Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs). Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here. If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for five days.

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Parameter in ref tags

Hello everyone, I'm from ckbwiki. Today, we published three articles on ckbiwki by using a bot and ckb:حەلەب is one of them. Now, i want to know why the third parameter (it's article name on enwiki) doesn't show the article name on enwiki? It's printed in {{{3}}}. I think the ref tags are the problem. Can someone help? Thanks! ⇒ AramTalk 22:35, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

No one? Any idea? ⇒ AramTalk 13:49, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Not the <ref>...</ref> tags but someone included {{{3}}} in the call to ckb:Template:بیرخستنەوەی ویکی. You can see that in the article source. I don't know what that template is but apparently it doesn't like it when |‏سەردێڕ‎={{{3}}} and |‏بەستەر‎=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{3}}}. Give the template proper values and I suspect that you will get proper results.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Thank you for the response. See here. You can see the English article titles on the 3rd column from right and see the root page. Actually it works, but when I don't put the template between <ref>...</ref> tags, it's okay and {{{3}}} becomes the title of the English article, but when I put it between <ref>...</ref> tags, {{{3}}} does not become the title of the English article and it will be published as it is. The problem is not the template itself, but <ref>...</ref> tags don't let me get what I want. Is there any way to fix that? ⇒ AramTalk 20:16, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I edited ckb:حەلەب, copied this from between the <ref>...</ref> tags:

{{بیرخستنەوەی ویکی |بەستەر=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{3}}} |سەردێڕ={{{3}}} |زمان=ئینگلیزی |سەردان=٢٩ی ئەیلوولی ٢٠٢٠}}

Then I pasted it right at the top of the article, not inside <ref>...</ref> tags, clicked show preview and saw this (copied right off the rendering so there are no links):

ەشداربووانی ویکیپیدیا، «{{{3}}}»، ویکیپیدیای ئینگلیزی. سەردان لە ٢٩ی ئەیلوولی ٢٠٢٠.

So your claim that the 'problem' is due to <ref>...</ref> tags does not seem to be supported.

Pasting that same template call into ckb:Special:ExpandTemplates, I get this:

بەشداربووانی ویکیپیدیا، «<bdi><span class="plainlinks">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{{3}}} {{{3}}}]</span></bdi>»، [[ویکیپیدیای ئینگلیزی]]. سەردان لە ٢٩ی ئەیلوولی ٢٠٢٠.

The problem, it seems to me, it that you are using positional parameters where you should be providing proper values for the named parameters. In article text, even in the call to a template, positional parameters like {{{3}}} have no meaning – they are just plain text which the template apparently uses to create link to en.wiki. But en.wiki does not have, nor does it allow, article titles that use the curly braces. Replace {{{3}}} with something meaningful (both instances) – I used 'Title' in the template call and the rendered template gave me a link to Title at en.wiki. Give ckb:Template:بیرخستنەوەی ویکی meaningful input and it should give you meaningful output.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Thank you very much for your responses! We fixed the problem by using this template. Thank you again! ⇒ AramTalk 15:15, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Accessing archived references

I know that this isn't, strictly speaking, a WP issue, but it arises for me here because this (WP) is the only place i try and access archive.org pages. If i click on this link [https://web.archive.org/web/20180717013125/https://www.indomiliter.com/panhard-vbl-penjaga-rumah-boediono/] in List of equipment of the Indonesian Army i get a Unable to connect Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at web.archive.org message from my browser. This happens with every single archive link i try and verify (in every article i try, not just the one i mentioned), yet i know the links are active because i've used IABot to find them.. I will be ever so grateful if someone can tell me why this happens and what i need to do to stop it, because there are a lot of archived references i'd like to work with. I expect it's something very simple, silly even, so don't be worried about offending me by pointing out my complete lack of technical skill or understanding. Thanks in advance; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 18:07, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@LindsayH:: are you on a filtered internet connection? It's relatively common for strict DNS-based web filters to block web.archive.org, because unless your computer is configured to cooperate with the filter, it's impossible to tell which archived page you're looking at. Vahurzpu (talk) 18:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you get to https://web.archive.org/ at all? If not, try it on a different device (like a phone or a computer), on a different internet connection (e.g. if you are having trouble on wireless, try a phone without wireless). Also try a different web browser (Chrome, Safari). – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Anecdotally, I had that problem for a little while with one browser (though links worked in other browsers), then after awhile the problem went away. I surmised it was a browser problem that had gotten fixed on the back end. Schazjmd (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Vahurzpu, i don't even know what a filtered internet connection is. My laptop is plugged in directly to my router which is plugged into my broadband and i don't think i've got any software limiting what i can do or where i can go.

Jonesey95, i cannot connect to https://web.archive.org/ at all, neither in Firefox nor in Chrome (Chrome says This site can’t be reached web.archive.org refused to connect, which i assume is essentially the same as the Firefox message). I can get to the site on my phone, which uses a wireless connexion to the same router; i guess i can use the phone to look up what i need and then type the entries into the browser on the laptop; less than ideal, but it should work. Thanks for the help and suggestions; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 19:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

What operating system? --Izno (talk) 20:32, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Windows 10, presumably the most recent version since MS does that cool "We're gonna update you whether you're ready or not" thing; Firefox 80.0.1. And the phone, which does work, is Android 9, which claims it is the current and up to date; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 21:30, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Lindsay, is it all of archive.org or just the web archives (I see you can't get to the subdomain above, but there are other parts of the site)? Do you live in a country with any marginally censorious regime? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling one of the browsers of interest (I'm wondering now if it is possibly one of your security certificates became corrupted; I don't know why that would impact just Archive.org). When your mobile can access it, is it connected wirelessly to your home router? I think the only other possibility pending/confirmed by those answers is that your ISP is blocking access. --Izno (talk) 02:47, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Izno, it is not the whole of archive.org; i just went to https://archive.org/details/brooklynmuseum-o4368-the-great-red-dragon-and-the-woman for example, and it worked perfectly. I have uninstalled and then reinstalled Chrome, and still have exactly the same issue, the "refused to connect" message. Strangely, my phone won't now connect, so i don't know if it did previously or if i did something wrong ~ clicked an incorrect URL and thought it was on the archive site but not. I live in a country with no restrictions that i know of. My ISP is a very large, popular one ~ guaranteed i'm not the only person editing using it, probably not the only person on this page at the moment. You mention something about security certificates; is there something i can check or change there? I do appreciate the help; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 06:58, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

We're past what I know on that point. One other thing I thought of was that you have some sort of ad or script blocking, but I'm pretty sure it's not that given you can access the other page. I am not sure who would be better to help with this. --Izno (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Wayback Machine no longer saves archives

Resolved

On [1], it shows that there haven't been any archives since Sep 27, yet I have saved this page every day and when I go to the ".../web/*/..." page on those days that day's archive shows up. For example, see todays; it shows up now but won't tomorrow. What can I do to actually get these archives to work?  Nixinova   T   C   (ping to reply) 03:10, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not just that page, every archive I've made over the past week or so doesn't work. I hope this is just a fetching issue and not that these archives no longer exist...  Nixinova   T   C   03:18, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

There is a new snapshot, taken within the last hour. A check of a few other sites implies that the WBM was not collecting (much? Anything?) in the last 4 days. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 08:22, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

See, now that link does not show any saves on Oct 2. The links that worked yesterday don't today. This is very frustrating.  Nixinova   T   C   20:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I've made a post on the Archive.org forums about this: [2]  Nixinova   T   C   06:53, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

And they're all back now, good.  Nixinova   T   C   01:46, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

What should live preview do on user CSS/JS?

Resolved

Even with the live preview on (Preferences → Editing → Show previews without reloading the page), previewing a user CSS or JavaScript reloads the entire page just like when it's off. This is ostensibly to allow users to test the code as the "tip" above the edit box informs them, which is basically impossible without reloading the page. Its implementation, however, has a couple of problems:

• Not just live preview but live diff is unavailable for user CSS/JS.
• You can only test the code once. When you've already previewed the script once, the live preview takes over and simply shows you the new code without running it. You have to go back one page in order to test it again.

I thought I'd figured out how to fix these so I submitted a patch, only to be told by Ammarpad, the above patch does not actually fix the bug, it just worked it around by 'disabling the live preview feature'. In other words, it means ignoring users' preferences (for live preview) on user config pages at all. Which I found perplexing because the status quo already does go out of its way to "ignore users' preferences on user config pages" and the patch is all about doing it less (for live diff) and in a more consistent manner (reloading more than once). (I now know a better way to achieve it so you can abandon the patch now, which I don't seem authorized to.) Ammarpad also made me aware of an older task, T186390, that covered the same ground (which I'm grateful for) so I merged my task with it, but AFAICT that task also advocates for the same thing as the patch (it works the first time, but not afterwards ... live preview should just disable itself on JS pages). But since no one has further responded on Gerrit or Phab, I want to ask editors here before resubmitting the patch.

TL;DR: (1) Should live preview disable itself on user CSS/JS (as it currently does)? (2) Should it disable itself more than once (which it currently doesn't)? (3) Should live diff be available for user CSS/JS (which it currently isn't)? Nardog (talk) 09:32, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the option should be ignored on pages where it doesn't work. At least then people aren't surprised when it "stops working". We can leave the patch open to explain that there's probably more work that could be done to make the option actually work ina context I would not expect it to. --Izno (talk) 02:17, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: Okay, I've updated the patch now. I hope it's clearer what I'm trying to do. Nardog (talk) 10:54, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Split links at cite template like harvnb and sfn into two different links

I propose that the sfn and harvnb template be divided into two links.

Currently, if we click a link in harvnb or sfn, say Foo (2016), p. 36, it will link into the book in the bibliography.

What if we split the links? Foo (2016) if clicked will link to the book in the bibliography, while p. 36 will link into the direct url of that page.

Google books supports these kind of directly linking into books. This link, books.google.com/books?id=I_IVAQAAMAAJ links into the book cover/the overview, while books.google.com/books?id=I_IVAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA20 links directly to the specific page. This is quite useful for old books which resides in google books. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 13:47, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

You can already do that with {{harvnb}}, {{sfn}}, and other related templates. Just wrap the page number in a link to the page at Google Books, archive.org, or another site, like this: – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:19, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Probably not fake? I requested for not fake. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 15:05, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't look fake to me. What would you prefer that is flexible enough to handle a page link to any other website? --Izno (talk) 02:19, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry if the word "Fake" was misleading in the headers below. I have changed it to "Example". – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:48, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Example bibliography section

• Smith (2000). Title.

Example References section

References

Technical volunteer needed for Arbitration Committee Elections

Due to an RfC update, the candidates page which typically randomizes the transclusion order of ArbCom candidates, should only randomize once for a given user and then stay fixed. The easiest way to implement this would be some form of hashing and then sorting by the hash, which will attain psuedo-randomness per user and then stay fixed for each user. This requires a Lua module, and I am not very experienced with Lua. If anyone is up to the task, please let me know, so I can work with you on getting this set up for this year's elections.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 14:08, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe you are referring to the code at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates#Standing candidates which appears as follows.

{{#invoke:random|list|separator=newline
|{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/First candidate/Statement}}
|{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Second candidate/Statement}}
|{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Third candidate/Statement}}
|{{Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2019/Candidates/Fourth candidate/Statement}}
}}

That uses Module:Random which will render the list of statements in a different order each time the page is purged. There is no way Lua can make the list stay in a fixed order for each logged-in editor reading the page. I'm pretty sure Lua cannot discover the reader's user name, and even if it could, Lua has no mechanism to store per-user or any other kind of data. Some JavaScript might be able to handle that by putting it in the browser's local storage or a cookie, but I don't know if there is a precedent for a site-wide script to do something like that. The caching mechanism of MediaWiki is opposed to any procedure that attempts to show different text to different users. Johnuniq (talk) 23:21, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Actually, there's one clever way it could be done. Much of the MediaWiki interface is re-rendered for each user, and within it, {{REVISIONUSER}} is the user who's looking at the page. We could seed the RNG with the username. The only tricky part is figuring out whether or not we have somewhere suitable in the interface where we can inject such code without affecting the rest of the site. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd forgotten about the magic words. There is some confusion because Help:Magic words#Other variables by type has a note "This shows the last user to edit the page. There is no way to show the user viewing the page due to technical restrictions." Here is a test:

• User = {{REVISIONUSER}} → User = Izno

Even if that worked, the next step would be tricky. Johnuniq (talk) 23:42, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Doesn't {{REVISIONUSER}} store the user who last edited the page, not the user who is currently viewing it? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:43, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Pppery: On regular pages, it's the user who last edited the page. But in parts of the interface, it is the user who's currently viewing it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Correction: I'm almost positive this worked somewhere at some point, but now when I try it on testwiki, it just gives me the empty string. Back to the drawing board I guess. Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

For your first comment: I assume by "regular pages" you mean editable wiki pages, for that what you said is true, but the "interface" part is not correct. MediaWiki: namespace pages are considered part of the interface and they are just editable wiki pages. So the magic word will behave the same on MediaWiki:Example as it will do here. {{REVISIONUSER}} is based on revision. On virtual pages (such as SpecialPages where there are no revisions) it's null actually, and outputs empty string.

The only place where it's always the user doing the edit, is during 'edit previewing', that's before saving the actual edit, and that area is exclusive to the concerned user. Once it's saved, it's then either dynamic (shows the last revision user always), or it'll become hardcoded string username of the user who did the actual edit with it because of subst modifier. As far as I know, there's no magic word that refers to the current viewing user always. JS world does have some kind of that, not exactly though. It's called "relevant user".

For the second comment: You are probably thinking of {{subst:REVISIONUSER}}. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:52, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

As I commented on the RFC, this requires either a Javascript or a PHP implementation (Lua does not and will likely never know who is viewing a page), and I already discussed that probably neither option is a good other option. It is unfortunate my comment was not paid heed to. --Izno (talk) 02:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Izno, I closed the RfC in favor of this implementation, because I believed the implementation of it was feasible. If it turns out it isn't, then I will have to amend the close. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 22:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I see the point of your opening comment about hashing now—using a hash of the current user's name concatenated with the candidate's user name as a sort key would suffice for a random order and would not require the storage of any per-user information. However, as Izno says, only PHP or Javascript can get the name of the user reading the page. PHP is not going to happen but Javascript is feasible. Except, I think the Javascript would have to be loaded for all users on all pages and that is also not going to happen. Accordingly, I think the current code (random order on each page purge) will have to do. Johnuniq (talk) 22:56, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Cyberpower678 Hah, I was not chastising you. I know you did due diligence as closer. :) --Izno (talk) 23:00, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Izno, :-) —CYBERPOWER (Around) 23:06, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I thought everyone knew that this would require JS to implement. We could install it temporarily as a default-enabled gadget, couldn't we? Best, Kevin (alt of L235 · t · c) 00:55, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

If so, the gadget code should be wrapped in a loader that is only activated on the correct page(s), to avoid always loading the code on all page views. I can take a crack at writing the js this week(end) if no one beats me to it DannyS712 (talk) 05:29, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

DannyS712, the sooner, the better. We only have 2 weeks to have a working solution implemented. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

...I have real life, sorry DannyS712 (talk) 15:49, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard/Archive 1 § Chess viewer has some discussion on how to implement a loader gadget that would load a gadget on demand for specific pages. User:קיפודנחש (aka kipod) may be interested in helping out, as this would be useful to implement the consensus reached at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 175 § Enable chess PGN viewer for chess articles. Also pinging User:Wugapodes. isaacl (talk) 16:31, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

will be delighted to assist. i do not have permissions, so currently can't help with actual implementation, but i will give any support i can, time permitting. the mechanism was originated at ruwiki (i believe). we adopted it in hewiki, and added support for gadgets. we wanted gadgets because RL is more efficient with them, e.g. by using minimized code. the mechanism is made of one template, say, Template:Load script, and a dozen or so lines in common.js. for clarity, let me copy the js code here:

// On demand loading of scripts and gadgets, initial version from ruwiki.
// Detects uses of template "טען סקריפט"
// and loads specifically-named scripts or gadgets.
// for a script to be loadable this way, its name must begin with "Mediawiki:Scripts/"
// for a gadget, its name as defined in gadgets-definition must begin with "ondemand-"
if ( mw.config.get('wgCanonicalNamespace') !== 'Special' ) 
mw.hook( 'wikipage.content' ).add( function( content ) {
		var beenthere = {};
		$( '.executeJS', content ).each( function () {
			var script = $( this ).data( 'scriptname' );
			if ( script && $.trim( script ) ) {
				script = $.trim( script );
				if ( ! beenthere[script] )
					mw.loader.load( "/w/index.php?title=Mediawiki:Scripts/" + script + ".js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript", "text/javascript" );
				beenthere[script] = true;
			}
			var gadget = $( this ).data( 'gadgetname' );
			if ( gadget && $.trim( gadget ) ) mw.loader.load( 'ext.gadget.ondemand-' + $.trim( gadget ) ); // np repetitions - resourceloader takes care
		} );
} )

so we scan the page for a special signature, ".executeJS", which is left by the template. the template "encodes" the name of the desired script, and the code above extracts it, and tries to load the script or gadget. we believe this is safe from exploitation - for instance, the can not be used to load just "any" gadget - only gadgets whose name begins with "ondemand-". those gadgets are hidden, and were deemed "safe" by the interface editors. similarly, only scripts whose name begins with "mediawiki:Scripts/" can be run this way, and again, this "namespace" is reserved for scripts approved by interface admins. let me know if there's anything i can help with. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:59, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the code and explanation. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 20:28, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Double edit summary?

Lately I've noticed that on some - not all - edits, a double edit summary box appears. See example screenshot (from Japan). When editing a section or performing some other edit that would result in text appearing by default in the edit summary, both boxes are filled; however, only a summary entered in the second box is saved. Any idea why this is happening? I'm using Firefox 81 and Modern skin. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:57, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: are you using WikiEd? Sounds like the issue under discussion at User talk:Cacycle/wikEd#wikEd bug report: two boxes for edit summary. Nthep (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Yep, that'd be it, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:55, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Page Size tool has disappeared and pop-up referencing anchors aren't working either.

The page size tool has disappeared for me. It only seems to appear when editing a page. If I click it in that state it says "you need to preview the page" but when you do, the Page Size link disappears again. I'm on Chrome. Similarly the hover-over reference pop ups have stopped as well, and the search suggestion drop down is also inconsistently working. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 16:56, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you report what is in your browser console as described here? Ruslik_Zero 21:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

What is the behaviour you're seeing? - Page size link only appears when editing a page, not in normal viewing mode or preview mode, so you can't actually use it. What is the behaviour you're expecting to see? Click Page Size on left hand side under Tools and see the character count / page size of the current article How can the incorrect behaviour be reproduced? Describe exactly what you're doing and seeing. - Per above Confirm that you have tried bypassing your browser cache. - Yes Make note of the skin that you use, your browser, browser version, operating system, and operating system version. - Google Chrome is up to date Version 85.0.4183.121 (Official Build) (64-bit), Windows 10 19041.508 installed on September 20,2020

Append relevant JavaScript errors your browser logged.

uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier
   at domEval (load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:11)
   at load.php?lang=en&modules=startup&only=scripts&raw=1&skin=vector:17
load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.centralNotice.choiceData|jquery%2Coojs-ui-core|jquery.ui&skin=vector&version=1bbh1:149 JQMIGRATE: Migrate is installed with logging active, version 3.1.0
Back_to_the_Future:1 Unchecked runtime.lastError: The message port closed before a response was received.
DevTools failed to load SourceMap: Could not load content for chrome-extension://eoolfmmapnkhandljfaaofncecfakljd/dist/Versioning.js.map: HTTP error: status code 404, net::ERR_UNKNOWN_URL_SCHEME Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:44, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Why no ping?

In this edit[3], I tried to ping to a list of editors.

However, subsequent comments at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 October 3#Category:Arts show that most (maybe all) of the editors didn't get the ping.

I presume that I screwed up somehow, but I can't see an error.

Can anyone figure out what went wrong? I'd like to avoid repeating my error. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:04, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Because you also edited your previous comment, your change looked like an edit, not a new comment. The system tries to avoid pinging people twice and it uses a simple procedure of only pinging when a new comment is added. An alternative would have been to link to each user in the edit summary (cannot use a template for that). Johnuniq (talk) 01:49, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks, Johnuniq. I hadn't spotted that.

i will try in future to remember to do pings without also tweaking a previous comment. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Copy-and-paste translation of source content of non-English page

Hello VP, there's problem of copy-and-paste wikitable content of Oteckovia in Slovak language to the List of Oteckovia episodes with full translation to English, that I failed to do action. Can you copy the Part section of the Slovak language of Oteckovia to the English Wikimedia list article by yourself? The Supermind (talk) 09:49, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

404 errors in collapsible navigation menus gadget need fixing

MediaWiki:Gadget-CollapsibleNav.css (that's "Allow navigation menus to be collapsed" on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets) needs fixes, as the URLs to SVG files are 404 errors now. --Malyacko (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Malyacko: I will submit an edit request in the appropriate location. --Izno (talk) 16:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

How to do three brackets?

If there need to be single brackets and the first bracket is followed immediately by a Wikilink, is there a way to keep from having a space between them?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

[<nowiki/>[[foo]]] ([foo]) works. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

{{!(}} is documented to produce the open square bracket (just like {{Square bracket open}}) but it just uses the actual character so {{!(}}[[foo]] does not do what you want. That seems like a bug. Maybe it should use [ ?DMacks (talk) 16:13, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Those templates are often used for creating links, tables, etc. where direct input doesn't allow it, so replacing them with numeric character references will probably break lots of templates. Nardog (talk) 08:31, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Coolest Tool Award 2020: Call for nominations

The second edition of the m:Coolest Tool Award is looking for nominations (see announcement on wikimedia-l). Please submit your favorite tools by October 14, 2020. The awarded projects will be announced and showcased in a virtual ceremony in November. Thanks for your recommendations! -- for the 2020 Coolest Tool Academy: --JHernandez (WMF) (talk) 12:21, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

How to show a live number of English Wikipedia articles on another Wikimedia project?

Hi all

I'm writing some instructions on Wikidata and would like to add a live number of articles on English Wikipedia to them. I know about {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} which gives 6,170,570 but is it possible to get something similar to {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} on another Wikimedia projects? Not sure if you can use templates across projects?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 14:32, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

No, you cannot access that information on a different wiki. --Izno (talk) 14:45, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

That's true, but {{NUMBEROF}} now shows data that is updated four times a day. The following shows values which I obtained just before posting this:

• {{NUMBEROF|articles|fr|N}} → 2,254,469
• {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} → 2 254 493 (at frwiki)

GreenC has a bot which does the updating, and has updated many projects with the new NUMBEROF code. Johnuniq (talk) 23:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much @Johnuniq:, would it be possible for this to work on Wikidata to show the number of English Wikipedia articles? Currently the template doesn't exist. John Cummings (talk) 08:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but I can't do it now. I'll ping GreenC again to see if they are available. Otherwise I'll look on the weekend or maybe sooner. Remind me if I forget. Johnuniq (talk) 09:08, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks you very much for all your help @Johnuniq:, really appreciate it. John Cummings (talk) 09:44, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-41

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
• You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [4]

Problems

• There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [5]
• Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [6]
• Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
• Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [7]

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [8]

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

16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jdlrobson: It might make more sense to put your list of errors on meta instead of here. (As it happens, none of the errors are from en for this goaround.) --Izno (talk) 17:19, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

url-access should come from Wikidata

Wikipedia has millions of refs, some without any url-access data and many with wrong information. Maybe this could be automated with Wikidata? --Palosirkka (talk) 07:38, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

How do I use parameter and link in a template?

Hello, I have created this template (which is a type of cite templates) on our project. Here, I have a problem. I want to give two values to the |فەرھەنگ= parameter, but as a result, one text (which is the English one) appears in the link. I used #switch and many magic words, but they didn't give me what I wanted. Can someone help? Thanks! ⇒ AramTalk 17:35, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

You can't pass multiple arguments to the same parameter. That's why many templates have e.g. |last1= (or simply |last=), |last2=, |last3=, and so on. Nardog (talk) 02:00, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Adapting nested lists to mobile

Please take a look at a page with nested lists like this on your mobile phone.

Sub-bullet-points currently cause the text to move to the right so that it's barely readable on small screens, with only very little space for the text that is squished to the right.

Which solution do you suggest or prefer?

Nested lists probably have to adapt to the mobile display by getting displayed differently in the mobile view (en.m.wikipedia) at least if it detected a small screen or a mobile device in general. One possible solution would be simply displaying the nested header above the content (either view these sub-bullet-points or treestyle view that could look similar to or even use Template:Category tree). The mobile view is important and should not be neglected.

I created this entry as you may be interested in the main discussion here.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 10:12, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

edit requests at Talk:2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Could somebody take a look at this page? My browser outright refuses to load this talk page, I suspect due to either some form of code malformation or sheer length. Unsurprisingly due to the current armed conflict, there has been a flurry of edit requests and I can't try to answer any at this time. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: the page is quite large, try loading it in mobile view. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux:, thanks for the tip, I always forget that I use the mobile website address easily while on desktop. Unfortunately it means that I can't use tools like one-click archiver or edit request helper, though. I see from looking at the edit requests that long-time editors there seem to be adequately engaging with the requesters so I will just let them handle those. Thanks again. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:48, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: another option you could try is safemode - however this will also disable all gadgets and scripts, but it helps if one of those is the reason the page won't load. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:56, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:PCT

For the past few days, the page curation toolbar has strangely not been loading for me. Can anyone help me? I'm finding NPP difficult without the toolbar. JavaHurricane 06:00, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Cannot verify my email address

I have had my account for years. Several weeks ago, I received a Wikipedia alert which said, "Your registered email address, xxxx@xxxxx,com, has been unsubscribed due to multiple message delivery failures. You can verify your email address again." Two days later, I stopped receiving Wikipedia emails. I have attempted on several occasions to verify my email address, but I never receive any email back from Wikipedia. What can I do to remedy this?--Quisqualis (talk) 08:15, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Quisqualis: This may be related to this problem experienced by llywrch recently. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 14:45, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Formatting ISO dates as per site/user preferences in JavaScript

The MediaWiki API returns timestamps in the ISO format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ). Is there a module or something you can use in JavaScript that converts such a date according to whatever the site settings and user preferences on date format/timezone are, i.e. like the dates you see in page history, contributions, etc.? Nardog (talk) 09:08, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Extended content

Try the #dateformat magic word — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 10:09, 8 October 2020 (UTC) @GhostInTheMachine: Thanks, but that's far from what I'm looking for. It can't handle times (H:M:S), let alone timezones, does nothing if the user has no preference set (rather than use the site's default), has poor internationalization support ({{#dateformat:2020-10-08|ymd}} on zhwp returns "2020 10月 8", not "2020年10月8日 (四)", and {{#dateformat:2020-10-08|dmy}} on thwp "8 ตุลาคม 2020", not "8 ตุลาคม 2563"), and, above all, you'd have to make another API query to get the parsed result. Nardog (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC) I generally use #time but that has a fixed format. The template {{time}} has more options — 17:30, 8 10月 2020 UTC / 17:30, 8 ตุลาคม 2020 UTC but it does not "officially" take a timestamp as input, although this sort-of works: 07:05, 2 11月 2018 UTC / 07:05, 2 พฤศจิกายน 2018 UTC. Sorry, not sure what else to suggest. Maybe post something at Template talk:Time? — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 11:32, 8 October 2020 (UTC) Again, I'm looking for something ready-made I can use to convert ISO timestamps in accordance with the site locale/settings and user preferences in JavaScript (preferably without sending the timestamps to a server). I know I can probably use Moment or something and come up with an elaborate way to replicate what the MediaWiki interface does, I'm just asking if I'd be reinventing the wheel if I did so. Nardog (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC) OK, for JS take a look at the CommentsInLocalTime gadget — it responds to local browser settings. You may be able to clone some of the code for your use. There is also a fork at User:Mxn/CommentsInLocalTime — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:30, 8 October 2020 (UTC) For the nth time, I'm looking for a way to replicate the MW interface. That's not what that script does. Nardog (talk) 12:36, 8 October 2020 (UTC) I don't know javascript, but this discussion seems relevant. More search results. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I think mw:ResourceLoader/Core modules#mw.user.options is the place, it just has basically no documentation as to the names of the options, much less which are available from Javascript. Krinkle Is that the place? --Izno (talk) 15:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Izno: mw.user.options.get('date') and mw.user.options.get('timecorrection') will give you the user preferences (like "dmy" or "ZoneInfo|-240|America/New_York"), but that's not enough information for a script to convert a date in the ISO format to "16:20, 8 October 2020" or what have you. Nardog (talk) 16:20, 8 October 2020 (UTC)