DMahalko (talk) 08:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't use Wikitext to duplicate the appearance. But using HTML it is possible.

I made a test edit to include a single thumbnail in my userspace, and then used IE's "view source" command to view the resulting page and changed the code a little, because the HTML includes <a> and <img> elements which are not allowed in Mediawiki HTML. This is the code to replicate the look of a single-image thumbnail, using HTML wherever possible:

<div class="thumb tright">
<div class="thumbinner" style="width:122px;">]
<div class="thumbcaption">Caption</div>
</div>
</div>

Pegasus «C¦T» 11:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

See also {{double image}} and {{triple image}} --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see if I can mimic the thumbbox... (see source) Maybe I could make it into a template? — Edokter • Talk • 00:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are the servers??

Has anyone else had major problems with logged-in edits the last hour or two? I see the search engine is currently down for performance reasons. Everything is hanging and erroring out. What is happening? 154.20.153.62 (talk) 09:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been especially having trouble with Image Pages. Nimur (talk) 09:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I had some trouble editing and viewing articles not long ago. Seems alright now. - 52 Pickup (deal) 09:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A change to the log viewers introduced a performance problem which bogged down the database servers for a while. Search was temporarily switched off to reduce load. The problem has been corrected, and search has been reenabled. --brion (talk) 16:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Hide particular pages from search engines

Can I ask a stupid question that I should probably already know the answer to? Isn't there a standard or semi-standard string that you can put at the top of a page in user space that tells Google, Yahoo, etc., etc. not to index it? It would need to be a tag I could add to an individual page myself, not some meta tag thingy that is added by MediaWiki. I've got an idea that will only work if there's a way to hide individual pages from search engines; feel like this should be easy, but am computer-illiterate enough not to know how. --barneca (talk) 12:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

See the earlier section #Is there some way to keep Google off pages we don't want to be found easily?. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Lazy of me not to check the archives or the TOC; thanks for the pointer to the earlier discussion. Pardon my density, but do I correctly understand that previous discussion to mean that if Misplaced Pages used mw:Extension:NoRobots, it would be possible, but it doesn't so it isn't possible? --barneca (talk) 13:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

That is my understanding but I'm not a developer, I have limited knowledge, and I don't know whether mw:Extension:NoRobots actually works. I just found it by searching MediaWiki. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I just tried a test; the software doesn't recognize <norobots> and </norobots> as valid tags. So the extension isn't installed, it would appear. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls

(copied here from WP:AN):

In editing Portal:Trains today, I noticed a redlink for Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls at the bottom. The subpages for this portal, as far as I know, are all on my watchlist, and I don't see any edits to those pages that would have added this category; furthermore, when I go to that category page, Portal:Trains is not listed there. Has any other admin been working on one or more of the higher-level protected templates behind the portals? Slambo (Speak) 12:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears that a change was made to MediaWiki sometime yesterday or today that adds pages to this category if there are more than 100 parser function calls on a page. With the complexity of some infoboxes and succession boxes, it seems that this category will have quite a few more pages in it before the end of the day. I'm updating Portal:Trains to remove the category from that page, but I'm a bit disappointed as the parser functions there were being used to automate many of the updates to the page. Further discussion should take place on WP:VPT. Slambo (Speak) 13:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

(further discussion below)

Yes, this was added very recently. The most likely culprit is too many calls to ifexist during the parsing of the page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the variable was originally set to 500 for Wikimedia projects, but a recent change changed the name of the variable and it was apparantly not changed in Wikimedia's configuration (the default value is 100). This should be fixed soon. Mr.Z-man 16:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Been fixed. --brion (talk) 16:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Way cool, thanks! Slambo (Speak) 18:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

What counts as an "expensive" parser function? Is it currently only #ifexist: ?? Happy‑melon 19:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Its currently ifexist and the new PAGESINCATEGORY magic word. Mr.Z-man 20:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I saw this category on Special:Upload (possibly on Commons)!! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 19:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Reflist broken

References section is broken, giving a message when an article has sources, but no given references for particular statements. Londo06 13:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla entry of this problem --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the error message at MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid group so people can understand what the heck this is. --- RockMFR 16:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought, can we add a hidden category there ? Might be handy for maintenance. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This warning is a really bad idea :( It will trigger the removal of <references /> tags from articles which are currently unreferenced, which is a very bad idea. A tag which generates no content breaks nothing for the reader, but if the &ltreferences />tag is missing when there are <ref></ref> footnotes, the footnotes don't display.

If there had been a proposal to remove the <references /> tag from articles without footnotes, there would have been plenty of objections, and it's a real pity to see it being triggered by a software change. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Maybe change MediaWiki:Cite error references invalid group to link to an explanation of all this? Could someone make sure the developer who did this (regardless of who it was) is aware of these concerns? Carcharoth (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Article changes not showing up

Regardless of where I am, my change a few days ago to the ODS article shows up in the article history. But it doesn't always show up in the article itself. The mirror in question is rr.knams.wikimedia.org. DrHydeous (talk) 14:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question; are you saying that the change doesn't show in the mirror site? If so, that's an issue with whoever runs the mirror site, not Misplaced Pages; the change is certainly showing up when viewing the page directly, as I did just a moment ago. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

New log format

After some objections on IRC, I would appreciate some wider opinions, especially regarding which of these three options is best:

1. Keep the new Special:Log format
2. Revert back to the old format pending review
3. Revert back to the old format forever

The difference is the grouping by day (see e.g. ), and the lack of bullet points in the new format. Tim Starling (talk) 16:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The date headings are good for RecentChanges, where you have many entries for a single day, but something like this is silly. It has practically one date heading for each line. I assume Nikerabbit wasn't thinking of this when he implemented it, but it seems like a very common use case. I'd be in favor of reverting back to the old format forever, once Nikerabbit has had a chance to comment (since he apparently made the change). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 16:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say revert back - it's much easier to follow date format. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Personally, I preferred the old log, particularly as the date was on the same line as the time. Majorly (talk) 16:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Same. WODUP 16:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

We're reverting back. --brion (talk) 16:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll get the data I need before Nikerabbit decides to make any further changes without asking anyone's opinion. Majorly (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the grouping by date. Why not adding the date per line too? a little bit redundant but it keeps the grouping. Raymond (talk) 18:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

+1, I also like the new format. It's somewhat clearer and very useful if you have larger logfiles. Adding the date to each line would be a possible solution. Another one would be to put a choice into the preferences (date headlines y/n, date in each line y/n). --Thogo (Talk) 18:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This is not going to be a user preference, that's for sure. We have too many of those already. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why are user preferences expensive? --Random832 (contribs) 19:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the old way. While the new format does change somewhat with user timestamp preferences, it doesn't fully use the preference (if that makes sense) and it looks somewhat strange without the bullets if an entry doesn't fit all on one line. Mr.Z-man 18:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the old way as well, as I find it easier to use. I think there should be something added to Special:Preferences, though, because there's doesn't seem to be a unanimous decision regarding this.   jj137 (talk) 18:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Whitespace generated by template

I've just noticed that Template:Polish borders generates much whitespace, preventing text appearing next to it (as far as my Seamonkey can tell). I think this problem must have appeared recently; the template was not edited for a good few months and worked fine quite recently. If anybody could fix it, it would be much appreciated.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you are expecting to see here, but i do think i know what is causing it. Recently new CSS for navbox was implemented. Since this "info-nav-box" uses class="navbox", i think your problem lies there. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

In Microsoft Internet Explorer the white space on the left-hand side (between body and template) is 5mm standard, but even Mozilla Firefox can produce different formatting results as far as I know. Please try to change "margin-left" from "1em" to "0.5em" and see what SeaMonkey makes of it. --Poeticbent talk 17:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Block Log question

This probably has been answered several times before, but are block logs cleared on a regular basis? I was blocked several times in the past (once under my current account for a second, just when an admin provided a link to my old block log) under my old username "Davnel03", yet it doesn't show up in the block log. Why is this? D.M.N. (talk) 17:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Block logs don't get moved when a user is renamed. This is an ongoing technical limitation of MediaWiki, which might or might not ever get fixed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

That used to be the case, but the bug's recently been fixed. Nihiltres 18:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

That's wonderful news. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but my previous blocks don't show up on either the Davnel03 or D.M.N. blocklog. D.M.N. (talk) 21:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Lucky you :) Prodego 21:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I see them just fine. This may have been caused by whoever was changing the format of the block logs earlier (I should have taken a screen cap, as it's been reverted back). - auburnpilot talk 21:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Image stats

Can anyone help out with some media stats? The total number of media files (ie. everything in the "Image:" namespace) is given at Special:Statistics. The current total is 772,759 (there is also a magic word that I can't find at the moment). This also includes dupes of Commons images that are kept here and not deleted (for various reasons, though most are in fact deleted, I think). Trying to assess the split between free and non-free can be done if you assume that: (a) all images have license templates, and that the lists at User:BetacommandBot/Free Template Useage and User:BetacommandBot/Non-Free Template Useage cover all the relevant templates in use. I've pasted the data at those two pages into an Excel spreadsheet, and the total, as of 8th April 2008, are, 360,125 free images and 282,264 non-free images. Add those together, and you get a total of 642,389. I would like to know what the missing 130,370 media files are (whether they are all sounds and video clips, or whether there are lots of images knocking around without license tags or using license tags not tracked by BetacommandBot), so my questions are:

• (1) Is there a list of category of orphaned images, similar to Special:LonelyPages for articles?
• (2) What are the sound file formats and how many of these files are there on Misplaced Pages?
• (3) What are the video clip file formats and how many of these files are there on Misplaced Pages?
• (4) More generally, what are the allowable filename extensions and what numbers are they present at in the 772,759 total?

Any and all answers gratefully received. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 18:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A good portion of the missing images are probably images using a License template that I am not checking. β 18:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Does Category:Image copyright tags contain all the copyright tags (apparently there are 400 there), or will there be others? For example, I found Category:Image namespace templates, but that doesn't seem to include the sound and video stuff. Misplaced Pages:Media help and Misplaced Pages:Creation and usage of media files. The latter has the list of filenames I was looking for: "jpg, jpeg, png, gif, svg, and ogg". I now realise that .ogg is used for both sound and videos. It took me ages, but I also found Category:Ogg files. Only 72. Are there not more than that? Are the others on Commons? Carcharoth (talk) 19:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, the Misplaced Pages and Commons upload screens say the permissible filenames are: "png, gif, jpg, jpeg, xcf, pdf, mid, ogg, svg, djvu." Does that mean that Misplaced Pages:Creation and usage of media files needs updating to includes xcf, pdf, mid, and djvu? Carcharoth (talk) 19:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

What about image pages that only have the "featured" tag or something like that? ie. image pages with the actual images on commons. Are these counted by the stats perhaps ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

All my edits getting an "N" tag

Why are all of my edits in my contributions list showing up with an "N" tag? I thought "N" meant that the edit was creating a New article. Corvus cornix_talk 21:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Me too, everyone's contribs seem to be getting this. Wassup? Franamax (talk) 21:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I was just coming to ask the same. I also noticed there was a temporary change to the appearance of blocklogs, but it has been reverted back to the old style. Somebody must be messing about. - auburnpilot talk 21:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm also experiencing the same problem with my contributions don't know why, it maybe a problem with the Wikimedia server. Terra 21:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It's fixed. --brion (talk) 21:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Brion. (And for switching back to the old log style) - auburnpilot talk 21:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A background update script will be ran sometime soon to show the N marks properly. Voice-of-All 21:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've always been proud of my ability to do open-heart server surgery where dozens of people could see my mistakes immediately. I can only imagine what it's like to roll out changes where th-th-thousands of people see it within seconds. (oh wait, I'm doing that right now :) Kudos and stars to the techs who keep this site rolling along! Franamax (talk) 21:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Thanks to Brion. Corvus cornix_talk 21:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why does my table column not sort?

At Misplaced Pages:Core biographies/statistics the column called Occupation does not sort (click on the sort button and it will not work). The other columns do. Why is that? Gary King (talk) 22:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Logs not working

Logs don't seem to be working. DuncanHill (talk) 23:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you elaborate as to what is not working about it? They work for me. Gary King (talk) 23:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Should be all fixed now. --brion (talk) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Working again now, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Unable to access certain user pages - download file

I cannot access User Talk:Jagz. When I click on any link to get to that page, IE attempts to download an 'unknown file type' rather than going to that page. I also have the same problem attempting to get to User Talk:Raggz (this started back in Feb.). Is there any reason why that would happen and anything that I can do? Does it have to do with page names ending in 'gz'? (I am using IE 7 on Windows XP). I can get there when I am using other computers. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 00:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a local problem; the HTTP content type is correct when I download the page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It works for me. I haven't heard of this problem and it's just a guess, but maybe your browser or other software on your end thinks it's a gzip file (file extension .gz), and tries to interpret it as such. Try to manually change the url to another ending, for example by adding ? as in PrimeHunter (talk) 00:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

URLs

After the latest crapflood from off-Wiki, I noticed that the vandal edits used in these types of attacks always have "B" as their title. So, I have to ask: is "B" a wildcard in these edit links? -Jéské 00:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)