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== VPNgate blocking bot ==


I am seeking consensus on a proposal to develop and deploy a bot to help block VPNgate IP addresses used by a particular ]. For ]/] reasons, I cannot provide full details, but users familiar with the LTA in question will understand the context.
== noreferrer for Misplaced Pages ==

{{rfc|tech|policy|rfcid=DB2E5E8}}
{{See also|User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive 123#noreferrer_for_Wikipedia}}
Are there any plans to enable ] on Misplaced Pages since there are browsers that support it? (There are also non-standard, browser specific methods to hide referrers).

For non-tech folks, when you are on the insecure wiki (http not https), and you click on an external link on the wiki, the external site you visit gets a copy of the wiki url you came from. For example, if you click on an external link in the reference section of any page, such as ], the site you go to will know you came from the url http://en.wikipedia.org/Banana .

Several privacy issues arise with allowing ]s:

* If a low-traffic page is viewed, and an external link followed, if the person comments about a recent development on the page, it may be possible to link the ip to the editor.
* If a person visits the ] or service repeatedly from the wiki, it may be possible to profile the individual.

Is it beneficial to let websites know the specific page from which a user is coming from or should privacy take precedence?
] (]) 22:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

===noreferrer - Discussion===
:This "referrer" feature, on any site, in any circumstance, is a disgraceful breach of privacy. I was appalled when I first learned of it. I think most people don't even know it exists. ] (]) 23:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
::It's used in ]...something most people don't understand beyond buzzwords.] (]) 00:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
:::{{ec}} To play devil's advocate for a second, HTTP referrers are useful to website operators to discover who links to them (search engine link searches might not find Misplaced Pages because our external links are marked "]"). Website operators are often knowledgeable on the subject of the linking article (that's why we linked to the site), and seeing Misplaced Pages linking to their site would probably inspire them to check out the article. Some proportion of these, being knowledgeable on the subject, would go on to improve the article or suggest improvements on the talk page.
:::On the other hand, link spammers could use referrers from Misplaced Pages to gauge the success of a link-spamming campaign. (However, there are ] to do this without using referrers.)
:::{{abbr|IMO|In my opinion}}, one set of pages that absolutely needs "noreferrer" would be deleted pages viewed by administrators (ditto for oversighted pages viewed by oversighters). If an administrator clicked an external link, the referrer would leak information about the deleted page (e.g. the page title, the timestamp of the revision, and that it linked to that site). This would be particularly harmful for pages where even the page's title has been oversighted (e.g. as a ] violation).
:::Also, if you are concerned about your own privacy, it is possible to turn off referrers globally (not just from Misplaced Pages), using a browser setting or add-on (how depends on your browser). Note that some websites won't work without referrers (e.g. requires a referrer to work). – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 00:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Such an interesting dilemma! I'm a federal employee (and of average tech abilities), and as we boot up our computers we get a message about "no expectation of privacy" on our workstations. After seeing this for 15 years I've internalized the message, and assume that '''everything''' I do on the internet is public. And forgive me, I'm beginning to think that none of us should assume any level of privacy on the internet. That actually seems the safest, really. This leads me to understand that the internet is a giant advertising machine, and because I want to track where webusers come from to get to my educational site (so I can serve them better) I also know that someone is tracking me, as I buy dog beds for the local no-kill shelter on Groupon. And I'm ok with that, because I can't have it both ways.
::::Again, as someone creating an educational website I want to know when/if Misplaced Pages and the sister projects are sending me webusers - I can then strengthen my relationships with the referring websites (like we are doing here), and learn which uploaded files get used, and which don't, so I can be nimble and respond accordingly. ] (]) 01:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::No opinon on the current subject, but the fact that privacy on the web is very low, does not mean nothing should be done to improve it (that's a general rule, and one of the poorest common arguments I usually see: "given X is already bad, there is no problem in making it worse") - ] (]) 01:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
*I've rephrased the request on ] to emphasise that this is a request to ''disable'' something used by <s>Misplaced Pages</s> ''web browsers'' as part of a common standard, rather than starting from a status quo of its absence. I can understand that in some circumstances there are limited privacy implications, but these circumstances seem fairly limited and unusual. ] (]) 17:14, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
::Your formulation "''disable'' something used by Misplaced Pages as part of a common standard" makes it sound like Misplaced Pages is actively doing something now to pass referrer information. I'm not sure how it works but isn't the standard that a website does nothing at all and the browser by itself passes referrer information? And then a website can choose to ''add'' code to request browsers to ''not'' pass the referrer? ] (]) 00:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Yes, you're right - corrected. ] (]) 13:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

*'''Comment'''. Aren't these descriptions the wrong way round? How can support for "noreferrer" mean that "Misplaced Pages should have referers"? Ditto the one below. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 18:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
**'''Comment''' Agree with 86.129.18.113. The wording is confusing enough to render this useless. - ] (]) 23:26, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
***Per the above two comments (moved from the support section), I've swapped support and oppose and updated the description at the top of each section to be a little more verbose. Hopefully things are a bit clearer now. (I also updated James086's !vote to reflect support and oppose have swapped meanings.) – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 00:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
****Thanks - ] (]) 20:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

*Smallman, perhaps you can write up the code that allows an editor to opt in to a noreferrer feature and we can iVote whether to place that option in ]. The noreferrer feature could work both in logging into Misplaced Pages (erase the URL from where you came into Misplaced Pages) and in clicking on external links in Misplaced Pages (prevent the target site from learning the Misplaced Pages URL source that referred to the target site.) -- ] (]) 09:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
*:I've just tried the following and it seems to work. -- ] (]) 09:59, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
<source lang="javascript">
$("a.external").attr("rel", "noreferrer");
</source>
::*Regarding Uzma's bit about erasing the URL from which a user ''enters'' Misplaced Pages, I don't think the WMF record this in a way that threatens privacy. Looking at the , it seems they only keep the domain name of the referer (not the full URL), and do not associate this with an IP address or username. Looking at the ], CheckUsers cannot see referers either. It is possible that server logs accessible to developers might have them. If this were the case, it would be a topic for a separate discussion; this RFC is about referers sent to external sites, not those received by Misplaced Pages. – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 15:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
* Someone below mentioned that there are reasons why referers exist, so I decided to look them up. I've taken the below snippets from the HTTP 1.0 specification, to better inform this discussion.
{{talkquote|
This allows a server to generate lists of back-links to resources for interest, logging, optimized caching, etc. It also allows obsolete or mistyped links to be traced for maintenance.
<p>...
<p>Note: Because the source of a link may be private information or may reveal an otherwise private information source, it is strongly recommended that the user be able to select whether or not the Referer field is sent. For example, a browser client could have a toggle switch for browsing openly/anonymously, which would respectively enable/disable the sending of Referer and From information.
|source={{cite rfc
|rfc=1945|title=Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0
|section=10.13|sectionname=Referer
|last1=Berners-Lee|first1=T.|authorlink1=Tim Berners-Lee
|last2=Fielding|first2=R.|authorlink2=Roy Fielding
|last3=Frystyk|first3=H.|authorlink3=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
|month=May|year=1996}} }}
:– ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 22:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
::It's a little sobering that it's taken fifteen years for the private "toggle switch" idea to become common... ] (]) 12:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The toggle switch was proposed in the HTTP/1.1 Protocol:
{{talkquote|
The Referer header allows reading patterns to be studied and reverse links drawn. Although it can be very useful, its power can be abused if user details are not separated from the information contained in the Referer. Even when the personal information has been removed, the Referer header might indicate a private document's URI whose publication would be inappropriate.
<p>...
<p> We suggest, though do not require, that a convenient toggle interface be provided for the user to enable or disable the sending of From and Referer information.
|source={{cite rfc
|rfc=2616|title=Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
|section=15.1.2|sectionname=Transfer of Sensitive Information
|last1=Berners-Lee|first1=T.|authorlink1=Tim Berners-Lee
|last2=Fielding|first2=R.|authorlink2=Roy Fielding
|last3=Frystyk|first3=H.|authorlink3=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
|month=June|year=1999}} }}
Also, for there have been of a referrer alternative providing only the scheme, host, and port of initiating origin. ] (]) 16:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
:Though I didn't quote that part earlier, the exact same text appears word-for-word in of the earlier HTTP/1.0 spec. – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 22:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
For those folks who believe HTTPS is the panacea, '''referers are sent on https -> https connections but not on https->http connections'''.
{{talkquote|
Clients SHOULD NOT include a Referer header field in a (non-secure) HTTP request if the referring page was transferred with a secure protocol.terface be provided for the user to enable or disable the sending of From and Referer information.
|source={{cite rfc
|rfc=2616|title=Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
|section=15.1.3|sectionname=Transfer of Sensitive Information
|last1=Berners-Lee|first1=T.|authorlink1=Tim Berners-Lee
|last2=Fielding|first2=R.|authorlink2=Roy Fielding
|last3=Frystyk|first3=H.|authorlink3=Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
|month=June|year=1999}} }}
That means that when you click on a secure site from the secure wiki, you will send a referer. HTTPS will only prevent sending a referer to http sites.] (]) 16:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

===noreferrer - Support===
Misplaced Pages should enable ], so that referers are not sent to external sites:
*'''Support''' - Changes should be made in the best interests of readers and editors, not external sites. I think our users are more important than the owners of sites we link to. <font color="#454545">]</font><sup>]</sup> 15:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
*:Misplaced Pages sends referers to external sites ''now''. The proposal is to stop doing this, not to add it. {{small|(James' comment previously referred to adding referers to Misplaced Pages, but he has since corrected this.)}} – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 00:55, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' - Misplaced Pages should take every reasonable step to ensure that it doesn't violate the privacy of any person. Telling other sites that the use rhad previously visited Misplaced Pages, let alone a specific Misplaced Pages page, is clearly such a violation. ] ] 14:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
::There has been some confusion here about how referrer works but Misplaced Pages doesn't tell anything to other sites now. It's browsers which usually by themselves tell a site where the browser came from. The proposal is to make Misplaced Pages ask browsers to not tell they came from Misplaced Pages. I think few sites do that currently so when you surf, a website usually knows where you came from. ] (]) 19:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Whether it's Misplaced Pages, or the user's own browser doing stuff behind the user's back, is irrelevent. If Misplaced Pages can prevent such action from being taken behind the user's back, it should. ] ] 13:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' seems like since we do ''nofollow'' this would be logical too. That said, I don't think we should get all paranoid about the reasoning: the sky isn't going to fall because website A knows it's been linked to from website B, and any site likely to do something sinister with that info probably shouldn't be linked to on WP anyway. ] - <b><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">St</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF5500">ar</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF8000">bli</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFC000">nd</FONT></b> 22:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
*: Nofollow serves an actual purpose: it takes away the ] incentive for people to spam their links here. Noreferrer does not have any such purpose. ]] 22:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
* From what I understand, for the people that care, this is a positive. For the people that don't care, there's no effect at all. Therefore, I support. ] ] 01:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support'''. If Misplaced Pages can ask browsers to not reveal that our users have visited a page on Misplaced Pages, we should do so, for the same reasons we use nofollow on links. Some external sites will use this information for "wikipedia optimization" to the detriment of our attempts to reduce COI problems. --] (]) 20:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' and completely disagree with opposes I have read. We cannot control other sites or individual browsers, but we can do this. --]]] 04:25, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support'''. Misplaced Pages should not be an ad click enabler. ] (]) 19:54, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' per Od Mishehu and Guy Macon. The web was a much smaller and saner place when this sort of tracing capability was introduced. The time to opt out is past due. ~ ] (]) 16:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' Referers might have been an ok idea in the CERN era of an academic-operated, research-oriented web. In today's advertiser and user-profiling web, they are evil and should be suppressed whenever possible. ] (]) 08:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Support''' since as Sven said "for the people that care, this is a positive. For the people that don't care, there's no effect at all". ] 11:15, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

===noreferrer - Oppose===
Misplaced Pages should continue to allow referers to be sent to external sites:
* This is pointless paranoia. The few people who are concerned should either avoid clicking external links, install a browser extension to block/falsify the referrer, or use the Javascript snippet WOSlinker posted above. ]] 15:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
* Agree with Anomie above. Anyone who is worried about a site knowing they got there by following a link in Misplaced Pages should be even more worried about links on other sites and install or activate referrer blocking in their browser. ] (]) 08:50, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
* Referrer isn't as big of a privacy breach as people think. It's also useful for certain sites, such as when I was working on my edit counter. I'll bring up an anecdotal example of why referrer was helpful: The tool was getting hit hard in basically a ]. It was causing my email to get spammed, the tool was getting throttled, and by looking at the referrer, I found which page the attack was coming from, and was able to solve it. It's near impossible to get anything bad out of the referrer, and when a site really needs it, like I did, it's useful to have. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 21:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
*This is just a lot of ] to me. Referrers are mostly harmless (especially coming from Misplaced Pages). ] (]) 01:33, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
* Let's not mess up the way the Internet was designed to work. There are reasons the referrer exists, and there is no reason to remove that en masse. ] <sup>]</sup> 07:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
* This is stupid. It gives people a false sense of privacy while breaking an important part of the HTTP protocol. --] 11:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
**The Referer header is optional; omitting it does not break the protocol. The proposed technique for disabling it is part of HTML5, not some hack. However, I do think it would be an abuse of rel="noreferrer" to turn it on globally. The use intended by the HTML5 authors was to block referers from ''private'' pages, to avoid leaking private information. – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 22:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
***For more detailed info, see of HTML5. --] (]) 23:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*I agree with what all the "opposers" before me have said. The only "sure" way to do this, would be for the ''user to do it in his UA settings'', not trying to enforce a one-size-fits-all "solution" by mucking about with Misplaced Pages (which probably wouldn't work anyway). ⇔ <span style="font-size-adjust:0.54; font-family:'P22 Declaration Script','American Scribe','National Archive', Ovidius, 'Ovidius Script', 'Horizon BT', 'Final Frontier Old Style', Charcoal, Virtue;">]</span> 14:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*So, if you visit a website, your IP is transmitted to them anyway. All that putting noreferrer on it does is deny the site owner useful information about who is linking to their site. So, oppose. —] (]) 20:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*Oppose, It is in the HTTP protocol for a reason, it is useful, people can block this on a case by case basis using scripts so removing noreferrer for the whole site seems pointless and wrong. ''']''' <sup>]</sup></span> 21:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''', it's standard, useful for web analytics, and if the user doesn't want to people to know where they've been, they can disable it themselves/use the secure server. --] 11:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
* X! shows that these can be useful --] &#124; ] 08:54, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' per Tom, Sarek et al. ] (]) 12:00, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' 1) Referrers are part of the structure of the Web. Misplaced Pages should work with the web protocols, not against them. 2) One way to measure the success of partnerships with GLAMs and other organisations is for them to see how many referrals they get via Misplaced Pages. This is important: one of the drivers of the growing academic respectability of Misplaced Pages is that people who run scholarly journals or online archives are seeing how much Misplaced Pages is driving their traffic. ] (]) 19:23, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
* I'd rather see HTTPS by default for logged-in users. --] (]) 01:54, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
* '''Oppose''' per MartinPoulter. ] ] 14:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - Sarek sums it up beautifully. As we are the Worlds fifth largest (and by far the most visible) website out there, it's up to us to lead the way in standards. There is a simple solution to this: Edit the Special:LoginUser page to '''briefly''' mention noreferrer in the explanation field. -]<sup>(])</sup> 01:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''; there are no ''genuine'' privacy benefits, and there are a number of entirely legitimate technical reasons why that header is useful. Users genuinely concerned about following links should use the privacy extension of their browsers or retype URLs, not rely on specific sites using noreferrers. &mdash;&nbsp;]&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 03:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' per Anomie, Sarek, Martin, Tom. If we are really concerned about users privacy under the belief they cannot take care of it themselves, we should enable HTTPS by default as MZMcBride and Edoktor have suggested. ] (]) 07:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
**'''Comment''' Referers are still sent when the url is https. Also, https doesn't help much with privacy of page views if someone can snoop the TCP traffic (since the lengths of the pages are still observable through the encryption, and that goes a long way towards identifying the pages). Https is useful for protecting passwords but that's about it. It has nothing to do with this referer issue and is a red herring. And the idea of asking users to log in and set a profile option to turn off referers is unhelpful: logging in correlates all of the person's pageviews together (a privacy problem in its own right), and anyway the vast majority of visitors never log in or edit (that's that #5 website in the world thing: non-logged-in read-only users). It would be ok to have a login option to turn the referers ''on'' for users who want to send them. ] (]) 08:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

===noreferrer - Neutral===
*Ah, crap. Are we hosting an RFC here, not at ]? If we get a flood of !votes, I may need to unwatch this page. --] (]) 16:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
**Perhaps, for that reason, any RfC, poll or whatever, likely to attract a large turnout, should be on its own sub-page? <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 18:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
*This issue seems slightly paranoia. Anyway, it will also be '''moot''' once Misplaced Pages switches to https-only, as clicks from secure sites never send referrers. <span style="font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] (]) — </span> 09:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
*Normally I'd favor any efforts by a site to protect its users' privacy. In this case, since concerned users already have ways to strip or forge referrers on their own (several methods are mentioned here), I don't see a compelling need for any action on Misplaced Pages's end. ] (]) 05:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
*<p>I'm leaning towards '''oppose'''. Referers provide useful information for webmasters, which most sites do not use in a way that threatens privacy. Users should decide for themselves whether or not they want to provide referers to websites and use their browser settings (or add-ons) to control this. (I acknowledge that browser makers could do more to make privacy options clear to users.) I also regard the proposal as abusing the "noreferrer" feature, as the HTML5 authors did not intend it to be used across a whole site.</p><p>However, I'm putting myself down as '''neutral''' because I think the noreferrer feature should be used in limited circumstances. When someone with permission to view an oversighted (or deleted) page clicks an external link, a referer should not be sent. Some websites make referer logs public, and hence could expose article titles that have been suppressed on Misplaced Pages. Given that a common reason for suppression of a title is a ] problem, we should do everything we can to prevent such titles being sent to other sites. Protecting non-public information such as this is the intended use of noreferrer. – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 23:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)</p>

*'''Question''': http://wiki.whatwg.org/Meta_referrer gives four possible values for using referrer in a meta tag (never, always, origin, default). Are we talking about adding a meta tag to our HTML or adding something to the HTTP headers? If the latter, are those four values available in the HTTP header? --] (]) 20:34, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
**Thus far, this proposal has discussed adding the HTML5 to ''every'' link. Using the meta tag would be another way to achieve the same end. I am unaware of an HTTP header that would have the same effect. If we were to go ahead with this, it might be worth investigating which method has the best support amongst browsers (or just use both to be extra certain). – ''']''' <span style="font-size:79%;">(]&#160;&#124; ])</span> 22:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
***If we can make it work, the "origin" option has a lot going for it. It tells the linked-to page that the link came from en.wikipedia.org without saying what page on Misplaced Pages. --] (]) 06:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
****] would still identify the originating page with high accuracy. Most extlinks aren't on large numbers of pages. ] (]) 09:00, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

== Uploaded file summary ==

At some point (circa July 2012 ?) a number of files began showing up with the Permission field for their {{tl|Information}} templates filled with "'''Evidence:''' Will be provided on request.". See e.g. ]. Does anyone know why that started showing up with those files? ] (]) 20:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
:The phrase appears in ], so it's probably shown as one of the selectable options. -- ] (]) 20:51, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

::Why is that even an option? If the copyright owner has given appropriate permission, it should be provided to OTRS without being requested and if it isn't the image should be deleted; and they certainly should not be tagged for moving to Commons. Otherwise we will have even more images with unconfirmed copyright status and that is not a good thing.--] (]) 20:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

:::Looking through the history, apparently it used to be "The license agreement will be forwarded to OTRS shortly" which which have already been moved to commons and a few hundred more locally. ] (]) 21:18, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

:::I asked Future Perfect at Sunrise to weigh in here since they're the primary editor. I also have discovered that this same topic has come up before at ], ], and ]. Should this discussion perhaps be moved elsewhere (no 'right' place springs to mind) to figure out if this is the most desired behaviour? ] (]) 21:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Yep, I'm the culprit here; I put these options into the upload form when I wrote it last year. My thoughts were these:
* In my understanding, this was the previous policy status quo: we don't force people to provide evidence the moment they do their uploads; they just need to make a plausible assertion of licensing and we tell them their images might get deleted if they can't provide evidence if and when challenged. When I wrote the form, I didn't want to create the impression it was sneakily introducing new, stricter policies.
* While most such images certainly ''should'' be challenged (and I as well as others actually tag most of them with "no-permission" routinely), I believe there are situations where a reviewer might legitimately take an uploader's word for it and accept an assertion of licensing without evidence, on assumption of good faith. I, for instance, occasionally do that with COI editors, when it is obvious from an uploader's editing profile that they are acting as the article subject's representative.
* Most importantly, I believe this option is useful because it gives problematic uploaders a relatively simple way of admitting a file isn't their own. If we didn't have this option, many of these uploaders would choose to lie instead and tag the files as "own work", which would make copyvios much more difficult to detect.
By the way, I would guess most of the ones that have turned up on Commons with the "will be provided" option were not moved there, but uploaded directly to Commons from our ] form. That option was disabled some time in July, I think.

For previous discussion of this option, see ]. ] ] 22:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

:A quick look at the files in ] that have the "on request" annotation shows that there are probably hundreds that should be challenged. I tagged a few yesterday but ran out of steam. If we are so tough on potential copyvios elsewhere, why are we not showing the same rigour here? Personally, I think that option should be rewritten to immediately tag the image with {{tl|di-no permission}} so that the uploader is put on immediate notice that permission must be provided. As for COI editors, why should they be exempt? If they have have appropriate permission they should have to provide it or face deletion just like everyone else.--] (]) 17:32, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

: I often see people uploading images as "own work" although the images obviously aren't own works. If this feature in the upload wizard makes copyright violations easier to discover, then I think that it is a good thing. However, maybe this option could tag the files with {{tls|npd}} automatically? There are other "bad" templates such as {{tl|permission from license selector}}, but files with that template automatically get {{tl|db-f3}} and don't require someone else to go through the files and tag it manually.
: I don't like the idea of assuming good faith for file copyrights. While it is unlikely that a contributor with a good standing would try to violate copyright, it is possible that other people might not know this and then tag the file with "no permission" in 5 or 10 years. If the contributor no longer is around, the file would then be lost. It is better to sort out the OTRS part now while the contributor still is around. --] (]) 11:26, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

::I like the idea of making it auto-tag it for speedy deletion just like the permission-for-Misplaced Pages-only option (although I didn't see that option at all just now while glancing through the FileUploadWizard.js). F11 deletion requires notification of the uploader, though. Would that be satisfied just by an explanatory template on the file page itself like the template you pointed out, or would we need to get a bot involved if we change to that option? ] (]) 16:24, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:::Well, if the file is going to be tagged as {{tls|npd}}, the uploader needs to be notified about this, but not necessarily on his talk page. He will most likely look at the file information page after uploading the file, and there it will say that permission needs to be sent to OTRS. Wouldn't that be enough? The upload wizard could also be designed to automatically put a notice on the uploader's talk page using the uploader's own account. --] (]) 22:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

::::I've asked at ] for some more input regarding this. ] (]) 17:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
{{od|5}}I came here following Stafan2's note at ], having not previously been aware of this discussion. Personally, I think that if a user has state that they will provide evidence "on request", we must assume good faith that they will provide it ''when requested''. As an absolute minimum, we must therefore explicitly request that permission before or at the same time as tagging for speedy deletion - in other words the speedy deletion clock must not start until the permission has been requested. This brings up the second question about what constitutes adequate notice, and for me the minimum must be notices on the file page ''and'' the user talk page. I say this because any user familiar with Wikimedia wikis, and likely other people too, will have an expectation that any requests specifically for them to be made on their user talk page. ] (]) 03:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== parser function admin ==

Is there a parser function which could be used in a template to alter behavior if was posted on admin or non-admin's talk page? <small>]</small> 19:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
: No. --] (]) 20:49, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
:: Actually, it might be possible, considering that ] only shows for admins. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 05:55, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
:: <nowiki>{{#if:{{adminstats|{{{1}}}}}|{{{1}}} is an admin|{{{1}}} is not an admin}}</nowiki> would probably work, if placed on a userpage. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 06:01, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
:::The claim that ] only shows for admins is untrue: try logging out and viewing either ] or ] - it's visible.
:::The second idea doesn't work for all users (whether admin or not)<s>, see {{oldid|User:Redrose64/Sandbox11|533685520|User:Redrose64/Sandbox11}}</s>. The problem is that it relies on the existence of a bot-generated template, and that template is only generated for admins who have asked for it. Further, it is not deleted if an admin is later de-sysopped. --] (]) 13:02, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
::::What you can do, is ADD information that is only visible to admins. You can use the css class <code>sysop-show</code>, which should make that CSS block only visible for sysops (but the content will always be in the HTML). Example: the answer of the question is <span class="sysop-show">42, but</span> hidden for most users. —] (] • ]) 22:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Struck part of my last comment because somebody's requested which didn't exist when I set up my test. --] (]) 22:35, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::Cyberbot will automatically create adminstats for administrators if it finds a link {{tlx|adminstats|adminname}}, as it did in your sandbox. Therefore in effect, you requested it yourself :-) &nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 22:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

== Actual image locations ==

I have a quick question about the locations of the actual images for files. Lets take ] as an example. The URL it says the image is at is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/SummitArenaAndConventionCenter.jpg . Everything here makes sense and I was just wondering if the '6/6b' part of the URL ever changes from image to image? ''']''' <sup>]</sup></span> 17:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
:Yes, they're (i) the first character and (ii) the first two characters of the image's ] code. Each character can be in the ranges 0-9a-f, so there are 16 possibilities for each, therefore the chance that these characters are the same for any two images is 1 in 256. I don't know which hashing algorithm is used: it might be ], ], or something else. --] (]) 17:36, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
::Thanks! ''']''' <sup>]</sup></span> 17:37, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
:::It's MD5. See ]. http://md5-hash-online.waraxe.us/ says SummitArenaAndConventionCenter.jpg has MD5 hash 6b31f364001ca46f7b6efd0f53acc0f7. ] (]) 18:00, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Yes, I knew it had come up before, so after posting the above, I've been back through the archives and found your post at ]. --] (]) 18:10, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
::::: {{ec}} I think the MD5 hash is called internally from .
::::: In wikitext, the {{Tld|]...}} parser function returns the URL for any specified file – but only if it has already been uploaded. For example: <source lang="text" enclose="none"></source> produces‎ link.
::::: But bypassing the file description page by linking to the file directly might breach the attribution requirements of the file authors, so a conventional File: link is usually appropriate.
::::: Presumably the subdirectories are used so that multiple servers can store files instead of having them all in one location. For 1 in 256 files, the path will contain ".../a/ad/...", which has sometimes confused adblockers into not displaying those files. — ] (]) 18:36, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

::::::] gives a direct link to the uploaded file instead of the file page. ] (]) 20:09, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Thanks everyone! ''']''' <sup>]</sup></span> 21:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
::Just to clarify: ''"the first two characters of the image's hash code"'' - the digits are the md5 sum of the image's file name (not the hash code of the image). ] (]) 15:57, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== Wikimedia sites to move to primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia. Read-only mode expected. ==

{{collapse top|This is complete now. ] (]) 11:24, 23 January 2013 (UTC)}}
(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) Next week, the Wikimedia Foundation will transition its main technical operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA. This is intended to improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites, including this wiki. There will be some times when the site will be in read-only mode, and there may be full outages; the current target windows for the migration are January 22nd, 23rd and 24th, 2013, from 17:00 to 01:00 UTC (see on timeanddate.com). More information is available .

If you would like to stay informed of future technical upgrades, consider ] and . You will be able to help your fellow Wikimedians have a voice in technical discussions and be notified of important decisions.

Thank you for your help and your understanding.

], via the ] <small>(])</small>. 15:12, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
<!-- EdwardsBot 0338 -->
{{collapse bottom}}

== Suppressing Article Feedback tool on dabs ==

Hi. I've been seeing the feedback tool (v4 mostly) on a lot of dab and set index pages, where they aren't really helping at all. Is there a magicword or something that can be used to suppress their appearance? <font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">]''']'''</font> 04:46, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

:I believe applying ] should remove the feedback tool. You may want to check if there's a common template used by many or all of the pages in question, but no others (such as a specialized disambig or set index template), and add the category to that template instead. ] (]) 05:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

::{{tl|Disambiguation}} should be transcluded on most of them, so adding the template to the category should hide them all. (edit: actually, disambig already has the category. Do you have examples of disambig pages with AFT on them?) <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 06:03, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Hm... the examples I've seen have all been set indices and disambiguations that are mistakenly marked as such. I'm going to add the {{tl|surname}} template to that category also then. <font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">]''']'''</font> 06:10, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Er... oops heh heh, that template is protected. Would an admin kindly do it (I don't think a formal request is necessary)? <font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">]''']'''</font> 06:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
::::The problem with adding the category to the surname template is that surname pages often have content alongside the disambiguation, which causes issues. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 06:13, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::I see your point. However, I don't believe pages like ] which are essentially dabs and probably will never become anything more need the feedback tool (pages like ] on the other hand, do). The vast majority of pages on which {{tl|surname}} is transcluded seem to fit this latter description. Is there an alternative solution that doesn't involve large-scale changing of pages? Something based on the page's size perhaps? <font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">]''']'''</font> 06:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::I feel as if it's one of those things that should get its own parameter, and then added to the articles that need it. <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]) &nbsp;·&nbsp;] &nbsp;·&nbsp;</small> 06:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Yes, that was my first thought too, but even if the default were set to no feedback, there may be hundreds of pages with content that it would have to be added to (a drop in the bucket compared to the 21000 or so that use the template, but still). The alternative of course, it to use feedback as the default and suppress feedback as needed when spotted (obviously I'm not going to bring ~20000 pages into compliance all at once) but sheer scale would be a constraint to how effective this could be. (The set indices also do not generally get a lot of hits, so some of them will inevitably be missed). Still, this isn't exactly a mission-critical feature and the wiki will not die if a page that should not have feedback has it enabled, or vice versa. <font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">]''']'''</font> 06:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

== Bots, archive links to web pages ==

Hello, may I ask - are there in the English Misplaced Pages bots that automatically archive links, as many web pages often are inaccessible? Russian Misplaced Pages has ]. Examples of his work: . Are there any similar job in the English Misplaced Pages? Thank you.--] (]) 06:46, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
:] went inactive a while back, and ] never heard a response back from the webcite team, so unfortunately not. ] (]) 06:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
* Thank you. And how, then, on the English Misplaced Pages solve the problem of the dead links and move permanent links to external web sites? This is a common problem, and the archive manually all of the links for a very long time.</br></br>Oh, and is there a manual to bots, You indicated? If they can work in other wiki-projects? Thank you.--<div><div style="display:inline;"><hiero>A9\-A9</hiero></div><big>↑‡‡<font style="color:black">]</font>‡‡↑</big><div style="display:inline;"><hiero>A9\-A9</hiero></div></div> 06:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

::That is not an acceptable ] ] <sub>]</sub><sup>]</sup> 06:47, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:::We use {{tl|dead link}} to mark dead links where necessary and often add links to pages archived in . Beyond that, I'm not sure if we do anything. &ndash;&nbsp;'']''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 11:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== Crawler bots effect on page views ==

Following on from a query made to the cultural-partners mailing list, I'm curious about this, which no doubt has been discussed before. How best to estimate the number of page views that are actually bots? Is it a fixed number for all articles, or will it vary with the popularity of the article? ] pointed to , showing about 15% of ?all Wikimedia page requests are from bots, but what does this mean for the average en:WP article? ] (]) 16:25, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

== Preventing Group Account Names ==

Not sure if this is the right place - but once upon a time, a person creating an account saw the contents of the page ]. However I've seen an large increase of messages at OTRS from people who do not understand why they have been blocked because they have used a name of their business, etc. - they certainly have never heard of the user name policy. I did try the create account with another PC and found that the message is no longer displayed - all they get is a tiny link on the Username box that says "(help me choose)" - I can assume you that they do not click the link, they don't want help in choosing, they have already made up their decision. Is there some way we can get the little explanation box back? It would stop lots of new editors getting rather upset at being blocked for a reason that has never been explained to them. ''']'''<sup>]</sup> 02:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:If you log out then click , you'll see that ], which is currently blank, is displayed at the top of the page. Perhaps you could use that? ] (]) 04:26, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:I suggest you talk to {{User|Steven (WMF)}} before redesigning the "create account" page. See ]. -- ] (]) 07:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

::I've requested that he comment here. &ndash;&nbsp;'']''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 11:45, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:::Thanks John and Philosopher for the heads up. I really appreciate being invited to chime in on interface issues like these. I have a longer explanation about the message, why we removed it, and the testing data etc., but in the short term I just wanted to note that the current interface of the signup page won't display any contents of ], except to users that have JavaScript disabled or who won't accept cookies, who get the old version for now. For now I wouldn't recommend trying to use new messages such as ], as we haven't tested to see if overwriting defaults in that or other messages will break the styling of the new signup page. I do have some suggestions for how we might address the issue Ron brings up, and also wanted to say that Ron approaching the issue with the goal of lessening headaches for new people unfamiliar with our rules is admirable. Talk soon, <font style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">]&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;]</font> 06:09, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

{{od}} Okay, following up, let me give you some bullet points on why we made the change we did, and why I don't recommend placing another list of "do not" items about usernames. Forgive me for being verbose...

* First up: MediaWiki messages like ] are meant to describe elements of the interface, and as you can tell by the title, the purpose of that message was to describe the CAPTCHA. Having it be used to provide warnings about username policy was technically a misuse of the message.
* We get more than a hundred users signing up every hour, and thousands per day. When looking at from that high level view, you can tell that it is unlikely that ''all'' of these users need to see several paragraphs and five bullet points about username policy. The sheer number of registrations vs. username blocks every week makes this clear.
* The current version of the page, which we ran as a side-by-side test to half of visitors to the signup page, produced a 4% increase in people successfully registering, and no statistically significant increase in the rate at which new accounts were blocked (for any reason). That sounds small, but at the seasonal rate of account creation for that week-long test, we netted more than 2,700 additional people. When comparing that gain to the potential for any confusion among people who are going to be blocked either way, the end decisionw was a clear one to us. Removing excess instruction and warnings is one important part of making the signup process easier on the majority of people.
* The system for dealing with bad usernames ultimately needs to be redone. As tracked in ], our current thinking is that in the long run, we are going to let admins force a username reset which the user completes before they are allowed back in to their account. This is much more elegant than blocking and forcing users to create a new account.
* The "help me choose" language in the link was suggested by an editor, over the version we originally had which as "username policy". I'm totally open to suggestions about changing the description of that link.

Anyway, the other reason I ask about actual stats on the increase in OTRS email is because we are coming out of the holiday season. As you can see from data like , every year around Christmas and New Years, we see a very large dip in all account creations. The increase you may be feeling is almost certainly in part due to the fact that the overall number of registrations is increasing again, slowly but surely. <font style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">]&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;]</font> 20:01, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

:I've added a comment to ] with two features that are ''essential'' to any such change. &ndash;&nbsp;'']''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 18:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Useful links disappeared from botton of Nostalgia skin ==

Ever since early December 2012, the English Misplaced Pages does not have the row of handy links at the bottom of pages any more. It looks like this only applies to the Nostalgia skin, which I use. It also only seems to have happened to a few wikis, (e.g. these links that use Nostalgia on and , but not on or ). I was wondering if anyone knows why it happened, and if there is any chance of some of the links being restored. The links I am talking about are the ones that look like

<blockquote>Edit this page | Watch this page | Discuss this page | Page history | What links here | Related changes<br>
| Move this page</blockquote>

I use the Nostalgia skin because it seemed the simplest way to get rid of the left-hand margin and avoid overriding browser fonts. I most often used this row of links to see if a page was on my watch list, to change the watchlist status, and for the “What links here” function. Recently I have been resorting to typing in the URLs manually. ] (], ]) 04:21, 21 January 2013 (UTC).

== Pending Changes disagreeing with itself ==

]] recently referred me to a pending change at {{article|Deaths in 2013}} (which I'd reviewed the previous edit to, but I don't think that has anything to do with what happened). However, when the diff loaded, it told me that it had already been accepted. Yet the history told me that the two edits ( by an IP and its subsequent by {{user|Eyesnore}}) were still pending. I raised the issue on IRC, where several other editors saw the same issue; {{User|Legoktm}} deprecated the revisions and re-accepted them, and as far as I can tell, that fixed everything. Here's the problem, though: shows that Eyesnore's revert was auto-accepted. But everything I can find on the subject says that the only edit auto-accepted following a still-pending edit is rollback ''executed by a reviewer''. Eyesnore's a rollbacker, but not a reviewer. So am I mistaken, and are rollbackers' reverts in fact auto-accepted, or is there a bug in the system?''' —&nbsp;]'''] 06:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
:According to ], Eyesnore's status as a rollbacker should not have permitted him to be auto-reviewed (although there could be a bug that permits it). ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 06:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
::It also might check the SHA1 and if they are the same from a already approved edit it might auto-except that. ] (]) 14:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== Selectively hiding watchlist notices ==

Is it possible to hide watchlist notices by type? I'm not interested in seeing notifications of upcoming meetups, which occur frequently. — ] ] 13:47, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
:It is possible to hide individual geonotices (see ]), for example the current UK meetup one may be hidden by setting
:<source lang=css>#geonoticeUKFeb2013Meetups { display: none; }</source>
:in your ], but since that ID will probably change when the March meetups begin to be shown, it's easier to go for the link. Alternatively you can hide all geonotices on a permanent basis using
:<source lang=css>.geonotice { display: none; }</source>
:instead. --] (]) 15:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
::Great - thanks. I wasn't aware of the workings of ]s before. — ] ] 15:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== weblinkchecker.py ==

Sorry, I do not work with weblinkchecker.py . :-( Examples: , . The code of weblinkchecker.py I copied from , adding information for the Russian Misplaced Pages. What I did wrong? Thanks.--] (]) 14:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
:Run it again over the same page in a week, it will then report dead links. ] (]) 15:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== The title of the ] article is italicised ==

Here is the discussion with further information . ] (]) 15:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
:I jerry-rigged a solution by using {{t|DISPLAYTITLE}} after the radio show infobox. If someone can think of a better way, feel free to do so.&nbsp;]&nbsp;] 15:52, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

::The proper fix was to use the right right parameter name <code>italic_title</code> for {{tl|Infobox radio show}}. ] (]) 23:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

== Curiosity concerning stats.grok.se ==

As some of you may or may not know, I previously went by the Misplaced Pages alias of Backtable. My former userpage was deleted on January 4, 2013, as per my own request. Ever since then, has reported a sharp increase in views of my deleted userpace, starting when the page got deleted. Stats.grok.se reports hundreds of post-deletion views per day, even though not getting 10 pre-deletion views per day was nothing unusual. Is this an error on behalf of the viewcounter, or is there an otherwise reasonable explanation for the uncanny increase in views? I know I haven't been viewing it that much.

Also, I did send an e-mail to Henrik about this, as was recommended , but that user has not been very active on Misplaced Pages as of recent. I also e-mailed another administrator about the viewcount anomaly, and the administrator referred me here. Mungo Kitsch (]) 22:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

:Purely a guess, but could it be bots external to Wiki, e.g. Googlebots, trying to spider your page repeatedly when they can't find it?&nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 14:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

::I'm unfamiliar with bot practices, but I would venture to consider your guess possible. I found , and I may instill some of its suggestions to hopefully reduce viewcount. Mungo Kitsch (]) 03:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Template talk:Wikimedia for portals ==

See: ]. Is there a way to add a yes/no function to this template, to what will display, kind of along the lines of Template:Sisterlinks, except that it is horizontal, instead of vertical. Thanks, --] (]) 22:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
:If you mean how to make it not to display Wikivoyage, that is <nowiki>{{Wikimedia for portals|voy=-}}</nowiki>. ]_] 13:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::Thanks, I just see that now. I'm going to change the dash to "no", to match the way the Sisterlinks template works, it seems more clear-cut that way. The dash is very vague to what it does. --] (]) 17:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

== Feedback appreciated on edit request ==

I've filed ] to incorporate {{tl|Pp-pc1}} (though not {{tl|Pp-pc2}}) into {{tl|Pp-meta}}, in keeping with other protection templates. I believe it to be fairly non-controversial, as does Salvidrim, who's reviewing the request, but he's suggested that I seek comment from other editors before he carries out (or doesn't carry out) the changes. I agree that this is a good idea, and would be very grateful if some editors experienced in template markup could look over my work, both to make sure that I haven't screwed anything up and to comment on whether or not it's a good idea regardless. If necessary I can open an RfC, but it seems simpler to just fish for some feedback here.''' —&nbsp;]'''] 06:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

== Data center migration ==

Hi; just a quick reminder that the planned data center migration (]) is happening today, in about 2.5 hours now. ] 14:41, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:You mean it's not started yet? Misplaced Pages has been slow all day here in the UK. --] (]) 15:11, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::No, it won't start before 1.5 hour. Is it better now? ] 15:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Does that mean no edit (in either talk namespace or article space) will be possible? -- ] ] 18:18, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

:Yes, for some time saving any edits will not be possible. --] (]) 19:02, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

The watchlist notice says ''"Wikimedia sites will be periodically in read-only mode early this week."'' So inbetween there will be periods where editing is possible? -- ] ] 18:22, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:Well, starting at 1740 today, there was a span of about half an hour where no edits at all were possible (ending ten minutes ago or so), but we're making edits now, so I guess the answer to both your questions is "yes." :) ] ]] 18:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

::All sites were in read-only mode for ~30 minutes, but the migration was completed successfully. We don't expect any further related editing interruptions. ] 00:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

== Don't save my change yet! ==

When I am editing an edit summary, if I accidentally press return the edit is saved, like .

Is there a way to disable this functionality? Either through configuring Misplaced Pages or my browser.

] (]) 18:18, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:Hey, Yaris! You could try ] that I just wrote (not wholly by myself); I haven't tested it completely for cross-browser shenanigans, but I think it should work. ] ]] 19:34, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

::{{User|Jarry1250}} provided me with a one-line fix which you can find in ]. It seems to work. -- ] (]) 19:55, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

:::Cool. Thanks guys. I'll have a go with one of these tomorrow. ] (]) 22:48, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

::::I have applied Jarry1250's code to ] and it seems to work. (I use the monobook skin, not vector.) Thanks guys! ] (]) 11:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

== Removing markup ==

Hi - is there a template or parser function that will strip wiki mark-up from text, just leaving raw text?&nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 18:29, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
: No. Though if you give further details about what you're trying to accomplish, there may be another solution available. --] (]) 19:03, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

::Ok, it's rather complicated, but here goes: I use a personalised {{tl|information}} template on Commons, and want to put an anchor link in it to the licence section. This uses the header <code><nowiki>{{int:license}}</nowiki></code>. This gives a different title depending on a user's language preference. The obvious solution, which I've tried, is to link to <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code>, which works for en-gb (my preference), but causes problems for the default en language. This is because <code><nowiki>{{int:license}}</nowiki></code> expands to <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code> for en, containing a link. When this is transcluded into the anchor link, it produces nested square brackets, breaking the template. I want to strip the mark-up from <code><nowiki>{{int:license}}</nowiki></code>, so that it leaves <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code> for English users. I can't just link to <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code> directly, as it wouldn't work for users with other languages set. I could get around the problem by having a special case if <code><nowiki>{{int:lang}}=en</nowiki></code>, but there may be other languages that also have links in the header.

::Any suggestions?&nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 19:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Set an ]. For example, {{tag|span|s|params=id=Licensing}} --] (]) 19:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:::: ^ This, basically. Though Commons really ought to have canonical anchors for these standard sections. --] (]) 19:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::Or instead of a raw {{tag|span|o}} tag, use ]. ] (]) 19:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::I'd thought of that, but hoped to avoid having to edit all my images (over 200), having only just gone through them all to add the header in the first place. Oh well, AWB makes it easier. Thanks for your help.&nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 21:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

::: Here's a proof-of-concept that it can be done, though the technique is probably too clunky for widespread adoption:
:::* An undocumented quirk of the {{Tld|]...}} magic word causes it to extract the dot-encoded displayed text from a wikilink, making it possible to link to the relevant section, so <code><nowiki>{{anchorencode:]}}</nowiki></code> will produce <code>Bar_baz.3F</code>
:::* There doesn't seem to be a way to extract <code>Foo</code> or the unencoded <code>Bar baz?</code>.
:::* Because the extracted display text is always dot-encoded, it needs piping to prevent non-ASCII text and punctuation from displaying oddly. Fortunately, in this case it's possible to cheat by piping <code>int:version-license</code> which happens to have the same intended meaning as <code>int:license</code> but uses only unlinked plain text – at present! (The display texts of the two messages are not identical in every language, so it is not possible to link with the simpler unpiped <code><nowiki>]</nowiki></code>.)
:::* So the following should work: <source lang="text" enclose="div">]</source>
::: There's a working example at ] which you can test by appending the <code>uselang</code> parameter to the URL. But the fact that it ''can'' be done by this obscure workaround doesn't mean that it ''ought'' to be done! In particular, links could break if there were changes to the internal workings of {{Tld|anchorencode:}} or to the format of <code>int:version-license</code> messages. But it is an interesting demonstration of wikitext's quirks.
::: — ] (]) 01:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

== secedit script listed as obsolete but... ==

This ] from 2007 has been listed as ] by the user scripts project. However, I bumped into it and tried it out and it seems to work just fine in Firefox 18.0.1. Might this be erroneous? Can some other people with other configurations try out the script to see if it works? <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b><font color="#333">]</font></b><font color="#444">]</font></span> 18:55, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

:I don't know, but "obsolete" might mean "made unnecessary" rather than "no longer working". <span style="color:#3A3A3A;background-color:#FFFFFF">'''Grandiose''' </span><span style="color:gray;background-color:#FFFFFF">(], ], ]) </span> 19:29, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

:The script is no longer necessary. It was written at a time when there were no "edit" links for article sections in Misplaced Pages and the only way to edit a section was to open the entire article.&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;]<sup>] ]</sup> 19:34, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::The listing specifically states that it has been "Broken by MediaWiki changes". While there is a live preview option under editing preferences, as well as an Ajax ], neither of them works inline in the same manner as this one - ae. they both take you to a new webpage. Maybe it's been rendered obsolete by something better, but I haven't found it yet... <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b><font color="#333">]</font></b><font color="#444">]</font></span> 19:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Hold up, that's not how it works. It changes the interface so that clicking on the edit button opens an inline editing interface, without switching to a &section= editing page, and allows you to do all the usual stuff without changing web urls. <span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"><b><font color="#333">]</font></b><font color="#444">]</font></span> 19:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Hmm in the latest Chrome it doesn't work most of the time and when it does it edits the section below.--<span style="">] <span style="font-size:70%; vertical-align:sub;">]&#124;]</span></span> 20:41, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
::It's been possible to edit article sections since at least . ''']'''<font color="green">]</font> 14:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

== Images not rendering ==

{{tracked|44319|fixed}}
I've uploaded ~800 images as part of ]. While image metadata is visible for all the images, some of them do not have a preview/don't thumnail: ], ], etc.. When I click on ] for the full image, it shows up fine, however, the says "Error generating thumbnail The source file for the specified thumbnail does not exist." Anyone know how to fix this?] (]) 01:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

:This has been happening for a while now, ] has some instructions that may solve the problem, these may fix but but don't expect the results to be quick as I noticed a similar problem with ] in the ] article a few days ago and the thumbnail wouldn't display at the correct size in the article until several hours later (adding the "?1" to the url would work for the image, but the ] doesn't allow that. The full size images of your uploads are appearing correctly. ] (]) 01:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

::In general we face some on-and-off thumbnail issues, see the list under "Depends on:" ]. Bug 41130 (server caches) comes to my mind but mostly people from North America are affected, while I can reproduce the problem here and am based in Europe. As recommended by Peter I'd wait a few hours, and if the issue still happens I'd file a bug report in the bugtracker (I'll happily do that). --] (]) 11:40, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::It looks like something broke on the wiki side from 19:14, 22 January 2013 to 19:17, 22 January 2013. All of the files in between don't render. It's only a few minutes, but the bot does 10-15 files/minute. See for the empty rendering spaces.] (]) 23:47, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Maybe it has something to do with the data migration that was happening yesterday. ''']'''&nbsp;(]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;]) 23:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::::19:14, 22 January 2013 to 19:17, 22 January 2013 was definitely data migration time and we were read-only for 33 minutes at that time. See . --] (]) 11:40, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::On the other hand, I also see very similar issues with thumbnails that were not created around that time. I'll try to find a developer to discuss with. --] (]) 12:58, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::{{Resolved}}-It's been fixed thanks!] (]) 03:14, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

{{od}}-Speaking of thumbnails: I updated two images on the Commons, which were updated on WP the next day, but not in the article (]); purging my cache did not help. I now see that it is the ''thumbnail'' version that is not updating. Changing the "upright" parameter to a different size appears to force a new rendering. But invoking the image at the old size gets the old version of the image. I suspect that each ''size'' of an image in use is stored as a separate file, and these are not being updated when the source image is changed. ~ ] (]) 23:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:Your bug is a bit different in that you have stale thumbnails, whereas my bug had no thumbnail. ]s are ]. The server cache for your images could be stale. Did you try ]? (Go the image file on commons, add ?action=purge to the url and hit enter).] (]) 03:14, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a similar problem with ], a new version has been uploaded but the old image is displayed with the new image's dimensions. Purge has no effect. Reverting, and then restoring the image has no effect. Adding the purge command to the will display the correct version of the image, but it has no long lasting effect. It may be worth investigating if there is a chance that this could be affecting all images uploaded during the fault period. - ] (]) 11:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

:Same problem as described by X201 here: ] --] (]) 12:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

== Users reporting site time issues and delay in visible update of edits ==

Hi. At ], a couple of users are reporting that the site is rendering for them as 22 Jan, despite them living in Europe, where it's currently 23 Jan. Hence, they're seeing yesterday's TFA. NB I live in the UK and all seems fine to me. --] (]) 11:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

*Yes, I was the first poster on main page, the Main Page definitely doesn't update for me. Firefox 9.0.1 and 10.0.2 here. Windows XP 2002 SP3. France. F5, CTRL+F5, restarting the computer doesn't work, and I have this problem on different computers. I'm stuck on Jan 22, which was a rather miserable day for me :D BTW is this problem related to the one I have on Commons ? The Commons Main Page doesn't update regularly for me either, I have to force it by switching to mobile view and back. Thank you, have a nice day. ] (]) 12:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::Thank you, reported. :) ] (]) 14:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Thanks, Philippe. --] (]) 14:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::::I'm having the same problem and I'm in the UK. The main page should be 23rd January. Why is yesterday's page loading instead? I've never had this problem on Misplaced Pages before. ] (]) 14:41, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::This is a confirmed problem related to the eqiad migration, and operations is working on it now. Hopefully should be resolved shortly. <b style="color:#c22">^</b>]</sup>]]&nbsp;<em style="font-size:10px;">14:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)</em>
::::::Thanks. While this glitch may be annoying for those it's affecting, it's remarkable that the migration has had such ''little'' impact. Virtual coffee and chocolate to all the developers from me. (I presume that American IT people depend on similar foodgroups to their British cousins). --] (]) 14:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::This was a routing problem relating to page purges, and it's now been fixed (and primarily affected European users). Any affected pages can be purged and should show up properly for all users. <b style="color:#c22">^</b>]</sup>]]&nbsp;<em style="font-size:10px;">15:02, 23 January 2013 (UTC)</em>
::::::::Concur with Dweller. I can honestly say that if I hadn't read about the migration, I wouldn't have noticed a thing. Well done!&nbsp;<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #A00000;padding:1px;"> An ] on the ] </small> 15:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::::This problem is still ongoing, at least for me here in the UK. Many pages will show their 22 Jan version in read mode even if later edits have been made. The edits can be seen in edit mode, but will not appear in normal read mode. Neither do they show up in the history view. It's the same for the talk pages. ] (]) 04:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::::The problem is still ongoing, I posted to ] about one of the sections not updating. and was pointed to here. (] is not updated for unlogged visitors.) It's probably not just the front page. Yesterday I made 2 edits to an article. I could see them in my contributions, but they weren't present in the article's revision history and in the article itself. (Even when I was logged in.) When I returned to Misplaced Pages today, they were there. --] (]) 05:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::::By the way, when I log out, no recent modifications on any pages seems to be shown. In the revision history too, I see an older version without newer edits. I try to purge pages, but nothing helps. When I log in, I can see everything. --] (]) 05:50, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::::2 examples of what I see when I log out:
:::::::::*On the front page the "Did you know..." section is
:::::::::*At ], I am shown the . Purging doesn't help. --] (]) 06:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
This glitch is still active in Germany. Although our location is 0730 UTC on 24 Jan the main page shows 1630 UTC 23 Jan. And the Talk page shows a completely different UTC. Purging the pages does not work at all. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 06:47, 24 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

Still an issue UK 11:46gmt 24JAN2013, main page shows 23JAN data, tried all the purges etc, viewing vis USA proxy shows correct date data. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 11:47, 24 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

Issue is still active as of 1530 GMT 24 January in Netherlands on IE and Firefox, purging etc. no effect. Site still is showing 23 January information. This seems to only be the case with en.wikipedia.org, nl, fr and de versions working fine. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 15:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP -->
:The glitch is still ongoing (for those not logged in). Many pages still shown in their January 22 or 23 state. This must be causing pretty serious problems. What is being done about it? ] (]) 21:40, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

*This seems to still be ongoing for many users: OTRS Ticket #s , , , , . All of them came in within the last 16 hours. ] <sup>(]•]•]•])</sup> 09:40, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
*Verified from a PC other than my own in Oxford, England (IP address 195.171.xxx.yyy) using IE8 under Windows XP; at 10:15 UTC today the main page showed: TFA - ]; DYK - ] (] etc.); OTD - ]; TFP - ].
:I then went to one of these articles, followed links to about five pages deep, then backed out to the main page - and saw that it was now showing the correct information for January 25 (TFA - ]; DYK - 2012 Race of Champions, Abel Schr›der/Vester Egesborg/Undløse/St Martin's, Make the World Move, Thomas Aquinas Dictionary, Dima Yakovlev Law, Ian McKeever, Detroit's population increased over 1,000 times). --] (]) 13:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
This is geting ridiculous. This morning (25th) the main page was showing the correct date and I thought that at last all the problems had been fixed. This afternoon I visit it again, and its back to showing the 23rd! Come on, guys. You're losing technical credibility, here. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 14:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

{{hat|Center-aligning and shrinking the text was my fault. ] (]) 17:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)}}
My pages are center-aligned. Huh. --] (]) 17:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:That has been . —''']''' (]·]) 17:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

All the pages in article namespace appear centre-aligned and in a smaller font. ] &#124; ] &#124; ] 17:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

OH MY GOD GUYS WHAT DID YOU DO. it's updated for me but the font is tiiiny (8pt?) and there's ugly bullet points everywhere and pages are randomly center-aligned omg what happened god help us all <br />Anyway, the navigation sidebar also got bumped to the bottom of the page for me, so there's like a big blank spot where the navigation bar is supposed to be. &mdash; ]] &mdash; <small>(])</small> 17:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

:FYI, running Google Chrome on a Mac, & here, no issues with Main Page (where it's 25 Jan) nor any other pages so far. ] ]</font> 17:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:I just came here to mention the center alignment as well, I found that the siteNotice div is not being closed until the very bottom of the page, so its "text-align: center" style is covering everything. There's a comment in the code with "/sitenotice" right after the mw-dismissable-notice div where I guess it should be closed, but isn't. ] (]) 17:56, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
::Issues with the font size and alignment are all my fault. Someone requested an editnotice at WP:AN, so I ], but I included a &lt;!-- comment and forgot to close it with a --&gt;, so the small size and centered text of the editnotice ended up applying to the entirety of every page. ] (]) 17:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
{{hab}}

== Email notification ==

Hi, I've probably done something completely wrong but my email notifications of changes to watched pages seemed to suddenly stop yesterday evening; it had been working correctly until then. I have checked everything is still all ticked in 'preferences' in case I'd inadvertently changed something. To check that the email address was working I even sent myself an email from my alternative email which came through. I also tried sending myself an email from Misplaced Pages using the email this user facility, which hasn't arrived either. I use a Mac (if that makes any difference). I hope I'm managing to explain this query correctly! ] - ] 15:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:Based on the comments in the #wikimedia-operations channel, it should be fixed now. ] (]) 15:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::Wow, thanks for such a speedy response! I'm still not getting anything through, I picked up your reply by constantly checking my watch list (I know - obsessive/compulsive springs to mind!). At least it's a relief to know it's unlikely to be something I've done and I'll just wait patiently as I'm not technical enough to know how to work the operations channels. ] - ] 15:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, notifications were delivered a few hours later, within the end of the day (at least for me). --] 13:40, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Broken link at http://www.wikipedia.org/ ==

When English is selected from it generates an error stating "No site configured at this address". Its been doing this for a few days.

When English is selected it tries to link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/ and I think it should be http://en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page. ] (]) 20:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:That's odd, <code>http://en.wikipedia.org/</code> takes me to the main page whether I click the link on the landing page or enter it to the address bar (it automatically adds <code>wiki/Main_Page</code> as soon as the browser follows the link). The landing page works as I'd expect for me in Chrome and IE9. <font color="#454545">]</font><sup>]</sup> 20:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::{{ec}} Ditto, working for me. ] ]] 21:00, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::Are you using Firefox? If so ? <font color="#454545">]</font><sup>]</sup> 21:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Working properly in Firefox 18.0.1/Windows 8. ] (]) 21:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::That's interesting. I've tried it on 2 different computers with IE and Firefox and it doesn't work here. I also tried clicking the other links around the globe and they work, just not the english one. ] (]) 21:27, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
::::::What URL does it lead you to? What HTTP headers and what HTML are you receiving? ] (]) 21:31, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::As I mentioned above it leads me to <code>http://en.wikipedia.org/</code> and then generates a blank white page with "No site configured at this address". Its no big deal if no one else is having the problem. I've also already cleared my cache and my recent history. I even tried to restart my computer. I just thought it was something to do with the Server move from Fl to Va. ] (]) 21:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Link <code>http://en.wikipedia.org/</code> works fine for me redirects to <code>http://en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page</code>.] (]) 21:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

== Hold the champaign ==

] gives my "Registration time" as 14:22, 16 October 2003; yet http://toolserver.org/~tparis/pcount/index.php?name=Pigsonthewing&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia says I made my first edit on Jan 26, 2003 08:34:04 - which is correct? Could the issue arise because the January edit was deleted? Should I, like the Queen of England, celebrate two "birthdays"? <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 16:28, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:Actually, your first deleted edit (according to ]) was to ] on October 17, 2003. I'm not sure what the January 26 edit would be—possibly a database inconsistency. ] (]) 16:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
::Thank you. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 17:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:For people who registered before September 2005, the Registration time was populated from the first edit at the time it was populated. There are other ways to determine the registration date for such affected people. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 17:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
::You probably moved a page over a redirect when the bug described in the second-last paragraph of the section about ] was in force. The edit may have since been nuked because somebody moved the page back over it (i.e. changing the title back to what it was before your page move). The errant edit is probably somewhere in . ''']'''<font color="green">]</font> 13:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

== Text and redirect in redirect page ==

In this article (or in version of the article) and IP editor added some text without removing the redirect tag (go to edit mode to see)! Ignoring their formatting error, shouldn't the text in that page break the redirect? Or any changes recently? --] (]) 16:29, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:No, MediaWiki simply ignores all text after a #redirect line. ] (]) 16:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
::To clarify, it does parse templates, and uses category and interwiki links appropriately. It just doesn't display any of the text after the redirect line, although it once did. &mdash;&nbsp;Carl <small>(]&nbsp;·&nbsp;])</small> 16:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:::I think a more important issue is the added text is promotional and a blatant copyvio of <nowiki>www.fxall.com/about</nowiki>. I have removed it. ] (]) 20:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Special:StudentActivity ==
{{tracked|38095}}
{{tracked|43786}}
] is giving me a most unhelpfully vague error message:
{{quote| 2013-01-24 17:57:26: Fatal exception of type MWException}}
What is needed to a) fix the problem and b) de-mystify the error message for when it appears in the future? &ndash;&nbsp;'']''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 18:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:I would try through ] or a note on ]. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 18:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
::The unhelpful error message is presumably for security and privacy protection; the server admins will probably have access to the full error message, which may include sensitive data. ] (]) 21:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

== Admin can't see revdel'd revisions ==

I seem to be unable to check out the revdel'd revisions at ]. I don't even get to check the box for selecting a revision. I'm an admin; I was logged in; it usually works. What happen? ] &#124; ] 21:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC).
:Oversight. ] ]] 21:01, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


=== Background ===
== content not refreshing from Hungary, using ipv6. ==
I have tested several VPNgate IPs, and very few of them are currently blocked. According to Misplaced Pages's policy on open proxies and VPNs (per ]), these should be blocked. Given the volume of VPNgate IPs, I propose using a bot to automate this process.


This is building off ] on ].
Hi,


I am posting here to gauge consensus needed for a ].
I have tried firefox, opera, chrome, reload, private browsing, f5, ctrl-f5, but i still see the state of the main page as it was on the 23rd of january. It seems that a squid needs a kick.


=== Proposal ===
{{Collapse top}}
I propose a bot to automate blocking these VPNgate IPs using the following steps:
<nowiki>GET /Main_Page HTTP/1.1
Host: en.wikipedia.org
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/537.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/24.0.1312.52 Safari/537.17
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: hu-HU,hu;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.6,en;q=0.4
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-2,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: centralnotice_bucket=1-4.2; clicktracking-session=HBszflapTPzHCS9W0J1TpTXaa5HZfSrvq; mediaWiki.user.bucket%3Aext.articleFeedback-tracking=10%3Atrack; mediaWiki.user.id=57FUr6tSm2LJWGc2cBerv7Qv2Qrl8UCD
If-Modified-Since: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:58:51 GMT


# The bot will use provided by VPNgate, which contains OpenVPN configuration files in Base64 format. The provided "IP" value is only the one that your computer uses to talk to the VPN (and sometimes wrong), not the one used for the VPN to talk to Misplaced Pages/external internet - this requires testing to uncover.
HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
# The bot will iterate through each config file and use OpenVPN to test if it can connect. If successful, it will then use the VPN to send a request to to determine the real-world IP address used by each VPN to connect to Misplaced Pages. This is sometimes the same as the IP used to talk to the VPN - but sometimes completely different, see the demo edit I did using VPNgate on the Bot Requests discussion linked above and I also did one as a reply to this post. Also, testing is needed before blanket blocking because VPNgate claim to fill the list with fake IPs to prevent it from being used for blocking, again see the BR discussion.
Server: nginx/1.1.19
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:24:38 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Connection: keep-alive
Last-Modified: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:58:51 GMT
Age: 134746
X-Cache: HIT from amssq43.esams.wikimedia.org
X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from amssq43.esams.wikimedia.org:3128
X-Cache: MISS from amssq44.esams.wikimedia.org
X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from amssq44.esams.wikimedia.org:80
Via: 1.0 amssq43.esams.wikimedia.org:3128 (squid/2.7.STABLE9), 1.0 amssq44.esams.wikimedia.org:80 (squid/2.7.STABLE9)


'''Blocking or Reporting''':
GET /search/?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-ReferenceTooltips.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&508635914 HTTP/1.1
* If the bot is approved as an admin bot, it will immediately block the identified IPs or modify block settings to disable TPA (see Yamla's recent ANI discussion per the necessity for this) and enable auto block.
Host: en.wikipedia.org
* If the bot is not approved to run as an admin bot, it will add the IPs to an interface-protected JSON file in its userspace for a bot operated by an admin to actually do the blocking.
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: */*
If-Modified-Since: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:12:35 GMT
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/537.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/24.0.1312.52 Safari/537.17
Referer: http://en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: hu-HU,hu;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.6,en;q=0.4
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-2,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3
Cookie: centralnotice_bucket=1-4.2; clicktracking-session=HBszflapTPzHCS9W0J1TpTXaa5HZfSrvq; mediaWiki.user.bucket%3Aext.articleFeedback-tracking=10%3Atrack; mediaWiki.user.id=57FUr6tSm2LJWGc2cBerv7Qv2Qrl8UCD


=== Additional Information ===
HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified
* I have already developed and tested this bot locally using Pywikibot. I have tested it on a local MediaWiki install and it successfully prevents all VPNgate users from editing (should they not be IP block exempt).
Server: nginx/1.1.19
* I’m posting here to gauge broader community consensus beyond the original ] discussion.
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:24:38 GMT
Content-Type: text/javascript; charset=UTF-8
Connection: keep-alive
Last-Modified: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:12:35 GMT
Age: 23
X-Cache: HIT from amssq37.esams.wikimedia.org
X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from amssq37.esams.wikimedia.org:3128
X-Cache: MISS from amssq40.esams.wikimedia.org
X-Cache-Lookup: HIT from amssq40.esams.wikimedia.org:80
Via: 1.0 amssq37.esams.wikimedia.org:3128 (squid/2.7.STABLE9), 1.0 amssq40.esams.wikimedia.org:80 (squid/2.7.STABLE9)</nowiki>
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<span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 04:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


=== Poll Options ===
:See discussion above: ] ] (]) 05:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
* '''Oppose''': Object to the bot proposal. Feel free to explain why.
* '''Support''' options:
# '''Admin Bot (admin given code)''': An admin will run the bot, and I will provide the code for them to run, as well as desired environment setup etc. and will need to send any code changes or packages updates to them to perform. ''Admin needs to be quite technically competent.''
# '''Admin Bot (admin gives me token)''': An admin provides me with the bot token (scoped per Anomie below) of a newly created account only for this purpose, allowing me to run the code under myself on Toolforge and fully manage environment setup (needs install and config of multiple python and brew packages not needed for standard pywikibot) as well as instantly deploy any needed code changes or dependency updates without bottlenecks. ''Admin only needs to know how to use Misplaced Pages UI and navigate to ], check some boxes, and then submit.''
# <s>'''Admin Bot (I run it)''': For this specific case I am permitted to run my own admin bot.</s> Withdrawn per Rchard2scout and WMF <code>viewdeleted</code> policy.
# <s>'''Bot without Admin Privileges''': The bot will report IPs for potential blocking without admin privileges. ''Not recommended per large volume.''</s> Withdrawn per 98 IPs/hour volume, too much for a human admin.
# '''Non-admin bot v2 (<u>preferred by me</u>)''': My bot, ] is '''not''' an admin bot. It can, however, add IP addresses that it finds are the egress of open VPNgate proxies to ] (editable only by the bot and ]/interface admins). This means I can run the code for it and manage the complex environment. An admin's bot will be running the uncomplicated code (doesn't require the complex environment and OpenVPN setup for this bot) to just monitor that page for changes and block any IPs added.


=== Poll ===
== When it will start to work archivebot.py and weblinkchecker.py? ==
* <s>'''Oppose''' for now. From reading that discussion, it looks like the IPs available through the API are only the "ingress" IPs, which is what you connect to on their side when using the VPN (and even then, it seems like the VPN client might sometimes use another IP instead?). If there's actually a publicly available list of outgoing IPs available, I'd be very surprised. From an operational standpoint, those IPs don't need to be public, and if they are, that's a serious error on their side. If we do somehow get our hands on a list, I'd be in favour of '''option 1'''. There's plenty of admins available who are able to run bots. --] (]) 08:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)</s>
*:Hi {{u|rchard2scout}}, I think you misunderstand the bot. The bot connects to each "ingress" IP and then finds out the "egress" IP that it uses by sending a request to a "what is my IP address API" (not associated with VPNGate in any way), then blocking the egress. This fully disables VPNgate on my local instance of MediaWiki. Thus, a list of egress IPs are not required, because it makes it own by connecting to each of the ingress ones and sending a request. I apologize if my documentation wasn't clear. ] <sup>]]</sup> 08:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Noting that I currently do have a complete list of "egress" IPs from my local run of the bot, so should I take your vote as a '''support''' of option 1 like you stated? Thank you. ] <sup>]]</sup> 08:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Oops, you're right, I somehow missed this. Hadn't had my first coffee yet ;). Striking, adding new vote.
*::That's so fine, my brain is a little laggy in the early morning as well! My technical/documentation writing probably needs some work as well, it's not my best skill (anyone please feel free to edit this post and make it clearer, if it's wrong I'll just fix it). Thank you for your time in reviewing this even though it's still the early morning where you are! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 09:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Support option 1'''. Options 2 and 3 are probably incompatible with our local and WMF policies, because an admin bot can do anything an admin can do, and you haven't gone through RfA, so you're not allowed access to rights like {{mono|viewdeleted}}. Or (@ anyone who know this) are OAuth permissions granular enough that an admin can generate a token that allows a bot access to {{mono|block}} but not to other permissions? In any case, I think option 1 is the easiest and safest way, there's plenty of admins available who are able to run bots. --] (]) 08:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*: Hi {{u|Rchard2scout}}, thank you for your new comment and feedback. I hope your morning is going well! Ah yes <code>viewdeleted</code>, silly me to forget about that (I have the opposite problem as you before, it is far too late at night where I live!), I do recall it from someone else's declined proposal of admin sortion, I've struck Option 3 now per WMF legal policy. Re OAuth permissions, I know from using Huggle that when you create a bot token there's a very fine grained list of checkboxed for you to tick, and "block" is in fact one of them, so it is that granular as to avoid all other admin perms, I've expanded Option #2 above to clarify this and more circumstances. I do believe this would be my preferred option, per the reasons I've placed in my expansion, but are really happy with anything as long as we can deal with this LTA. Anyway, enjoy your morning! ] <sup>]]</sup> 11:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*: There's no grant allowing <code>block</code> but no other permissions. The minimum additional admin permissions would be <code>block</code>, <code>blockemail</code>, <code>unreviewedpages</code>, and <code>unwatchedpages</code>. ]] 12:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*: '''Support option 5''' as well, and that doesn't even need a BRFA or an RFC. We do then need consensus for the adminbot part of that proposal, so perhaps this discussion can focus on that. --] (]) 10:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Option 1'''. I believe this is the only option allowed under policy. Admins need to run admin bots. This RFC is a bit complicated. Usually an RFC of this type would just get consensus for the task ("Is there consensus to run a bot that blocks VPNGate IP addresses?"), with implementation details to be worked out later. –] <small>(])</small> 12:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:'''Option 5''' is fine if the bot doesn't need to do any blocking and is just keeping a list up-to-date. Don't even need this RFC or a BRFA if you stick the page in your userspace (]). –] <small>(])</small> 09:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*I'd like to suggest an alternative approach: Write a bot or Toolforge tool that generates a data feed of IP addresses, starting with VPN Gate egress IP addresses, perhaps including the first seen timestamp and last seen timestamp for each egress. The blocking and unblocking portion of the process is relatively simple and a number of administrators could write, maintain, and run a bot that does that. (I suspect most administrators that run bots would prefer to write their own code to do that.) ] (]) 23:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Well, I started writing this suggestion before option 5 was added. Since it looks like this is basically the same as that option, put me down as being in favor of '''Option 5'''. ] (]) 23:15, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
** Hahaha, great minds think alike I guess! Thank you for your input. :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 09:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
* Courtesy ping for {{u|Rchard2scout}} and {{u|Novem Linguae}} notifying them of the new preferred option 5 above, which I believe makes everything easier for both myself and the admin who wishes to help me (I'll leave a note on AN asking nicely once BRFA passes for MolecularBot). Also, {{u|Skynxnex}}, you expressed support for option 5 below, did you mean to format that as a support !vote in this section (my apologies for the confusing layout of everything here). Thank you very much to everyone for your time in reviewing this proposal and leaving very helpful feedback. ] <sup>]]</sup> 09:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*:I don't feel like I've thought about the different aspects to do a bolded !vote yet. ] (]) 15:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*::That's so fine, thank you anyway for your feedback! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 23:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)


=== Discussion ===
1) archivebot.py
*Hey, it's me, ] on VPNgate. This VPN is listed as 112.187.104.70 on VPNgate cause that's what my PC talks to. But, this VPN when talking to Misplaced Pages, uses 121.179.23.53 as shown which is <u>completely different</u> and '''not listed anywhere on VPNgate''', showing the need for actually testing the VPNs and figuring out the output IPs are my bot does. Can this IP please be ] blocked? ] (]) 06:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
**Can confirm this is me! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 06:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
* There is a relevant Phabricator ticket: {{phab|T380917}}. – ] <small>(])</small> 12:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
* I don't think non-admins can run admin bots. Perhaps you would like to publicly post your source code, then ask an admin to run it? cc {{u|Daniel Quinlan}}. –] <small>(])</small> 12:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
* I don't think blocking a single VPN provider will have the effect people want it to have. It's easy for a disruptive editor to switch VPNs. This is really a problem that needs to be solved by WMF. ] (]) 15:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Hi {{u|Daniel Quinlan}}, I guess I didn't make this clear enough in the post but this is designed to work with existing WMF proposals that are being worked on. Both {{phab|T380917}} and {{phab|T354599}} block/give higher edit filter scrutiny based on existing lists of "bad" IPs, this is the same as the old ST47ProxyBot (which actually does scanning but doesn't monitor "egress" IPs, it only attempts to connect to the "ingress" and then blocks it if successfully). This is great for a wide variety of proxy services because ingress/egress is the same, but for modern, more advanced services like VPNgate (and perhaps some services that because a problem for us in future) the ingress IP address is often '''not the same''' as the one used to edit Misplaced Pages, and so requires this solution (this bot). I'll admit that blocking VPNgate won't fully stop this LTA or all proxy vandals but VPNgate is quite a large and widely used network (claiming a total of 18,810,237,498 lifetime connections) that is currently almost fully permitted to edit Misplaced Pages, and by blocking it this significantly reduces the surface area for proxy attacks. This also creates the infrastructure for easily blocking any future VPN services that use different ingress/egress IPs - the bot can be easily expanded to use new lists. ] <sup>]]</sup> 21:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*What is the actual expected volume per day of new IPs to block? It looks like the current list has 98 ingress IPs (if I'm understanding the configuration blocks correctly). I'll also say I have pretty strong concerns about sharing "personal" tokens of any kind between users, particularly admin permission ones with non-admins. ] (]) 19:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:The list available through frequently rotates. It only provides 98 ingress IPs at a time, as you stated and refetching the list without passing returns the same 98 IPs. After 1 hour (estimated) passes, a new 98 IPs are randomly selected to be provided to all users - but these may include some of the same IPs as before because they are picked by random selection from the whole list of 6057 (not available to the public), this has happened a couple times during my data gathering. Therefore re volume per hour, the ''maximum'' number of IPs to be blocked is '''98''', but it could be less due to already blocked IPs being included in that given hour's sample of 98, I hope this makes sense if there's anything that needs clarifying please don't hesitate to ask. ] <sup>]]</sup> 21:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Re "personal" tokens it's actually not a "personal" token to the admin's account, it would be (in theory) a token to an adminbot account with the only things it can be used for being those helpfully specified by Anomie above. However, regardless I see the concerns so I've added a proposal 5 which hopefully is a decent compromise above and ensures that I don't have access to any admin perms/tokens, but that there aren't any bottlenecks and that admins don't need to setup a complex running environment. Thank you for your time in commenting, {{u|Skynxnex}}. ] <sup>]]</sup> 22:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::I see bot tokens as fairly similar to personal tokens since bots are associated with an operator. I think proposal 5 has promise. ] (]) 23:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:VPN Gate claims they have about 6,000 servers which is fairly close to my own estimate of how many IPs they are using. If we block each IP for six months, we'd end up averaging about 33 blocks per day. There would be a pretty large influx at the start, but I would want to spread that out over at least several weeks to avoid flooding the block log as badly as ST47ProxyBot did. ] (]) 23:10, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*::It's worth noting that an unknown amount of 'servers' are user computers that people have volunteered cpu time for (this information is somewhere on the website), so, like we see often with IP users, the IP that each server uses can and likely will change with time. This doesn't mean that an effort like this bot won't help, of course, but it's unknown how effective (as a percentage) it would be with just 33 blocks a day. &ndash; ] (]) (]) 23:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::33 blocks per day is a rough estimate, not a limit. Certainly there will be some delay when adding entries to any list generated as proposed above so the block rate will never reach 100%, but the egress IPs don't seem to change that much over time based on what I've seen. ] (]) 00:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::So, I'm posting this anonymously through VPNGate because I don't want people to start suspecting me of things just because I admit to having used a VPN service some others are abusing to make disruptive edits here. Due to its strong base in Japan, I've used VPNGate many times in order to shop at Japanese web stores that block purchases from outside Japan (they typically don't want to offer international support and see this as the easiest solution for avoiding that), and I know a number of other people who've used it for similar reasons (also for Korea, which often has even more hosts available than Japan).<br>
*:::In any case, while I've personally never enabled this on my PC, I can confirm what IP 2804: said: there's definitely a swarm of short-term volunteer IPs associated with this service who aren't part of VPNGate proper. The overlap between such people and good faith Misplaced Pages editors may not be large, but it's unlikely to be zero. Unless you have a good mechanism to avoid excessively punishing such users for popping up on your list for the short period of time they themselves use the VPN, maybe it's better to wait for and official WMF solution, which (based on the phabs) seems to intend to take "IP reputation" into account and would thus likely exclude such ephemerals, or at least give them very short term blocks compared to the main servers. Because getting blocked here for several months for having been part of VPNGate for a few hours hardly seems fair.<br>
*:::Actually, now that I think about it: if you're going to connect to VPNGate servers for the express purpose of determining and blocking their exit IPs, you'd probably be in violation of their TOS. While you might consider this an "ends justifying the means" situation, are you sure you want to associate the WMF with such unauthorized usage? There's a difference between port scanning or getting an IP list via an API and actually '''traversing''' the VPN in order to investigate it. This absolutely is ''not'' a legal threat ''by me'', but if VPNGate were to learn of this, I wouldn't be surprised if they took action. Aren't there enough services out there that provide VPN IP lists without having to roll your own scanner? It would seem a safer bet for the WMF to use something like that. ] (]) 16:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::Oh, you didn't have to anonymise yourself, we don't cast ] here and now you won't get a reply notification but that's okay! :) I checked the terms of service of their website before making their bot and it just says not to do anything IRL illegal otherwise they'll give your logged data to authorities if subpoenaed, but I will reach out to the VPNgate operators in Japanese (good practice opportunity, huh) when I have time just to double-confirm they're okay with everything. But btw, they encourage checking that your IP has changed to demonstrate it has worked in their how-to-guides, and this isn't 'tranaversing" as we're not collecting data on every single node but only the public IP of the exit node. Re short-term volunteers, that's a great point, and I'll update the JSON schema of its published data to include a "number of sightings" number, so that the blocking adminbot would escalate blocks as this increases so maybe it starts really short term like 2.5 days/60 hours (6000 active volunteers on average, divided by 100 checked every hour, minimum time to ensure the IP has truly stopped) if it's just 1 sighting but ramps up exponentially if it's seen again as an egress IP untill we're talking like 6months - 2 years blocks. Re WMF tickets, the distributed fact of VPNgate that anyone can start hosting means that most VPNgate IP addresses won't have a bad "reputation" (I checked a whole bunch on a variety of reputation lists and the egresses always had "good"" reputations) so reputation checking won't help (but they need short term blocks), also as you can't publically see the egress with VPNgate cause it's different to ingress (unlike most networks). So WMF solutions are actually quite innovative and smart for most VPN/proxy networks, it's just that VPNgate is a bit different needing a unique solution, this bot. ] <sup>]]</sup> 04:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::I guess I'm just too careful or chicken even if most people would refrain from casting aspersions.<br>
*:::::I don't quite understand why you say you're not traversing. You're not just touching the network from one side, you're passing through it and coming out on the other side, that's traversing. However if they don't mind it, then I guess you're in luck. Ecxept maybe if those Japanese laws they mention a mllion times in their documents have a problem with something like this.<br>
*:::::I don't know what the WMF is basing its reputation measurements on. My meaning was that sites like browserleaks.com almost always seem to know about the VPN status of the exit nodes I've used over time. I don't know where they're getting this information from exactly, but that's what I meant by reputation, not whether they're good or bad but what they're known to engage in, like being a VPN node. And that database is probabably built either through collaboration or by specialized services, which the WNF can use as well. Like email providers use common antispam databases instead of each rolling their own.<br>
*:::::In any case, good luck with your bot, because I'm afraid these persistent abusers you want to keep out by this probably won't be averse to paying for commercial VPNs if they have to, and many of those only cost a handful of bucks a month. Commercial companies will almost certainly have a TOS that would prohibit your bot, so to counter them the WMF would in the end still have to resort to a specialist or collaborative VPN IP list of some kind. You can probably cut down on casual troublemakers by tracking VPNGate but I don't think it'll help all that much much against anyone highly motivated. They can even continue using VPNGate, it'll just be less convenient because they have to find brand new nodes before you catch those.
*::::: ] (]) 17:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::I'm not sure what you mean by "Japanese Laws" they keep mentioning they don't seem to mention any, when I told you that the ToS said don't do anything irl illegal I was referring to which doesn't mention any "Japanese Laws" but just says don't do anything like CSAM like your government can subpoena us for, because we'll comply (and directions for LEOs to request this). Re reputation yes, the major VPNgate nodes that have done it for a while do have bad reputations, particularly 219.100.37.0/24 which is the example servers run by the university themselves - but as you said, because anyone can start a VPNgate server and then there's always brand new nodes that won't have bad reputations and can be abused. But - as I've stated in a different discussion above, the list of VPN servers to connect to only updates with new servers hourly, so while reputation services won't catch the new exit nodes (because they won't be used poorly enough to trigger flagging for a white), the bot constantly waits for updates to the list and then immediately tests it to determine the new egress IPs. Re commercial services generally, unlike VPNgate, they use datacenters and static IPs that are assigned to "Hotspot Shield, Inc." (as an example) so it's easy to CIDR range block them and also the reputation of those deteriorates over time as they do bad things - the companies don't randomly get new IPs in random locations around the world, like VPNgate. In fact commercial reputation services excel at identifying commercial services (from my testing), but VPNgate is community distributed, like Misplaced Pages, and needs a unique approach. And yes, as I said to Daniel, I'll admit that blocking VPNgate won't fully stop this LTA or all proxy vandals but VPNgate is quite a large and widely used network (claiming a total of 18,810,237,498 lifetime connections) that is currently almost fully permitted to edit Misplaced Pages (the bot currently has 146 IPs in its ] and as shown by the stats section of the , ~60% are currently unblocked (and this is an underestimate because the list is mainly the "obvious" ones that are always provided first in the 98 hourly sample, like 219.100.37.0/24. This is because the bot has only had 1 full run of all IPs in a given hour's list, and many failed partial runs of just the first couple. I think blocking VPNgate significantly reduces the surface area for proxy attacks - only looking at only 10 of the blocked IPs I see link spam, edit warring, block evasion, vandalism and our favourite ]. ] <sup>]]</sup> 08:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::They mention Japanese laws repeatedly in the texts shown when you click the licence and notice buttons under Help > About of the SoftEther VPN Client Manager. It's a canned statement saying they only comply with Japanese laws because they can't possibly follow every law worldwide.<br>
*:::::::{{tq|the bot constantly waits for updates to the list and then immediately tests it to determine the new egress IPs}} Are you going to run multiple instances of the bot in parallel, because the 98 IP list you get per hour seems far from sufficient for make claims about a strong level of protection if there are ~6000 egresses, many of which churn. With your current setup, an abuser can get their own list refresh, which would be different from what the bot gets, run it past your very helpful :) IP check tool and then make edits from any IP not covered. Which may not be many, but they only need one out of their 98, so it's likely they'll get something as long as the volunteer swarm keeps changing.<br>
*:::::::Getting a bit more facetious, VPNGate could conversely determine the IP of your bot and block it as a censorship agent. :) I really think it contradicts the spirit of their operation even if they haven't prohibited it explicitly, since you don't happen to be a state agent. This is just my conjecture, but I'm guessing that if you looked at your IP list edits without focusing solely on the abuse, you'd also see constructive edits coming from them, quite possibly from people using VPNGate to bypass state firewalls. I am well aware of Misplaced Pages open proxy policy, but it can make editing somewhat difficult for such people.<br>
*:::::::These remain my two sticking points: while useful, the bot won't be quite as effective as you represent; and you're arguably abusing their service to operate yours.<br>
*:::::::Once this bot starts issuing blocks, you should probably amend ] to include verbiage about having used a VPN in the recent past, because this situation isn't really covered by the "you are using a VPN" or collateral damage statements. ] (]) 15:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::VPNgate does not have as firm of a ground as you claim. Yes, companies have terms of use and those terms of use often have clauses of disputes being filed in their local country. However, as multiple attourneys have pointed out, this local dispute solving when dealing with an customer from abroad does not really work. In reality, VPNgate is forced to deal with international laws, because otherwise they will just lose their case. (one of the legal opinions supporting this: https://svamc.org/cross-border-business-disputes-company-use-international-arbitration/ )
*::::::::As far as blocks go, yes, they could block one user, but let me remind you that there are 120,000 active wikipedia users. The script could just be passed on between users until all of their IP ranges are blocked. They would lose that war, every time. ] (]) 20:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::::I don't recall claiming anything about firm ground. I have a problem with the WMF or parties associated with it engaging in somewhat questionable practices, even if it is for a good cause. I'm OK with port scanning or getting data from an API, because that's external probing, but actually passing through someone's premises with the intent of later restricting their users is something I find objectionable, and it is my conjecture that VPNGate would think likewise. If VPNGate blocked one user's bot, that would simply be an indication that they object to such activities, and having a million other users on the ready to take over would change nothing about that, and I'm fairly certain the WMF does not subscribe to this sort of hackerish way of thinking anyway. VPNGate aren't outlaws against whom anything goes, they operate a prefectly legitimate service, albeit one that some people abuse. It's also possible that it's just me, and VPNGate themselves have no objection to any of this. The OP was going to ask them, so I presume they'll inform everyone about the response sometime soon. ] (]) 11:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::::Yes, this is definitely not something that should be adversarial or "us against them" and if they express concerns about this behaviour, we should totally not try and evade it - after all VPNgate does share our mission of spreading free knowledge to the world (and are very useful to spreading Misplaced Pages and other websites around the globe, it's just some bad actors taking advantage of the kind service of both the university and the volunteers creating a problem). We just need to find a way to work together to ensure that we both can continue to do our things. Being the holiday season, it's pretty busy for me and I'm sure the ] for the operators so I will reach out in the new year re their thoughts on this. ] <sup>]]</sup> 04:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::Hi! The abuser can't get their own list refresh seperate from what the bot sees, I guess I wasn't clear before but what I meant was that '''everyone''' gets the '''same''' 98 IPs every hour, and then the next hour another 98 are randomly selected to be shown to everyone.
*::::::::Re censroship/state agencies this doesn't help state agents or censorship at all, because they want to block the input/ingress IP addresses that citizens would use to connect to the VPN network, and knowing the egress that the VPN network uses to connect to servers doesn't help them at all. I have clarified this in the README.md now so anyone who sees the project will know that it can't be used for censorship.
*::::::::Re users bypassing state firewalls, they can still read and if they want to edit we have ] for that (abusers could go through acc I guess, but then they can't block evade once their account gets indef'ed - and VPNgate has been used a lot by link spammers, people who want to edit war (especially someone who got really upset about ]s, I've seen a lot of edit warring from detected IPs about that) to evade the blocks on their main account).
*::::::::Btw, thank you for calling my tool helpful, I'm not the best at UI design but I tried to put some effort in and make it looks nice and have useful functions. Thank you to you as well for your time in providing soooo much helpful feedback to make the bot better. :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 03:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::::Also thanks for reminding me to provide guidance to users on this, I think the current ] block message doesn't really fit with the VPNgate mode of temporary volunteers (who the user effected might not even know about but could get a dynamic assignment with an IP blocked for a few days). I'll make a custom block template! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 03:54, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::::Tada I guess... {{tl|Blocked VPNgate}} Anyone reading this please feel comfortable to be ] and make it better if you'd like, it's still a very early draft. :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 10:06, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::::While tone of you thanks seems to include some aspersions :), you're welcome if what I've said has helped you. If the list is the same for everyone, you can indeed be a lot more effective. My point about censorship was less about you helping state censors and more about you using the loophole that VPNGate haven't said anything about private actors, and giving the impression that abuse is the ''only'' thing it is being used for. ] (]) 11:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::::Oh no I'm really sad now, please don't take my tone when I thanked you in the wrong way (it can be both hard to express and pick up on the internet)! Maybe saying "sooooo" was a bit over the top, but you've genuinely gone back and forth with me a lot of times and always written detailed, logical suggestions or concerns to help, so genuinely, no sarcasm, thank you!!! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 04:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::::::All right then, and sorry about my tendency to lean a bit on the paranoid side. ] (]) 09:25, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::::::That's so fine! :) ] <sup>]]</sup> 05:00, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::::::::::How feasible would it be to make the list of IPs private/admin-only? I mean, they're still going to get blocked, and that's public, but I feel like making a ''public'' list, even if one may or may not already exist, might be an unnecessary step?
*:::::::::::If I ran a VPN service I'd be a lot less upset about Misplaced Pages defending itself than Misplaced Pages creating a public up-to-date list of VPN IPs that everyone can use, without effort, to mass block most of my VPN. &ndash; ] (]) (]) 02:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::::::::::I'm not really sure, I don't think there's a way to restrict viewing a page on EnWiki (I could whip up a MediaWiki extension enabling "read protection" of a page, but I doubt the WMF would install it), but we do have things like checkuserwiki, arbcomwiki etc. which have limited viewership so prep haps the bot could operate on a new antiabusewiki (but this would require even more work from WMF than installing the extension) and then a stewardbot could issue global blocks from there? I would also have to take down and the (that anyone could just download code and run it to get their own list). But even if we don't have a list, it's trivial to query the MediaWiki API for block status (that's what the toolforge tool does in addition to seeing if the IP is listed at ] when you lookup an IP or generate stats), there's very high ratelimits for this, and you just need to check if the block reason is {{tl|Blocked VPNgate}} or whatever message the adminbot/stewardbot leaves. ] <sup>]]</sup> 04:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== contentious topics/aware plus "topic code" ==
I put in the parameters


i want to add the contentious topics/aware template to the top of my talkpage, but ] says to substitute the template so i did but the israel/palestine topic code did not display. how do i include the topic code? ] (]) 19:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
|algo = old(1d)


:@] You don't need to subst that template, you would just do {{tlx|Contentious topics/aware|a-i}}. <span class="nowrap">--] (])</span> 19:51, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Several days have passed, but still appears
::the topic codes page states that the template should be substituted. perhaps that should be removed, to avoid new people from make my same mistake? thank you ]. :) ] (]) 00:23, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::{{ping|Daddyelectrolux}} You wanted to use ] which doesn't say to use subst. ] is used to document other templates and it varies whether they require subst. I have added this to the documentation. ] (]) 12:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::To be fair, up until yesterday ] just linked to ]. I updated it so that it properly transcludes the table, which hides the <code>subst:</code> syntax. <span class="nowrap">--] (])</span> 15:27, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


== Site is under maintenance ==
Processing 10 threads
There are only 0 Threads. Skipped


I was unable to complete an edit a few minutes ago. I got an error message saying the site was under maintenance. Clicking on "back" did get me the edit I was trying to make and a few seconds later I was successful.
When it will be back up?


I posted just for documentation but I am having difficulty with a site that is very slow and I came here to do an edit to have something to do while waiting for pages on that slow site to come up. The slow site slows everything else down.— ]&nbsp;• ]&nbsp;• ]&nbsp;• 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)


== Blacklisted website not on any blacklist ==


I wanted to save an edit containing a link to tradingview.com but it keeps showing a message:
2) weblinkchecker.py


"Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Misplaced Pages's blacklist or Wikimedia's global blacklist. The following link has triggered a protection filter: tradingview.com "
I set the parameter-day:1 several days have Passed, but the bot is doing nothing.


So I tried to figure out whether I shouldn't use that website as a source and on what blacklist that website is supposed to be but I couldn't find anything. Is that a bug? ] (]) 14:18, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
And the errors are gone. I think that the problem is not only in my family file, because the same error occurs when I run the bot in Russian Misplaced Pages.
: It's on the global blacklist at ]. ]] 14:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::Yeah. It was added in October 2017. See the ] and ]. &ndash;&nbsp;] (]&nbsp;•&nbsp;]) <small>''Please do '''not''' ] on reply.''</small> 14:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::Hm now I found it too, somehow the find tool in Safari wasn't able to find it. Thanks you both. Looks like I have to search for another source. ] (]) 14:58, 21 December 2024 (UTC)


== ] ==
http://pastebin.com/x1zQipmU


When I try to view this special page I just get the following error:


{{!tq| 2024-12-21 18:40:02: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\RequestTimeout\RequestTimeoutException"}}
Thanks.--] (]) 12:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


Is anyone else getting this error when viewing that page? Thanks. ] (]) 18:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
== What's changed about images placed on the left? ==
:It works now. Problems come and go. I had to restart my phone half an hour ago to get something to work. ''Extra: That was a problem with an app on my phone (nothing to do with Misplaced Pages).'' ] (]) 03:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:I see a similar error when I try to check logs for ]. {{!tq| 2024-12-22 10:33:05: Fatal exception of type 'Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryTimeoutError'.}} – ] <small>(])</small> 10:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::Likely also worth noting that, above the error, it says {{tq|To avoid creating high database load, this query was aborted because the duration exceeded the limit.}} Though I suppose that's the definition of a timeout... &ndash;&nbsp;] (]&nbsp;•&nbsp;]) <small>''Please do '''not''' ] on reply.''</small> 15:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:Tracked at ]. – ] <small>(])</small> 18:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)


== Colors of images in {{tl|Infobox government agency}} are inverted in the dark mode ==
In the past couple of days I've noticed that images placed on the left are no longer rendered where they should be. I haven't completely parsed the problem yet, but it appears that if a left-hand image is listed before any right-hand image it will be properly placed, but if it's coded '''''after''''' a right hand image, it gets pushed down to below that image, even if the right-hand image is pushed down by, for instance, an infobox. This is totally new. The left hand image used to render where it came in the coding, even if the right-hand image had to shift down because some other item was in its way.<p>What's changed? ] (]) 13:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:I've put an example of the problem in my userspace, at ], taken from the ] article. Note that there are three right-hand images which begin just before the "Northwest Yonkers" section. Then there are two left-hand images which '''''should''''' appear at the beginning of the "Southeast Yonkers" section, because that is where they are place in the coding. Instead, those images don't start until the top of the third right-hand image, so they are pushed down the page out of the section they're intended to be connected to. If the left-hand images were coded '''''before''''' the right-hand images, they would appear where they were placed, and the right-hand images would appear in the correct place also. (Feel free to play around with the page to verify this for yourself.) This is different from how image placement used to work, and it's not an improvement. ] (]) 13:32, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
::This has been normal behaviour for a very long time. Images are always rendered in the same order that they appear in the wikicode. --] (]) 13:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:::I'm sorry, but that is not the case. A large proportion of the work I do is in page layout, and the images have never rendered in this fashion until recently, nor should they. Images used to (and should) render where they are put in the code, with the right and left images not interlinked in any way, which appears to be the case now. There's no reason that an image on one side of the page should be dependent on the position on an image on the other side of the page, and once they were not, but now they are in some fashion.<p>BTW, I've checked this under Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari and Opera, both logged in and logged out, so this is not a browser-dependent problem, not is it anything to do with my settings. ] (]) 13:44, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
::::See ] in particular . I've been posting replies to similar questions here and on other talk pages for well over two years; my posts normally included the two words "pushed down" but I don't know of an easy way to go through nigh on 72,000 edits looking for the ten or so posts of that nature to see when I first described it. --] (]) 14:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


When the {{tl|Infobox government agency}} template is included into some page, SVG images inside it have their colors ] if the dark mode is on. See, for example, the article ], specifically the seal: it should have dark blue outter ring, white inner circle with a brown eagle, but instead you can see the seal with a bluish-white outter ring, black inner circle with an orange eagle. Looked at several other infobox templates, none of them have a simmilar issue. Also, only vector images are affected by this, raster images are not. I wanted to try to debug it, but the template is fully protected. ] (]) 17:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
: Could this be caused by your browser switching to CSS or HTML5 standard layout rules? "The outer top of a floating box may not be higher than the outer top of '''''any''''' block or floated box generated by an element earlier in the source document." (, emphasis added.) Misplaced Pages ] last year, but I think Internet Explorer initially included Misplaced Pages on a transitional list of websites to render in ], and the layout mode can also be affected by user preferences. So different browsers will have applied different layout rules at different times. — ] (]) 15:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


:@] it's most likely by {{ping|Jonesey95}} that has introduced the behaviour. Probably best discussed at ]. ] (]) 18:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
== Detecting interwiki links ==
::See ]. A more comprehensive fix is welcome. The sandbox is open for anyone to edit. – ] (]) 18:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::This is not an acceptable solution, please revert. ]&nbsp;] 20:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::The reason skin-invert worked for signatures was that white writing paper is common and even though colors in pens is varied, the most commonly used ones are dark.
:::Logos are not created on the basis of a palette of colors, unlike signatures. Logos are created to be visible and understandable from far away and close up. As such, they should not be inverted at large.
:::I consider the edit request in the template to be unactionable, as it did not ask for any particular solution, not even a hint at one. ] (]) 23:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I'm not sure why people are continuing to reply here. This discussion will be lost in the archives of VPT; please post at the template talk page with comments, suggestions, proposed fixes, or requests. – ] (]) 06:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::@]: I am not buying that argument for one second, also you are refusing to talk about the issue itself. Stop this bureaucratic nonsense. Most issues are solved during discussion not after, it being "lost in the archive" is a non starter as an argument. Clearly neither myself or Sjoerddebruin are going to move this discussion to the template talk page. If you continue attempting to refrain from discussing about the issue itself, consider this your first warning. I would also like to voice my disappointment of how you are handling this, I do expect better than this. ] (]) 09:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Responding like this and bypassing the instructions that are clearly indicated at the top of the template page is really something, especially with an unsure edit summary. ]&nbsp;] 09:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I wasn't discussing the issue here because of ]. See the template's talk page for further discussion. I have reverted the change and continue to welcome a better way to fix the problem that was identified and that is still present. – ] (]) 15:55, 23 December 2024 (UTC)


== Historical use of File:Wiki.png as the top-left logo ==
Is there a way to detect which articles (in a category) have interwiki links on them? I'd like to generate a "priority list" for translation of the articles in a certain category to other Wikipedias, and "have they already been translated somewhere" would be a very useful thing to know. &ndash;&nbsp;'']''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 17:06, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


I wonder if anybody remembers some technical details of the use of File:Wiki.png for the logo in the top-left corner during the 2000s (not limited to enwiki). ] led me to asking this. I found some clues on Commons – quoting myself from the aforementioned discussion:
:Would help? It's intended for finding articles not translated into a ''particular'' language, but it might be practical for your purpose. ] (]) 17:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
{{tq2|1=
The log for File:Wiki.png shows two interesting entries:


* protection, 11 July 2005: {{tq|it's the sitewide logo in the upper left corner. Very bad if it were to get vandalized.}}
::Got it! If you search for an invalid language code like "xx" as the target, you'll get ''all'' articles with any interwikis, sorted by most translated. returns 63 articles from the 69 in ], ranging from one with 91 interwikis to 20 with only one. ] (]) 17:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
* deletion, 7 October 2005: {{tq|block upload of local logos for other wikis. Commons now uses ] as the site-wide logo. See also ].}}
:You can also get this information (probably with more options) from querying the toolserver database. I can run queries for you if you want. ] (]) 17:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


] is also interesting. :
== Egads!! ==
]
Suddenly, everything's centered, in small text, and the navigation bar on the left is below all the page content. - ] <sub><font color="maroon">]</font></sub> 17:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


{{tq2|1=] should be moved to a different name (already re-created at ]) as it currently is aliasing that name on every wiki project and therefore not allowing local logos on those projects. Tim has already changed the logo location, so it shouldn't break the commons logo, but we should wait about a week before moving it to give time for the caches to update. The logo is now hardcoded so there is no need to protect this specific image.}}
:Ditto with Monobook and Firefox. I'm so glad it's not just me. :) ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
}}
:I am experiencing the same issue with Chrome, though not consistently. ]⇒|] 17:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


Does anybody remember any further details?
:: Switched from Monobook to Classic and back (on Chrome) and the problem disappeared. ] ] ] 17:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


Thanks, ] (]) 20:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::Same here with chrome and the default layout!--''']''' ] 17:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


:I don't really remember, but we have historical records of the configuration going back to 2012. The current system, where logos of each wiki are stored in the configuration, was introduced in 2015 in ] and other commits around that time. Wikis had the option to use the locally uploaded Wiki.png as a logo until 2017, when it was removed in ]. Alas I don't really know the historical context around these changes, I just found them in the history. ] <small>]</small> 14:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Now back to normal for me. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
::::Ditto with IE. ] (]) 17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC) ::Thanks. ] (]) 14:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::: hide the banner at the top, then refresh the page. ] (]) 17:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:::::::Fixed now here too. - ] <sub><font color="maroon">]</font></sub> 17:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


== Log out ==
Looks like all text is centered, small, and the menu on the left is pushed below all content. Imagine it's something being looked into already but makes me scared of Misplaced Pages! Cheers. ] (]) 17:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
: if you close the "notice" at the top of the page, then reload, the problem goes away. someone forgot to close a tag up there. see the threads above and below. ] (]) 17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


I keep logging out every time I close the browser on my phone. ] (]) 22:11, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Who ever put up that new banner on the Main page not updating has caused all text to appear small and centered! Please guys, a bit of professionalism. On a technical note, I'm using Chrome on Windows 7. ] (]) 17:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


:I was just about to report this. A workaround is to hide the banner and refresh the page. ''']'''&nbsp;(]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;]) 17:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC) :Do you have some sort of ad blocker or privacy thing enabled that isn't allowing you to save cookies perhaps ? —] (] • ]) 22:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{ping|TheDJ}} I have some sort of ad blocker enabled. ] (]) 22:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)


== Cat-a-lot gadget ==
:Looks like it has been {{Fixed}}. ''']'''&nbsp;(]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;]) 17:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi. To follow up a query ] had on my talk page, I wanted to see if there was any way that edits using ] could be marked as minor by default? At present there is now way I am aware of to mark these edits as minor. Alternatively, would there be another way these edits could be filtered out of watchlists? We have a tick box to hide "page categorization", so could they maybe be included in that for example? Thanks. ] (]) 23:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)


:] says there's a preference for that, it also shows this image: ]... is that just outdated info? does the interface still look anything like that?
Several Misplaced Pages articles are being presented in a centered text format (as if they were being edited to have a central alignment). When the history of the page is viewed, the articles return to normal formatting. Due to the widespread appearance of this effect, I doubt that it is intentional mal-editing. I have viewed Misplaced Pages on several browsers and two different laptops to rule out any system issues. It appears that this is a Misplaced Pages-related glitch and not a problem with my personal computers.
:Edit: erm, right, ] also shows how to set preferences with javascript, which I think is what you might have to do if there is no option (due to it not being a gadget on Misplaced Pages? You installed it as an user script, at least.) &ndash; ] (]) (]) 02:23, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::Aha! The userscript you imported the gadget from (], you import them ]), manually sets the preference, including a <code>minor: '''false'''</code>!
::I'm pretty sure you can overwrite that by just adding a line setting the preference after you import the script, but you could aso just copy their script into your common.js (replacing the import) and change that part to <code>minor: '''true'''</code>, that would also do what you want. &ndash; ] (]) (]) 02:36, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Hi. Thanks for this. I've updated ], but this doesn't seem to have changes things. Perhaps I've not done it right? ] (]) 21:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Then I'm really not sure hm, looking at how other people did it, like ] (which seemed to work: ]), but I'm not really seeing much different? I mean it's set after the import, I guess. Well that and they are importing the gadget two different times, in two different ways...
::::I did find ], but I cannot confirm that it works, since Liz seemingly never used it.
::::If those don't work then I don't know, I'm sorry. Can't test it without an account anyways - maybe someone else will know. &ndash; ] (]) (]) 21:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Huh... the script you used was intentionally set to false this year: ]
:::::Because ] says adding and removing categories is not a minor edit... &ndash; ] (]) (]) 21:40, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Good find. I have to admit this isn't a guideline I could recall. Think it's generally an accepted practise to mark as minor any automated cat additions done on mass, as long as they're not in contentious topic areas or especially BLP sensitive etc. It was an admin that made this request to me after all. At any rate, you've definitely solved the cause of the issue here. Appreciate your help. ] (]) 01:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== Is it unproblematic to use `lang=` spans in section headers? ==
Are there any other individuals experiencing this odd formatting? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
: hide the banner at the top, then refresh the page. see the threads above. ] (]) 17:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:{{ec}}Mentioned above; it was a broken close tag in the technical notice banner at the top of the page. Fixed now; doesn't need to be closed first. - ] <sub><font color="maroon">]</font></sub> 17:53, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


Of course, I know it's wrong to use templates like {{tlx|lang}} in section headers, but I know anchors work correctly in the transcluded HTML, so is there any reason a header like <code><nowiki>=== <span lang="la">Tu quoque</span> ===</nowiki></code> would break something? <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 16:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't know why or if anyone else is having this problem or not (I don't have time to read through everything people have said right now), but all of the content in every page on Misplaced Pages is showing up in smaller font than normal, and is centered in the middle of the page for some reason. Even the "Save page", "Show preview", and "Show changes" buttons are centered on my screen as I'm posting this. I've already checked some of the settings of my browser (including zoom, which is at 100%), and I don't think it's my fault. I'm pretty sure the sidebar and top bar are still their normal sizes, though. ] (]) 17:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
: hide the banner at the top, then refresh the page. see the threads above. ] (]) 17:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:{{ec}}Mentioned above; it was a broken close tag in the technical notice banner at the top of the page. Fixed now; doesn't need to be closed first. - ] <sub><font color="maroon">]</font></sub> 17:53, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
:Thanks for the quick response! ] (]) 17:56, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


:Considering how {{tls|anchor}} works in section headings, this ''should'' be fine. I tested it in the sandbox and nothing went immediately wrong. ] (]) 05:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
== How to fix Portal: Current Events ==
:When considering whether markup is OK in headings, there are several things to check - these include:
:*Whether the heading is actually broken, such as the appearance of the terminal equals signs in the rendered page
:*Whether inward links work from normal Wikitext
:*Whether inward links work from special pages (e.g. the little arrows in a watchlist)
:There may be others. But generally, a {{tag|span}} tag pair is fine. --] &#x1F98C; (]) 11:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== Question from ] ==
''Portal>Current Events'' are not being updated on Main Page after user edit.


Hello everyone, i created my own template &mdash; <nowiki>{{Golden Badge Award}}</nowiki>, but it does have documentation, could someone explain to me how i could add documentation in the template. &‐] (]) 12:31, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Simply go and undo previous edit by different ip
:{{ping|Raph Williams65}} I guess you meant it does ''not'' have documentation. After posting here you created ] which is shown at ]. Is there still something you want help with? ] (]) 21:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{ping|PrimeHunter}} after i asked the question, i went to ] and found my answer. &mdash;] (]) 04:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
‐


== Delivering pings on the watchlist page ==
Refresh main page and the ''undone'' edit will be shown.


Apologies if this is old hat. Like many people, I sit on my watchlist page, clicking the "View new changes" link every so often. This would keep me up to date with stuff that I wish to be informed of, ''except'' that pings are not delivered. (By "delivered" I mean that the ping icon appears at the top of the page.) I only see that I have been pinged if I go to some other page. Would it be easy to deliver pings on the watchlist page too? For example, clicking the "View new changes" link could be added to the actions that cause ping delivery. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 02:17, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC) ] (]) 17:50, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 04:01, 26 December 2024

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VPNgate blocking bot

I am seeking consensus on a proposal to develop and deploy a bot to help block VPNgate IP addresses used by a particular WP:LTA. For WP:DENY/WP:BEANS reasons, I cannot provide full details, but users familiar with the LTA in question will understand the context.

Background

I have tested several VPNgate IPs, and very few of them are currently blocked. According to Misplaced Pages's policy on open proxies and VPNs (per WP:NOP), these should be blocked. Given the volume of VPNgate IPs, I propose using a bot to automate this process.

This is building off this discussion on WP:BOTREQUESTS.

I am posting here to gauge consensus needed for a WP:BRFA.

Proposal

I propose a bot to automate blocking these VPNgate IPs using the following steps:

  1. The bot will use this list provided by VPNgate, which contains OpenVPN configuration files in Base64 format. The provided "IP" value is only the one that your computer uses to talk to the VPN (and sometimes wrong), not the one used for the VPN to talk to Misplaced Pages/external internet - this requires testing to uncover.
  2. The bot will iterate through each config file and use OpenVPN to test if it can connect. If successful, it will then use the VPN to send a request to this WhatIsMyIPAddress API to determine the real-world IP address used by each VPN to connect to Misplaced Pages. This is sometimes the same as the IP used to talk to the VPN - but sometimes completely different, see the demo edit I did using VPNgate on the Bot Requests discussion linked above and I also did one as a reply to this post. Also, testing is needed before blanket blocking because VPNgate claim to fill the list with fake IPs to prevent it from being used for blocking, again see the BR discussion.

Blocking or Reporting:

  • If the bot is approved as an admin bot, it will immediately block the identified IPs or modify block settings to disable TPA (see Yamla's recent ANI discussion per the necessity for this) and enable auto block.
  • If the bot is not approved to run as an admin bot, it will add the IPs to an interface-protected JSON file in its userspace for a bot operated by an admin to actually do the blocking.

Additional Information

  • I have already developed and tested this bot locally using Pywikibot. I have tested it on a local MediaWiki install and it successfully prevents all VPNgate users from editing (should they not be IP block exempt).
  • I’m posting here to gauge broader community consensus beyond the original WP:BOTREQUESTS discussion.

Poll Options

  • Oppose: Object to the bot proposal. Feel free to explain why.
  • Support options:
  1. Admin Bot (admin given code): An admin will run the bot, and I will provide the code for them to run, as well as desired environment setup etc. and will need to send any code changes or packages updates to them to perform. Admin needs to be quite technically competent.
  2. Admin Bot (admin gives me token): An admin provides me with the bot token (scoped per Anomie below) of a newly created account only for this purpose, allowing me to run the code under myself on Toolforge and fully manage environment setup (needs install and config of multiple python and brew packages not needed for standard pywikibot) as well as instantly deploy any needed code changes or dependency updates without bottlenecks. Admin only needs to know how to use Misplaced Pages UI and navigate to Special:BotToken, check some boxes, and then submit.
  3. Admin Bot (I run it): For this specific case I am permitted to run my own admin bot. Withdrawn per Rchard2scout and WMF viewdeleted policy.
  4. Bot without Admin Privileges: The bot will report IPs for potential blocking without admin privileges. Not recommended per large volume. Withdrawn per 98 IPs/hour volume, too much for a human admin.
  5. Non-admin bot v2 (preferred by me): My bot, User:MolecularBot is not an admin bot. It can, however, add IP addresses that it finds are the egress of open VPNgate proxies to User:MolecularBot/IP HitList.json (editable only by the bot and WP:PLIERS/interface admins). This means I can run the code for it and manage the complex environment. An admin's bot will be running the uncomplicated code (doesn't require the complex environment and OpenVPN setup for this bot) to just monitor that page for changes and block any IPs added.

Poll

  • Oppose for now. From reading that discussion, it looks like the IPs available through the API are only the "ingress" IPs, which is what you connect to on their side when using the VPN (and even then, it seems like the VPN client might sometimes use another IP instead?). If there's actually a publicly available list of outgoing IPs available, I'd be very surprised. From an operational standpoint, those IPs don't need to be public, and if they are, that's a serious error on their side. If we do somehow get our hands on a list, I'd be in favour of option 1. There's plenty of admins available who are able to run bots. --rchard2scout (talk) 08:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Hi rchard2scout, I think you misunderstand the bot. The bot connects to each "ingress" IP and then finds out the "egress" IP that it uses by sending a request to a "what is my IP address API" (not associated with VPNGate in any way), then blocking the egress. This fully disables VPNgate on my local instance of MediaWiki. Thus, a list of egress IPs are not required, because it makes it own by connecting to each of the ingress ones and sending a request. I apologize if my documentation wasn't clear. MolecularPilot 08:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Noting that I currently do have a complete list of "egress" IPs from my local run of the bot, so should I take your vote as a support of option 1 like you stated? Thank you. MolecularPilot 08:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Oops, you're right, I somehow missed this. Hadn't had my first coffee yet ;). Striking, adding new vote.
    That's so fine, my brain is a little laggy in the early morning as well! My technical/documentation writing probably needs some work as well, it's not my best skill (anyone please feel free to edit this post and make it clearer, if it's wrong I'll just fix it). Thank you for your time in reviewing this even though it's still the early morning where you are! :) MolecularPilot 09:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Support option 1. Options 2 and 3 are probably incompatible with our local and WMF policies, because an admin bot can do anything an admin can do, and you haven't gone through RfA, so you're not allowed access to rights like viewdeleted. Or (@ anyone who know this) are OAuth permissions granular enough that an admin can generate a token that allows a bot access to block but not to other permissions? In any case, I think option 1 is the easiest and safest way, there's plenty of admins available who are able to run bots. --rchard2scout (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Hi Rchard2scout, thank you for your new comment and feedback. I hope your morning is going well! Ah yes viewdeleted, silly me to forget about that (I have the opposite problem as you before, it is far too late at night where I live!), I do recall it from someone else's declined proposal of admin sortion, I've struck Option 3 now per WMF legal policy. Re OAuth permissions, I know from using Huggle that when you create a bot token there's a very fine grained list of checkboxed for you to tick, and "block" is in fact one of them, so it is that granular as to avoid all other admin perms, I've expanded Option #2 above to clarify this and more circumstances. I do believe this would be my preferred option, per the reasons I've placed in my expansion, but are really happy with anything as long as we can deal with this LTA. Anyway, enjoy your morning! MolecularPilot 11:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    There's no grant allowing block but no other permissions. The minimum additional admin permissions would be block, blockemail, unreviewedpages, and unwatchedpages. Anomie⚔ 12:33, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Support option 5 as well, and that doesn't even need a BRFA or an RFC. We do then need consensus for the adminbot part of that proposal, so perhaps this discussion can focus on that. --rchard2scout (talk) 10:19, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Option 1. I believe this is the only option allowed under policy. Admins need to run admin bots. This RFC is a bit complicated. Usually an RFC of this type would just get consensus for the task ("Is there consensus to run a bot that blocks VPNGate IP addresses?"), with implementation details to be worked out later. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Option 5 is fine if the bot doesn't need to do any blocking and is just keeping a list up-to-date. Don't even need this RFC or a BRFA if you stick the page in your userspace (WP:EXEMPTBOT). –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I'd like to suggest an alternative approach: Write a bot or Toolforge tool that generates a data feed of IP addresses, starting with VPN Gate egress IP addresses, perhaps including the first seen timestamp and last seen timestamp for each egress. The blocking and unblocking portion of the process is relatively simple and a number of administrators could write, maintain, and run a bot that does that. (I suspect most administrators that run bots would prefer to write their own code to do that.) Daniel Quinlan (talk) 23:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Well, I started writing this suggestion before option 5 was added. Since it looks like this is basically the same as that option, put me down as being in favor of Option 5. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Courtesy ping for Rchard2scout and Novem Linguae notifying them of the new preferred option 5 above, which I believe makes everything easier for both myself and the admin who wishes to help me (I'll leave a note on AN asking nicely once BRFA passes for MolecularBot). Also, Skynxnex, you expressed support for option 5 below, did you mean to format that as a support !vote in this section (my apologies for the confusing layout of everything here). Thank you very much to everyone for your time in reviewing this proposal and leaving very helpful feedback. MolecularPilot 09:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't feel like I've thought about the different aspects to do a bolded !vote yet. Skynxnex (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's so fine, thank you anyway for your feedback! :) MolecularPilot 23:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Hey, it's me, User:MolecularPilot on VPNgate. This VPN is listed as 112.187.104.70 on VPNgate cause that's what my PC talks to. But, this VPN when talking to Misplaced Pages, uses 121.179.23.53 as shown which is completely different and not listed anywhere on VPNgate, showing the need for actually testing the VPNs and figuring out the output IPs are my bot does. Can this IP please be WP:OPP blocked? 121.179.23.53 (talk) 06:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • There is a relevant Phabricator ticket: T380917. – DreamRimmer (talk) 12:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't think non-admins can run admin bots. Perhaps you would like to publicly post your source code, then ask an admin to run it? cc Daniel Quinlan. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I don't think blocking a single VPN provider will have the effect people want it to have. It's easy for a disruptive editor to switch VPNs. This is really a problem that needs to be solved by WMF. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Hi Daniel Quinlan, I guess I didn't make this clear enough in the post but this is designed to work with existing WMF proposals that are being worked on. Both T380917 and T354599 block/give higher edit filter scrutiny based on existing lists of "bad" IPs, this is the same as the old ST47ProxyBot (which actually does scanning but doesn't monitor "egress" IPs, it only attempts to connect to the "ingress" and then blocks it if successfully). This is great for a wide variety of proxy services because ingress/egress is the same, but for modern, more advanced services like VPNgate (and perhaps some services that because a problem for us in future) the ingress IP address is often not the same as the one used to edit Misplaced Pages, and so requires this solution (this bot). I'll admit that blocking VPNgate won't fully stop this LTA or all proxy vandals but VPNgate is quite a large and widely used network (claiming a total of 18,810,237,498 lifetime connections) that is currently almost fully permitted to edit Misplaced Pages, and by blocking it this significantly reduces the surface area for proxy attacks. This also creates the infrastructure for easily blocking any future VPN services that use different ingress/egress IPs - the bot can be easily expanded to use new lists. MolecularPilot 21:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • What is the actual expected volume per day of new IPs to block? It looks like the current list has 98 ingress IPs (if I'm understanding the configuration blocks correctly). I'll also say I have pretty strong concerns about sharing "personal" tokens of any kind between users, particularly admin permission ones with non-admins. Skynxnex (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    The list available through this API frequently rotates. It only provides 98 ingress IPs at a time, as you stated and refetching the list without passing returns the same 98 IPs. After 1 hour (estimated) passes, a new 98 IPs are randomly selected to be provided to all users - but these may include some of the same IPs as before because they are picked by random selection from the whole list of 6057 (not available to the public), this has happened a couple times during my data gathering. Therefore re volume per hour, the maximum number of IPs to be blocked is 98, but it could be less due to already blocked IPs being included in that given hour's sample of 98, I hope this makes sense if there's anything that needs clarifying please don't hesitate to ask. MolecularPilot 21:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Re "personal" tokens it's actually not a "personal" token to the admin's account, it would be (in theory) a token to an adminbot account with the only things it can be used for being those helpfully specified by Anomie above. However, regardless I see the concerns so I've added a proposal 5 which hopefully is a decent compromise above and ensures that I don't have access to any admin perms/tokens, but that there aren't any bottlenecks and that admins don't need to setup a complex running environment. Thank you for your time in commenting, Skynxnex. MolecularPilot 22:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I see bot tokens as fairly similar to personal tokens since bots are associated with an operator. I think proposal 5 has promise. Skynxnex (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    VPN Gate claims they have about 6,000 servers which is fairly close to my own estimate of how many IPs they are using. If we block each IP for six months, we'd end up averaging about 33 blocks per day. There would be a pretty large influx at the start, but I would want to spread that out over at least several weeks to avoid flooding the block log as badly as ST47ProxyBot did. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    It's worth noting that an unknown amount of 'servers' are user computers that people have volunteered cpu time for (this information is somewhere on the website), so, like we see often with IP users, the IP that each server uses can and likely will change with time. This doesn't mean that an effort like this bot won't help, of course, but it's unknown how effective (as a percentage) it would be with just 33 blocks a day. – 2804:F1...33:D1A2 (::/32) (talk) 23:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    33 blocks per day is a rough estimate, not a limit. Certainly there will be some delay when adding entries to any list generated as proposed above so the block rate will never reach 100%, but the egress IPs don't seem to change that much over time based on what I've seen. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 00:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    So, I'm posting this anonymously through VPNGate because I don't want people to start suspecting me of things just because I admit to having used a VPN service some others are abusing to make disruptive edits here. Due to its strong base in Japan, I've used VPNGate many times in order to shop at Japanese web stores that block purchases from outside Japan (they typically don't want to offer international support and see this as the easiest solution for avoiding that), and I know a number of other people who've used it for similar reasons (also for Korea, which often has even more hosts available than Japan).
    In any case, while I've personally never enabled this on my PC, I can confirm what IP 2804: said: there's definitely a swarm of short-term volunteer IPs associated with this service who aren't part of VPNGate proper. The overlap between such people and good faith Misplaced Pages editors may not be large, but it's unlikely to be zero. Unless you have a good mechanism to avoid excessively punishing such users for popping up on your list for the short period of time they themselves use the VPN, maybe it's better to wait for and official WMF solution, which (based on the phabs) seems to intend to take "IP reputation" into account and would thus likely exclude such ephemerals, or at least give them very short term blocks compared to the main servers. Because getting blocked here for several months for having been part of VPNGate for a few hours hardly seems fair.
    Actually, now that I think about it: if you're going to connect to VPNGate servers for the express purpose of determining and blocking their exit IPs, you'd probably be in violation of their TOS. While you might consider this an "ends justifying the means" situation, are you sure you want to associate the WMF with such unauthorized usage? There's a difference between port scanning or getting an IP list via an API and actually traversing the VPN in order to investigate it. This absolutely is not a legal threat by me, but if VPNGate were to learn of this, I wouldn't be surprised if they took action. Aren't there enough services out there that provide VPN IP lists without having to roll your own scanner? It would seem a safer bet for the WMF to use something like that. 125.161.156.63 (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Oh, you didn't have to anonymise yourself, we don't cast WP:ASPERSIONS here and now you won't get a reply notification but that's okay! :) I checked the terms of service of their website before making their bot and it just says not to do anything IRL illegal otherwise they'll give your logged data to authorities if subpoenaed, but I will reach out to the VPNgate operators in Japanese (good practice opportunity, huh) when I have time just to double-confirm they're okay with everything. But btw, they encourage checking that your IP has changed to demonstrate it has worked in their how-to-guides, and this isn't 'tranaversing" as we're not collecting data on every single node but only the public IP of the exit node. Re short-term volunteers, that's a great point, and I'll update the JSON schema of its published data to include a "number of sightings" number, so that the blocking adminbot would escalate blocks as this increases so maybe it starts really short term like 2.5 days/60 hours (6000 active volunteers on average, divided by 100 checked every hour, minimum time to ensure the IP has truly stopped) if it's just 1 sighting but ramps up exponentially if it's seen again as an egress IP untill we're talking like 6months - 2 years blocks. Re WMF tickets, the distributed fact of VPNgate that anyone can start hosting means that most VPNgate IP addresses won't have a bad "reputation" (I checked a whole bunch on a variety of reputation lists and the egresses always had "good"" reputations) so reputation checking won't help (but they need short term blocks), also as you can't publically see the egress with VPNgate cause it's different to ingress (unlike most networks). So WMF solutions are actually quite innovative and smart for most VPN/proxy networks, it's just that VPNgate is a bit different needing a unique solution, this bot. MolecularPilot 04:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    I guess I'm just too careful or chicken even if most people would refrain from casting aspersions.
    I don't quite understand why you say you're not traversing. You're not just touching the network from one side, you're passing through it and coming out on the other side, that's traversing. However if they don't mind it, then I guess you're in luck. Ecxept maybe if those Japanese laws they mention a mllion times in their documents have a problem with something like this.
    I don't know what the WMF is basing its reputation measurements on. My meaning was that sites like browserleaks.com almost always seem to know about the VPN status of the exit nodes I've used over time. I don't know where they're getting this information from exactly, but that's what I meant by reputation, not whether they're good or bad but what they're known to engage in, like being a VPN node. And that database is probabably built either through collaboration or by specialized services, which the WNF can use as well. Like email providers use common antispam databases instead of each rolling their own.
    In any case, good luck with your bot, because I'm afraid these persistent abusers you want to keep out by this probably won't be averse to paying for commercial VPNs if they have to, and many of those only cost a handful of bucks a month. Commercial companies will almost certainly have a TOS that would prohibit your bot, so to counter them the WMF would in the end still have to resort to a specialist or collaborative VPN IP list of some kind. You can probably cut down on casual troublemakers by tracking VPNGate but I don't think it'll help all that much much against anyone highly motivated. They can even continue using VPNGate, it'll just be less convenient because they have to find brand new nodes before you catch those.
    92.253.31.37 (talk) 17:39, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what you mean by "Japanese Laws" they keep mentioning they don't seem to mention any, when I told you that the ToS said don't do anything irl illegal I was referring to this ToS page which doesn't mention any "Japanese Laws" but just says don't do anything like CSAM like your government can subpoena us for, because we'll comply (and directions for LEOs to request this). Re reputation yes, the major VPNgate nodes that have done it for a while do have bad reputations, particularly 219.100.37.0/24 which is the example servers run by the university themselves - but as you said, because anyone can start a VPNgate server and then there's always brand new nodes that won't have bad reputations and can be abused. But - as I've stated in a different discussion above, the list of VPN servers to connect to only updates with new servers hourly, so while reputation services won't catch the new exit nodes (because they won't be used poorly enough to trigger flagging for a white), the bot constantly waits for updates to the list and then immediately tests it to determine the new egress IPs. Re commercial services generally, unlike VPNgate, they use datacenters and static IPs that are assigned to "Hotspot Shield, Inc." (as an example) so it's easy to CIDR range block them and also the reputation of those deteriorates over time as they do bad things - the companies don't randomly get new IPs in random locations around the world, like VPNgate. In fact commercial reputation services excel at identifying commercial services (from my testing), but VPNgate is community distributed, like Misplaced Pages, and needs a unique approach. And yes, as I said to Daniel, I'll admit that blocking VPNgate won't fully stop this LTA or all proxy vandals but VPNgate is quite a large and widely used network (claiming a total of 18,810,237,498 lifetime connections) that is currently almost fully permitted to edit Misplaced Pages (the bot currently has 146 IPs in its list and as shown by the stats section of the toolforge frontend, ~60% are currently unblocked (and this is an underestimate because the list is mainly the "obvious" ones that are always provided first in the 98 hourly sample, like 219.100.37.0/24. This is because the bot has only had 1 full run of all IPs in a given hour's list, and many failed partial runs of just the first couple. I think blocking VPNgate significantly reduces the surface area for proxy attacks - only looking at only 10 of the blocked IPs I see link spam, edit warring, block evasion, vandalism and our favourite WP:LTA. MolecularPilot 08:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    They mention Japanese laws repeatedly in the texts shown when you click the licence and notice buttons under Help > About of the SoftEther VPN Client Manager. It's a canned statement saying they only comply with Japanese laws because they can't possibly follow every law worldwide.
    the bot constantly waits for updates to the list and then immediately tests it to determine the new egress IPs Are you going to run multiple instances of the bot in parallel, because the 98 IP list you get per hour seems far from sufficient for make claims about a strong level of protection if there are ~6000 egresses, many of which churn. With your current setup, an abuser can get their own list refresh, which would be different from what the bot gets, run it past your very helpful :) IP check tool and then make edits from any IP not covered. Which may not be many, but they only need one out of their 98, so it's likely they'll get something as long as the volunteer swarm keeps changing.
    Getting a bit more facetious, VPNGate could conversely determine the IP of your bot and block it as a censorship agent. :) I really think it contradicts the spirit of their operation even if they haven't prohibited it explicitly, since you don't happen to be a state agent. This is just my conjecture, but I'm guessing that if you looked at your IP list edits without focusing solely on the abuse, you'd also see constructive edits coming from them, quite possibly from people using VPNGate to bypass state firewalls. I am well aware of Misplaced Pages open proxy policy, but it can make editing somewhat difficult for such people.
    These remain my two sticking points: while useful, the bot won't be quite as effective as you represent; and you're arguably abusing their service to operate yours.
    Once this bot starts issuing blocks, you should probably amend Help:I have been blocked to include verbiage about having used a VPN in the recent past, because this situation isn't really covered by the "you are using a VPN" or collateral damage statements. 211.220.201.217 (talk) 15:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    VPNgate does not have as firm of a ground as you claim. Yes, companies have terms of use and those terms of use often have clauses of disputes being filed in their local country. However, as multiple attourneys have pointed out, this local dispute solving when dealing with an customer from abroad does not really work. In reality, VPNgate is forced to deal with international laws, because otherwise they will just lose their case. (one of the legal opinions supporting this: https://svamc.org/cross-border-business-disputes-company-use-international-arbitration/ )
    As far as blocks go, yes, they could block one user, but let me remind you that there are 120,000 active wikipedia users. The script could just be passed on between users until all of their IP ranges are blocked. They would lose that war, every time. Snævar (talk) 20:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't recall claiming anything about firm ground. I have a problem with the WMF or parties associated with it engaging in somewhat questionable practices, even if it is for a good cause. I'm OK with port scanning or getting data from an API, because that's external probing, but actually passing through someone's premises with the intent of later restricting their users is something I find objectionable, and it is my conjecture that VPNGate would think likewise. If VPNGate blocked one user's bot, that would simply be an indication that they object to such activities, and having a million other users on the ready to take over would change nothing about that, and I'm fairly certain the WMF does not subscribe to this sort of hackerish way of thinking anyway. VPNGate aren't outlaws against whom anything goes, they operate a prefectly legitimate service, albeit one that some people abuse. It's also possible that it's just me, and VPNGate themselves have no objection to any of this. The OP was going to ask them, so I presume they'll inform everyone about the response sometime soon. 220.81.178.129 (talk) 11:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, this is definitely not something that should be adversarial or "us against them" and if they express concerns about this behaviour, we should totally not try and evade it - after all VPNgate does share our mission of spreading free knowledge to the world (and are very useful to spreading Misplaced Pages and other websites around the globe, it's just some bad actors taking advantage of the kind service of both the university and the volunteers creating a problem). We just need to find a way to work together to ensure that we both can continue to do our things. Being the holiday season, it's pretty busy for me and I'm sure the same is true for the operators so I will reach out in the new year re their thoughts on this. MolecularPilot 04:45, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Hi! The abuser can't get their own list refresh seperate from what the bot sees, I guess I wasn't clear before but what I meant was that everyone gets the same 98 IPs every hour, and then the next hour another 98 are randomly selected to be shown to everyone.
    Re censroship/state agencies this doesn't help state agents or censorship at all, because they want to block the input/ingress IP addresses that citizens would use to connect to the VPN network, and knowing the egress that the VPN network uses to connect to servers doesn't help them at all. I have clarified this in the README.md now so anyone who sees the project will know that it can't be used for censorship.
    Re users bypassing state firewalls, they can still read and if they want to edit we have WP:ACC for that (abusers could go through acc I guess, but then they can't block evade once their account gets indef'ed - and VPNgate has been used a lot by link spammers, people who want to edit war (especially someone who got really upset about castes, I've seen a lot of edit warring from detected IPs about that) to evade the blocks on their main account).
    Btw, thank you for calling my tool helpful, I'm not the best at UI design but I tried to put some effort in and make it looks nice and have useful functions. Thank you to you as well for your time in providing soooo much helpful feedback to make the bot better. :) MolecularPilot 03:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Also thanks for reminding me to provide guidance to users on this, I think the current WP:OPP block message doesn't really fit with the VPNgate mode of temporary volunteers (who the user effected might not even know about but could get a dynamic assignment with an IP blocked for a few days). I'll make a custom block template! :) MolecularPilot 03:54, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Tada I guess... {{Blocked VPNgate}} Anyone reading this please feel comfortable to be WP:BOLD and make it better if you'd like, it's still a very early draft. :) MolecularPilot 10:06, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    While tone of you thanks seems to include some aspersions :), you're welcome if what I've said has helped you. If the list is the same for everyone, you can indeed be a lot more effective. My point about censorship was less about you helping state censors and more about you using the loophole that VPNGate haven't said anything about private actors, and giving the impression that abuse is the only thing it is being used for. 220.81.178.129 (talk) 11:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Oh no I'm really sad now, please don't take my tone when I thanked you in the wrong way (it can be both hard to express and pick up on the internet)! Maybe saying "sooooo" was a bit over the top, but you've genuinely gone back and forth with me a lot of times and always written detailed, logical suggestions or concerns to help, so genuinely, no sarcasm, thank you!!! :) MolecularPilot 04:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    All right then, and sorry about my tendency to lean a bit on the paranoid side. 159.146.72.149 (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's so fine! :) MolecularPilot 05:00, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    How feasible would it be to make the list of IPs private/admin-only? I mean, they're still going to get blocked, and that's public, but I feel like making a public list, even if one may or may not already exist, might be an unnecessary step?
    If I ran a VPN service I'd be a lot less upset about Misplaced Pages defending itself than Misplaced Pages creating a public up-to-date list of VPN IPs that everyone can use, without effort, to mass block most of my VPN. – 2804:F1...57:88CF (::/32) (talk) 02:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not really sure, I don't think there's a way to restrict viewing a page on EnWiki (I could whip up a MediaWiki extension enabling "read protection" of a page, but I doubt the WMF would install it), but we do have things like checkuserwiki, arbcomwiki etc. which have limited viewership so prep haps the bot could operate on a new antiabusewiki (but this would require even more work from WMF than installing the extension) and then a stewardbot could issue global blocks from there? I would also have to take down molecularbot2.toolforge.org and the GitHub repo (that anyone could just download code and run it to get their own list). But even if we don't have a list, it's trivial to query the MediaWiki API for block status (that's what the toolforge tool does in addition to seeing if the IP is listed at User:MolecularBot/IPData.json when you lookup an IP or generate stats), there's very high ratelimits for this, and you just need to check if the block reason is {{Blocked VPNgate}} or whatever message the adminbot/stewardbot leaves. MolecularPilot 04:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

contentious topics/aware plus "topic code"

i want to add the contentious topics/aware template to the top of my talkpage, but the list of topic codes says to substitute the template so i did but the israel/palestine topic code did not display. how do i include the topic code? Daddyelectrolux (talk) 19:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Daddyelectrolux You don't need to subst that template, you would just do {{Contentious topics/aware|a-i}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:51, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
the topic codes page states that the template should be substituted. perhaps that should be removed, to avoid new people from make my same mistake? thank you User:Ahecht. :) Daddyelectrolux (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
@Daddyelectrolux: You wanted to use Template:Contentious topics/aware which doesn't say to use subst. Template:Contentious topics/table is used to document other templates and it varies whether they require subst. I have added this to the documentation. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:14, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
To be fair, up until yesterday Template:Contentious topics/aware/doc just linked to Template:Contentious topics/table. I updated it so that it properly transcludes the table, which hides the subst: syntax. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:27, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Site is under maintenance

I was unable to complete an edit a few minutes ago. I got an error message saying the site was under maintenance. Clicking on "back" did get me the edit I was trying to make and a few seconds later I was successful.

I posted just for documentation but I am having difficulty with a site that is very slow and I came here to do an edit to have something to do while waiting for pages on that slow site to come up. The slow site slows everything else down.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Blacklisted website not on any blacklist

I wanted to save an edit containing a link to tradingview.com but it keeps showing a message:

"Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Misplaced Pages's blacklist or Wikimedia's global blacklist. The following link has triggered a protection filter: tradingview.com "

So I tried to figure out whether I shouldn't use that website as a source and on what blacklist that website is supposed to be but I couldn't find anything. Is that a bug? Killarnee (talk) 14:18, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

It's on the global blacklist at meta:Spam blacklist. Anomie⚔ 14:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah. It was added in October 2017. See the request and link report. – Daℤyzzos (✉️ • 📤) Please do not ping on reply. 14:44, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Hm now I found it too, somehow the find tool in Safari wasn't able to find it. Thanks you both. Looks like I have to search for another source. Killarnee (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Special:Shortpages

When I try to view this special page I just get the following error:

2024-12-21 18:40:02: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\RequestTimeout\RequestTimeoutException"

Is anyone else getting this error when viewing that page? Thanks. 2A0E:1D47:9085:D200:E9BC:B9ED:405A:596B (talk) 18:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

It works now. Problems come and go. I had to restart my phone half an hour ago to get something to work. Extra: That was a problem with an app on my phone (nothing to do with Misplaced Pages). Johnuniq (talk) 03:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
I see a similar error when I try to check logs for Special:Log/ProcseeBot. 2024-12-22 10:33:05: Fatal exception of type 'Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryTimeoutError'. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Likely also worth noting that, above the error, it says To avoid creating high database load, this query was aborted because the duration exceeded the limit. Though I suppose that's the definition of a timeout... – Daℤyzzos (✉️ • 📤) Please do not ping on reply. 15:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
Tracked at phab:T325062. – DreamRimmer (talk) 18:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Colors of images in {{Infobox government agency}} are inverted in the dark mode

When the {{Infobox government agency}} template is included into some page, SVG images inside it have their colors inverted if the dark mode is on. See, for example, the article United States Department of State, specifically the seal: it should have dark blue outter ring, white inner circle with a brown eagle, but instead you can see the seal with a bluish-white outter ring, black inner circle with an orange eagle. Looked at several other infobox templates, none of them have a simmilar issue. Also, only vector images are affected by this, raster images are not. I wanted to try to debug it, but the template is fully protected. Tohaomg (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

@Tohaomg it's most likely this edit by @Jonesey95: that has introduced the behaviour. Probably best discussed at Template talk:Infobox government agency. Nthep (talk) 18:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
See the previous discussion. A more comprehensive fix is welcome. The sandbox is open for anyone to edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
This is not an acceptable solution, please revert. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 20:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
The reason skin-invert worked for signatures was that white writing paper is common and even though colors in pens is varied, the most commonly used ones are dark.
Logos are not created on the basis of a palette of colors, unlike signatures. Logos are created to be visible and understandable from far away and close up. As such, they should not be inverted at large.
I consider the edit request in the template to be unactionable, as it did not ask for any particular solution, not even a hint at one. Snævar (talk) 23:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure why people are continuing to reply here. This discussion will be lost in the archives of VPT; please post at the template talk page with comments, suggestions, proposed fixes, or requests. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: I am not buying that argument for one second, also you are refusing to talk about the issue itself. Stop this bureaucratic nonsense. Most issues are solved during discussion not after, it being "lost in the archive" is a non starter as an argument. Clearly neither myself or Sjoerddebruin are going to move this discussion to the template talk page. If you continue attempting to refrain from discussing about the issue itself, consider this your first warning. I would also like to voice my disappointment of how you are handling this, I do expect better than this. Snævar (talk) 09:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Responding like this and bypassing the instructions that are clearly indicated at the top of the template page is really something, especially with an unsure edit summary. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 09:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't discussing the issue here because of WP:MULTI. See the template's talk page for further discussion. I have reverted the change and continue to welcome a better way to fix the problem that was identified and that is still present. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:55, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Historical use of File:Wiki.png as the top-left logo

I wonder if anybody remembers some technical details of the use of File:Wiki.png for the logo in the top-left corner during the 2000s (not limited to enwiki). This discussion led me to asking this. I found some clues on Commons – quoting myself from the aforementioned discussion:

The log for File:Wiki.png shows two interesting entries:

commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/Archive/2005/09#Image:Wiki.png is also interesting. :

Image:Wiki.png should be moved to a different name (already re-created at Image:Wiki-commons.png) as it currently is aliasing that name on every wiki project and therefore not allowing local logos on those projects. Tim has already changed the logo location, so it shouldn't break the commons logo, but we should wait about a week before moving it to give time for the caches to update. The logo is now hardcoded so there is no need to protect this specific image.

Does anybody remember any further details?

Thanks, Janhrach (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't really remember, but we have historical records of the configuration going back to 2012. The current system, where logos of each wiki are stored in the configuration, was introduced in 2015 in change 209616 and other commits around that time. Wikis had the option to use the locally uploaded Wiki.png as a logo until 2017, when it was removed in change 359037. Alas I don't really know the historical context around these changes, I just found them in the history. Matma Rex talk 14:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Janhrach (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Log out

I keep logging out every time I close the browser on my phone. Achmad Rachmani (talk) 22:11, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Do you have some sort of ad blocker or privacy thing enabled that isn't allowing you to save cookies perhaps ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
@TheDJ: I have some sort of ad blocker enabled. Achmad Rachmani (talk) 22:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Cat-a-lot gadget

Hi. To follow up a query a user had on my talk page, I wanted to see if there was any way that edits using Cat-a-lot could be marked as minor by default? At present there is now way I am aware of to mark these edits as minor. Alternatively, would there be another way these edits could be filtered out of watchlists? We have a tick box to hide "page categorization", so could they maybe be included in that for example? Thanks. Jevansen (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

commons:Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot#Preferences says there's a preference for that, it also shows this image: commons:File:2013-03-31-Gadget-Cat-A-Lot-prefscreen.png... is that just outdated info? does the interface still look anything like that?
Edit: erm, right, commons:Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot#As your user gadget also shows how to set preferences with javascript, which I think is what you might have to do if there is no option (due to it not being a gadget on Misplaced Pages? You installed it as an user script, at least.) – 2804:F1...57:88CF (::/32) (talk) 02:23, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Aha! The userscript you imported the gadget from (User:קיפודנחש/cat-a-lot.js, you import them here), manually sets the preference, including a minor: false!
I'm pretty sure you can overwrite that by just adding a line setting the preference after you import the script, but you could aso just copy their script into your common.js (replacing the import) and change that part to minor: true, that would also do what you want. – 2804:F1...57:88CF (::/32) (talk) 02:36, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks for this. I've updated User:Jevansen/common.js, but this doesn't seem to have changes things. Perhaps I've not done it right? Jevansen (talk) 21:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Then I'm really not sure hm, I had tried looking at how other people did it, like User:Roland_zh/common.js (which seemed to work: diff), but I'm not really seeing much different? I mean it's set after the import, I guess. Well that and they are importing the gadget two different times, in two different ways...
I did find User:Liz/cat-a-lot.js, but I cannot confirm that it works, since Liz seemingly never used it.
If those don't work then I don't know, I'm sorry. Can't test it without an account anyways - maybe someone else will know. – 2804:F1...26:F77C (::/32) (talk) 21:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Huh... the script you used was intentionally set to false this year: User talk:קיפודנחש/cat-a-lot.js#Minor: false
Because Help:Minor edit says adding and removing categories is not a minor edit... – 2804:F1...26:F77C (::/32) (talk) 21:40, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Good find. I have to admit this isn't a guideline I could recall. Think it's generally an accepted practise to mark as minor any automated cat additions done on mass, as long as they're not in contentious topic areas or especially BLP sensitive etc. It was an admin that made this request to me after all. At any rate, you've definitely solved the cause of the issue here. Appreciate your help. Jevansen (talk) 01:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Is it unproblematic to use `lang=` spans in section headers?

Of course, I know it's wrong to use templates like {{lang}} in section headers, but I know anchors work correctly in the transcluded HTML, so is there any reason a header like === <span lang="la">Tu quoque</span> === would break something? Remsense ‥ 论 16:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Considering how {{subst:anchor}} works in section headings, this should be fine. I tested it in the sandbox and nothing went immediately wrong. jlwoodwa (talk) 05:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
When considering whether markup is OK in headings, there are several things to check - these include:
  • Whether the heading is actually broken, such as the appearance of the terminal equals signs in the rendered page
  • Whether inward links work from normal Wikitext
  • Whether inward links work from special pages (e.g. the little arrows in a watchlist)
There may be others. But generally, a <span>...</span> tag pair is fine. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 11:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Question from Raph Williams65

Hello everyone, i created my own template — {{Golden Badge Award}}, but it does have documentation, could someone explain to me how i could add documentation in the template. &‐Raph Williams65 (talk) 12:31, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

@Raph Williams65: I guess you meant it does not have documentation. After posting here you created Template:Golden Badge Award/doc which is shown at Template:Golden Badge Award. Is there still something you want help with? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: after i asked the question, i went to Template:Documentation subpage and found my answer. —Raph Williams65 (talk) 04:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

‐

Delivering pings on the watchlist page

Apologies if this is old hat. Like many people, I sit on my watchlist page, clicking the "View new changes" link every so often. This would keep me up to date with stuff that I wish to be informed of, except that pings are not delivered. (By "delivered" I mean that the ping icon appears at the top of the page.) I only see that I have been pinged if I go to some other page. Would it be easy to deliver pings on the watchlist page too? For example, clicking the "View new changes" link could be added to the actions that cause ping delivery. Zero 02:17, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

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