Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive AO

• Village pump
  • Policy
  • Technical
  • Proposals (persistent)
  • Idea lab
  • WMF
  • Miscellaneous

Village pump (technical) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (technical). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

---

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212

Losing Edits

I just lost over a 100 edits after someone deleted WP:ACC..Is it possible??..Cometstyles 21:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Blame User:John Reaves (!); Edits are lost when a page is deleted, sorry. GDonato (talk) 21:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

hehe..yeah but I dont think he was the one who deleted it..--Cometstyles 22:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the deletion logs, he is. you could try to convince someone to restore the revisions from further back if you really want those edits. GDonato (talk) 22:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Its not that but it made me think if it could happen on a Wikipedia page, it can happen with other articles as well and thats pretty scary and if someone ever hacked into Wikipedia and crashed it..wooo..the world will end..hehe(kind of)..--Cometstyles 22:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it could be restored by any other admin, so it isn't a problem. I can still see and if I wish, restore the page, for example. Prodego ^talk 23:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Technically, the edits aren't lost, they're just hidden from regular users and are only shown to admins on a page by page basis through Special:Undelete. The edits don't appear to admins on the user contribs page. Because this is what edit counters use to count edits, the deleted edits don't count and the total can go down. Harryboyles 00:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That page will not and should not be restored, it is periodically deleted to remove user's e-mail addresses from the history in order to preserve their privacy. John Reaves (talk) 07:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course, at first glance I thought it was just to prevent the page history from becoming excessive on an active page. GDonato (talk) 10:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, on a similar note has anyone ever thought of converting this page to e-mail requests (like WP:RFO) as this page could be a real target page for spammers, they're going to get about 50-100 e-mail addresses a week there, aren't they?

I suggested this some time ago at the talk page. The developers are unwilling to set up a list, however. Tra (Talk) 12:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:BITED better not suggest it again :-}! Thanks. GDonato (talk) 12:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

problem and feature suggestion

Problem

1. in korea wikipedia, today is not monday. today is sunday in korean time. It is error.

Suggestion

1. at a image page, make a new "move to commons" tab, please. why? if some picture is only in english wikipedia, I can move to commons very easy.

sorry, i am poor elnglish user...:( -- WonYong (talk • contribs • count • logs • email) 07:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Username block

See start of discussion at User talk:HighInBC

Any suggesgtions? GDonato (talk) 21:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? Corvus cornix 01:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I've found the root of the problem now.

• TheGoogle made a WP:CHU request while logged out, the block (with auto-disabled) still being active on his account.
• A b'crat changed TheGoogle to Raden but the block was carried over to Raden and unblocking Raden and the IP had no effect and no autoblocks could be found.
• Unblocking TheGoogle should work as, according to the logs, the block by HighInBC is the only mention in the block logs.

Feel free to unblock yourself if High is offline. GDonato (talk) 10:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem linking to Commons image

Could someone have a look at Robbie Williams. I deleted a copyvio photo that was being used in the infobox and so replaced it with Image:Robbie Williams Hamburg 2006.jpg, a free image from commons. It working fine here on the right, but the infobox shows a redlink to the file name only. The image's page says its linked to by Robbie Williams, it just ins't showing up there. Anyone know whats going on? WjBscribe 03:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed although it's now enlarged and therefore looks horrible. The problem is with the infobox template, as it says the following on the template page:

"| Img_size = <!-- Only for images narrower than 220 pixels -->"

I don't see why such a restriction is needed but then again I haven't looked over the code (and don't have time to right now). Yonatan ^talk 04:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The parameter needs a number without px. See two sections above. –Pomte 05:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How can I use an external editor for editing SECTIONS

I've successfully setup external editor by using ee.pl. But it can only deal with the entire article which maybe very long. is it possible to use user javascript to add some link called 'external edit' beside the normal 'edit' link to edit sections with external editor?

Cybersnoopy 23:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Mediawiki supports this, considering that &externaledit=true or &action=raw don't seem to work with &section=N. Alex Smotrov 03:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Page title with ~~~

On this whatlinkshere page, it shows that Image:Hebb_bobby~_sunny~~~~_101b.jpg is transcluding the template, but this page is not accessible due to the bad title error. The database dump of the mainspace titles shows that there are some other broken pages like this one (WP:~~~, WP:~~~~, WP:~~~~~, ~~~, ~~~~, and ~~~~~). What can be done about these? --- RockMFR 20:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

A developer should deleted those as titles containing three or more tildes are not longer valid since the last software update. —Ruud 22:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Repeating my answer from a section earlier on this page: if it gives the "Bad title" error message, the only way to delete it is to wait for the next time when the developers run their bad title fixing script, which will rename the page directly in the database to a valid name prefixed with Broken/. After that's done, since the title is no longer invalid, it can be deleted normally. I don't know, however, if that will rename the image file; it's possible that the image becomes broken. --cesarb 00:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks, I missed that. --- RockMFR 01:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Did someone change the SVG renderer?

I recently noticed that SVG files I upload no longer display the Courier New font correctly, even if that font is explicitly specified. Instead, they use some other (and substantially inferior) monospace font. If I click on them and let Mozilla display them, rather than having MediaWiki convert them to PNG, they look fine. Was the renderer changed on the server side, and, if so, why? *** Crotalus *** 19:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether the rendering setup changed recently, but it's possible that the font just isn't installed on the server. The reason it works on your local machine is because it uses your local fonts in that case. Assuming you're talking about Image:TI_SN76489_pinout.svg, it looks like you specified "Courier New, monospace" as the font, which is why it is falling back. It would be nice to get a list of the fonts that are available on the image server, but I haven't seen one. It would also be cool to be able to see exactly which version of librsvg is being used. Mike Dillon 20:01, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

More fonts were installed as of 2007-04-18, see Bug 8898 comment 7. I'll put a list of fonts at m:SVG fonts. We're using librsvg 2.14. -- Tim Starling 16:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the list. Were any existing fonts removed? Courier New previously showed up properly, and now it doesn't. *** Crotalus *** 00:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I set Nimbus Mono L as the font and it worked great — that must have been what was being used previously in Courier New's place as the default monospace font. That looks much better than Bitstream. *** Crotalus *** 00:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Good. I hope the documentation has been updated. (SEWilco 00:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC))

Posted a message on m:Talk:SVG image support. *** Crotalus *** 00:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Double protection with expiry

If Admin A semi protects a page with no time set (indefinitely), and then Admin B semi protects the same page (without unprotecting first) with a time, when the time is up, does that page become unprotected or does it go back to the indefinite one? Second, Admin A does the same thing, but admin B fully protects it with an expiration date. When the date comes, does it become unprotected or goes back to semi protected? --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's go Yankees!) 00:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No idea. Is this just curiosity? --Deskana (fry that thing!) 00:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

See this. The page is now unprotected. Hopefully this answers your question. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 00:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes it does. Thanks. --TeckWiz is now R ^ParlateContribs_@(Let's go Yankees!) 00:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Drop down box on "confirm protection"

Perhaps discussed before, but would it be possible to have on the "confirm protection" page a drop down box for the expiration time? The same as is on the "block user" page. Garion96 (talk) 21:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem with my contributions

I would swear that up through yesterday I used to see 500 items by default when I show my contributions. Today I am only seeing 50. I am looking in my preferences and I don't see an option for this (but I think I remember setting this as a preference many months ago). Is something wrong, or am I loosing my mind? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 16:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

50 is the default value. I don't think there is a "forgetable" way to change it. I've always thought that more than 50 as the default would be better (~500) GDonato (talk) 16:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

My contribs definitely used to show 250 items by default (I have 250 set as my recent-changes and expanded watchlist defaults). It's showing 50 by default now. --ais523 10:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Data-driven list articles?

The question writeup is here on the help page. Comments and suggestions from the people who watch this page are strongly encouraged and requested. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 17:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Gallery display issues?

I haven't done any sort of bug reporting yet, mostly because I haven't heard of anyone else having the same problem. Many (not all, though close) of the pages I've gone to won't display images if they're part of a gallery. Sometimes a few thumbnails are shown, sometimes all but one or two, sometimes none, and the number in the gallery doesn't seem to have any effect on how many are(n't) shown. When the images are just regular thumbnails within the [[Image:]] tags, they're ok (though I believe there've been one or two times when those won't display, either), as are images within infoboxes. I've tried purging and refreshing, but it doesn't help any. A few times it's even resulted in fewer pictures being displayed. Between all this, I'm seriously wondering if it's an issue with Wiki (in general, this issue isn't contained to Wikipedia), or with my computer (which is also why I haven't sent any bug reports). Anyone have any ideas what could be causing the problem, or how I can fix it? -Bbik 22:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Which images are they? I believe this note from the top of this page applies:

If an image thumbnail is not showing, try purging its image description page (if the image is from Wikimedia Commons, you might have to purge there too). If it doesn't work, try again.

If you can point out an image you're having an issue with, we can see if the issue affects just you or others as well. Hope that helps. Mike Dillon 23:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

That line (among others) is exactly why I specified that I'd tried purging already. However, as for specific ones I'm having issues with, most recently it's this page, and the specific pictures are (working across, starting at the first one after the panoramas):

• Small Town: 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 15
• Big Town: 5-9

I can find other pages I've had issues with too, if it'll help. If the numbering doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll copy the specific pages from the edit box. -Bbik 23:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on this, since it's moved quite so far up the list by now, and no response to the listed pictures, either... -Bbik 07:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

So, should I assume no one has any idea about this, and I should just submit it as a bug, or? -Bbik 04:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I lost track of this discussion. I'm not seeing any problems with the page you pointed to. Mike Dillon 04:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I'll blame it on my computer for now and see if it's still a problem once I get it fixed (hopefully in the next few days), and then submit it as a bug if it is. Thanks anyhow. -Bbik 23:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

????

I uploaded some pictures in my Art Gallery at Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The problem is, sometimes I am unable to see the pictures. Whenever I use a PC it doesn't work... and whenever I use a Mac it does. Is there some type of formatting/programming that I should use in order for me to see the pictures no matter what type of computer I'm using? Would Internet security programs interrupt my viewing of the images possibly? 1013-andy 16:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How to use a Wikitable Sortable

Hello,

I'm trying to make some corrections to List of cities by population, but can't for the life of me figure out how to use a sortable wikitable. For instance, Lima needs to be moved from the 19 spot down to 39, but how do I do that and have things change automatically? Please leave a message on my talk page. --Criticalthinker 08:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• [Sort-function] - it is now possible for tables to have the option to be sorted by date, alphabetical order or numerical order. However, it is not possible to sort numbers with a dot or comma in them. Javascript must be on to make it work. Use "class="prettytable sortable" for the table.
  • http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/Example#52 - Example

wikizine 52 --Walter Do you have news? Report it to Wikizine 13:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Dots and commas work fine on this Wikipedia. Elsewhere adapt MediaWiki:Common.js in the same way.--Patrick 20:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• I don't get what you guys are talking about, at all. --Criticalthinker 00:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

See m:Help:Sorting. Note however that it just sorts, it does not display automatic rank numbers.--Patrick 05:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Due to the footnotes numeric sorting of the population column does not work. For populations < 1,000,000, use the invisible prefix <span style="display:none">&</span>.--Patrick 20:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Signature problem

I just found out that my 4 tilda signature is messed up, like

[[User:Chochopk|ChoChoPK (球球PK) ([[User talk:Chochopk|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Chochopk|contrib]])]] 23:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

It's supposed to be like

ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 22:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I know I haven't changed my preference. Is anyone getting the same thing? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 23:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you got "Raw signature" on in Special:Preferences? --Deskana (fry that thing!) 00:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, this must have been a new feature. Thanks for responding so quickly. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 00:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the above isn't a new feature, it's been around for as long as I can remember. Wouldn't be the first time stuff like that has spontaneously changed though :-) --Deskana (fry that thing!) 02:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It is a software change, although it's quite an old one now. --ais523 10:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Watch new features?

Which page should we monitor so we have a chance to notice when such changes appear? (SEWilco 00:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. New features/changes are usually noted there, together with lists of which bugs were fixed and other related things. If you want to know about the changes more often than weekly, however, the only way is to monitor the IRC channel and the server admin log. --cesarb 23:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Transmitting in UTF-8

(I posted this on the Bot owner's noticeboard too, but I'm not sure if this would be a better place.)

I am having some trouble with UTF-8 encoding with my bot. I am trying to write text to wikipedia that contains UTF-8 characters (pulled from wikipedia in the first place), but am having inconsistent results – some characters are translating properly, whereas others are not (and are coming across as ?'s). All of the characters look proper in my browser on the original page, so it's not a browser issue.

I am using PHP. I tried calling utf8_decode() on the incoming text, and utf8_encode() on the outgoing text, which lead to the condition described above where only some of the characters come across properly. I'm not sure what I'm missing or what I can do to fix it; any help would be greatly appreciated.

For an example of the problem, see this diff. The left side is what it is supposed to look like (manually inserted), and the right is what the bot is putting. Note that while the à (in "U.S. Città di Palermo") is being retained, ā, ō, and ū are turned into ?'s. —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 15:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you want to use those functions as they seem to be limited to characters that can be represented in ISO-8859-1. Here's the description for utf8_decode: "Converts a string with ISO-8859-1 characters encoded with UTF-8 to single-byte ISO-8859-1". Since ā, ō, and ū are not part of ISO-8859-1, utf8_decode is turning them into question marks. Mike Dillon 16:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I took those calls out (never used utf8 encoding at all before, so I thought that they might help), and also explicitly added charset=utf-8 to the content-type header and it seems to be working now. Thanks! —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 16:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Help with Categories

Hi there. I'm trying to start a new sub-sub-category under the parent Category:Arab, in the sub-Category:Arabic culture, called Category:Arab Diaspora Organizations (for which I have created a page). But I don't think I have done this in the right way at all and would appreciate some guidance on how to do it correctly. Thanks. Tiamut 13:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? I got to it fine. The only thing I can see is that perhaps "Diaspora" "Organizations" should be lower-case. Are they proper nouns? — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What's with the 320px thumbnails?

Regarding thumbnails; I've noticed that some of these have been retrospectively "scaled up" to 320px width and look awful.

One example is this "archived" article, and pretty much all versions before I fixed it. I can tell you now that the picture in the original versions of these articles was *not* scaled to 320px. I can tell you that because I've edited the article several times since then and would immediately have noticed an image that is so horribly oversized and so clearly badly scaled-up!!

What is going on? The *supposed* archived article explicitly resizes to 320px as follows:-

[[Image:UniversalHeroMastertronic.jpg|thumb|320px|right|[[Cover art]] for the game ''[[Universal Hero]]'']]

but as I said, the genuine original version didn't.

If this is someone's attempt to draw attention to misuse of "fair use low-res" (which I agree has been abused in some situations), it is wrong here, because the scan is below the 320px limit in either direction. It's also very disturbing that the archived version was (apparently) changed.

Fourohfour 13:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

User:Fourohfour defined the 320px sizes in this edit in December 2005. (SEWilco 14:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC))

I think you meant "this alleged edit" ;) Mike Dillon 14:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Please cut out the smartass comments. You'll note that that the edit in question was the one where both images were changed to proper thumbnails so that I could add a caption.

For one thing, it wasn't until I researched this issue that I had any idea that "320px" was the proposed maximum size for "fair use" images. So either this is a coincidence, or it has something to do with its fair-use, non-free nature.

Given that I take care over my contributions to Wikipedia, such as this original image, this improvement of someone else's image or indeed most of my image contributions, you think I'd have noticed such a godawful oversized and blocky thumbnail. Doubly so since I edited the article several times after that.

But let's assume for a second that I really did miss it. Given how obviously oversized, blocky and generally horrible the resized images are (especially the "Universal Hero" cover scan lower down), the question is... If it was there for over 16 months, why did no-one else notice it? 15:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) When you start implying that people are altering the article history to make it look like you did something you didn't,

Nope, sorry. You're reading too much into my comments that was never there. I didn't believe (nor imply) that the reasons for any such changes was likely to be personal. Nor did I assume that they were restricted to my articles. My assumption was that it was most likely an automated process to do with image-handling.

a smart-ass comment is hardly out of line. I'm sorry you took it as some sort of general slight of you abilities or perceptiveness,

No, I just thought it was rude.

but it was really just a reaction to your paranoid tone about the changes (you're the one who called the archived article "supposed").

I was sceptical about whether the article was identical, but as I said above, it wasn't something I believed was targeted at me personally, so your use of the word "paranoid" is somewhat inappropriate.

Archived articles and their history aren't unchangeable, and on occasion it's possible to even inadvertantly mix them up (e.g. history merges). It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the article had been changed for some reason. Fourohfour 16:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That being said, I'm sure plenty of people noticed it, but I doubt the article in question gets enough traffic from active editors who would know what to do about it. (looks like Ruud figured it out) Mike Dillon 15:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You specified the thumbnail size to be 320px. Until a few days ago the software would only scale down images and would refuse to scale up image, causing the thumbnail to be displayed at the same size at the original (256px). This "bug" has now been fixed so thumbnails can scale up images, even in archived versions. —Ruud 15:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That explains it, thank you. While I accept that in all probability I did specify the 320px, it wasn't exactly obvious to me back then that there was no upscaling, and nor were the reasons for the article suddenly being obviously changed, even on the archived copies.

Hope they improve the upscaling BTW, it's a bit.... yeuch at the moment. :-) Fourohfour 16:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

So what's the rationale behind blowing up an image when a user specifies a lager dimension than the actual image. It was fine before, IMHO. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 23:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

This change may have been ill-considered. Where may one comment on it. to try to reach a new consensus about what the software should do? Notinasnaid 12:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an accidental regression in behavior as a side effect of some major changes to the image handling code. It'll be fixed soon; for future reference, please use our bug tracker at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org to report bugs like this. --brion 16:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Image error

I am using:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3

and many small images are showing to be very large.

For example File:ASmily.gif is becoming ASmily.gif When using [[Image:ASmily.gif|thumb]] - [[Image:ASmily.gif|frame]] & <gallery>Image:ASmily.gif</gallery>. I am not using the Google Toolbar. Could someone explain why this is happening? Thanks, Razorclaw 20:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This is intended. When you select "thumb" as an image display option, the image (by default) displays with a width of 180 pixels (not sure why it's 120 for you. You can see your user preferences' file section). See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax for more information on getting images to do what you want. Gracenotes^T § 21:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Really Its the gallery I'm talking about. I did not know small images turned out huge there. «razorclaw» 22:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Galleries also scale images to a specific size (~200px, I think) whether they are smaller or larger than the specified size. Smaller ones will, of course, pixelate and larger ones may lose detail. --Iamunknown 22:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a new bug which is being worked on. --brion 16:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Display Images without linking to image page

How do you display an image but not link to it? For example, I want an external link but the content should be an image. In HTML you would do:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/"><img src="wikipedia.png"></a>

I looked at Help:Images and other uploaded files but couldn't find it. Please help! 71.191.103.235 18:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This works nicely:

<imagemap>
Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg|200px
poly 0 0 0 [[0]]
desc none
</imagemap>

Regards, «razorclaw» 19:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this will work better

<imagemap>
Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg|200px
poly 0 0 0 [[0]]
default [[The_link_you_want|What_you_want_to_popup_when_the_mouse_hovers_over_the_image]]
desc none
</imagemap>

Saintrain 19:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Includeonly

I was attempting to show some WikiText code as an example, and I haven't figured out how to have includeonly show up as example text on a transcluded page. See Wikipedia:Userboxes#Syntax for including categories, and the source page Wikipedia:Userboxes/Design and construct#Syntax for including categories.

I've tried nowiki, pre, and leading space(s) and so far none seem to work.

Any help would be great : ) - jc37 23:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

You want the tag to appear only in transclusions? You could split it into pieces:

<includeonly><include</includeonly><includeonly>only></includeonly>

or, if you just want to disable the tag, it might work to replace one of the letters with an ascii code (with space removed):

<includ& #101;only>

Is that what you want? Gimmetrow 00:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm looking to disable the tag, and merely show the text code. I was surprised that nowiki/pre didn't disable it. I'll try your solutions. Thank you very much : ) - jc37 00:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

A variant of the above is to use nowiki twice, with the nowiki ending and restarting in the middle of the troublesome word. (SEWilco 03:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

<includeonly> for a more aesthetic solution. –Pomte 02:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

My User Page

How come there are white spaces in between the templates in my user page, and does anybody know how to fix them? Also, does anybody know where I can find a complete list of user templates, and where I can request new ones? Kris 01:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The spaces are there because a couple of your templates are a pixel or two taller than the rest of them. You can find a list at Wikipedia:Userboxes along with instructions on how to create your own. If you still need help creating one, ask for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Userboxes. Mike Dillon 01:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! Kris 01:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I adjusted some image sizes on the userboxes you were using to make the sizes more standard. Mike Dillon 01:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Kris 03:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Watch List

Is it possible to "watch" only a Section of an article, as opposed to the entire article? If not, can some one with technical expertise here at Wiki make that happen? I can imagine instances (say, in very long articles) where I would want to see new edits and changes to SECTIONS of an article only, yet not to every single edit in the entire article itself. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? (JosephASpadaro 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC))

Not a direct answer, but if an article is long enough for that to be an issue, perhaps it should be split up into subarticles. —EncMstr 21:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

True ... but that's not the real issue. An article can still be of appropriate length (i.e., not "too long"), yet I can still be concerned with only one aspect (or Section) of that article. My point is: in longer articles, there can be many, many, many edits / changes in any given day. Most would be irrelevent to the one particular section of concern. Thus, the watch list -- as currently set up -- would be useless if it keeps notifying me of edits and changes that I am not concerned with. (JosephASpadaro 21:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC))

The section can be made a separate page that is transcluded. That way it can be watched separately (and it has its own page history). However, other people may like to have the whole page as single watchlist item with a single history.--Patrick 00:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

See e.g. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_May_5: every section is a separate page.--Patrick 12:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The only problem is that sections are ridiculously mutable. You can change the title, add one here and there, move 'em around, etc. Maybe you're looking for a script that checks for a certain title in the edit summary: /* Title */, and removes sections without the title. Would that work? Gracenotes^T § 05:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I asked the same question on the watchlist page recently. I haven't received a reply yet. Ironically, it was because I asked another question here, but while waiting for a reply on this page, I was bombarded by huge amounts of traffic, and hence stopped watching. It would be a handy feature, especially for high traffic talk pages. Is there any way a 'watch this section' or 'watch for a reply' feature could be implemented, so as not to force the user to view all changes made to both the article and talk page? Is there any way to watch simply an article page or talk page, but not both (for example if an editor wanted to watch an article but not the very busy associated talk page)? Again, I won't be watching this page because the traffic level is just ridiculous, so I'll hopefully remember to drop by some time and search for an answer. Richard001 06:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer is simply "no". In the future there will be better systems for the talk pages, however. --brion 14:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

A grain of SALT

Wikipedia:Protected titles/May 2007/List contains two images (Image:WinXP_exclamation.png and Image:Stop_X_XP.png) that were nevertheless recreated. Does this process not work on images, or is something else wrong? >Radiant< 12:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps setting ns=image may help? Gracenotes^T § 13:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

stub --> article

HOW TO TURN A STUB INTO AN ASSESSED ARTICLE? I can't figure out how to do this. I turned a a stub on the Victorian Church architect Thomas Garner into an article (using historical documents recently found). It remains a stub - what is the next step please? Thanks May 2. Keoghse 05:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Garner doesn't seem to have a {{stub}} template anywhere, and as far as I can tell it's also a good length, I don't think it is a stub--VectorPotential^Talk 13:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about the assessment in the banner on the article's talk page, that is changed by hand based on an editor's best judgement. Just change {{Architecture|class=Stub|auto=yes}} to {{Architecture|class=Start|auto=yes}}, or whatever class you think is appropriate. WikiProject Architecture's assessment guidelines are located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture/Assessment, you can also make a request on that page for someone else to assess the Thomas Garner article, if you want. jwillbur^talk 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of |auto=yes. auto means it was previously assessed by a bot. –Pomte 22:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. I don't know how I missed that. It should be {{Architecture|class=Start}}. jwillbur^talk 16:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Incorrect TOC formatting

==H2==
===H3===
====H4====
===H3===

==H2==
===H3===

• H2
  • H3
    • H4
  • H3

• H2

• H3

This example of sections generates incorrectly formatted TOC: the last H3 does not have enough indent from the left. In HTML this means that <ul> tag is closed too early on preceding H2.

It looks like a Mediawiki bug to me. Or did I miss something? — Alex Smotrov 15:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm editing with FireFox, Windows XP, and agree - it looks like a bug (I pasted your six headings above the heading for this section, then did a preview; the final heading (2.1) should be indented in the TOC (like 1.1) and isn't. Odd. Definitely something the developers should look at. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes I just came here to file a similar report (wished I'd checked, could have saved myself a lot of time). Someone should definitely file a bug report. Paul August ☎ 22:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: I think it might be this problem [1]. Paul August ☎ 22:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone filed it today and it's already reported as fixed: bugzilla:9764 — Alex Smotrov 22:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be fixed. United Kingdom corporation tax and WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

We will see it fixed when Mediawiki software on Wikipedia servers gets updated. The bug says fixed in r21814, Special:Version shows only 'r21778'. Let's try to relax and do something else for now ;) Alex Smotrov 23:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Relaxing is fine; in the meantime, it's very hard to get anything done at WP:FAR, with the TOC in complete disarray, and the backlog increases. Can anyone inform us of the next step needed to get this addressed ? This isn't territory I normally deal with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange TOC bug?

Just did some editing to Los Angeles Police Department, and cant figure out why the TOC wont collapse fully, instead in hide mode it hides the first main header only. The page's infobox appears to be working normally. -Stevertigo 09:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I too ran into this bug since the weekend: if there is a subsubsection heading in the TOC, it won't "hide" sections after that one properly but will only partially collapse the sections which preceded it. — Athaenara 10:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just ran into this one on YouTube as well. Probably the same thing as this, which apparently should be fixed soon. WarpstarRider 10:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this occurs when there is a ===subsection=== heading which follows a ====subsubsection==== heading, and I've been able to duplicate it. I almost copied my test here but then realised what it would do to the TOC for the entire page. — Athaenara 10:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is following or working on this, I removed the level 4 headings from one FAR review, and this semi-corrected the TOC, although now there's a new error at the TOC in WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Update with the fix has been applied. --brion 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Database Locks

Is it just me or have there been more database locks for the "slave" servers to catch up to the masters than normal? Prior to the past week, I had only experienced one in all my time on Wikipedia. In the last several days, I have been through 3, the last of which lasted over 2 minutes. Is there some sort of technical or hardware problems causing these issues? Cool3 22:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This link can be useful: Check current slave lag. --ais523 17:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I bent my monobook

I made some changes to my Monobook.js, and now it's completely broken, failing to do anything. MediaWiki seems to be using a failsafe default Monobook now. Can someone take a look at my monolithic monobook and help figure it out? Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

If your monobook doesn't work, please start by reverting the file to the last version that worked. We've recently had a case where a user couldn't log in due to a malfunctioning monobook. After you've done this copy the following to your browser's address bar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Luigi30/monobook.js?action=purge.

That should give you the last functioning version of your monobook. The actual file is a protected file, so actual editing of it is impossible for other users except administrators. Valentinian ^{T / C} 15:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I dropped it back to the last working version. It seems to be so delicate that just about any change I make completely breaks it. Luigi30 (Taλk) 15:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

In this edit you replaced ) with } on line 345. –Pomte 21:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Template formatting breaking stuff

[2] The welcome template seen here, which is adjusted by Pilotguy (unintentionally), seems to almost certainly be broken (or badly designed). The template uses unicode charater codes to prevent {{helpme}} and ~~~~ from executing. Of course, the simple way to fix the template to work properly, and not be destroyed when any sort of unicodifying tool runs over it, is to user nowikis. Unfortunately, my welcome template knowledge is not what it used to be, and I'm having trouble pinning down the culprit(s) (otherwise I'd {{sofixit}}) - could someone take a look for me? Martinp23 21:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a note to say that I've done an emergency release of NPWatcher to prevent these issues, but I doubt that such fixes will be released for any other tools. Martinp23 21:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

That seems like the best solution - NPWatcher shouldn't change HTML escapes on non-article pages as part of leaving unrelated messages. Are you saying there are other tools that do that? CMummert · talk 21:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

AWB has the option to do it, and most users will probably leave that checked. Not sure about any other bot frameworks, or software. Would it not be wise to fix the template (if anyone knows which one it is), to prevent issues like this, and perhaps show by example to the newbie how to use nowiki (yes, an unlikely point :))? Martinp23 20:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Entities that correspond to characters in the ASCII range 32 to 126 shouldn't be unicodified in my opinion, as they're almost certainly there to deliberately nowiki rather than as a typing aid. --ais523 11:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't read the Wiki font

Why does the Wikipedia use such a difficult-to-read font? It hurts your eyes and slows down your reading.

Can I suggest that you use arial or some other common, highly viewable font?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.169.162.172 (talk • contribs)

• What browser are you using?--VectorPotential^Talk 17:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • You can probably change the font used by your browser to display Wikipedia pages by changing your browser preferences. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 17:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, Wikipedia uses your browser's own default font. It's possible your browser is misconfigured, and you didn't notice because a lot of sites don't respect the user's preferences. --cesarb 23:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses Arial by default, but you can change it in your monobook.css if you are a registered user. Wikipedia never uses the browser's default font unless you tell it to in your monobook.css file. - MTC 10:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Where is it specifying Arial? I looked through all the CSS files for Monobook (you can see a list at Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes), and the font that's specified is "sans-serif". Your browser might be configured so that sans-serif defaults to Arial, but it's not Wikipedia that's chosing it. --cesarb 19:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah OK I missed that, you're right Wikipedia only specifies sans-serif by default. I was going by the fact that my default is always set to Times New Roman but Wikipedia has always used Arial (on every computer I've ever accessed Wikipedia on, even before I set up my monobook.css). - MTC 19:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Location map dot varies location between Firefox and IE; one correct, one not.

{{Infobox City}} has a provision using the template {{superimpose}} to manually superimpose a dot atop of a blank map. When I first tested it, it seemed to work great. However, now on certain pages there seems to be a glitch when viewed using Internet Explorer (WinXP), but Firefox (MacOS 10.4 and WinXP) is fine. Here is an example—Airdrie, Alberta. I thought that maybe it was the map itself (Image:Division No. 6, Alberta Location.png) but Didsbury, Alberta uses both this map and Infobox City (aka Infobox Settlement) and there doesn't seem to be a problem or a noticeable difference in dot placement. As a control, Langdon, Alberta uses this map and the {{superimpose}} template but doesn't use infobox city and it seems to be fine. Can anyone explain this and is there a solution for this? —MJCdetroit 19:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine in IE6, but not in Firefox 2 on WinXP. I'm pretty sure it's because the image is centered in the table cell. See this table with exaggerated width:

We need a way to make the surrounding <div> wrap around the image only, and not the entire table cell. –Pomte 01:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In your preview, when viewed in FF 1.5.0.11 and Safari Version 2.0.4 for Mac OS, the dot is about 2½ inches left of the shaded area. I'll preview it tommorrow in WinXP and IE & FF when I get to work.

It looks like the author of Template:Superimpose may have had a problem with IE and png images before. I would have asked him if this is the problem here, but Papayoung is currently inactive. —MJCdetroit 02:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

At least in this example, the issue is not with the type of image but with CSS layering. One way to solve it is by specifying the width of the <div>:

I've added a removable red border to make it obvious what has changed. Someone with more knowledge of CSS may have a better idea. –Pomte 03:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Some localised infoboxes use {{Location map}}, which does not contain superimpose. I haven't seen any faults when viewing that with Firefox of IE. Maybe the difference between the two template codes could reveal something. - 52 Pickup 13:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

{{Location map}} does specify the width of the div (albeit with +3px for padding), so I'm going to get the same change at {{superimpose}}. –Pomte 21:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there any articles already using image_dot_map in {{Infobox City}} that had dot_x and dot_y changed due to this problem? Looks like the parameter was added recently, so there shouldn't be too many to fix. –Pomte 23:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that any have been changed. Changing the dot placement is what brought this problem to the surface at Airdrie, Alberta. If there infoboxes that need to be "fixed", most would be in Alberta, Canada and a few in Western New York, USA. —MJCdetroit 00:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: I made some changes to a test template located at Template:Infobox City/Test1. I also made the Category:Settlement articles requiring maintenance to help fix the pages that have this problem. There are 59 pages where this is used, so fixing will be pretty easy. I tested the fix in FF2 and IE7 for WindowsXP and Safari 2.0.4 & FF 1.5.0.11 for MacOS X (10.4.9). Everything seemed fine. For evaluation purposes, I edited Redcliff, Alberta and Airdrie, Alberta to use the "Test1" template. Does this fix seem reasonable? If it does I'll go ahead and change the 59 pages to correctly display the dot. —MJCdetroit 02:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I see no problems with that and in fact I have incorrectly attempted to simplify the code. I will withdraw the edit request at {{superimpose}}, unless there is some situation other than {{Infobox City}} when {{superimpose}} is used on a center-aligned image. –Pomte 03:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The change has been made to {{superimpose}}. I have made the minor corresponding change to {{Infobox City}}. Your suggested /Test1 is now unnecessary as the extra div becomes redundant. The dot_x and _y values need to be fixed for all articles in Category:Settlement articles requiring maintenance. Anything I can do to help speed this process up, or can you handle it? –Pomte 18:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Any help that is offered is always welcome. For the Alberta maps (which are all 180px), the dot_x seems to be off by about +35. I have been subtracting 35 from what ever the dot_x says and double checking it in google earth. It gets the dot pretty close. The dot_y seems to be ok. If you changed the live template then I will start just changing the dot_x values in the infoboxes in that category. Thanks, —MJCdetroit 19:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist password message

I don't think the [dismiss] button is working, I keep getting flashed by this ^ every time I hit my watchlist--VectorPotential^Talk 00:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it only dismisses per watchlist session, i.e when you leave and comeback it cames back too. One thing you can do is leave your watchlit open in a tab. John Reaves (talk) 00:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The watchlist dismiss code in MediaWiki:Common.js is supposed to dismiss for a week. Mike Dillon 02:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a modification to your monobook.css would do it. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 02:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC

• I had planned on deleting it tomorrow any way, so don't worry. John Reaves (talk) 21:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Uploading files - I cannot get it to work

I'm trying to upload a spoken article for the Soft Machine, but it repeatedly will not work.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 13:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Nobody can help you unless you provide more information, such as the actual error message. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 14:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It just comes up with a "this page cannot be displayed" error: I think it could be to do with the large file size.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 14:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Help

On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist/edit, it will display

• Power Instinct (Talk | History)

for example. Now if we click on History, it will take us to the ARTICLE'S HISTORY. But what happens if we want to directly go to the article's TALK HISTORY? I know I should be proposing features on bugzilla, but I don't have an account. Would someone be so kind to do it for me and to let me know? Thank you.100110100 07:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

On another note, we have tabs for 'edit this page' and 'history'. Now these tabs are fore pages you are currently on. I would like 6 tabs. article, discussion, edit article, edit discussion, article history, discussion history. Same as the above, would someone be so kind to report this to bugzilla and let me know? Thanks!:-D100110100 07:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This'd make the interface a tad cramped don't you think? --Deskana (fry that thing!) 13:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to make a user script for you, 100110100. That is the best solution, I think. Two catches, though: first, I can't do it within the next six hours, since I'm editing from... a less-than-ideal browser, and can't view a page's source. I could do it later (or someone else could do it now.) Second: if you have a large watchlist, it may be better to include a link that, upon clicking, populates your watchlist with talk history links, rather than making it an event that occurs when loading that page (your browser could crash). Gracenotes^T § 13:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that this sort of thing's been a feature of navigation popups for ages. However, I didn't find it that useful when I used popups (and eventually turned popups off altogether). --ais523 13:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Everything's a feature of popups, so no surprise there :) Gracenotes^T § 13:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. So, I'd like to still put these up on Bugzilla if someone would be so kind to volulenteer, & let me know. Thank you!100110100 06:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've created a little script at WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Six tabs, fell free to make modifications if needed. I'll add some docs on it's talk page a bit later. Alex Smotrov 15:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

How do we use a user-defined css in wikipedia?

Can we define some css classes and ids and use them whenever we want? If it is posssible, how? By wikipedia templates or something else? Thanks. - PegasusRoe 01:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• Short answer: You can't.
• Long answer: You can do it so that it displays only from your account, by using Special:Mypage/Monobook.css, but the css for the whole site, MediaWiki:Common.css, is permenantly protected so that only administrators can edit it, and there is no way it can be unprotected due to intentional security features in the software. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 01:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's frustrating, since I am editing a wikibook in chinese and I want to have my own style of looks, but thanks anyway. - PegasusRoe 04:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The above answer applies only to the English Wikipedia, if that wasn't clear. If you're talking about a different language Wikipedia, you should ask there. Similarly, if you're talking about a Wikibooks wiki, you should ask at that site, not here; and if this is a personal wiki, that's another matter entirely. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Forgot password

What do i do if i forgot my password. My username is user:bucs10 and I forgot the password to it.--75.82.22.125 23:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

To quote from the Technical FAQ:

"If you entered your e-mail address when you signed up, you can have a new password generated. Click on the "Log in" link in the upper-right corner. Enter your user name, and click the button near the bottom of the page called "Mail me a new password". You should receive an e-mail message with a new random password; you can use it to log in, then go ahead and change your password in your preferences to something you'll remember."

If you haven't entered in an email address, as far as I'm aware, we can't do anything about it. It appears you've created a new account, which is what I'd have recommended. Harryboyles 06:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible that someone hacked into my account and changed my password on me, because I wrote my password down on a paper and I couldnt find that paper until today, and when I type it in it doesn't work.--Yankees10 21:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Yankees10(use to be known as Bucs10)

I doubt it. Was your password the same as your username? If you have e-mail enabled, you can get a new one sent to you. John Reaves (talk) 21:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

no it was different, I don't know why it isn't working I know for a fact that this was the password.--Yankees10 22:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Yankees10

I have the same problem (not on en: but in an other wiki). Yes, the password was the same as the username, but there was no eMail adress. Somewhere on en: was written to contact an developper, but no response. I do not understand why they did this without warning before. Eruedin 17:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Image no longer shown in Infobox

ResolvedDone, not sure what you did wrong, did you include right align, tha's no good, I think. GDonato (talk) 23:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The Image:Teresa Teng.gif still exists but is no longer displayed in the Infobox; the template displays a red link as if the image had been deleted, see this version of page Teresa Teng. As a workaround I have just added a link outside the infobox. If this is a general problem then editors will be deleting red links all over the encyclopedia, so I hope it can be fixed soon. - Fayenatic london (talk) 22:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Done by myself. GDonato (talk) 23:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, GDonato. It appears that it was the image size tag (which you deleted) that was disabling it. Something has changed in the template or the wiki software, because that tag has been there all along and it used to appear just fine. Well done anyway! Fayenatic london (talk) 23:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it by a sort-of-accident (probably couldn't've done it if I tried!). Images aren't really my strong-point. ;-) GDonato (talk) 23:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed this with a different infobox. Syntax like {{{parameter|}}} no longer works when not inside a parserfunction, I believe. --NE2 23:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

px should not put behind the number in the Img_size parameter because it is already provided. See {{Infobox musical artist}}. –Pomte 23:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, it says that now, but "px" did not cripple the image until recently. If you search for "Img_size px" you will find lots more articles which were fine before this infobox code was changed, but now have red links. Some other infobox templates still allow "px". Can someone please either revert this change, or use AWB or a bot to remove "px" from the infobox code of all articles using {{Infobox musical artist}}? - Fayenatic london (talk) 18:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

N.B. If checking my argument with a search for "Img_size px musician", skip the first few pages of results as I have started fixing some... but there may be thousands. Please would someone make the Infobox template tolerant to "px". - Fayenatic london (talk) 12:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Going through the edit history, the image line was changed last on November 6/7, so it's not the infobox's fault. There has probably been a change in how images are shown. Before, it might have been that "200pxpx" was acceptable and interpreted as "200px", because that's essentially what those thousand infoboxes had been doing. –Pomte 17:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, "200pxpx" is actually interpreted correctly. I now think it has to do with the m:ParserFunctions behind {{min}}, because trying to compare "200" and "300px" results in Expression error: Unrecognised word "expression". –Pomte 17:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I have requested an edit to the infobox template at Template talk:Infobox musical artist#Accounting for px at the end of Img_size's value. This is a solution that checks the value given to Img_size. If the length of the value is greater than 3, then set that value as the dimension without doing any {{min}} comparisons. Adding px to the end of the number can be an honest mistake and we can account for that. If it is necessary to fix all of the transclusions, that can be done eventually with time and AWB. Thousands may be an exaggeration though. –Pomte 18:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The "min" was originally added in August of last year. If "px" was working in November, the problem is a change elsewhere. Anyway, changing this to support "px" will break the landscape option (unless "320pxx200px" magically works somehow). And the naive implementation suggested by Pompte will allow overenthusiastic fans to override the maximum image size by the simple expedient of adding "px" to the size, which is not a desirable outcome, IMO. It might be possible to design a better implementation that supports all options, but the code is already quite arcane. Fixing the uses (and better documenting the usage) seems somewhat preferable to me. Xtifr _tälk 01:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"320pxx200px" actually does work with regular images, but not with my suggestion for the same reason. You're right that increasing the image size above 220px shouldn't be allowed though. If anyone is interested I have made another wild crack at the cause of this apparent change at m:Help talk:Images and other uploaded files#Parsing px at the end of the caption. –Pomte 03:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I changed the template to check if {{{Img_size}}} is a number; if not (such as if it ends with px) it is replaced with 300.--Patrick 07:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"What links here"

Hey guys - Sorry to bother you but I wish to know what order the articles are in the "What links here" option.--Phill ^{talk Edits} 12:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

They aren't ordered. There must be something that determines the order, but it's based on number of links, time of addition, phase of the moon... So it's effectively completely random. -Amarkov moo! 13:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

They are ordered by the time of the article's creation - oldest first - as stated rather cryptically at help:what links here#Order; query. So that means, for example, that sun would probably be listed as one of the first while Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 4, 2007 would be listed near the end of the list. You can see this in action at special:whatlinkshere/Bureau of Meteorology; I recently added a link to the Bureau of Meteorology article to Darling Scarp but Darling Scarp appears near the start of the list because it was created in November 2002. Graham87 13:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

strange bug

This happens in Firefox but not IE.

Go to Wikipedia. Don't log in. Go to WP:FAR (or WP:FAC or WP:GAC). Try to use the page down or arrow keys. They don't work. Go to the Main page. They work. Go back to WP:FAR. They work. --Wclib 21:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Unable to replicate problem. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 22:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Same here. Arrows work fine for me on both pages.Tugbug 23:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Firefox has a known bug where it can lose track of the keyboard focus sometimes. Clicking on the page usually fixes it. --cesarb 00:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

Is there a user warning pallette script? --Pupster21 Talk To Me 15:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote one, but I haven't maintained it for ages and it's got very out of date, and I have no idea how portable it is. If anyone technically-minded wants to update it, it's at User:ais523/autotag.js. However, I wouldn't recommend using it in its current state. --ais523 15:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you a sysop? --Pupster21 Talk To Me 16:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm a sysop. --ais523 16:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If I fry my monobook (again) I will post with User:Pupster210 --Pupster21 Talk To Me 16:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmmmm Doesn't do anything. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 16:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you remember to bypass your cache? (The script is very outdated; some of the warnings listed there are redlinks nowadays, for instance.) --ais523 16:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Does the nowiki do anything? --Pupster21 Talk To Me 19:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!! I fried it!!!!!!!! --Pupster210 20:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Automated Reversion giving the wrong username in Edit summary

I just reverted vandalism to an article by going through the page history -> selecting last good version -> clicking [Restore this version] (I have AzaToth's reversion tools in my monobook.js page). The reversion worked correctly, but instead of my username in the edit summary it inserted De.Spongo. This is the first time I have used this feature. Any advice as to why this happened and how to fix it would be much appreciated! Thanks EyeSerene^TALK 22:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I see no evidence of this in your contributions page. Can you provide a diff? In addition, if this is related to TWINKLE, then contacting AzaToth is a better idea than posting here. --Deskana (AFK 47) 00:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Deskana, you have to check these contribs. EyeSerene, can you point out which edit you're referring to?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 00:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is what's happening: It just means De.Spongo was quicker than you, and reverted to the same version a few seconds before you did. Then, when you saved your revert, the Wiki software said to itself "there's no difference between this and the current version. I'll just ignore it." Unfortunately, you don't get an edit conflict or a message or anything, so it looks like an error, but it isn't. This happens to me all the time, especially since I'm reverting the old fashioned way, and others are using quicker tools. Someone using Twinkle or Vandalproof or something can always do it 15 seconds faster than me.

Fair warning: I'm usually asking questions, not answering them, and this is my very first attempt at a technical answer. So take it with a grain of salt. --barneca (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. The diff in question is here; obviously since I was not credited with the revert, it does not show up on my contributions. As I said above, it's the first time I've used the automatic restore tool - if Barneca is right, I suppose the best thing to do is try it out again next time I spot some vandalism and see what happens ;) EyeSerene^TALK 15:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Barneca is right. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Good call guys - reverts are working correctly now. It was just my bad luck that it happened the first time I used Twinkle (what are the odds of that?) causing me to think something was broken. Thanks all for the help! EyeSerene^TALK 16:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Phishing warning

The logon screen now contains the warning "To avoid becoming a victim of phishing, please verify that you are currently viewing the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin". Actually, my URL window there says http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=Talk:Main_Page - I don't think it can be phishing but the warning should be corrected. Perhaps the conflicting URL's are synonyms to experts, but not to the rest of us. Art LaPella 17:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected it. --ais523 17:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize; that was my doing. I'm afraid the current message is actually a bit more confusing, though--perhaps it can be reworded to say "Be sure you are viewing Special:Userlogin". AmiDaniel (talk) 22:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No good. Phishers would have control over the entire URL apart from its start; it's the wikipedia.org domain that distinguishes a genuine website from a fake one (any MediaWiki wiki can have a page called Special:Userlogin, and any other website can as well). --ais523 09:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this warning doesn't really do that much good. It's too subtle for most users to remember it, so if a phishing site copies the page, they can just drop the warning. If they're viewing it on our site, they aren't being phished. For this to be useful, users would have to notice that the real page has this warning and then notice that it is missing when viewing the phishing site. That just seems a little unlikely to me. That being said, the warning doesn't hurt anything and maybe it will raise awareness of phishing attacks in general. Mike Dillon 15:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

utf 16

how to download utf 16 to my pc?

Good question. Maybe you should go to the Wikipedia:Reference desk, I'm sure someone there knows. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 16:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Why are the computers allergic to me? TT_TT

Okay. Everyone knows that their personal menu (which includes a link to their user page, talk page, their preferences, watchlist, and stuff) is supposed to be aligned right at the top, opposite to the Wikipedia logo button, right? Well, today, at the time of this addition, whenever I roll my mouse over it, it gets messed up by aligning itself to the left side, hiding the userpage button behind the logo. Is there any reason (aside from either the school server's or the Wikipedia server's allergies to me) that this happens? 8o8 TToTT

Chef Clover MyTalk 13:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

'Tis random allergies. I've never found a cause for it. Close the browser and open it again; it should work. -Amarkov moo! 13:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but if it doesn't work than I'm yelling at you. Chef Clover 14:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC) MyTalk

It works, you're safe. Chef Clover 14:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC) MyTalk

WP:AOL

Is the solution at WP:AOL still working? Also, is/was 209.x.x.x an AOL range? -- NORTH ^talk 22:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to say without more numbers there, there's no way to do a WHOIS search without the first 6 digits. And as far as I know, yes, the AOL fix, is still in effect, the only edits that should be coming from AOL should be from the normal dynamic IP pool, not from any of the proxy ranges, as A) They're all still blocked from editing anyway, and B) AOL sends X-Forwarded-For headers on all but the oldest AOL installations, so there shouldn't be any activity from those ranges anyway--VectorPotential^Talk 23:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

We were specifically curious about 209.244.30.231 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). It appears to be a proxy used by an editor with AOL. -- NORTH ^talk 23:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Defiantly not registered to AOL, you'll find that IPvandal is a useful template for this sort of thing--VectorPotential^Talk 23:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

To be specific:

IP:         209.244.30.231
Location:   United States [City: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]
OrgName:    Level 3 Communications, Inc. 
OrgID:      LVLT
Address:    1025 Eldorado Blvd.
City:       Broomfield
StateProv:  CO
PostalCode: 80021
Country:    US

Prodego ^talk 00:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

A grain of SALT

Wikipedia:Protected titles/May 2007/List contains two images (Image:WinXP_exclamation.png and Image:Stop_X_XP.png) that were nevertheless recreated. Does this process not work on images, or is something else wrong? >Radiant< 12:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps setting ns=image may help? Gracenotes^T § 13:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

TOC Indent issue

In Virginia Tech massacre the TOC seems to only indent the first header's subheadings. In all the other header's sub-headers in the table are not indented. Thanks, Monkeyblue 10:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

See above. Harryboyles 10:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm as blind as a bat. Monkeyblue 10:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Wiki skin change?

Has there been some higher-than-user-level Wikipedia:Skin change of page background colours in the past few days?

When I first saw this about 48 hours ago, I thought it was because of a new hard disk and Mac OS X 10.4.6 and Safari 2.0.3 installs on my own computer, but colour changes appeared only on Wikipedia (including MediaWiki) pages while off-Wiki webpages (google, etc.) continue to display normally.

Anomaly: page margin, Table of contents background, quoteboxes background, the categories box, "Save page" "Show preview" "Show changes" buttons and small "This is a minor edit" and "Watch this page" checkboxes below page edit areas are now pale pink, while the background of the main portion of any Wikipedia page is now ice blue.

Second anomaly: very few fonts display properly now. For example, perhaps ten of the seventy or so formatted examples of fonts on Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting Text#List of Fonts display as they should. — Athaenara 07:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I can corroborate the font problem (but not the other problem with the strange background colors). I've tested the page linked above (the one with the font table) on three browsers - Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 5.2 (mac) - only around 1/3 of the fonts display correctly. Most of the others show up as san serif (looks like Verdana) and a few of them show up as a serif font (I think it's New Times). The text of the code on that page seems to correctly define the font names, but they are not showing up properly when rendered. Parzival418 _Hello 08:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Does the problem persist if you bypass your cache? --ais523 08:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

No, bypassing or emptying my cache does not affect this. I've tested it on two computers and multiple browsers, same result. They are all Macs, though, I don't have a Windows machine.

I also tested the &action=purge method of requesting re-rendering of the page. Also, no change to the problem.

I uploaded a screen shot of the incorrect font table, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Font_problem.jpg --Parzival418 _Hello 08:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What happens if you view the table with a skin other than Monobook? (For instance, [3]). --ais523 08:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer the larger question about monobook, but I can tell you my own monobook.css page is empty and always has been. I looked at ais523's link and saw the same examples not displaying the fonts they'd been formatted to display. Purge: no change. Bypass your cache: no change. I've emptied my own browser cache daily (as usual) this week: no change. — Athaenara 09:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking through what's effectively Recent Changes for the software. There were no changes connected to the skin 'about 48 hours ago' that weren't reverted almost immediately, but it's possible that there was a typo in some code elsewhere that's causing this. (Sometimes, extra whitespace is left at one end of a file; for reasons I don't understand, this sometimes corrupts the data that the servers send out, causing it to display in 'quirks mode' and interpreting the page differently, if I remember correctly, although I've never checked this myself.) What happens if you load up the page in Firefox, and then type 'javascript:' in the URL? (It opens a box explaining errors and warnings that came up on the page; the only expected one would be about 'column-count'; anything else may be what's causing the problem.) (By the way, thanks for the info so far, it's really helping to narrow this down. I see no problem on IE6 for Windows, by the way.) --ais523 09:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I checked the javacript in Firefox, I'll paste the resulting text below. I have to sign off for tonight and will check in tomorrow. Please let me know if you need me to check anything else. Thanks for your help. --Parzival418 _Hello 09:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Error: Warning: unrecognized command line flag -psn_0_54788097

Source File: file:///Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsBrowserContentHandler.js Line: 655

Error: syntax error Source File: javascript:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 1, Column: 109 Source Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts

Error: syntax error Source File: javascript:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 1, Column: 109 Source Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts

Error: syntax error Source File: javascript:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 1, Column: 109 Source Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts

Warning: Expected end of value for property but found '3'. Error in parsing value for property 'font-family'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 0

Warning: Expected end of value for property but found '2'. Error in parsing value for property 'font-family'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 0

Error: syntax error Source File: javascript:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 1, Column: 109 Source Code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts

Warning: Expected end of value for property but found ' '. Error in parsing value for property 'font-family'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 0

Warning: Expected end of value for property but found '93'. Error in parsing value for property 'font-family'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 0

Warning: Expected color but found 'width'. Error in parsing value for property 'border'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_Page_Help/Do-It-Yourself/Formatting_Text#List_of_Fonts Line: 0

Warning: Unknown property 'cohttp://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.pnglumn-count'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400 Line: 42

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE) [nsIWebNavigation.loadURI]" nsresult: "0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://global/content/viewSource.js :: viewSource :: line 141" data: no]

I'm not quite sure what's going on here. I'll take a look at it myself later (I have to go offline for a bit too, not sure if it'll be minutes or hours). --ais523 09:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to follow up on ais523's link: the page with the list of formatted font examples as viewed with each of the seven skins listed and linked for preview in user Preferences: chick, standard (Classic), cologneblue, monobook (default), myskin, nostalgia, simple.

Identically with these seven skins, all but the same few examples do not display as formatted when I view them. The twelve exceptions: Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Brush Script MT, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Gill Sans MT, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Webdings. — Athaenara 10:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The fonts which end with numbers don't work for me either (they all produce error messages on the JavaScript error console), using Firefox on Windows, but all the rest work, so this seems to be Mac-specific. I still have no idea what's causing it. (Are the fonts you can't see installed on your system? There seems to be nothing in the source that would suggest one skin over another.) --ais523 10:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Edwardian Script ITC was the one which first caught my attention, because I'd used it for my sig since last year. It was never installed on my computer but always (until this week) displayed as it should. — Athaenara 10:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

On my system, around half of the fonts are installed - but that's only explaining part of the issue. Of the fonts not displaying properly, some of them are not installed, so that makes sense. But of the fonts I do have installed on my system, only around half the ones in the list display properly. For example I have all three webdings fonts installed and working fine, however on the Wiki page listing the fonts, all three webdings examples show up as if they were all using the basic webdings fonts. Webdings 2 and 3 show the same list of symbols, even though those symbols only exist in basic webdings and all three are installed. Very confusing!

Here's another strange thing - on my system the font Athaenara mentioned as a problem, Edwardian Script ITC, is displaying correctly on that chart. --Parzival418 _Hello 17:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried to fix it by quoting everything; it probably would make a difference only in the ones which end in numbers. I cannot test it, however; looks like I have none of the fonts on that table installed on any of my computers (the table doesn't include fonts like Bitstream Vera or DejaVu, which I do have installed). --cesarb 23:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for giving that a try. The quoting did not make a difference on my system. This has not been a problem in general using Wikipedia, though it is kind of strange, especially since it happens only in MediaWiki software but regualr HTML pages are displaying fine. I can't think of any other tests I can do, so unless you have further questions for me I guess I'll just let this go for now. If you do have questions, I'm willing to do some more tests, but please let me know on my talk page, I need to un-watch this page for a while. Thanks again. --Parzival418 _Hello 18:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I fried my monobook! (again)

I did it again. User:Pupster21/monobook.js. Please rollback to last version. --Pupster210 20:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It will crash IE. --Pupster210 20:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Just do it yourself, turning off javascript in your settings. Prodego ^talk 20:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Settings restricted here at school. --Pupster210 20:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you're having trouble with your monobook, but I just don't think any of these scripts are going to work in an IE based browser, at least not without a lot of bugs--VectorPotential^Talk 20:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that in order or use most javascript codes on WIkipedia you will need Firefox. The code I use for warnings is WP:TWINKLE. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 23:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That will only work in Firefox. I (think I) know that popups works in IE for vandal reversion, but it's not as elegant. Gracenotes^T § 13:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Bronze Soldier of Tallinn

There is some technial problem in the article Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, at least when viewed with IE6. The section Political reaction is not limited by the page width, text flows without line breaks. Also, some text is bolded where it should not be. The problem does not seem to be in the page itself, as the same effect appears on older versions, that used to work before. The issue may be related to the {{flag}} template. -- Petri Krohn 00:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Template:Country flag2 is broken. It has a stray <noinclude>, specifically the first one. It is protected, so it needs to be fixed by an admin. Mike Dillon 01:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

H2

H3

• H2
  • H3
    • H4
  • H3

• H2

• H3

</nowiki>

This example of sections generates incorrectly formatted TOC: the last H3 does not have enough indent from the left. In HTML this means that <ul> tag is closed too early on preceding H2.

It looks like a Mediawiki bug to me. Or did I miss something? — Alex Smotrov 15:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm editing with FireFox, Windows XP, and agree - it looks like a bug (I pasted your six headings above the heading for this section, then did a preview; the final heading (2.1) should be indented in the TOC (like 1.1) and isn't. Odd. Definitely something the developers should look at. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes I just came here to file a similar report (wished I'd checked, could have saved myself a lot of time). Someone should definitely file a bug report. Paul August ☎ 22:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: I think it might be this problem [4]. Paul August ☎ 22:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone filed it today and it's already reported as fixed: bugzilla:9764 — Alex Smotrov 22:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be fixed. United Kingdom corporation tax and WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

We will see it fixed when Mediawiki software on Wikipedia servers gets updated. The bug says fixed in r21814, Special:Version shows only 'r21778'. Let's try to relax and do something else for now ;) Alex Smotrov 23:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Relaxing is fine; in the meantime, it's very hard to get anything done at WP:FAR, with the TOC in complete disarray, and the backlog increases. Can anyone inform us of the next step needed to get this addressed ? This isn't territory I normally deal with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange TOC bug?

Just did some editing to Los Angeles Police Department, and cant figure out why the TOC wont collapse fully, instead in hide mode it hides the first main header only. The page's infobox appears to be working normally. -Stevertigo 09:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I too ran into this bug since the weekend: if there is a subsubsection heading in the TOC, it won't "hide" sections after that one properly but will only partially collapse the sections which preceded it. — Athaenara 10:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just ran into this one on YouTube as well. Probably the same thing as this, which apparently should be fixed soon. WarpstarRider 10:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this occurs when there is a ===subsection=== heading which follows a ====subsubsection==== heading, and I've been able to duplicate it. I almost copied my test here but then realised what it would do to the TOC for the entire page. — Athaenara 10:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is following or working on this, I removed the level 4 headings from one FAR review, and this semi-corrected the TOC, although now there's a new error at the TOC in WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Update with the fix has been applied. --brion 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Unexplained categorization

For some reason, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, a redirect with no categories on it, is being categorized into Category:Wikify from November 2006. It's also not categorized according to alphabetical order, but as if a space were used as a sortkey. Anyone have any ideas? Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's actually an article with an initial space in its name that is categorized, but Mediawiki just quietly strips the space, so the link points to a completely different article. --Derlay 09:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the invalid article name was created by a page move: Special:Contributions/Dips_286. Mediawiki seems to handle leading spaces inconsistently; they are mostly stripped, but not in the target of a move, or in links like [5] and [6]. This can be quite confusing. --Derlay 20:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please file a bug report, to make sure it gets fixed. --cesarb 00:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

That article should probably be deleted too (the "real" article by that name was deleted earlier). It's essentially unreachable. I would put a {{db-g6}} on it, but then it would categorize into the speedy deletion category the same way. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, don't delete it yet (It's an example on the bug report. (bug:9870) Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Bug is now fixed; I'm running a bad-title check in the background which should fix up the page to be reachable. --brion 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with Special:ProtectedPages

I was working on tabulating protected articles when I noticed some problems with Special:ProtectedPages. The list of fully protected articles doesn't seem to be complete - for example the redirects American West, Bubble hash, and many more are not listed. These pages do have nonempty protection logs. CMummert · talk 15:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It does not yet contain a list of all protected pages. See bugzilla:9386 for more details. --Iamunknown 16:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there any way via query.php, api.php, or any other public interface to actually get a list of all protected pages? CMummert · talk 16:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

None that I know of. --Iamunknown 18:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

One problem is that when they are migrated in, they will show up as the newest ones. I'll probably change the (earlist/latest) links to reflect that then. Voice-of-All 17:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

That's fine - api.php can query log events to get the protection date, sysop, and comment; the problem is getting a list of protected pages in the first place. CMummert · talk 18:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

At WT:PP, I've mentioned a script I've added to do that. Voice-of-All 20:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

How to make some parameters as a template?

For example, a complicated template:

{{MainTemplate
|parameter1 = 1
|parameter2 = 2 
|parameter3 = 3
|parameter4 = 4
...
|parameterN = n
}}

Some parameters (for example, parameter 1-3) are always in common in some articles, so I want to make a template {{ParaTemplate}} as

|parameter1 = 1
|parameter2 = 2
|parameter3 = 3

And use it as

{{MainTemplate
{{ParaTemplate}}
|parameter4 = 4
...
|parameterN = n
}}

But it doesn't work.

Only if I change it to

{{MainTemplate
{{subst:ParaTemplate}}
|parameter4 = 4
...
|parameterN = n
}}

it works. But since I would might change the ParaTemplate some time, I don't wish to unfold the template. How can I do it? -- polyhedron(古韻) Leave message 09:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Paratemplate can contain a call

{{MainTemplate
|parameter1 = 1
|parameter2 = 2
|parameter3 = 3
|parameter4 = {{{parameter4}}}
...
|parameterN = {{{parameterN}}}
}}

Thus one can call Paratemplate as follows:

{{ParaTemplate
|parameter4 = 4
...
|parameterN = n
}}

while some articles can call MainTemplate directly.--Patrick 11:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

stub --> article

HOW TO TURN A STUB INTO AN ASSESSED ARTICLE? I can't figure out how to do this. I turned a a stub on the Victorian Church architect Thomas Garner into an article (using historical documents recently found). It remains a stub - what is the next step please? Thanks May 2. Keoghse 05:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Garner doesn't seem to have a {{stub}} template anywhere, and as far as I can tell it's also a good length, I don't think it is a stub--VectorPotential^Talk 13:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about the assessment in the banner on the article's talk page, that is changed by hand based on an editor's best judgement. Just change {{Architecture|class=Stub|auto=yes}} to {{Architecture|class=Start|auto=yes}}, or whatever class you think is appropriate. WikiProject Architecture's assessment guidelines are located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture/Assessment, you can also make a request on that page for someone else to assess the Thomas Garner article, if you want. jwillbur^talk 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of |auto=yes. auto means it was previously assessed by a bot. –Pomte 22:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. I don't know how I missed that. It should be {{Architecture|class=Start}}. jwillbur^talk 16:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

---

My User Page

How come there are white spaces in between the templates in my user page, and does anybody know how to fix them? Also, does anybody know where I can find a complete list of user templates, and where I can request new ones? Kris 01:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The spaces are there because a couple of your templates are a pixel or two taller than the rest of them. You can find a list at Wikipedia:Userboxes along with instructions on how to create your own. If you still need help creating one, ask for help at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Userboxes. Mike Dillon 01:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! Kris 01:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I adjusted some image sizes on the userboxes you were using to make the sizes more standard. Mike Dillon 01:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Kris 03:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

How do blocks work?

Is it possible for an IP/user to be blocked from editing designated (Main) space articles but still be allowed to comment on said article's talk page? I'm trying to think of ways to solve a breakdown of WP:NPOV caused by WP:COI, and I'm not asking for this to be done. To make my intentions clear, mostly to anyone involved in said issue who may come across this, is the software capable of that? Anynobody 09:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

No, at the moment the only page that a blocked user can edit is their user talk page. It's either that or a full unblock. Graham87 09:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for answering, I appreciate your time. Anynobody 10:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Any way to display an archived image?

Is there any way to display an archived version of an image? Any way at all? (I don't mind how wordy the code gets.) Thanks.--Pharos 14:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

On the image page, just click the time and date of the revision you want in the file history section on the image description page. Harryboyles 14:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify. I mean, is there any way to display an archived image inline on an article page?--Pharos 14:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's disabled on this Wiki, see here. Matthew 14:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't my desire to link to display an external image per se, but rather an archived image on our servers (really, just I want to link to a 'stable' version of an image). I don't suppose there's any way around that?--Pharos 15:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Not as far as I'm aware. Otherwise there'd be no point to the whole image version system. You can't display inline an old version of an image. --Deskana (fry that thing!) 00:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The other day I was thinking this would be an excellent idea. The graphics lab and featured picture candidates frequently need to show two versions of an image with minor differences between, just so the edit can be discussed and reviewed. The way these groups do this now is to create completely separate filenames, which seems pretty unwiki, insofar as we usually use the built-in versioning system to collaborate on small changes, except for this one odd area. I also hope this is a new feature that can be implemented at some point. --Interiot 01:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, for what it's worth I was looking into this to try to simplify the process of protecting MainPage images, which can be quite a chore right now with downloading and uploading images from Commons. Well, I guess there are no magic shortcuts, then. Oh well.--Pharos 05:58, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

There is one magic shortcut... sitewide css (or js). You can set any URL (even old images) as a background image on an element with MediaWiki:Common.css. This has a bit of a caching issue though (unless you plan about a day ahead). --Splarka (rant) 07:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid css is a bit beyond my experience. Could you possibly give an example code of how this would work? Thanks.--Pharos 08:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

See Testwiki:Old_Image_Demo (requires site css change, like this; inline background images are not allowed. Also, you can't resize them, nor can you link to a 'permanent' version unless it is not the top version (I think) --Splarka (rant) 07:20, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Clicking save acts like preview

I've been having to click "save" three times lately in order to get it to take. Corvus cornix 22:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had the same problem. There's a message about a loss of session data, and a suggestion to try logging out and logging back in. Sometimes I'll click on my watchlist, only to be told, "Please log in to view your watchlist." Clicking the back button and retrying has worked so far. I've only noticed this happening today. --Kyoko 14:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Using the secure server can help to solve problems with session data and logging in/out. --ais523 15:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

It probably helps as much as logging out and logging back in to the ordinary server. I can't imagine any other reason why it would help. -- Tim Starling 16:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

There were some recent problems with one of the memcached servers, which caused session data loss. The problematic box has been depooled and a spare brought into service. Thanks should be directed towards Domas Mituzas. 164.11.204.56 00:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Main page view source

Resolved

The view source window of the Main Page seems screwed up. It's currently showing the full contents of the Notice template. My guess is that someone changed a system message. --MZMcBride 01:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I found the problem page in the recent changes log. A request is on RFPP right now. -Amarkov moo! 01:41, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I answered that RFPP request. It seems to work OK now. --ais523 15:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Redlinks that aren't

Is anyone else seeing a lot of links to which the page actually exists showing up as redlinks? Just started happening for me, and a force-reload hasn't fixed it. For example, I'm currently seeing WP:3O as a redlink. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

me too. I had posted a message but lost it in an edit conflict. It isn't quite the normal redlink colour and sigs are still fine Nil Einne 15:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same. --ÆAUSSIEevilÆ 15:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Me, three - whats the deal? PaddyM 15:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Not only am I seeing way too many redlinks, but they're coming up as black text followed by a maroon exclamation point. Something is really wrong here. —mjb 15:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the problem anymore, it's working for me now. Are you still having it? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a different colour to that used for missing pages, this new one is a brownish colour. Missing pages are still red. SynergyBlades 15:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same for me. What in the world is this? --LuigiManiac 15:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it's gone now. --LuigiManiac 15:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Still there. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Still there for me too. This flies in the face of usability testing, if this is how we're going to display links now. --Durin 15:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not, turns out it was probably a malfunction rather than an intended change. Orderinchaos 15:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the links (some of them) are marked as stubs. I'll let some people know. CMummert · talk 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

And, now it's back again, for me. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, now it is back again. Weird. --LuigiManiac 15:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The devs are working on it, be patient. CMummert · talk 15:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Several <a> HTML elements are being marked as class="stub". Your CSS settings for that class are the causes for the specific colour. Redlinks are class="new", for comparison. Uncle G 15:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What is class stub used for? —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 15:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Fix. Go to Preferences -> Misc -> Threshold for stub display and change the 0 to a larger number, like 8000. That should fix the problem. CMummert · talk 15:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit conflict: Yeah, though changing it to 1 should put things pretty much back to normal. Zero is supposed to be interpreted as infinity for this feature, but it looks like something broke. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 15:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it's fixed now; you don't have to change the threshold anymore. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 15:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I changed that number to 8000, and all links turned back to blue except for pages that were stubs, they are still brown. Kris 15:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same situation here. I even tried to purge the cache but in vain.-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

weird - it was fixed for a couple minutes, now it's broken again. 8000 (and 1) are both "fixing" it though. CredoFromStart 15:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried to be a smart ass and tried 10000 and 20000. Problem fixed w/ 1 now. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Problem now solved. If you are still seeing odd links, you may need to purge your cache (see instructions on "purge" for how to do that for a specific page). Orderinchaos 15:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I see the problem if I don't log in (both IE and Firefox) but when I log in with my username, everything is ok (I use the value "0" btw). Valentinian ^{T / C} 15:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It still isn't working for me. I purged a page, (I also deleted caches and cookies) and it logged me out. When I was logged out it went back to normal, but when I logged back in it got all screwed up again. Is there any other way to fix this? Kris 16:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't only happen with stubs, either. It happens with regular articles just as well. 89.120.193.125 16:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You can fix this temporarily by putting link.stub { color: #002bb8; } in your monobook.css file.

This was my fault, a bug I'd introduced in rev:22055. Sorry. Thanks to river for fixing it in rev:22065. (I thought I'd tested it, but apparently I forgot to test the threshold=0 case after the latest change.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It still won't go back to the way it was for me, can anybody help me out? Kris 20:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You wrote above that you changed your stub threshold to 8000 bytes. That's going to give you quite a few brown links even with the bug fixed. Change it back to zero and the links should be blue again. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I like the display. I have some CSS in my monobook.css that turn them normal colors and put a little s in superscript after the stub links. CMummert · talk 23:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Includeonly

I was attempting to show some WikiText code as an example, and I haven't figured out how to have includeonly show up as example text on a transcluded page. See Wikipedia:Userboxes#Syntax for including categories, and the source page Wikipedia:Userboxes/Design and construct#Syntax for including categories.

I've tried nowiki, pre, and leading space(s) and so far none seem to work.

Any help would be great : ) - jc37 23:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

You want the tag to appear only in transclusions? You could split it into pieces:

<includeonly><include</includeonly><includeonly>only></includeonly>

or, if you just want to disable the tag, it might work to replace one of the letters with an ascii code (with space removed):

<includ& #101;only>

Is that what you want? Gimmetrow 00:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm looking to disable the tag, and merely show the text code. I was surprised that nowiki/pre didn't disable it. I'll try your solutions. Thank you very much : ) - jc37 00:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

A variant of the above is to use nowiki twice, with the nowiki ending and restarting in the middle of the troublesome word. (SEWilco 03:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

<includeonly> for a more aesthetic solution. –Pomte 02:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Font changes

Before if I went on wikipedia the font would be arial as normal. Now it's changed to this cruder looking font. It still displays every letter and number and everything - but, for lack of a better word - it's different. Is there a way I can change the font back to arial on wikipedia? 70.58.33.98 16:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean "went on Wikipedia", did you register an account? And does the change affect all or most websites or only Wikipedia? —AldeBaer 21:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is the second person complaining of something strange happening with the fonts; see #I can't read the Wiki font above. Could you post some screenshots? --cesarb 21:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Curious. I was going to ask for the browser next thing, but it sounds as if accessing Wikipedia caused a changed font to be used on all websites, so I firstly enquired for clarity on what had happened. Unfortunately, both IPs have not returned. —AldeBaer 04:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What links here problem

I'm busy creating internal links for the recently created (and still under construction) Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade, and thought I'd see how progress was coming along. However according to this there's slightly more links than I'd expected, including talk pages of articles and categories in Category: WikiProject Irish Republicanism articles. Any idea what's going wrong please? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 06:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It's linked on the talk page template Template:WP:IR. Is that the problem? Gimmetrow 06:47, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I already checked all the code in the template, and there's no use of the word "Belfast" so I can't see how the template is linking to the article. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 06:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Specifically in Template:Irish Republicanism tasks, the tasks listed in the other template. Gimmetrow 06:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, just seen that myself. Any ideas on how to stop the tasks showing in what links here? Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 06:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, remove it from the tasks template, and wait for the "links here" to regenerate. Gimmetrow 06:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I knew that much. I meant is there a way to stop the transcluded tasks template being included in the links all the time? One Night In Hackney₃₀₃

You can restrict "What links here" to the main namespace [7]. With hide/show hidden links count as links. If that is not desired, use an ordinary link to more info instead of "show".--Patrick 11:47, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Does this do what you need, One Night? Gimmetrow 23:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Not really, but I don't think there's any way to prevent the bigger problem without transcluding the template. Thanks anyway. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 03:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Search

I have been latently upset by the search function ever since I first came to Wikipedia. My slight discontent concerns the facts that (i) there seems to be no fuzzy logic (i.e. you have to be very precise when searching), and (ii) a specific search will return all redirected pages (e.g. [8]).

Couldn't articles somehow be tagged with appropriate keywords in all relevant permutations (including typos)? Incidentally, this would simultaneously solve the problem with all redirect pages being listed as results. Where would I propose such a change to the software (if it's at all possible)? —AldeBaer 18:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyone? —AldeBaer 04:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think some bots in other Wikipedias do that, create redirects with permutations. Note that you need to click the Search button, not the Go one, in case you did not know. For the most time, I prefer using Google search on Wikipedia. A change could be made to select whether redirects would be returned in searches, though, which seems useful. -- ReyBrujo 05:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I also use Google a lot, but new readers may not find that option immediately, that's why. For my example, both the Search and the Go button lead to the same page of results with the redirect pages: Search, Go. However, where should I go with this proposal of not including the redirects? —AldeBaer 05:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I posted it on Wikipedia_talk:Searching#Redirect_pages_in_search_results. —AldeBaer 06:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Edittools problems on personal wiki

I have copied part of MediaWiki:Edittools for use on my personal wiki (thanks for making that box, by the way -- it's really handy) and installed the CharInsert extension. However, some of the characters that look just fine in Wikipedia turn up as diamond-enclosed question marks on my wiki. I have scoured the CSS on this site as much as I can, but couldn't find anything that fixed the problem. How can I make the characters work? Thanks in advance to anyone who can help. — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 03:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a character encoding problem related to copying and pasting. Is you wiki public? Mike Dillon 03:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. It's actually only local as of yet; I'm still looking for hosting. I can post the code from any pages I have in user subpages if it'll help (like LocalSettings.php or MediaWiki: namespace pages). Thanks for the quick response! Too bad I wasn't online :).

I actually tried copying and pasting a couple problem characters directly from Character Map, but it didn't fix the issue, at least with the character or two I tried it on. — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 21:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

You might try copying and pasting the contents with a different browser to see if you have the same problems. Mike Dillon 01:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And here I thought IE would be good for something... Wish I could say it worked. Thanks for the tip, though. I noticed that my edits copying from Character Map weren't actually saved. Since the characters didn't change (according to MW, at least), it didn't save the edit. I'll have to keep working on this... — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 03:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't suppose anyone else has an idea? I've done everything I can think of, even changing the collation in the wikidb database to utf8_bin, but it didn't work. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 01:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess not. — Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 22:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Trouble

I'm having trouble for the userbox thing at User:Quatreryukami. Help is wanted! --Pupster21 Talk To Me 15:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. (I'm done) --Pupster21 Talk To Me 16:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You have new messages STUCK

I recieved a bunch of warnings that I didnt have anything to do with. Now the new messsages bar is stuck up there. I tried clearing the cache but its not working. Its annoying and I didn;t even make those edits. What do I do? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.113.1.126 (talk) 05:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

Usually, going to your talk page and clicking the links in the table of content will do the trick. If you're annoyed by messages that were meant for others, you may want to register an account. 87.78.155.235 06:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, you can register via the secure server. 87.78.155.235 06:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

See also: Bug ID 9213--VectorPotential^Talk 12:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Created Pages

Is there any way to find out what pages you've created (if any)?danielfolsom 17:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Go to your contributions. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 21:13, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The contributions page doesn't have an indicator as to whether the article was newly created or not. The reason that this information is available for the watchlist and recent changes views is that they use an additional table that has an rc_new flag on it. Mike Dillon 21:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I don't think that there is any practical way of determining which pages you've created except to cross reference every page in your contribution history with the revision history of each page. Mike Dillon 21:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Ask User:Interiot to run a query to find out what pages you've created. Graham87 00:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You can check with this tool provided by User:Interiot. Gimmetrow 00:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot. I've been RC patrolling too much. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 12:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Watch List

Is it possible to "watch" only a Section of an article, as opposed to the entire article? If not, can some one with technical expertise here at Wiki make that happen? I can imagine instances (say, in very long articles) where I would want to see new edits and changes to SECTIONS of an article only, yet not to every single edit in the entire article itself. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? (JosephASpadaro 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC))

Not a direct answer, but if an article is long enough for that to be an issue, perhaps it should be split up into subarticles. —EncMstr 21:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

True ... but that's not the real issue. An article can still be of appropriate length (i.e., not "too long"), yet I can still be concerned with only one aspect (or Section) of that article. My point is: in longer articles, there can be many, many, many edits / changes in any given day. Most would be irrelevent to the one particular section of concern. Thus, the watch list -- as currently set up -- would be useless if it keeps notifying me of edits and changes that I am not concerned with. (JosephASpadaro 21:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC))

The section can be made a separate page that is transcluded. That way it can be watched separately (and it has its own page history). However, other people may like to have the whole page as single watchlist item with a single history.--Patrick 00:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

See e.g. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2007_May_5: every section is a separate page.--Patrick 12:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The only problem is that sections are ridiculously mutable. You can change the title, add one here and there, move 'em around, etc. Maybe you're looking for a script that checks for a certain title in the edit summary: /* Title */, and removes sections without the title. Would that work? Gracenotes^T § 05:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I asked the same question on the watchlist page recently. I haven't received a reply yet. Ironically, it was because I asked another question here, but while waiting for a reply on this page, I was bombarded by huge amounts of traffic, and hence stopped watching. It would be a handy feature, especially for high traffic talk pages. Is there any way a 'watch this section' or 'watch for a reply' feature could be implemented, so as not to force the user to view all changes made to both the article and talk page? Is there any way to watch simply an article page or talk page, but not both (for example if an editor wanted to watch an article but not the very busy associated talk page)? Again, I won't be watching this page because the traffic level is just ridiculous, so I'll hopefully remember to drop by some time and search for an answer. Richard001 06:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer is simply "no". In the future there will be better systems for the talk pages, however. --brion 14:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

warning on preferences

What's up with this message on preferences?

If a message on your talk page led you here, please be wary of who left it. The code below could contain malicious content capable of compromising your account; if your account appears to be compromised, it will be blocked. If you are unsure whether the code is safe, you can ask at the appropriate village pump.

--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 02:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It's probably there to prevent people being led off-site to a page that looks like the Wikipedia preferences page and divulging their password. You would be surprised at how many people don't know the first thing about the location/URL bar in their browsers (I even know people who don't even have it visible and type domain names into MSN/Google searches). Mike Dillon 02:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I guess a phishing site wouldn't have a message warning you not to compromise your account. I think the same message normally shows up on user JavaScript pages such as your personal monobook.js. Mike Dillon 02:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like that message comes from MediaWiki:Clearyourcache, which has a default value like this:

Note: After saving, you may have to bypass your browser's cache to see the changes. Mozilla / Firefox / Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload, or press Ctrl-Shift-R (Cmd-Shift-R on Apple Mac); IE: hold Ctrl while clicking Refresh, or press Ctrl-F5; Konqueror:: simply click the Reload button, or press F5; Opera users may need to completely clear their cache in Tools→Preferences.

On this site, it is doing double-duty as a warning about malicious script changes. The original message would have made sense on the preferences page since changing some of the preferences has effects that require a cache clearing. Mike Dillon 02:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

So what does it actually have to do with the preferences? Only the users themselves can edit preferences.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 03:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that those changes were not made with Special:Preferences in mind. They were made for the case of that message appearing on pages like monobook.js. Mike Dillon 03:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It might be possible to put a conditional namespace check into MediaWiki:Clearyourcache to only add the extra warning in the User namespace. It looks like that message is only used on user JS/CSS pages and Special:Preferences. Mike Dillon 03:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I did that 16 minutes ago, you may need to purge though. Prodego ^talk 03:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Email text broken

In the preferences, the text explanation for the email field is broken. Currently, it reads:

E-mail (optional): Allows us to e-mail your password to you if you forget it. If you also "Enable e-mail from other users", then others can e-mail you from your User or User talk page by using the "E-mail this user" feature. Note that the sender's e-mail address will be visible to the recipient. If you change your e-mail address, you will need to <a class='internal' href="/wiki/Help:Email_confirmation" title="Help:Email confirmation">reconfirm</a> your address.

I tried purging cache, but it is still there. -- ReyBrujo 02:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

recent hacking?

What's going on? Has someone hacked into everyone's PW all of a sudden?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 02:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep. There are several threads at WP:ANI describing it. Sean William 02:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The accounts hacked were admins and the main page got deleted a couple of times. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 02:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, why are we sending messages to all of the regular users? We don't have any administrative tools. Admins are the most vulnerable to hackers, not normal editors.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 02:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the above "Yep" is "Nope". Some accounts had weak passwords, but not everyone's PW was affected. Just make sure you have a complicated password. (SEWilco 03:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC))

Password visible while changing in preferences

Why is it all of a sudden that the passwords are visible in the input form fields while I go to change it in my preferences? It's certainly not standard behavior for password form fields on the interweb. Thanks --Strangnet _{(t, c)} 00:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It didn't used to look like that, the developers must have changed something by accident when they were reworking all of today's security updates--VectorPotential^Talk 00:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured something like that. I didn't experience that behavior a couple of hours ago on the Swedish Wikipedia when I changed my password, but now the preferences there are also "broken". It just doesn't feel right to fill in a new password with the contents of the fields visible even though no one is around to see it but me. --Strangnet _{(t, c)} 00:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

someone added broken code while reworking the prefs page (unrelated to the other password problems, funnily enough). should be fixed now. kate.

Security notices

Why are all these notices appearing at the user login page? Simply south 21:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

See WP:ANI: passwords of a couple of admin accounts have been compromised (due to weak password strength); either that, or those admins have coordinated an "admins gone postal" day (not likely). The text, editable by admins, is here, so suggestions can be posted on the talk page. Gracenotes^T § 22:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict):Following problems like this, a couple of admins have added more information to this system message to encourage better password choosing and the use of the secure server. --MZMcBride 22:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

And also why do you now have to type in the letters you see in the box in order to log in? This sure seems like a very surprising and ableit unannounced change. Could it please be reviewed or explained? --24.44.158.33 23:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, you only get the CAPTCHA if you fail to type the correct password on the first try, presumably this is to stop automated password phishing scripts--VectorPotential^Talk 23:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Display Images without linking to image page

How do you display an image but not link to it? For example, I want an external link but the content should be an image. In HTML you would do:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/"><img src="wikipedia.png"></a>

I looked at Help:Images and other uploaded files but couldn't find it. Please help! 71.191.103.235 18:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This works nicely:

<imagemap>
Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg|200px
poly 0 0 0 [[0]]
desc none
</imagemap>

Regards, «razorclaw» 19:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this will work better

<imagemap>
Image:Polarlicht_2.jpg|200px
poly 0 0 0 [[0]]
default [[The_link_you_want|What_you_want_to_popup_when_the_mouse_hovers_over_the_image]]
desc none
</imagemap>

Saintrain 19:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Languages

Why can't we use the same user account to edit pages in other languages? Andrew⁶⁴⁷ 16:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You need to create an account on those wikis. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 16:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Or just use the unified login... when it's activated :( Soon, hopefully. Gracenotes^T § 17:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I understood that we need to create accounts there. This unified login is what I'm interested in. Andrew⁶⁴⁷ 18:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The unified login would be nice, but it's not ready yet. Until then, you'll have to create different accounts for each wiki you want to edit (making them with the same username, password, and email address should help when/if UL is activated). Gracenotes^T § 18:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

On secure entry

To whom it may concern:

On entering Wikipedea some moments ago, I noticed that a new possibility is on offer, providing secure entery into Wikipedia, something which I wholeheartedly welcome. However, on trying this option, my web browser warned me that it is unable to check the validity/identity of the offered secure entry; the warning indicated that it may even be a false entry aiming at gaining access to personal information. May I request the person in charge of security matters (the Webmaster perhaps?) to inspect and see whether there is indeed a problem and if so whether this can be resolved asap? At the very least, the secure-web certificate must have some shortcomings, prompting my web browser to generate the above-mentioned warning. With thanks in advance for the trouble, Yours sincerely, --BF 14:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It is usual for your browser to say that. It is all safe. You may want to check the don't show this message again box though. --Pupster21 Talk To Me 15:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt response! It is rather odd that one should disregard the security warnings of one's browser (it tends to make one complacent, something that certain individuals must surely delight in). I must add that this is the first time that I have been confronted with a security warning that appears safe to ignore; therefore I should like to insist that someone should correct the security certifacate (I have tuned the security options of my browser and therefore am confident that something must be wrong with your certificate --- never before has my browser misinformed me about certificates; sometimes they simply need updating). --BF 15:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's an experimental interface. While you may use it, it is not yet meant for the general public. --brion 16:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Perhaps I should add that the warning that my browser produces is the following: "Website Certified by an Unknown Authority." --BF 17:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This is because CAcert.org is not recognized as a valid CA by the majority of the browsers, only some OSs include it. --Brownout (msg) 17:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see the option for just secure athentication. I like the SSL to login, but would rather not have it for all my editing. Morphh ^(talk) 18:51, 07 May 2007 (UTC)

Calculations in Tables & Charts

When you create a Chart or Table in Wikipedia, is there a way to perform mathematical operations on the numbers in certain columns, much like what can be done with Excel?

For example, Column 1 + Column 2 = Column 3?

Is this possible? If so, how? Thanks! (JosephASpadaro 05:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

None as far as I know, unless you use a template to generate that. In example, at m:User:ReyBrujo/Dump statistics table the last two columns are generated according to values in other cells. However, to do that I had to create a template, m:User:ReyBrujo/Dumps/Row, which generates the code of the row. Again, I am not sure if there is an easier way of doing this, and don't think it will be a good idea to implement in an article unless it is standardized (it would be awful if every article needing such tables generate them with their own template instead of a standard one). -- ReyBrujo 05:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. (JosephASpadaro 06:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

If multiple tables have a uniform format a table row template can be shared, but even for a single table it can be worthwhile to have such a template. See also Row_template.--Patrick 15:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

So, a Table cannot even perform a simple calculation like the TOTAL of a column? (JosephASpadaro 16:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

No. One could make a template for producing a table, with the data as parameters. This template could add the numbers in a column. Or with JavaScript, like we have already code for sorting the rows of a table.--Patrick 21:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

For the first see m:Template:table 1 (backlinks edit).--Patrick 22:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. (JosephASpadaro 23:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

Recent Changes RSS

Does anyone know how I could go about using a javascript to access the Recent Changes RSS for updating information? Also, how can I differentiate between registered and unregistered edits? Redian (Talk) 19:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "registered and unregistered edits"? Are you talking about registered and unregistered users/accounts? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I meant. Sorry for being unclear. I'm trying to make a program to access the list of Recent Changes and allow filter options almost like Twinkle Except not Javascript (sorta) and not in a traditional browser. I'll need to figure out how to decipher the RSS feed I guess too, but for now getting at the RSS feed and separating registered/unregistered user edits is my prime concern. Redian (Talk) 00:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Poem extension

As can be seen by some of my recent contributions, I've begun to make use of the poem extension in poetry-related articles. Before I continue, though, it might be good to ask these first:

1. Should mass replacements for poems happen, as I've been doing them?
2. Instead of doing "margin-left: 2em" to emulate the : indentation, how about a class (say, "poemindent") that emulates this behavior? The poem tag automatically produces a div with a "poem" class, but it may not be good to cause all poems to have an indentation like that.

Gracenotes^T § 00:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Yes, so future editors can see them and not bother anymore with : or spaces or <br> on every line, for poems and lyrics and maybe even dialogue or letters or extended quotes.
2. Is there a scenario in which poems shouldn't be indented? If yes, I think there should be a class at say MediaWiki:Common.css for maintability and so users can define how they like to read their poems. –Pomte 00:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Request made. Gracenotes^T § 22:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

JavaScript version of MediaWiki:Edittools

Please contribute to the discussion of a pure JavaScript version of MediaWiki:Edittools at MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Request. If there is agreement to move in this direction, the code will have to be moved to MediaWiki:Edittools.js or some such and imported from MediaWiki:Common.js. Mike Dillon 05:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Secure Server

If you edited on the secure server, would it be the same as if you weren't editing on it? Esperanza Ortega 22:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

How exactly do you mean this? When you edit on the secure server all of your POSTs are encrypted, and if you are logged into http server, but not the https, then your contributions will be attributed anonymously rather than to your username. Otherwise, there shouldn't be any differences. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and if you're using certain satellite ISPs, it makes it possible to log in without losing your login as soon as you navigate to a different page. --ais523 09:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist password message

I don't think the [dismiss] button is working, I keep getting flashed by this ^ every time I hit my watchlist--VectorPotential^Talk 00:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it only dismisses per watchlist session, i.e when you leave and comeback it cames back too. One thing you can do is leave your watchlit open in a tab. John Reaves (talk) 00:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The watchlist dismiss code in MediaWiki:Common.js is supposed to dismiss for a week. Mike Dillon 02:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a modification to your monobook.css would do it. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 02:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC

• I had planned on deleting it tomorrow any way, so don't worry. John Reaves (talk) 21:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg

I recently found a eBook of Project Gutenberg that has some images that i could use in some pages. The disclaimer of the ebook stated This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net. Does this mean that we can use this material as free-use?

Link: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11924/11924-h/11924-h.htm#CH_VI

Please let me know. --Kalyan 13:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks kosher for PD works, but not for copyrighted works that authors have granted permission to Gutenberg to distribute. Those may have a different license. --Golbez 13:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I gave the relevant file [9] a quick look. All images I noticed were old images that would fall under {{PD-art}} had the author been an American. Unfortunately, I can't find any biography of Mr. Archer, but many of his books list "London" as the place of publication, so I wonder if he was British? In that case, PD-art would not apply but rather British or even Indian law (for photos taken in situ in India). My suggestion would be to double check why Gutenberg has the book listed in the first place. If you can find some sort of specific permission, that would be a great help. Valentinian ^{T / C} 20:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Bunched up edit links

Wikipedia:Meetup/London1 is vexing me. This is being done by the huge Wikimeetup template, not by images, so those fixes didn't help me. Is there any way to fix this? hbdragon88 06:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I've made a change here that fixes the problem. The issue was that a few images were floating on the right below the template and they were pushing all the section edit links to the bottom. With a template that long also right-floating, just avoid any right-floating images after it. Jaksmata 15:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I've a similar problem on Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics - I can't see any section edit links at all. --Salix alba (talk) 11:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I can see edit links there. Maybe you need to check your preferences? Look in the Edit tab, first option is to enable editing sections - make sure it's checked. Jaksmata 15:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

See WP:BUNCH on how to fix these. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes to unwatched articles

Would it be possible to add an option to restrict Special:Recentchanges to articles that only a few (maybe less than twenty) people have on their watchlists? --Derlay 22:03, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe so; the system doesn't store who has what watched like that (it's all tied through the account, not the article). EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Admins have access to Special:Unwatchedpages for pages with 0 watchers, but a recent-changes for it would probably be too taxing on the database without some serious reprogramming. --ais523 15:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

How about this: every time a watchlist is viewed, update a timestamp on every page on the list, and filter Recentchanges by that timestamp. That should be feasible to implement, and actually better than a watchlist count, since watchlists of inactive users can't affect the result. --Derlay 23:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That is a good idea Derlay. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 00:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone going to implement this? Or do I need to mention it somewhere else? --Derlay 22:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Something like this would definitely help. I doubt you'll get anything implemented just by asking here though, I think you have to file a BugZilla report for that sort of thing. If there's some feasible way to make it apparent how many people are watching a given article it would help protect against vandalism that gets through the front gate undetected immensely. One could simply look at the talk page (or wherever) and see if it was watched or not. In fact, updating the data from recently viewed watchlists would give much more valuable feedback, as many users could easily be on a long break or totally inactive and still be watching an article. I could have sworn I inquired about this here only a few days ago, but upon returning I can't find the section here or in the archive. Richard001 07:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

This is now reported as bugzilla:9850. --Derlay 23:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Automated Reversion giving the wrong username in Edit summary

I just reverted vandalism to an article by going through the page history -> selecting last good version -> clicking [Restore this version] (I have AzaToth's reversion tools in my monobook.js page). The reversion worked correctly, but instead of my username in the edit summary it inserted De.Spongo. This is the first time I have used this feature. Any advice as to why this happened and how to fix it would be much appreciated! Thanks EyeSerene^TALK 22:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I see no evidence of this in your contributions page. Can you provide a diff? In addition, if this is related to TWINKLE, then contacting AzaToth is a better idea than posting here. --Deskana (AFK 47) 00:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Deskana, you have to check these contribs. EyeSerene, can you point out which edit you're referring to?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 00:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is what's happening: It just means De.Spongo was quicker than you, and reverted to the same version a few seconds before you did. Then, when you saved your revert, the Wiki software said to itself "there's no difference between this and the current version. I'll just ignore it." Unfortunately, you don't get an edit conflict or a message or anything, so it looks like an error, but it isn't. This happens to me all the time, especially since I'm reverting the old fashioned way, and others are using quicker tools. Someone using Twinkle or Vandalproof or something can always do it 15 seconds faster than me.

Fair warning: I'm usually asking questions, not answering them, and this is my very first attempt at a technical answer. So take it with a grain of salt. --barneca (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. The diff in question is here; obviously since I was not credited with the revert, it does not show up on my contributions. As I said above, it's the first time I've used the automatic restore tool - if Barneca is right, I suppose the best thing to do is try it out again next time I spot some vandalism and see what happens ;) EyeSerene^TALK 15:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Barneca is right. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Good call guys - reverts are working correctly now. It was just my bad luck that it happened the first time I used Twinkle (what are the odds of that?) causing me to think something was broken. Thanks all for the help! EyeSerene^TALK 16:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Phishing warning

The logon screen now contains the warning "To avoid becoming a victim of phishing, please verify that you are currently viewing the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin". Actually, my URL window there says http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=Talk:Main_Page - I don't think it can be phishing but the warning should be corrected. Perhaps the conflicting URL's are synonyms to experts, but not to the rest of us. Art LaPella 17:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected it. --ais523 17:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize; that was my doing. I'm afraid the current message is actually a bit more confusing, though--perhaps it can be reworded to say "Be sure you are viewing Special:Userlogin". AmiDaniel (talk) 22:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No good. Phishers would have control over the entire URL apart from its start; it's the wikipedia.org domain that distinguishes a genuine website from a fake one (any MediaWiki wiki can have a page called Special:Userlogin, and any other website can as well). --ais523 09:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this warning doesn't really do that much good. It's too subtle for most users to remember it, so if a phishing site copies the page, they can just drop the warning. If they're viewing it on our site, they aren't being phished. For this to be useful, users would have to notice that the real page has this warning and then notice that it is missing when viewing the phishing site. That just seems a little unlikely to me. That being said, the warning doesn't hurt anything and maybe it will raise awareness of phishing attacks in general. Mike Dillon 15:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Subpages link in the toolbox

This was recently added on commons and has proven very useful. It is a javascript that when added to MediaWiki:Common.js adds a "Subpages" button under the toolbox which links them to the page that shows all subpages of that page. You can see an example of this here on commons (look at the sidebar on the left, at the last link in the toolbox). Yonatan ^talk 02:29, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Secure server

The secure server has been desperately slow for the past few hours, to the point of being unusable. It sticks as"waiting for.." It's getting better now - heavy load from the US? 172.206.36.63 07:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Airreg

This template is used to help automate links to external aircraft registry websites, taking the tail number as a parameter, incorporating it into the url, and creating an external link. The template is primarily used on articles about plane crashes, with the default option providing links to airdisaster.com. The problem with the site is that it provides few details (nothing above and beyond what we provide anyway in our infoboxes), yet overdoes it in my opinion on advertising with large banner ads and pop-up ads that sometimes disregard pop-up blockers. Users are interested in keeping the template, but I'm trying to figure out how to make the template link to some different default choice such as http://www.aviation-safety.net which provides more details and is a non-commercial site. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this template work with this website? Any ideas and help would be most appreciated on Template talk:Airreg. --Aude (talk) 19:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Default style error:Larger than screen

This occurs in both IE7, and FF 2.0.0.3. Every page seems to run off the screen. There is a region, of about 700px to the right of every page(even this editor). The top blank region does contain the background image, but the rest is blank.

J - 83.147.166.23 19:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

For this page, I guess it is caused by a lengthy line is unformatted so word wrap does not work for it. See #validation error. --Quest for Truth 19:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Tables: Auto Numbering?

When you create a List on Wikipedia, you can automatically number the items in that list by inserting the # symbols. Typing in the # symbols relieves you from having to type in all 5 specific numbers (in this example, the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 before the State Names) ... and it will also automatically re-number the list when new items are added to or subtracted from the list. For example:

1. Alabama
2. Connecticut
3. Delaware
4. Georgia
5. New York

Question: How does one get the same effect in a Table? Thanks! (JosephASpadaro 20:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

There's no special symbol to automatically number a table column, as far as I know. You'll have to do it manually, like this:

#	State
1	New York
2	Connecticut
3	Alabama
4	Georgia
5	Delaware
6	Unless you want to put a list inside one cell like this: Alabama Connecticut Delaware Georgia New York

I also made it sortable in case that can help. –Pomte 20:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

One can use a template like m:Template:table 1 (backlinks edit).--Patrick 22:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. (JosephASpadaro 23:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

Someone at work asked me to do this yesterday, so I made an implementation in JavaScript that worked off of class="autonumber". This would require code at MediaWiki:Common.js to work, but I don't think it's the sort of thing that would have broad enough interest to be used site-wide. Mike Dillon 01:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

validation error

Wikipedia is failing to validate because of the "Early registration for Wikimania 2007" message. Specifically the document.writeln() below (lines 86 and 87 of the HTML)

 document.writeln('<table width="100%"><tr><td width="80%">'+siteNoticeValue+'</td>');
 document.writeln('<td width="20%" align="right">[<a href="javascript:dismissNotice();">'+msgClose+'</a>]</td></tr></table>');

do not escape the / with a \. for example </td> should be <\/td>. see http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/problems.html#script for more information. Jon513 16:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It validates fine for me (using the W3C validator); these lines are within a HTML comment. --cesarb 01:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It is inside a html comment that is inside a script tag, which is ignored. I am using Html Validator for firefox, which uses both OpenSP (SGML Parser) and Tidy. It indeed passes OpenSP (this parser is the same program than the one running behind validator.w3.org), but fails Tidy. Jon513 13:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Main page view source

Resolved

The view source window of the Main Page seems screwed up. It's currently showing the full contents of the Notice template. My guess is that someone changed a system message. --MZMcBride 01:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I found the problem page in the recent changes log. A request is on RFPP right now. -Amarkov moo! 01:41, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I answered that RFPP request. It seems to work OK now. --ais523 15:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Greek letters

I would like to know how to use Greek polytonic ortography on Wikipedia? Thank you. --83.131.143.135 19:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "polytonic ortography" is, but if you check below the edit box, and below the "Save page" button, if you're using a java-script enabled browser, there should be Greek and other characters that you can click on to insert in your writing. —METS501 (talk) 21:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There's also a {{polytonic}} template that's supposed to help in getting Greek polytonic characters to display right in various browsers (mainly IE). I've no idea personally how useful or necessary it is, but it's there and it probably doesn't hurt to use it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's needed in IE6, or you just get a small sequence of boxes rather than what's written on the page. --ais523 15:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Joining hyphens?

The hyphens used in this quote from the article on Trey Parker seem to have somehow been joined together--the dashes you see are actually 3 hyphens joined together...

• "Basically...out of all the ridiculous religion stories---which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous---the silliest one I've ever heard is..."yeah...there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here 'just 'cause...just 'cause". That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 03:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

svg font issus

I made this .svg file, it displays properly on all platforms:	except on my home windows pc in mozilla, where it looks like this in full resolution:

Any ideas? --Knulclunk 14:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Mozilla bug? Zsinj^Talk 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

On other pc/Mozilla systems, it appears fine. It may be a font setting issue, but I want to create work that does not suffer this problem. --Knulclunk 17:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've seen this before, I think. The only reliable solution seems to be to convert text to a path before uploading. -- nae'blis 00:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Skin

I put this new skin on my screen but it's messing things up. The buttons are all on top of each other and stuff. Can someone help me. I originally just wanted a grey and red one like I saw someone else had but now I'd just settle for this one working correctly. Marcus Taylor 05:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not just blank User:Marcus_Taylor/monobook.js and User:Marcus_Taylor/monobook.css and then purge your cache? --Splarka (rant) 07:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Marcus Taylor 07:56, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What I'm saying is I want to keep the skin, but want it to work correctly, I use IE btw. Marcus Taylor 07:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone see what I'm talking about? Marcus Taylor 04:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Password recovery/change options?

I feel really quite dumb here. I am working on a bot proposal for ArkyBot and found that I am unable to log in under the bot account. I'm not sure what the problem is, I know what password I used on it but it's not taking it - while unlikely I may have made the same typo twice when creating the account for the bot. Whichever is the case, I cannot log in as the bot.

Further adding to the "duh" factor is that I failed to enter a user email for the bot and thus the standard password recovery/change feature will not work.

Do I have any recourse here? It should be fairly evident that the bot account belongs to me but I am willing to provide whatever extra information is required. Without being able to log in, I'm kind of at an impasse as far as the bot development goes.

Thanks in advance for any help. Not sure where to turn with this question but figured I'd check here. Arkyan &#149; ^(talk) 16:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It's possible that you chose a password so weak that the bot was automatically blocked by developers. Otherwise, try logging in on a different computer, and try making sure your CAPS LOCK setting is correct (try it both ways round). Without an email address, creating a new account or asking a developer to reset the password on the old ones are your only options (it's possible you might also be able to persuade a bureaucrat to rename the old account so that you can create a new one with the old name). --ais523 17:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I hadn't made any edits with the bot account, the simplest recourse then might be to just request an usurpation of the name. Hadn't thought of that till your response, thanks. Arkyan &#149; ^(talk) 18:04, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Image file is actually PDF?

This image file is actually a PDF, and I, for one, can't even get to the actual wiki page to try to figure it out or flag it for possible deletion. Any help? [10] Not a dog 15:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You can link an image like this: [[:Image:PRELIMINARY_LIST_OF_BOTANICAL_SPECIES_GROWN_AT_SOUTH_CENTRAL_(Final_draft).pdf]]. Any file type can be uploaded to the Image: namespace, as far as I remember. If you want it deleted, follow the instructions at WP:IFD. --ais523 15:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but when you click on that (at least for me), it just tries to download a PDF file. Can't seem to get to the actual wiki page itself. Can you? Not a dog 15:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Check your browser settings: it may be insisting on treating anything which ends in '.pdf' as a PDF file. Click on any picture in a Wikipedia article; you should always get an 'Image' page with a WP frame, not the actual picture or PDF. EdJohnston 16:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm curious what the use is for PDF uploads. If a the content of a PDF is important to an article, I still don't see any advantage to uploading it rather than linking to its original location. I think transcribing it to Wikisource (if the content is GFDL, public domain, or otherwise free) would be a better option, as that would allow annotation and footnotes by Wikisource editors. Also, because the software does not it to be embedded like an image, and not everybody has Acrobat and the browser plug-in, I think PDFs are probably less likely to be looked at at all, let alone reviewed for correct license status. — CharlotteWebb 16:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been able to list it for deletion [11]. Seems almost like they intended to use WIkipediea as a hosting space. Not a dog 16:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know it was even possible to upload PDFs until recently. One bona fide use occurred recently in an AfD, where a relevant US court order was available on-line through a for-pay interface, known as PACER. It costs 8 cents a page to download orders this way. Since someone obtained the order and uploaded it to our system, other editors had a chance to look at it without needing to pay again. I suspect this PDF copy of the order might qualify as a 'convenience copy' of the real reference, which would be a legal citation including a pointer to the original for-pay location (at a court web site). EdJohnston 17:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow, the federal government is billing us for ink and paper they aren't actually using? I'm totally shocked (not). It would be great if we could get someone to transcribe it to s:Wikisource:Case law. — CharlotteWebb 17:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Please help

Can somebody help me? Someone had moved 411 to 411 (year). I tried to move it back, but I couldn't get the history moved too. Could somebody, who knows how to do it, fix it instantly? Is it only possible for admins to move a page back to its original name or can I, being an ordinary user, do this too? /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 08:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed this. User thanked me on my talk page and asked the above question. I will have replied on his talk page, but for the benefit of others, only administrators can move a page over an existing one. Harryboyles 09:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring Sections in TOC

Is there any way to ignore a series of sections in the table of contents - I'm integrated my archive with my talk page - and so far it's not working.danielfolsom 04:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added class toclimit-2, which only shows level 1 headers. However, that also hides current discussions. (Revert it when you take a look.) One solution might be to put all archived discussions under level 3 headers once they become archived, and then use toclimit-3 for the TOC. Gracenotes^T § 20:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Scroll bars on diffs?

Is there some script I can put in my monobook to turn this update off?--VectorPotential^Talk 10:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer is above. --cesarb 10:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Upload file links?

Why are there two upload file links? One is in the toolbox for "interaction" and another in "toolbox". Are we planning to change how the upload process works? If so the one in the "interaction" box looks more friendly to new users. The older one should then be deleted. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 01:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• The discussion of this has been announced repeatedly at the Village Pump. Please contribute to that discussion. Uncle G 08:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes and layout

Infoboxes are causing problems w/ layouts. Any article lead w/ an infobox of any nature lost its position as being at the top while the infoboxes got the left top side. Anybody else is experiencing this? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

No, not really. Try WP:PURGE and WP:CACHE, in that order, and check if that fixes. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Interwikis for be-x-old

There seems to be a new problem with the old belarusian interwiki links (be-x-old:). For a while, it was working. But now it appears in the page instead of being listed in the language box. Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 19:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Should be working again, I've restored it to the interlanguage list for compatibility. Purge pages as necessary. --brion 19:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Image from commons not displaying

The image Image:Bill Cowher.jpg is not displaying properly, even though it's clearly uploaded at the commons: commons:Image:Bill Cowher.jpg. See Bill Cowher. What's going on? Could you replace it? Thanks. The Evil Spartan 18:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed it by adding a width to the infobox, so I'm guessing the NFLCoach template does something wrong when you don't fill in a width. All fixed now anyway. Jayden54

Alternatively you could have removed the |ImageWidth= line altogether. I've made the change to {{Infobox NFL PlayerCoach}} so that the image is shown even if ImageWidth is blank. –Pomte 00:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Redlinks that aren't

Is anyone else seeing a lot of links to which the page actually exists showing up as redlinks? Just started happening for me, and a force-reload hasn't fixed it. For example, I'm currently seeing WP:3O as a redlink. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

me too. I had posted a message but lost it in an edit conflict. It isn't quite the normal redlink colour and sigs are still fine Nil Einne 15:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same. --ÆAUSSIEevilÆ 15:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Me, three - whats the deal? PaddyM 15:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Not only am I seeing way too many redlinks, but they're coming up as black text followed by a maroon exclamation point. Something is really wrong here. —mjb 15:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the problem anymore, it's working for me now. Are you still having it? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a different colour to that used for missing pages, this new one is a brownish colour. Missing pages are still red. SynergyBlades 15:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same for me. What in the world is this? --LuigiManiac 15:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it's gone now. --LuigiManiac 15:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Still there. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Still there for me too. This flies in the face of usability testing, if this is how we're going to display links now. --Durin 15:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not, turns out it was probably a malfunction rather than an intended change. Orderinchaos 15:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the links (some of them) are marked as stubs. I'll let some people know. CMummert · talk 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

And, now it's back again, for me. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, now it is back again. Weird. --LuigiManiac 15:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The devs are working on it, be patient. CMummert · talk 15:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Several <a> HTML elements are being marked as class="stub". Your CSS settings for that class are the causes for the specific colour. Redlinks are class="new", for comparison. Uncle G 15:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What is class stub used for? —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 15:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Fix. Go to Preferences -> Misc -> Threshold for stub display and change the 0 to a larger number, like 8000. That should fix the problem. CMummert · talk 15:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit conflict: Yeah, though changing it to 1 should put things pretty much back to normal. Zero is supposed to be interpreted as infinity for this feature, but it looks like something broke. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 15:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it's fixed now; you don't have to change the threshold anymore. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 15:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I changed that number to 8000, and all links turned back to blue except for pages that were stubs, they are still brown. Kris 15:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Same situation here. I even tried to purge the cache but in vain.-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

weird - it was fixed for a couple minutes, now it's broken again. 8000 (and 1) are both "fixing" it though. CredoFromStart 15:45, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried to be a smart ass and tried 10000 and 20000. Problem fixed w/ 1 now. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Problem now solved. If you are still seeing odd links, you may need to purge your cache (see instructions on "purge" for how to do that for a specific page). Orderinchaos 15:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I see the problem if I don't log in (both IE and Firefox) but when I log in with my username, everything is ok (I use the value "0" btw). Valentinian ^{T / C} 15:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It still isn't working for me. I purged a page, (I also deleted caches and cookies) and it logged me out. When I was logged out it went back to normal, but when I logged back in it got all screwed up again. Is there any other way to fix this? Kris 16:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't only happen with stubs, either. It happens with regular articles just as well. 89.120.193.125 16:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You can fix this temporarily by putting link.stub { color: #002bb8; } in your monobook.css file.

This was my fault, a bug I'd introduced in rev:22055. Sorry. Thanks to river for fixing it in rev:22065. (I thought I'd tested it, but apparently I forgot to test the threshold=0 case after the latest change.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It still won't go back to the way it was for me, can anybody help me out? Kris 20:43, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You wrote above that you changed your stub threshold to 8000 bytes. That's going to give you quite a few brown links even with the bug fixed. Change it back to zero and the links should be blue again. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I like the display. I have some CSS in my monobook.css that turn them normal colors and put a little s in superscript after the stub links. CMummert · talk 23:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)