Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 21

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Contents

[edit] Tables with images that don't print correctly

The route diagram template produces railway line diagrams in a table. Within the last few months an error has crept in somewhere, whether it is in the template or within Wikimedia software I don't know, which results in diagrams not being printed correctly in IE6 even though they look OK on screen. The fault affects both printouts on paper and "Print Previews". Two example screendumps from Print Previews are shown below.

printed from Wikipedia:Route diagram template#Example 2

printed from Blackpool Branch Lines

I've raised the issue at Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template#Printing, but no solution yet. Any ideas? --Dr Greg (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

This *might* have to do with the PNGFix script in Common.js. We never considered printing. I'll see if there's a way to disable the script for printing. In the mean time, do a print test with the following in your monobook.js: PNGFixDisabled = true; — Edokter • Talk • 18:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I've tried PNGFixDisabled = true; (and refreshed the cache) and it makes no difference.

Note: in IE6 actually there is a difference between "Print Preview" and "Print". "Print Preview" displays the icon images on a black background whereas "Print" correctly uses a transparent background, but it still gets the horizontal alignments wrong.

I've now also installed Firefox and it works the other way round: the "Print Preview" works perfectly, but "Print" prints all the images on a black background! Firefox does get the alignment correct, though.

It would be nice to find a fix for these printing problems as we can't really expect all our readers to upgrade their browsers. --Dr Greg (talk) 13:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sorting simple lists

Lists in article frequently need sorting because editors just add to the end of the list instead of placing new items in the alphabetic order that the list originally had. Doing the re-sorting with cut/paste is time-consuming and not always worked on. Is there a simple method available for sorting a list? Either in WP or in MS Word. Especially for sorting lists of people's names that must be sorted on last name, though the list matches article names: first name, middle initial (sometimes), last name. Hmains (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

If it is a table you could just add "sortable" to the table class. For example: {| class="wikitable sortable". It won't change the default order, and requires javascript. Plus a table might be overkill for a simple list. -- Ned Scott 12:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
You can always go into edit mode, select and copy all the text in the edit window, dump it into Word and/or Excel, edit it, and dump it back into the edit window. How useful that is depends on what you're trying to do, and how well you understand what Word and Excel can and can't (easily) do. You might try that. Or post an example of a page that you'd like someone else to try. (If you post a note on my user talk page, I'll take a shot at this.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Cite/cs

Hi, I have qustion if it would be possible to apply czech version of all messages around cite function here on English Wikipedia?--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What specific text is not translated? —Random832 18:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
—Random832 18:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The only obvious exception I can see is Mediawiki:Cite text the text for Special:Cite - if you write a translation i'll put it in place. —Random832 18:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I dont know if we understand each other, but it would be nice to have here on "Cite" this cs:Mediawiki:Cite text which respects standards used in the Czech republic, but also some international standards within Czech language environment. I see the current en version is very simmillar, but why not to have it in mother tongue. Many thanks!--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dominos (or something similar)

What exactly has caused this? The subject i am talking about has nothing to do with dominos, other than this seems to be a domino effect.

First, the move page was as it is in the current format (as far as i can remember) with the Special:Whatlinkshere pointing to the new page so it was easy to differentiate the double redirects etc.

Then it moved (perhaps after a few times, i don't know) to:

After this, it change a couple of times and then reverted back to the first one. The discussion on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive94#Move_format_query was involved in this.

After a while again part of it seemed to have changed to something like "double redirects will be fixed in 30 mins by a bot".

And then reverted again later to the original.

Then afterwards the Special:Whatlinkshere directs to the source, not the new target.

(Sigh)

Simply south (talk) 20:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong...Medway Viaduct automatically became a redirect to Medway Viaducts when you moved it. —Remember the dot (talk) 20:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
No that was just an example. I am wondering why all these changes and why it can't settle on one and i have slightly refined above. What i was meaning on Medway was it was showing an example of one of the many different formats. Simply south (talk) 20:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
What you're saying is that the message you see when a page is moved - specifically, MediaWiki:Movepage-moved - has had its wording changed a number of times recently. That's true, there have been a dozen or so changes in the past three weeks. One reason was that an admin was under the impression that bots that fix redirects ran in real time; in fact, they use a special page that is generated every two to three days. So that erroneous statement (about quick bot fixes) was corrected.
More to the point - the only thing you're specifically complaining about in the current version (which has been stable for the past week) is that Special:Whatlinkshere directs to the source, not the new target? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed line spacing fix for sub/sup

Related to recent discussion on this VP, I am proposing some CSS that I think should solve the issue for the majority of our audience, without having any known annoying side-effects. You are invited to test and reflect. :D --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Your proposed CSS is not the best solution; I actually made a different proposal (set line-height to 0; then the superscript will naturally fall into place in the gap between the 1.5-spaced lines) some months ago but it did not generate any interest. —Random832 16:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User Talk Pages Suggestion

I have a suggestion which would be a pretty big overhaul of the user talk pages system used by Wikipedia. I have noticed that users always struggle with this when commenting and replying in user talk pages. When someone leaves a comment, do you reply on their talk page or on your own? If you do it on your own, will they see the reply? Have they set your talk page for watching? The result of this is almost always having half a conversation on one page and the other half on another page. Sometimes they even duplicate messages on both talk pages.

My suggestion is to have each comment section in a type of "template" in some Wikipedia Comments database, while only adding tags to all user talk pages of those who have participated (left a comment) in the section. Whenever someone edits the comment, they can do it on their own talk page, and even when it seems thay are editing their talk page, they are actually editing the template, so the changes will appear in all pages who have the tag. This way the full conversation will be visible in all user talk pages, and will never be duplicated. Every comment would have an ID (e.g. 00215468) and its template page has everything including the title, all messages and a list of all users who have commented on the section. When a user chooses to add a section to any user talk page nothing will be apparently different since the interface would remain the same, but they will be creating or editing a "template" without openly realizing it.

An example tag that would be included in user talk pages could be something like this:

{{Comment:00215468|title=Suggestion}}

Everytime the comment is edited, all users listed for the comment will receive the "new message" notice.

This would not apply for article discussion pages since it is better to keep those attached to their articles like they are now. Some users have implemented it manually (e.g. User_talk:Alphax/Threads) but I would like to see if it is possible for Wikipedia officials to implement this natively into Wikipedia. Thanks! ~RayLast «Talk!» 20:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think mw:Extension:LiquidThreads is supposed to handle this issue, though I could be wrong. In any case, if/when it gets implemented, it will totally change talk/discussion pages. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dynamic function graphs (JavaScript)

Don't know if this popped up before, but here's something which I think would make a great addition to many math-related topics: Function Grapher. All relevant code on that page is JavaScript, and it's GPL. I don't think it would be horribly complicated to write a Wikipedia wrapper around it, and parse the content of a template which would dictate the canvas size, functions to plot, parameters and parameter constraints -- because the fun thing would be to give users control over parameters, as to allow them experimenting with functions interactively. So, what do you think, would it be worth investing time into this? --Gutza T T+ 20:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Search error

Try a search for "currrent" (with three r's). It returns 3 pages... Click the "next" link for the next page of likes and it now says there's many pages... click next again and it shows only 3 pages again... I've seen this before. What might be causing this? Jason Quinn (talk) 06:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

When I did a search (Firefox 2.0, Windows XP), clicking on the "Next" link lead to what was expected, not what you're reporting. (Note to AWB users - there are 52 pages with this obvious misspelling.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I had already manually fixed a bunch of the typos. Unfortunately, the search database has been reindexed and is no longer showing the error of which I spoke. I do a lot of typo fixing and have come across problems with the "next" link before. I'll repost when I see it again. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with getting large lists

Several editors are having problems with getting large lists of pages from categories using AutoWikiBrowser, DotNetWikiBot and by querying api.php directly. See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Large list problems. According to some of them the problem started about the 11th or 12th February. Can anybody help? Jogers (talk) 10:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extracting the first letter of a parameter in a template

Is there an easy way to extract the first letter of a parameter in a template? Some magic word like {{ucfirst:}} or {{padleft:}}? Or some trick with {{#ifexpr:}} that I can't think of? (To be clear, I'm hoping to make a template where {{justfirst|Quadell}} will return "Q".) Any ideas? – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked in mediawiki-current/includes/CoreParserFunctions.php where ucfirst and padleft are defined, and didn't see anything that could be used to just get the first letter. It seems reasonable to suggest "substring" as a new magic word, and you could just use a length of 1. There might be more magic words than just the core (especially on wikipedia), but I don't think there is a function on a generic mediawiki. JackSchmidt (talk) 15:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I think we'll just have to wait until Extension:StringFunctions is installed. — Edokter • Talk • 15:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Installation of mw:Extension:StringFunctions on Wikimedia was rejected by some developers. As a workaround one can use separate parameters for the first letter and the rest, or one for each letter, when needed.--Patrick (talk) 15:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Why was it rejected? Is there a link to the mailing list archive or discussion page? For reference: one can see what extensions are currently installed on en.wikipedia at Special:Version, and most of the links have documentation and enough indication that you can find the source code. JackSchmidt (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
bugzilla:6455 GracenotesT § 16:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Gracenotes! It looks like the extension has not been rejected, but is just being accepted very slowly over the course of two years. They have worked through a number of problems, and hopefully it is being considered again. Unfortunately it appears that even "firstletter" would have some issues, since it could be applied to complicated arguments, where the first thing it meets may not be a letter, or even something an editor would have imagined was going to be in the input or the output. It's funny how complicated some simple sounding things are. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Latest comments from that Bugzilla entry:
Comment #50 From Ross M 2007-12-10 10:03:03 UTC
StringFunctions 2.0 has just been released on MediaWiki. This version completely fixes the strip marker problem, and removes the reliance on mb_string as well. Unless there are any other flaws in the implementation, it should be ready to install.
— Edokter • Talk • 17:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Performs a jig** I've been awaiting this for years! Well okay I've only been around < 8 months... but you get the idea. — xDanielx T/C\R 00:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User subpages showing on Google searches

There are three of my user subpages showing up on Google searches, one of which is an old timeline I did and never moved into mainspace (it's not referenced yet) and the other being an article I'm working on. I also have an old userfied and partially tidied up version of a popular culture article. The problem is that all three are showing up high on Google searches, such as this (third hit), this (fourth hit) and this (first hit). Can anything be done about this (other than me working a bit faster to get them ready to go into, or back into, mainspace)? The latter might end up being merged with Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien in any case, but is this Google ranking of user subpages a problem? Carcharoth (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

One option is to blank the pages when you're not editing them, so that the content can only be seen in diffs etc that googlebot can't see. Tra (Talk) 23:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error message

When the database locked a moment ago, I got the message,
"Database locked The Wikipedia database is temporarily in read-only mode for the following reason: $1 This is probably due to routine maintenance;

$1 is not very descriptive or helpful, does someone know what the issue is? Woody (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I presume the developers are supposed to put in a reason when they lock the database to replace $1. If they don't, $1 does not get replaced, this is outwith the control of people responding to the board. GDonato (talk) 18:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I know there is meant to be a message in there, I was wondering what would usually go in its place and what broke it. I know a dev passes through here occassionally so it is up here to see if they see it. Woody (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
It may be an actual bug, it has been coming up lately. I think that the "locked while slave servers catch up to the master" message is messed up, so dev input would be great. Prodego talk 20:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Does it only happen on rollback? Or do you see it on edit as well? -- Tim Starling (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a normal edit if I remember correctly. Woody (talk) 12:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see previous recent posts about similar issues: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 19#Worrisome_database_locked_message and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 18#Special:Movepage_$1_issue. • Anakin (talk) 14:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The latter was a fault with a Mediawiki: page. GDonato (talk) 23:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TOC content different from the section heading

Is there a way to get the section headings listed in the TOC to be different from the section headings in the text? I have a page where I'd like the two to differ. Specifically this is because I want the section headings in the text to include ordering numbers, but that causes the TOC to look like:

2.1 1. Foo
2.2 2. Bar
2.3 3. Baz

which is slightly confusing. Caerwine Caer’s whines 02:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The only way is to make your own custom TOC like at {{Hillsong TOC}}. ChrisDHDR 08:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Try <div class="nonumtoc">__TOC__</div> on the page (which is defined in MediaWiki:Common.css). --Splarka (rant) 08:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extra space showing in conversion template for no apparent reason.

{{convert|200|lb|kg stlb|abbr=on}} -->

200 lb (91 kg/14 st 4 lb)

{{convert|200|lb|kg|abbr=on}} -->

200 lb (91 kg)

There is extra space showing up between the second value and "kg" in the first example (lb to kg & stlb) causing it to break in a weird way. None of the codes of the templates/subtemplates involved have been edited in weeks (except to protect them). They were working before yesterday (Feb 21). Can anyone explain how the extra space is getting in there? Was there some software change or something on a wiki-wide level? There are background conversions on this problem here and here. Any insight or guesses would help! —MJCdetroit (yak) 16:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

FYI, somebody has fixed this, which is why it no longer looks incorrect. See Template talk:Convert. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I was just coming here to say the that it has been fixed. Just for the record: The "noinclude" protection template tag was placed on a new line causing a break instead of directing after the last bit of code. —MJCdetroit (yak) 20:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Resolved.

[edit] Why am I being asked to login so often?

I have been a Wikipedian for over two years and a very active one. In the last few days, Wikipedia has started asking me to log in many, many times per day. Before the past few days, it was a rare thing to be asked to login.

My cookies are enabled. When I login, I make sure the "Remember me" option is checked. I haven't touched my "Preferences" in months. Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem? mbeychok (talk) 20:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe your internet connection became unstable. Agathoclea (talk) 22:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Apparently this is happening to a lot of editors, see here and here. R. Baley (talk) 22:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IME problems with editing form

On WT:ADMIN, User:Namazu-tron has described a problem with the editing form when combined with an Input method editor, and suggested that we alter the layout of the buttons.[1][2]

I presume that the default action of the "Enter" key is the problem, and this can probably be fixed easily with a user script, however as this may be affecting many users, I think we need to understand the problem better, and involve members of the ja/zh/etc subdomains to find the optimal solution. John Vandenberg (talk) 01:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes to Main Page articles

Is it technically possible and feasible to create a utility for MediaWiki:Recentchangestext on Special:Recentchanges, showing only edits to articles and pages linked to from the Main Page? My experience is that such articles and pages receive the bulk of the vandalism on Wikipedia. Being able to monitor them this way would considerably help us fight vandalism. AecisBrievenbus 13:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe that you want the "related changes" link at the side of the page, not the "recent changes". עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Confusingly, the "Related changes" special page is called "Recentchangeslinked". E.g., Special:Recentchangeslinked/Main Page. • Anakin (talk) 16:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Should the special page for "Related changes" be renamed to Special:Relatedchanges? It would be a lot more intuitive than Recentchangeslinked. AecisBrievenbus 16:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea, though we obviously should keep the old name active to avoid breaking things (that is, just add another "Special:" page title for the same feature). — CharlotteWebb 17:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Definitely a good idea. Both Special:Random and Special:RandomPage exist, so it shouldn't be hard to have two names (though I don't immediately see where to do this). JackSchmidt (talk) 17:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Found it. Yes this is extremely easy to do. The file languages/messages/MessagesEn.php has a variable $specialPageAliases and you can just add new aliases to it. This will add the aliases to all languages on a default mediawiki install (and I think on all the wikipedias).
I included the patch in an html comment. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Submitted as bugzilla:13112. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Change the "medieval-music-theory-stub" template

I have recently noted that the {{medieval-music-theory-stub}} template:

This article related to Medieval music theory is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

...uses this picture, although it has now been superceded by this one. Could the template be changed to use the new picture?

Also, on a more general note, where are templates created/edited/deleted? I know how to update pictures in articles, but templates are something of a "black box" for me. If anyone could point me in the right direction, I would be able to help out myself.

Thanks - It Is Me Here (talk) 15:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You can edit templates by putting "Template:" in front of the text that goes in the {{ curly brackets }}. So {{medieval-music-theory-stub}} becomes Template:medieval-music-theory-stub (or {{medieval-music-theory-stub}}) and can be edited as normal. I have amended the image in the template for you. If you think a template should be deleted, see WP:TFD. Hope this helps. Woody (talk) 15:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
By the way, if instead of writing <nowiki>{{medieval-music-theory-stub}}</nowiki> you write {{tl|medieval-music-theory-stub}} ("tl" stands for template link, then a vertical bar) it will display as {{medieval-music-theory-stub}}, with a link directly to the template. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, thanks, but Woody, I still don't understand, how did you change the image in the template? —Preceding unsigned comment added by It Is Me Here (talk • contribs) 16:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

By editing the page template:medieval-music-theory-stub linked above. —Random832 21:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Keep deleted pages in contribution histories as redlinks

(This idea has had a favorable but limited discussion elsewhere. I'm bringing it here to check whether it is technically feasible. If it is then I'll take it to VPR for broader discussion.)

I would like deleted pages to be kept in users' contribution histories and watchlists as redlinks. Each contribution would have a redlink to the deleted page, the edit summary, date and time, as for a normal contribution entry. The "diff" link would be disabled so that non-admins would not be able to read the content of the deleted page. The "hist" link would be disabled.

Similarly, a watchlist item would have a redlink, the edit summary, time, and disabled links to hist and diff.

I know that this information is kept in the database so I hope it is technically fairly easy to display it with redlinks rather than not display it at all. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Just a small point: Deleted pages are not removed from the watchlist. I have an enormous number of red links in my watchlist, as it is my only way of keeping track of deleted contribs.
If I have time today, I'll look at the Deletedcontribs extension, to see if it is easy to make it available to all users, but with hist and diff etc. enabled only for admins. If you just need the number of deleted contribs, this is already easy to get, but I agree having the page names, edit times, and edit summaries would be quite useful. JackSchmidt (talk) 16:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
In case I wasn't clear: I meant to be able to see deleted pages as redlinks when I view my contributions (or perhaps another user's contributions) or view my watchlist to Display watched changes. I know that deleted pages are there when I View or edit the watchlist. Thanks. Sbowers3 (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, Ok. One slightly bizarre part of the redlinks idea in user contributions is that it is entirely possible for the article to be recreated quickly (for instance during some move page cleanup). And definitely seeing *when* a watched page is deleted would be absolutely stellar. I still think a good idea for the implementation is just to use Deletedcontribs, but you definitely bring up points that it would not address. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
The bright side is that it would be phenomenally easy to make Special:DeletedContributions available to everyone. The deleted diff and deleted content are not handled by this extension, only linked to by it. The deleted diff and deleted content are handled by Special:Undelete (part of the core mediawiki). To make the change, it is sufficient to change the line
 $wgSpecialPages['DeletedContributions'] = array( 'SpecialPage', 'DeletedContributions', 'deletedhistory',
to
 $wgSpecialPages['DeletedContributions'] = array( 'SpecialPage', 'DeletedContributions', '',
I include the patch in an html comment. This does not address two of Sbowers3 needs: a watched page which is deleted does not show up in their Special:Watchlist page, and some general niceness of having it appear in the User:Contributions would not be there. The patch allows a user to look at any user's deleted contributions (at least the article title, edit time, and edit summary), not just their own, but I don't think this is a problem. JackSchmidt (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it is a problem, since an edit summary or even a page title could be offensive/libellous. —AlexSm 18:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
But an edit summary of a not-deleted page could be offensive/libelous. There is no particular reason to believe that edit summaries of deleted page are any worse than edit summaries of non-deleted pages. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Please also take a look at a very similar recent proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 18#Users to see their deleted edits. —AlexSm 18:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a very similar idea there. I agree, it would be very strange to have to oversight a deleted page, just because its title was offensive, so I think that rules out letting completely random people see other people's deleted contribs. It would be relatively easy to check if the target was the same as the calling user, but that will actually take a line or two of code. Sounds like a developer is willing to write those lines though.
Do you think there might be community support for letting rollbackers have the "deletedhistory" permission? This would, I believe, allow them to view deleted contribs (with no modifications to the extension), view deleted diffs, view deleted articles, but NOT view deleted diffs, view deleted articles, or undelete articles (those are "undelete"). JackSchmidt (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting) Now that it appears to be technically feasible to display deleted pages in contribution histories I think I'll take the idea to WP:VPR for discussion of the merits. Just one thing I'm not sure about: Is it technically feasible to display deleted pages when I Display watched changes? It would be useful to see that a page I watch has turned into a redlink. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the answer might be "not technically feasible," but it would simply depend on what kind of developer support there was. Regular revisions are stored in one SQL table and deleted revisions are stored in another. Technically it is possible to merge them either during the SQL query or after in the PHP, but the latter would make the php code a lot more complicated, and the former might have unexpected performance issues, so it would have to be tested on many wikis before it made it to live wikipedia, and some of the testing and design might have to be done by more special developers. The "just give users access to Special:DeletedContributions/Myself" idea would not have any possible performance impact, would only require about 5 lines of code, and would only require minimal testing on a small wiki. JackSchmidt (talk) 03:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Rather than merge them could the deleted pages be displayed separately from the ordinary watchlist? I.e. before or after displaying the regular items, display a new section of watchlist pages that have been deleted in the last 7 days. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that could be done very easily with no side effects. If one eventually wanted to be able to "page through" the watchlist ("next 50 edits", one cannot currently), then deleted watchlist items would make it ever so slightly harder, but no harder than the current category display pages which already let you "page" through two separate lists (subcategories and pages). JackSchmidt (talk) 17:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template ghosting

Here's an oddity which suddenly seems to be a problem with many of our articles on artists. As an example, at François de Troy, on the left of my screen, I can see eight interwiki links, two of them apparently to the French Wikipedia. The last three of the eight (including one French) are real, they lead to real articles or stubs in other languages and can be found embedded in the text of the article. But the first five (including the other French) are ghosts which lead only to templates which are interwiki-linked to Template:Infobox Artist. It's much the same elsewhere - see, for example, Alexis Simon Belle. I can't find anything to show what's causing this ghosting, but the problem seems to be something to do with other wikipedias which have an Infobox Artist template. I messaged Victuallers about this, and he has tried deleting the interwiki links at the Template in the English Wikipedia, but it doesn't seem to have solved the problem yet. Does anyone have thoughts, please? Xn4 20:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

There are only three interwiki links now. Some latency in whatever Victuallers did? This post would have been better at WP:VPT --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Moved this post to WP:VPT. I've just checked Peter Paul Rubens, and the first five interwiki links there are still these ghosts. Xn4 21:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
The ones mentioned here seem fine to me, as well as 10 or 20 randomly selected artists from Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox Artist (from beginning, middle, and end). Is the problem still there? Generically adding ?action=purge to the end of a plain url, or doing a WP:NULL edit on an article is likely to fix things like this, but I didn't see anything broken to try them on. All the interwiki links (and wow, there were an amazing number of them, you guys are doing an amazing job) led to articles on the right wiki. JackSchmidt (talk) 21:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I see the same problem Xn4 is reporting. Corvus cornixtalk 22:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah. The ?action=purge took care of the problem. Corvus cornixtalk 22:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
With my browser, I'm still seeing all the ghost interwiki links, even when I use Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox Artist to go to pages I haven't visited before. The bad links rise to the top of the list. But, as for Corvus cornix, if I add ?action=purge (as JackSchmidt suggests) to the end of the url, I get only good links. So it seems the problem is still there for some of us? Xn4 22:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
All's well today. The problem was evidently caused by SashatoBot. Many thanks to Victuallers. Xn4 15:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Login

I'm being asked to login alot. I have the newest version of firefox, and cookies enabled. This is the only site which gives me issues. Also, making it even weirder, when I do click on the login/create account link, it brings me to the login screen, while logging me in. Charles Stewart (talk) 06:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

There's something funny going on with the servers and many users are having this problem.. Hopefully it'll be sorted out soon. —Remember the dot (talk) 07:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I thought I was the victim of some conspiracy. I mean, I still think I am, but not this one. the_undertow talk 07:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

An error in the last update made this bug worse instead of better. It should now be fixed. Please use action=purge on any page where you appear to be logged out. -- Tim Starling (talk) 07:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

How do we do this?--Rockfang (talk) 08:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:PURGE -- Tim Starling (talk) 08:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the link.--Rockfang (talk) 08:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks guys. Charles Stewart (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Simple question

I hope my questions is not simple to the point of ridicule! Does anyone know the wgCanonicalNamespace of article talk pages? Λua∫Wise (Operibus anteire) 13:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk.--Patrick (talk) 14:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I was hoping it had a longer more complicated name, and not as simple as this! Anyways, Thanks Patrick! Λua∫Wise (Operibus anteire) 14:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Login problems

Every time I try to access the page Lonestar, I get logged out. If I log back in and return to the page, I get logged back out again! Strangely, this is the only page that's giving me such a hard time. Does anyone know what's up here? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 13:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I went to the page and I was not logged out. Perhaps this is the related to the issue discussed in the thread above.
Cheers.
Λua∫Wise (Operibus anteire) 13:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Strange, when I visited that page, I got logged out too. Perhaps someone should look at this... Resolved by purging and refresh. GDonato (talk) 16:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bizarre problem...

I'm having a really bizarre situation with the 2001 GMAC Bowl article. I was surfing around, logged in, and when I got to the 2001 GMAC Bowl article, Wikipedia showed a skin asking me to log in! When I surfed off that page, my regular skin was displayed. What the heck is going on?? — Dale Arnett (talk) 19:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Update: I did a minor (and needed) edit to the article, and when it was accepted, the system showed me as logged in. So, the issue is no longer a problem for me, though I still wonder why it came up. — Dale Arnett (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
See the above thread. Known bug, basically fixed. Sometimes you need to WP:PURGE the cache on the wikipedia server. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article causes user to appear logged out

Upon visiting the article on Tanglin Trust School, I looked to the top right of my Mozilla Firefox browser pane to find that my Wikipedia toolbox had been replaced by the "Log in/Create account" link. However, when I navigated away from that page, the toolbox returned. I'm sure other pages are causing this problem, but I don't know which ones. What could be causing this? – PeeJay 20:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Never mind =] – PeeJay 20:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] editredlink

I've noticed redlinks now go to "action=editredlink" - does this have any different behavior from action=edit? (a way to display a different newarticletext, for example) —Random832 21:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It does not appear to convert to view if done on a page that does exist, which was one possibility I had considered. —Random832 21:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It does not try to edit the page if the user does not have permission to edit the page, for instance if they are blocked. Presumably it will be described in the Signpost next week, but it was described here by Tim Starling: "Red links now point to action=editredlink instead of action=edit. The new action is more lenient in displaying edit permission errors, to avoid offending readers who are blocked and clicked a red link with no intention of editing. Specifically, it redirects to the view page if the user doesn't have edit permissions, thus requiring the user to explicitly click the "edit" tab in order to see a block message." JackSchmidt (talk) 21:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Notice that the edit tab is not highlighted as it should be (at least in Monobook). Compare [3] with [4]. (Yeay I found a bug!) • Anakin (talk) 05:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seemingly logged out

When I visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Cornwall/Members it appears that I am logged out, even though I am logged in. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

See the above thread. This is a known bug, and is basically fixed. You may need to WP:PURGE the cache on the wikipedia server for the particular page causing you trouble. JackSchmidt (talk) 23:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Cool, done, works, thanks :) DuncanHill (talk) 23:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] King Edward VI Five Ways

When I go to the King Edward VI Five Ways page, it shows me as logged out, even though I'm not. If I come back from that page or go to any other page afterwards, I'm still logged in, it's only that page that thinks I'm logged out. Corvus cornixtalk 00:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Did the same thing to me, till I added the "?action=purge " purge code to the end of the URL. About 5 threads up is Tim Starling addressing this issue. MBisanz talk 00:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Heh. Well, it's not doing it any more, anyway. Corvus cornixtalk 00:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stretched page?

I noticed the page National_Society_of_High_School_Scholars was stretched and had this blue box on it. I can't figure out how to fix the problem, any help?

Dayyanb (talk) 00:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

There was a space at the beginning of a paragraph, which broke the formatting. I have fixed it. DuncanHill (talk) 00:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Being logged out

This started today (I think) - I'm being logged out after some period of inactivity. I've not timed it but it appears to be 30-60 minutes. I do check off "Remember me" when I log back in. Is this something new with the software or something happening with my account? --hydnjo talk 03:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

What browser are you using? —Remember the dot (talk) 05:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I have also noticed login funnies in the past couple of days. In fact I am not actually being logged out, rather that the main page does not apparently read the cookie and shows the 'login' header. But if I navigate off the main page, eg to this Village Pump or even the Login page, the usual logged in header line magically appears and shows me normally logged in without me having to do anything. Cookie checked correctly in my browser with the usual time out of one month. I suspect it is a server problem with the login script for some reason not finding the user details. Opera 9.25 and XP Home. Dsergeant (talk) 07:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Same problem here; Everytime I go to the main page for the first time, it shows the login link instead of my personal links. A hard refresh, or clicking/entering any other page manually will show my personal links again. Directly going to my watchlist without going through the front page also works... It's only the first time going to the main page that seems to ignore the cookie. — Edokter • Talk • 11:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

In case of there being a common thread with this problem I'm using Safari. I'll switch to Firefox later today to see if anything changes. --hydnjo talk 12:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps related because it started happening at the same time is another weirdo. When saving an edit to a section I get returned to the top of the page rather than to the edited section (as if I edited "this page"). --hydnjo talk 13:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Around a dozen people seem to have reported (possibly related) problems on the Help desk since 15 February. From what I can see, most are finding themselves unexpectedly logged out. I found myself with the same issue this morning, having made no changes since I visted WP last night (using FF 2.0.0.4). On the HD, users have reported problems using FF, IE6 and IE7. --Kateshortforbob 13:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh good! I'm not alone. Another symptom is that I'm also being logged out when I close my browser (either Safari or Firefox). This is new as of yesterday. --hydnjo talk 13:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think people are actually logged out... just that the main page displays the wrong links. — Edokter • Talk • 13:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Umm no, we're actually being logged out. It's as if "Remember me" isn't working. --hydnjo talk 13:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
The how come if you click any other link, you are suddenly loggd in again? — Edokter • Talk • 13:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Not for me, I'm being logged out. If you're trying to confirm, be sure that you're clearing your cache - that could be confounding if you're actually bringing forth a prior version of that linked page which renders as though logged in. --hydnjo talk 14:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC) addendum: Another way to check a linked page that renders as logged is to refresh that page. --hydnjo talk 14:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
My experience is identical to that of Edokter; it appears that I am logged out, but visiting any page sees normal service resumed. Whether the cache happens to be cleared at the time makes no difference and the cookies are all intact as you would expect. The simplest workaround is to amend your bookmark to point to any other page, such as your watchlist; this avoids the problem for me. Adrian M. H. 14:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep, that works. --hydnjo talk 16:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

(exdent) See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(assistance)#Wikipedia_keeps_logging_me_out_after_restarting_browser. --hydnjo talk 21:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Automatically being logged out (not proxy)

I recently cleared my Firefox browser's cache after months of use with no problems. Now for some reason I frequently have to re-login to Wikipedia after a browser restart (but not always) despite using the "remember me" checkbox. I have no problems with any other websites, just Wikipedia. I've tried purging my browsers cache. I've even deleted the .mozilla folder. I have no idea what's causing this and why it started after clearing my private data. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Strange. What OS are you using? There might be other files stored in another location that are corrupt. -- Ned Scott 12:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm using Ubuntu 7.10 with Firefox 2.0.12. I'm also investigating that something is corrupt with my browser files but have yet to find out what and why it would only affect Wikipedia. After just reading the above thread, I'm suspecting now that my personal data purge might not have anything to do with anything and this could be a Wikipedia problem. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Huh, just noticed the thread above (and semi-merged this with it). Sounds related, though I personally have not experienced any problems. -- Ned Scott 12:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Ned, try purging your cookies and see it introduces a problem. Perhaps a change to cookies has recently occurred and it will only show up if new cookies are made. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: I just tried Opera 9.25 and the same problem appears there. This is a Wikipedia problem. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

How about returning to the top of page after "save page" rather than to the section being edited? Any others having this symptom? --hydnjo talk 13:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC) Nevermind --hydnjo talk 13:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I appear to be having the same problem, though it only affects Firefox for me (IE and Opera work properly). I made a thread in the assistance section of the Village Pump yesterday, and others have similar problems also. Seems like it is a technical problem with Wikipedia. --FlyingPenguins (talk) 19:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments summary

As of this time: 22:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC) Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Being logged out (here), Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#Wikipedia keeps logging me out after restarting browser, Wikipedia:Help desk#Logging in, Wikipedia:Help desk#Interesting log in problem, Wikipedia:Help desk#Logging out everytime I close my Browser, Wikipedia:Help desk#Frequent Logouts for now.
hydnjo talk 22:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Also Wikitech-l. MER-C 01:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Arghh - worldwide disaster ;-( hydnjo talk 05:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Fixed --hydnjo talk 18:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC) Not :-( hydnjo talk 19:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I was looking at the Metapub page; same complaint posted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Seems to be fixed now in English and German versions, but not in French. --PL (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, agree that English seems fixed. hydnjo talk 15:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Anybody have any idea what the problem was and how it was fixed? --Zvika (talk) 16:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)