Revision as of 18:33, 2 September 2006 editJYolkowski (talk | contribs)13,565 edits →Expunging block log entries: don't repeat myself← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 23:42, 23 December 2024 edit undoJevansen (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Page movers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers3,243,694 edits new section | ||
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== Seeking bot that checks for duplicate sources == | |||
Is there any bot on Misplaced Pages that will check an article for sources that are used multiple times (and could be combined)? <span style="text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 1em">]</span> 22:26, 16 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== Trouble Staying Logged In == | |||
:There is a tool available at https://yabbr.toolforge.org/ that helps combine duplicate references. – ] <small>(])</small> 02:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
I'm having an awful time trying to figure out why I can't stay logged in. I thought it had a connection with some software on my computer, and it seemed to be OK yesterday, but now today, I can't stay logged in beyond navigating to another page. | |||
:: Looks like that's a different function. It finds articles where someone has twice ''named'' a citation using the same refname. I'm looking for something which finds duplicate URLs, so that I can combine them into one citation that can be referred to multiple times. <span style="text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 1em">]</span> 02:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::] is also helpful in combining duplicate references, but it is mainly used for fixing bare references. – ] <small>(])</small> 02:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::: That sounds like the ticket! I'll give it a try. <span style="text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 1em">]</span> 02:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::::{{replyto|Grorp}} There's ], but I've not used it myself. I did come across it {{diff|2020 Atlantic hurricane season|prev|1259120127|here}}, inspiring me to do {{diff|2020 Atlantic hurricane season|1259210446|1259149981|this}}. --] 🌹 (]) 21:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::::: {{replyto|Redrose64}} Thanks! I've tried it out and it works great. <span style="text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 1em">]</span> 03:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== VPNgate blocking bot == | |||
Anyone have any idea | |||
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. | |||
I have made sure to enable cookies | |||
=== Background === | |||
I have the same problem on both my wife's computer and mine | |||
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 ]. | |||
I have the same problem with Mozilla Firefox and IE | |||
I am posting here to gauge consensus needed for a ]. | |||
I DON'T have the problem at work | |||
=== Proposal === | |||
I have updated Java and Macromedia Flash | |||
I propose a bot to automate blocking these VPNgate IPs using the following steps: | |||
# 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. | |||
I thought that there was a conflict with Kodak Easyshare software, because disbling it seemed to work yesterday, but it doesn't help today. <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) 12:24, August 13, 2006 (UTC).</small> | |||
# 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. | |||
'''Blocking or Reporting''': | |||
==What happend to watermark image id="EnWpMpBook2"?== | |||
* 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. | |||
It dissappeared this weekend systemwide in all wikis. It's used on ], but at ] it was on the frontpage. Does someone know the reason? Would appreciate. - ] · ] · ] · ] 14:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
* 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 === | |||
== math symbols & pictures problem == | |||
* 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 ] discussion. | |||
=== Poll Options === | |||
Pix may be blocked - will recheck. Recent problem. I have RH9, Mozilla. | |||
* '''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 === | |||
Math symbols in text, sometimes in LaTex etc often are distorted into what looks like random hashmarks or bird scratch. Many formulae can't be read because symbols in Greek, or special math symbols (like Intercept symbol, logical Not-, etc) are dropped. - I can read generic PDFs with same symbols etc. | |||
* <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 === | ||
*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. – ] (]) (]) 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) | |||
== Why are frwiki talk pages so much nicer than ours? == | |||
Hi, | |||
I uploaded an article this morning, and can't find it when I browse Google or Misplaced Pages search. Is there something I need to do so that the page shows up? --{{unsigned|Annakup}} | |||
:It will update eventually, just wait :-). Your article (]) will most likely be deleted as an advertisement however. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 03:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::It's been deleted (not by me) —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 03:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::It looks like it was deleted due to copyright violations. --] 18:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Take a look at (for example) https://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Oracle#Li_M'H%C3%A2_Ong_(2). This seems to be typical of talk pages on frwiki. The threading of replies is so much easier to follow. Is this just some snazzier CSS they're using, or something fundamentally better to edit the pages? ] ] 01:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
==Save Page - NOT== | |||
: It looks like just some snazzy CSS. ] ] 01:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:I see no reason not to adopt the CSS over here, or some other form of threaded discussion by default.''']]''' 01:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::There are some gadgets that support it. I think ConvenientDiscussions is one of them. I'm not a general fan of the styling. ] (]) 02:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::A screenshot of ] for reference: | |||
:::] | |||
:::Threads are collapsible, and a change is coming that would allow to collapse/expand all replies to a comment in one click, similar to how you can do that on Reddit with a +/− button.{{pb}}And, of course, pure CSS is only a half-solution here since markup and HTML produced by it are trickier and don't correspond to the actual comment structure as one-to-one. ] (]) 05:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::I'd love to see that too! ] (]) 23:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:I created my own experimental CSS stylesheet to add style formatting to discussion threads; see ] for an example of how it looks and instructions on using it. There is an accompanying user script to temporarily turn the style formatting off for the current page, should you want to see how the page looks by default. ] (]) 02:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:I don't personally like that layout, but the customer is always correct in matters of taste I suppose? It's just styling hacks (). frwiki has thousands of lines of custom css being loaded by default (e.g. from ] , ], ]). Someone could write a "pretty talk pages" script here, and if it was popular we could make it available as a gadget. — ] <sup>]</sup> 14:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::What's been done in the past is A/B testing of different gimmicks by the WMF. I'd be curious to see the rate of abandoned comments now versus with a shiny new layout is. ''']]''' 15:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::My stylesheet continues to be used by (double-checks)... only me. I like it, but it's not evident yet that there's a significant demand for different styling of discussion threads. ] (]) 18:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:That looks HIDEOUS. All the boxes and colors distract me from the text. I would find it harder to follow those conversations. --] (]) (]) 15:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:The threading is entirely frwiki's custom CSS. It's pretty easy to do, with how talk pages use nested definition-list syntax for discussions already; <code>body.ext-discussiontools-replytool-enabled dd { border-left: 2px solid lavender; padding-left: 1ex; }</code> gets you about 95% of the way there. There's plenty of room to get fancier, of course. (And sometime people use unordered lists instead, which would need to be handled separately.) | |||
:There's also a visible difference since enwiki is the only place that the DiscussionTools "visual enhancements" haven't been turned on yet ({{phab|T379102}}). That's why they have the fancier thread summaries in the topic list and under the headings, and the more button-like reply links. If you're curious what that'd be like here, you can . | |||
:We did experiment with going much further in page-reformatting with DiscussionTools as well. You can see for an example of that. It's actually what the talk pages in the mobile apps use now -- they get the talk page data from the DiscussionTools API and build the view from that, rather than from the normal wikitext render. ] (]) 16:39, 18 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::This looks so cool! I'm really looking forward to it on enwiki :) any way I can opt-in to DiscussionTools improvements like this sooner? ] (]) 03:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::You can enable DiscussionTools in the beta menu. I don't know where that's located in Vector 2022's menu (I use MonoBook), but it's in there. <span>♠] ]</span>♠ 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::::Right, I have it on, but it looks like FrWiki and other wikis are using a newer version with more features (which is what I'm interested in). ] (]) 19:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::For the record, those boxes don't show up on mobile. That issue, combined with the fact that replies aren't as far apart in the new version, makes it ''harder'' for mobile users to tell who is replying to who compared to the current version. ] (]) 19:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:Woah, it looks like ? Any way I can enable ''that'' on all wikis? ] (]) 19:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::I have since learned that this would be a terrible idea. (I still like the look, though, and it would be great to have some way to sort threads by age.) ] (]) 20:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:::It would be indeed great to have more control over sorting threads, especially since there are a number of wikis (including the main wiki I contribute to, Russian Misplaced Pages) which have to resort to bad hacks to display certain forum pages in recent-oldest sorting order and not oldest-recent as it is default. It would’ve been great to see these hacks made obsolete with DiscussionTools, see ], but AFAIK no one actively develops it any more, so I guess we’ll have to wait till WMF decides to fund it again. ] 21:40, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::That's ]. It failed for complicated reasons, has limped along unmaintained since 2016-ish, and is currently in the process of being completely removed now that DiscussionTools was deployed as the outcome of the ]. ] (]) 20:20, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::This is also as ugly as homemade sin. Way too much whitespace.--] (]) (]) 20:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== Undesirable (and new?) line wrapping == | |||
The '''Save Page''' button is working 1/2 the time or it does NOT work at all. '''Martial Law''' 19:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:You mean you press "save page" and then the saved page doesn't load sometimes, right? Same thing is happening to me. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 19:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I don't know if it's just me noticing something that has been there for a long time, or if something new is happening, or if my CSS or browser is to blame, but I am noticing undesirable line wrapping that I have not seen before. I am seeing references after full stops (periods) that wrap to the next line. I'm seeing the ")" in "{{f/|16}})" (in the lead of ]) wrapping to the next line. And I think one other kind of wrapping that should not be happening but that I can't remember at the moment. I don't think this sort of wrapping was happening before; references stayed with the preceding punctuation, and a closing parenthesis would stay with the text that preceded it. I could be wrong or misremembering, of course. My gut feeling is that I just started noticing it in the last month or so. | |||
===You press SAVE, nothing happens....=== | |||
If it's just me, I'll live with it, but I thought I would post here to see if this prompts anyone else to chime in. I am using Vector 2022 on the latest Firefox for Mac OS. I can link to example pages and even provide screen shots as needed. – ] (]) 01:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
You press the '''SAVE''' button, either nothing happens, or you get into a edit conflict - w/ '''YOURSELF''', "Operation has Timed Out" signals. Or it freezes. ] 18:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:{{tqb|I am seeing references after full stops (periods) that wrap to the next line.}} | |||
== Interactive Map == | |||
:This has unfortunately always been the case. I found Phab tasks and comments documenting this going back to 2016: ], ]. There have been cases where line wrapping around references behaved even worse than that (interesting ones I found: ], ], ]), and those have been fixed. | |||
:{{tqb|I'm seeing the ")" in "f/16)" (in the lead of ]) wrapping to the next line}} | |||
:I can reproduce this, screenshot for reference: ]. This is caused by using <code>display: inline-block;</code> in the template {{tn|f/}} (basically the same issue as ] mentioned above, actually). It was added not quite a year ago: . I'm not sure what these rules are for, but someone could probably find a way to do this differently and avoid the problem. | |||
:{{tqb|And I think one other kind of wrapping that should not be happening but that I can't remember at the moment.}} | |||
:Well, it's a bit tricky to guess from that ;), but my crystal ball shows me you're thinking of ], where some error and warning messages now break words with hyphens when wrapping lines, starting also about a year ago. I heard a few people complain about that and I find it a bit unpleasant myself. Did I guess right? | |||
:] <small>]</small> 01:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::Adding a <code>&zwj;</code> after the span in {{tl|f/}}, as shown in ], would at least fix the issue in that template. <span class="nowrap">--] (])</span> 17:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:The problem with NOT wrapping (especially when dictated by templates), is that it works for 90% of the cases. But there is also the 10% of cases where the value is too small to fit in the infobox or on a mobile screen in 1 line. But the templates can't make that distinction, so it's generally a bad idea to put 'no wrap' as a default in a template. Overall it is better to depend on the browser to mostly do things right and not fret too much about the occasional times that it gets it wrong. Because flipping that assumption around tends to create harder to maintain wikitext that gets it wrong about the same or even more often. —] (] • ]) 09:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::Thanks for the responses. As I said, I really can't tell if I'm seeing something new, or if I noticed one and now the ] is in effect. If I see something really egregious, I'll take a screen shot. – ] (]) 15:50, 19 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== contentious topics/aware plus "topic code" == | |||
I am sure this question has been asked before but I can't find an answer anywhere. I am working on a series of articles for buildings in a suburb. Each building has its own article. I want to show a map of the suburb (which I have) with each building marked. When a reader clicks on the individual building on the map, it will take them to the Misplaced Pages article for that building. I haven't seen this done anywhere before on Misplaced Pages - any ideas? ] 05:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
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) | |||
:You could try it with {{tl|Click}} and use a borderless table to assemble it, but it won't work in all browsers (and images should really just link to the image description page). Alternately you could try {{tl|Image_label}} to insert text links. --] (]) 07:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:@] 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) | |||
:Ugh. Do we really want an article on every building in a city? ]|] 16:14, 21 August 2006 (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 ]. :) ] (]) 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) | |||
== Updating broken JavaScript user script for adding a template to RefToolbar 2.0 == | |||
:Well, this isn't a technical answer, but a stylistic one. You may wish to create the article on the suburb, and then include brief summaries in that article of the buildings that are the most notable. An individual article needs to meet wikipedia's notability guidlines: ]. It's unlikely that, say, the building on the corner that used to have a laundromat but now has a falafel joint in it is really a notable building requiring an article, though it may be worth mentioning in a section of the city/suburb's article dealing with economic change in the area. ] 16:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Hi! Hopefully this is the right place to put this. ]'s documentation contains a suggested user script to add the template to ]. However, it imports ], which hasn't been a think since 2013. On the page is now a note saying "This script is now enabled by default." The existing script, however, does not work out of the box, throwing the error below. If someone who knows JS could help modify the script to work without the linked user script, that would be great! | |||
:This is for a small number of very notable, historic buildings in the area. Aside from ], I don't think I'd have the time or inclination to do every building! I guess this questions distills down to: is it possible to show a map and depending on where the user clicks, link through to individual articles? There doesn't appear to be a clean solution at this stage. ] 21:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
<pre> | |||
VM385:2 Uncaught ReferenceError: $j is not defined | |||
at <anonymous>:2:913 | |||
at globalEval (startup.js:1141:17) | |||
at runScript (startup.js:1292:6) | |||
at enqueue (startup.js:1179:5) | |||
at execute (startup.js:1399:5) | |||
at doPropagation (startup.js:748:6) | |||
</pre> | |||
] (]) 01:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
:The instructions were VERY VERY outdated. I have updated them and tested the 'new' fragment and it works. —] (] • ]) 10:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::] <-- an example of {{tl|Image_label}} --] (]) 07:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Thanks so much! Works perfectly now! ] (]) 13:23, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== Site is under maintenance == | |||
::] <-- another example base on "Click-Inline" --] 07:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Those are pretty neat examples. It's worth noting that click-inline works on Camino, Firefox OS X and Safari while Image Label didn't work on any of the three. —] <span style="font-size:x-small">(</span>]<span style="font-size:x-small">)</span> 11:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== User-links alignment broken == | |||
Sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere, but I've been having a weird new display bug since this morning: In IE with monobook skin, the top link bar (the one that contains user page - "my talk" - "my preferences" etc.) is displayed normally as right-aligned, but shifts to left-aligned the moment I hover the mouse over it. (Irritating, if you come to think of it.) It's on all Wikimedia sites apparently. Has some central style sheet been changed recently? ] ] 11:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Seems to have been fixed now. Thanks to whoever fixed it! ] ] 11:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:This is a bug in Internet Explorer, and is intermittent. Contact Microsoft for support. --] 11:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Interesting incident == | |||
] | |||
My interpretation of the sequence of events here is: | |||
* someone from that IP vandalized a page and left | |||
* someone dropped a warning on the IP talk page (but it is not picked up) | |||
* much later someone starts reading WP from that IP and gets the message. | |||
* unnecessary grief follows. | |||
Is my interpretation of the technical details of the ''new message'' process correct? That is, an IP address receives a ''new message'' flag even if they are only ''reading'' WP from that address, and no matter how old that message is? That's unfortunate, isn't it? ] 19:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:AFAIK, your interpretation is correct. --] 19:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::] could be made more noticeable, such as the design I did . ] 20:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Creating an account is useless advice here, mind you. This has to do with people who aren't editing at all. ] 03:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:They get the notification only if a session has been opened, which happens if they have attempted to edit a page or log in. Otherwise it's disabled for cache-friendliness. --] 11:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Weird error while trying to access some pages. == | |||
For some days I've been getting a weird error while trying to access some pages on Misplaced Pages. It's mostly for the Main Page but I've noticed some other pages have this problem as well. I have uploaded a screenshot of the error here: | |||
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/_sleepflower/wikierror.jpg | |||
(It's in Dutch but I trust everyone is familiar with it; it basically asks me if I want to save a file called "Main_Page" that is of unknown format.) I tried to access the Main Page here but all I got was this weird error. This has happened on and off for the last few days, sometimes disappearing and then reappearing again. It seems to be only a problem in IE, as I am using Firefox right now (I couldn't access the technical help page in IE, got the error again) and it works just fine. I use Windows XP with IE 6. Anyone know what this is? ] 10:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
In ], under the 'Editing' section, make sure "Use external editor by default" and "Use external diff by default" are '''off'''. ] <sup>]</sup> 13:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Um, I'm not a member of Misplaced Pages so I can't change any preferences. ] 15:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Hmmm, I figured you just were a non-logged in user. When you use I.E., are you sure you aren't logged into an account (possibly without knowing it, if "Remember me" is set)? I can't think of any other way for this to happen, unless Internet Explorer is misconfigured somehow. Try resetting it's defaults as well. ] <sup>]</sup> 16:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I am having the same problem too, got IE 6...I tried restoring to defaults and it is still not working, I can't access the main page or some articles...is something wrong with my comp...or wikipedia? | |||
My guess is something with wikipedia and IE. Firefox seems to work just fine. I also did not have an account when trying this. Have logged into multiple machines with multiple versions of IE 6 running and all exhibit this behaviour. | |||
The main page is working for me now...but still some of the articles are still not working for me...I don't have a account either. | |||
I've found that it can work at times, then try the same page again and the Main_Page download prompt occurs again... | |||
The main page isn't working for me once again as aren't some articles...what is odd...the articles not working for me...keeps on changing. This is very werid. | |||
:This will have been the Squid 2.6 ETag issue, and fixed as of a few days ago. --] 11:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Sunscreen affects visibility? == | |||
After ] vandalism on ], I added to the ]: | |||
<nowiki>{{subst:test3-n|Sunscreen}} ~~~~</nowiki> | |||
The preview looked okay, except '''Sunscreen''' was ]. Assuming I fat fingered it, did the copy and paste again. It was still red linked and there was no obvious problem with spelling—and it didn't seem to be a day when a word like '''the''' defied correct spelling. | |||
A while later the red vexed me, calling for more investigation. Clicking the redlink edits a new article named ''Sunscreen %E2 %80 %8E'' (spaces added for clarity). Those codes all seem displayable, though checking UTF-8 references, I got more confused: they could be ''gamma, cedilla, A umlaut''. Or they could be ''circumflex a, control, single shift 2''. | |||
#What are those characters? | |||
#Which interpretation of the codes is the right one? | |||
#How did they get there? (I think my methods are vanilla.) | |||
—] 18:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: E2 80 8E is a single unicode codepoint in UTF-8: the "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK". How it got in there, I don't know. If you edit the talk page, you can actually delete the non-printing character and fix it. —] (]) 18:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Unicode character directionality indicators are displayed in watchlist pages and I'm not sure how many other contexts (MediaWiki now supports ] interfaces). If you copy the text I think you may or may not pick up the directionality indicator (which is invisible, so it's a little hard to tell if you've picked it up or not). Unexpected redlinks likely have this character at the end. I can make these go away (in Safari) by cursoring to the end of the link, making sure to be on the first closing "]" and backspacing from there. This may be worth writing a ] about. -- ] <small>(])</small> 19:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::See the above section ]. Copy/pasting text in a wiki is often a game of chance. This may be yet another worthy of the FAQ (I've seen 3 or 4 in the last month or so). --] (]) 07:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== no user id listed at the end of my posts == | |||
Why is it that whenever I post something to Misplaced Pages it dosen't show my user id at the end like it does for other people. I don't know if this is called the signature or not on this system or if I haven't set it up correctly or what the deal is. Any assistance anyone out there can provide me with would be most appreciated. | |||
''e-mail removed to prevent spam'' | |||
<small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) 2006-08-23 19:39:07 (UTC).</small> | |||
:I'm not going to email you. You have to sign your posts with either 3 or 4 tildes (<nowiki>~~~</nowiki> or <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>). The latter is preferred since it also adds a timstamp. — ] | ] 19:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Perhaps you're thinking posts should be signed automagically? That would be great for talk pages, but seriously annoying clutter for articles. —] 20:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Yeah, the problem is (whihc might be a good thing) is that WIkipedia handles edits of talk pages in exactly the same way as articles. This is why your messages aren't signed automatically. ] ] 22:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::: ] will fix this, IIRC. ]]<sup>(])</sup> 07:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Multiple refs not working == | |||
In the '']'' page, I just tried to add three refs pointing to already existing refs - but only one of them works (#22). The other two (#18 and #19) don't show up at all, instead becoming empty refs down at #23 and #24. THis puzzles me and I am wondering where I messed up. ] 03:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:The original reference (to both) has a missing "=" (the syntax is <code><nowiki><ref name=xxx></nowiki></code>). The subsequent reference looks fine in both cases. -- ] <small>(])</small> 04:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Thanks. I fixed the problem. ] 07:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Severe browser compatibility issue introduced... Cannot report with Bugzilla! == | |||
Since the Bugzilla page requires registration that includes an e-mail address, I am unable to use | |||
it to submit this bug report: The Links 2.1pre4 web browser can no | |||
longer view English Misplaced Pages content as of August 23, 2006 (and possibly up to a month before that). Any attempt to | |||
load a Misplaced Pages page results in much garbage being displayed, instead of readable text. A lot of | |||
the garbage shown in the display consists mostly of asterisks (*) and periods (.) | |||
with a few alphanumeric characters and punctuation marks. | |||
Spanish, German, and Netherlands Misplaced Pages are still readable, and all languages are | |||
readable in Mozilla and Lynx. | |||
] 08:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:This was most likely a temporary problem with the Squid 2.6 upgrade, due to a change in treatment of ETags. If so, this should have been resolved a couple days ago. --] 11:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Downloading sounds == | |||
Hi, | |||
I think the whole idea of Misplaced Pages is amazing and it has been the main source of my education for a while now. | |||
However,There's just one small complaint, I can never download your sound examples! What file type are they? Is there software I can download for this? Am I doing something wrong? Are they not Wav. files? And if not, why not? | |||
Please let me know as I am a composer/sound engineer who would benefit greatly from your examples of sine waves and ring modulation etc. | |||
Will be looking forward to a reply | |||
Sonny Collins | |||
:See ] —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 15:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Disappearing PNG images while using Firefox/Windows == | |||
Is anyone else noticing PNG images disappearing and reappearing in Misplaced Pages while using Mozilla Firefox for Windows? Is this a browser issue or a Misplaced Pages issue? (Sorry if this has been brought up before) ] <sup>] • ]</sup> 15:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
More info: The PNG image in question has a transparent background and is being used on the ] page as well as project templates. ] <sup>] • ]</sup> 20:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== template cite news == | |||
This is an edit request for protected ]. See ]. I would like to have the new ] completed there. See also ]. --] 16:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Done by CesarB. Thanks! --] 22:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Nuvola-inspired File Icons and Edit Bar for MediaWiki == | |||
I have created new File Type icons and Edit Bar icons for MediaWiki. Take a look at ] and ] | |||
---- | |||
*These are a lot better, in my opinion, then those that ship with MediaWiki. | |||
*They are of a unified theme, unlike the current MediaWiki icons. | |||
*Some contain copyrighted icons, like Word and Excel icons. I believe they can be used to illustrate files created by those programs. If that is incorrect, I have also included alternate icons without those restrictions. | |||
*I have also included some generic icons for file extensions I have not thought of, should they be of help, just copy them out of the generic folder and into the icons directory and rename them "fileicon-extension.png". | |||
*These icon set is intended for use in the largest possible situations. For instance, if have included .doc images because many companies need them on their wikis, even though they are banned on Misplaced Pages. | |||
*I would be thrilled if they were chosen to be included in future version of the MediaWiki software, and I give the MediaWiki Foundation full rights (where I have the rights to give) to do so. | |||
*I don't have SVG versions, because I don't know how to use SVG software. Should someone have the skills and the ], they are welcome to create more. | |||
*'''To install''' on your own wiki, download the zip file from my website , and extract the icons in your /skins/common/images/icons directory, overwritting the old ones. | |||
*'''To view them all on your wiki''', you must make a little change in "/includes/ImagePage.php" Open it up in your text editior and hit Ctrl+F. Type in there "$this->img->isSafeFile()" Hit Find. Replace this string with the text "1==1" Don't forget you need to make these changes again, if you upgrade MediaWiki. | |||
**One little note about this. Icons were disable for "not safe files", but I don't know why. Displaying a file icon seems to be perfectly safe. Can a developer tell me why icons are hidden for non-safe files? Thanks. | |||
*If anyone has changes or ideas, just drop me a line, ] | |||
---- | |||
What do you think? --] 18:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I quite like them. To be used on MediaWiki I'm sure that they have to all be fully open-source etc., but I don't really know about the whole system. —]<font color="green">]</font>] ] 21:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I looked at all the ] for a short amount of time and wrote down what came to my mind when I saw them. Here's what I got: Bold (correct), Web link (correct), Heading (correct, but it looks a bit like "hi"), Picture (correct, but it's not very obvious), Italic (correct), Article link (correct), Calculator (wrong, I wasn't sure on that), Sound (correct), Strike out (wrong, it's actually "nowiki"), Signature (correct). I like the icons, and they would be even better if a couple of them were made a bit more obvious. ] 22:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::I made some alternate ] in response to ]. The H1 could be just H, or we could change the codes to get H2, H3, etc. What do you think. The trademakred ] (Word, Excel) could be removed, if they are not allowed. There are alerrnates already included. --] 17:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Number of edits == | |||
On RfA there is usually mention of the number of edits often by type. How do I find out my stats, please? ] 22:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See the links at ]. --] 22:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: Or rather see the links at ]. I suggest using either or ]'s on enwiki. --] 06:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Add to search == | |||
How long does it take for a new article to make it into the search feature. I search for the title of my article and it does not show up {{unsigned|Involved|01:08, 25 August 2006}} | |||
:I don't think there should be any delay. To what article do you refer? I don't see any new page-creations in your list. ~ ] 06:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There is a delay of several days, perhaps longer. ]≈<small>]</small> 12:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See the second FAQ at the top of this page. --] 22:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Multi-line redirects: confirmation required from developers == | |||
* Context - Until recently, redirect pages were storing only the very first line and deleting everything else. Recently, redirect pages have been storing more than the first line. | |||
* Question - Is this a permanent feature than can be documented, and officially used by editors? | |||
* Complement - Some have started using this feature for adding information to redirect pages without having to pile everything on the first line (category tags, redirect templates, meta-information in HTML comments, etc.). A new change in MediaWiki, going back to the old single-line behavior, would erase all pages using the useful but currently undocumented feature. We thus need to know if it's officially implemented, or if it's a glitch that we shouldn't use. | |||
-- ] 10:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Er, is there no developer on this board? Should it be posted somewhere else? Zero answer seems weird for such a straightforward yes/no question. ] 13:29, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I was also waiting for an answer on this one because of the discussion at ]. What I could find is ], comment #19, which seems to imply that this is a permanent change. (], ]). 15:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: That's a great link! It provides us with an external, authoritative source about the status of both issues. I've added it to the talk page so as to keep it. Meanwhile: | |||
:: I went to ''#wikimedia-tech'' and got a partial answer from ], then a complete answer from ], the short story being: | |||
::* Categories in redirects are officially OK | |||
::* Multi-line redirects are officially OK | |||
::* BUT templates in redirects, such as the "R templates", are not OK for performance reasons, and may be broken in the future. | |||
:: The first two points are good, but the third one will be a problem for the current documentation at ] and all the ] | |||
:: The long story and IRC logs at | |||
:: ]. | |||
:: -- ] 17:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::OT: Dear 62.147.38.54 (62.147.38.54, 62.147.112.177), may I ask you (two, three?) to create a login so you will have an own talk page. You seem be doing nice work here, so why make it so complicated ;-) --] 17:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
==Diff edits== | |||
When in a diff page, the edit buttons next to a subject heading dissapears. Has anyone else been having this problem? I am using Linux KDE with Firefox 1.5.0.4. Thanks --] 10:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Section edit links only appear when you are looking at the newest version. So when viewing a diff, the newest version must be on the right side. As I understand it, section editing is implemented by merging the changes for the edited section into the newest version. Merging into an older version is not supported. So this behaviour is as expected. The section structure of a page may change significantly over revisions, so the section numbering (which is used for section editing - see the url when clicking on a section edit) might be totally incompatible. --] 11:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: It's certainly technically possible... It's probably not implemented because, well, how often do you need to revert only one section of someone's change? --] 11:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Woops. I was pressing diff on the waychlist, but it was a very active page and a new edit must have occured between. Thanks --] 11:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Wikimedia.org server problems == | |||
In the past hour or so, http://svn.wikimedia.org (]) has been down. I've looked at some of the ], but it's hard to interpret the results on them. Anyone know of the best place to go to check on the most up-to-date mediawiki and wikimedia server status? --] 17:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:The best place to check the up-to-date status is the ]. --] 22:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There was an odd outage which coincided with Brion being absent for the weekend. Long resolved, now. ] 05:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Indeed, I found out on the tech IRC channel. It's amazing how many people were online and willing to respond to my questions there! I meant to respond here earlier to tell Cesar thanks. --] 13:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Joining two accounts == | |||
By error I have registered twice ton Misplaced Pages - after some time of inactivity I couldn't log in so I have registered anew. Now I have found that I have some contribution to both accounts and also some to my IP before I have logged in for the first time. | |||
Is it possible to join the three into one account without losing any information? ] 19:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:No, unfortunatly accounts can not be merged together. ] <sup>]</sup> 20:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:You could, however, REDIRECT one User page to the other and explain what happened. ]|] 03:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::The redirection shall not allow to see the contents of your talk and personal page : copy them first to the account you wish to keep. --] <sup>]</sup> 18:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Link == | |||
How do I link to other wikimedia wikis?--] ]] 20:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Well it depends what wiki you want to link to and why you want to link. Can you be more specific please? ] <sup>]</sup> 20:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: For a different language wikipedia use <nowiki>]</nowiki>, so to link to "Star Trek" on the spanish wikipedia use <nowiki>]</nowiki>. The link will appear on the sidebar. If you don't want the link to appear on the sidebar put a colon in frount as in <nowiki>]</nowiki>. For a different project try the project name i.e. <nowiki>]</nowiki>. ] 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See ] for a general description, and ask here again if you need further help.-] 01:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See also ] for a list of possible interwiki link prefixes (you can also link to non-wikimedia sites, actually). (], ]). 22:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Semi Protection == | |||
On wikipedia to edit a semiprotected page a user must have a 4-day old account, but on my wiki (MediaWiki 1.6) a user only needs the account no mater how old it is. What is the cause of the difference? ] 21:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I think a better place for that is at ]. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 03:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Quick answer; the autoconfirmed group isn't switched on by default; set <code>'''$wgAutoConfirmAge = 86400 * 4;'''</code> in LocalSettings.php to do this. ] 05:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Fonts in SVG == | |||
Could someone tell me what fonts are supported for SVGs? Or more specifically, if I was to upload an SVG with ] (as a referenced font, not embedded) could MediaWiki render it correctly? I want to upload SVG renderings of a number of Unicode characters not in most fonts, which are currently GIF and I need to know if I can use DejaVu Sans as text or will I have to convert it to standard SVG paths (easy, but larger size than if it was text) - ]] 15:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Ok I've established by myself, that it can't. But how can font support be added to MediaWiki, especially since DejaVu Sans supports such a wide range of charachters and is free (libre free). - ]] 15:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::File a feature request at . A server admin should see it soon enough and do something about it. If not, consider contacting one directly (via their talk page, e-mail or IRC). —] <small>(])</small> 16:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Menu creation == | |||
How to create a menu on an article in wikipedia that can be expanded dynamically with a plus sign? One example is to create a detailed menu of a book, so that it will not take much space. If some one can give me a code and instructions to implement, it'll be great. Thanks in advance. ]<sup>]</sup> 15:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See ]. Does it help ? --] <sup>]</sup> 18:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Script? == | |||
Lately, a few times a day, when I'm accessing Misplaced Pages, my Firefox browser pops up a message about a script that can't run & gives me the choice of stopping it. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here? (If you do, could you possibly answer here and ping me on my user talk page to let me know to come look? Thanks in advance.) - ] | ] 18:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Doing what? Accessing what? Viewing what pages, performing what actions, etc? Full text of error or warning messages that appear? Name of the script? More information is needed. ] 04:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Splitting a wikitable == | |||
I want to split the table at ] over three columns with the headings at the top of each. 'How to', please? ] 21:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Do you mean something like this? | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1908–1910 | |||
|] | |||
|1910–1912 | |||
|] | |||
|1912–1919 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1919–1921 | |||
|] | |||
|1921–1925 | |||
|] | |||
|1925–1926 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1926–1929 | |||
|] | |||
|1929–1942 | |||
|] | |||
|1942–1943 | |||
|} | |||
:Regards, ] 21:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Many thanks for this. Just a supplementary; is it possible for a small amount of white background space (as opposed to a blank column) be inserted between each pair of columns, please? ] 22:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:How's this? | |||
{{col-begin}} | |||
{{col-3}} | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1908–1910 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1919–1921 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1926–1929 | |||
|} | |||
{{col-3}} | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1910–1912 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1921–1925 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1929–1942 | |||
|} | |||
{{col-3}} | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
!Name | |||
!Period | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1912–1919 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1925–1926 | |||
|- | |||
|] | |||
|1942–1943 | |||
|} | |||
{{col-end}} | |||
:The amount of white space depends on your browser page width, so it may not be quite what you wanted.-] 00:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I'll have a go with that, thanks. ] 00:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Editing discographies == | |||
I just changed the name of the upcoming ] album to '']'', however, I can't figure out how to change it in the box at the bottom of all the MM pages. Can someone help me out here? The "the" is clearly lowercase, so the discography box on the MM pages should reflect that. ] 03:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:This box is a template, see ]. When you edit an aritlce, all the templates used in the article are listed at the very bottom of the edit page. -- ] <small>(])</small> 03:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I've fixed it, but my post here to say so and explain clashed with Rick Block's explanation above.-] 03:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Storm may affect Misplaced Pages servers. == | |||
Is Misplaced Pages servers in Florida prepared for this thing ? IF it hits where they currently think it'll hit, the storm may take down Misplaced Pages. Ready for a ] ? ] 05:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Hi. You must be new. Let me introduce you to ]. In particular, ]. Wikimedia is located in the Tampa area, and they were more than prepared for what happened back then; this storm is not too likely to hit Tampa, but either way, yes, they have plans and know what they're doing. --] 06:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:In fact, they did cut power to downtown Tampa during Charley, and the WP servers ran off a generator. --] 06:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I was raised as a ] USAF and US ARMY, w/ some family in classified govt. agencies. In the military, you learn to be prepared, or you end up dead due to enemy action, bad weather, disease. ] 07:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::''this storm is not too likely to hit Tampa'' As of 11AM EST Sunday, Tampa is right in the center of the projected track. -anon | |||
:::Latest track data show it may '''hit''' Tampa head on. Hope I'm incorrect. ] 02:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
There are contingencies established at various levels to handle this sort of thing. ] 04:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== How can I remove the border around an image? == | |||
I have searched and searched and cannot find the answer. I don't want a border around my image. | |||
] 09:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: Don't use thumb or frame. | |||
{| style="margin-left:3em" | |||
|- | |||
| ] || <nowiki>]</nowiki> | |||
|- | |||
| ] || <nowiki>]</nowiki> | |||
|- | |||
| align=center | ] || <nowiki>]</nowiki> | |||
|} | |||
: Also see ]. --] 09:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I wasn't using either thumb or frame, and the smilies you posted also have a border around them. I don't want the box to show, I think it probably has something to do with the fact that it is a hyperlink, cuz it was purple and after I clicked on it, it was blue. So I guess my question should have been, "How do I make hyperlinks not be framed?"] 18:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: Are you using the ] "MySkin"? That skin always adds the blue/purple border around images. If that's the issue, then switching to another one (eg. MonoBook) will make the images framed as I described. --] 06:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Print an article == | |||
Hi everyone, I want to print an article in Misplaced Pages. | |||
So I copy it in Microsoft word, but the wiki style will be lost! | |||
How can I transfer the info in wiki to Microsoft word if I don't want to change the style? (Like picture place and math formulas, etc)--] <sup>] | ]</sup> 14:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:The easiest way to print an article is to click "Printable version" in the toolbox when reading an article, and then just print that page. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I know this, but I want to edit the article in Microsoft word. --] <sup>] | ]</sup> 14:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Which version of Word? —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::Microsoft Word 2003 (I have XP one too) --] <sup>] | ]</sup> 16:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:In the article you can click on 'edit', copy the page source to word, edit it, then copy the new version to a wiki edit window in your browser, click on 'show preview' and print that... ] 16:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Not receiving confirmation e-mails == | |||
Help, Mr. Wizard! | |||
No matter how many times I click that button to send a confirmation e-mail to my address, I never receive a single one. They're not even spam-blocked; they just don't come. It's been 12 hours since my first try, and even that one hasn't arrived. I don't use a free address (e.g., hotmail, gmail, etc.), it's a standard e-mail address. I have no idea what's going on here...--] 17:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:If you're relating to your WP account : tick the appropriate in your preferences tag "Enable e-mail from other users". --] <sup>]</sup> 19:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
That preference has nothing to do with email address confirmation. ] 04:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Template:European mathematicians == | |||
The ] has some serious issues. Could some kind person please try to fix it? You can see what is doing to all affected categories by taking a look at ]. Thanks! - ] 19:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Can I find a editor's IP? == | |||
Is there a way to determine an editor's IP? For example, I would be interested in knowing the IP that the brand-new ] used for his/her first posts. Curiously yours, ] 20:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: If you have a compelling reason to do so, you can ask at ]. However, such information is not given away lightly, so just wanting to know an IP of an editor won't get you anywhere, as that data is protected by our ]. ]]<sup>(])</sup> 20:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::It's certainly not worth suspending the Privacy policy, no. Thanks for your time, ] 02:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Workarounds for browser problems displaying tables and Thumbed images. == | |||
*Undoubtedly these are known bugs, but I am interested in workarounds to achieve the resulting format in both Firefox and IE. My versions are the latest as of this date: Firefox for Windows, 1.5.0.6. -] 23:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
] | |||
{| width="100%" | |||
|Table 1. Using Windows/Linux Firefox or Safari or Konqueror, the image will overlay this table.. OK with Internet Explorer. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz | |||
|} | |||
] | |||
{| width="100%" align="left" | |||
|Table 2. Using Firefox, the image now displays normally. Using Safari, the table is placed below (following) the image. Under Internet Explorer, the text following the table will no<includeonly></includeonly>t display underneath the table.. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz | |||
|} | |||
This line should be below table 2. Under Firefox and Konqueror it will display beneath Table 1. Using Safari, it appears beneath Table 1 not overlaid on the image. Under IE, it will appear to the right of the second table. | |||
<br clear=all/> <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) {{{2|}}}.</small> | |||
:I took the liberty of adding ] behaviour to this section.-] 04:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Perhaps what you're looking for is this? My guess is it will display consistently across all browsers. | |||
{|width="100%" | |||
|- | |||
|valign="top"| | |||
{| width="100%" | |||
|Table 3. Using Safari, the image displays normally with the table adjacent (on the left). aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz | |||
|} | |||
| ] | |||
|} | |||
with some text following the table. Using Safari, this text is below the end of the image, creating a visual gap following the table. -- ] <small>(])</small> 13:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
*Hey- I wish it were that easy. Does your solution answer the issue? Nope. Not at all. The goal is that the table be able to utilize 100% of the screen space without regard to whatever thumbed images may or may not have appeared before. Surely there is some way to tell the renderer- Kill all previous states- clean slate. User wants 100% of the width of the client subwindow reserved for articles. I don't care how ugly it is- I just need it to work on all major browsers. -] 15:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Then, you mean like the following? -- ] <small>(])</small> 17:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
] | |||
Text sort of goes along for a while, but now we want a full width table. | |||
<br clear=all/> | |||
{| width="100%" | |||
|Table 4. aaaaaaa bbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccccc dddddddddddddddd eeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffff gggggggggggg hhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiii jjjjjjjj kkkkkk lllllllllll mmmmmmmmm nnnnnnnnnn ooooooooo pppppppp qqqqqqqqq rrrrrrrrrr sssssssssss tttttttttt uuuuuuuuuuuuu vvvvvvvvvvvvvv wwwwwwwwwww xxxxxxxxxxx yyyyyyyy zzzzzzzz | |||
|} | |||
And, here's some text following the table. | |||
::There are worse cases. See ]. Try changing the window width; some widths look good, and for some, images overlap text. Sometimes, even the "edit" text button overlaps other text. Now that's a clear CSS bug. Remember HTML "tables", when nothing ever overlapped? --] 18:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Thanks Rick. br clear all looks like it kills the float state that was confusing Firefox or IE. Hopefully others will confirm this solution (Table 4) works just fine on Safari and Konqueror. Regards, -] 23:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:In Konqueror, Table 3 appears with normal wrap not overlapping the image but beside it. Table 4 appears below the image.-] 01:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I'm almost 100% certain <nowiki><br clear=all/></nowiki> works for all browsers (it works for Safari as well as the others previously listed). I would have suggested this originally, but didn't understand what you were attempting to do. -- ] <small>(])</small> 02:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
==Tables of contents have disappeared== | |||
Using Firefox, the TOCs on all Misplaced Pages pages are gone. (I still see them using IE.) As nobody else has complained, it is probably just me, and could be something I have inadvertently done with the browser settings, but I have absolutely no idea what that could be. Any ideas? ] 06:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: See FAQ question #3 above, and see if force-reloading a page fixes it? --] 06:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::It did, thanks a lot! (Duh! I should have thought of that.) ] 06:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Commons protection == | |||
An idea which is floated from time to time on ] is to apply for adminship on commons, as often images from Commons need to appear on the Misplaced Pages front page, and the current process is to save the image from commons, reupload it, protect it, and then delete it once it has gone from the front page. Adminship on Commons would save a lot of time as it removes the need to reupload the image. However, if an image is protected on Commons, does it automatically get protected on all other projects, or could I potentially upload another image to Misplaced Pages under the same name, thus circumventing the protection? <font style="color:#BB0055">'''s'''murrayinch</font>]<font style="color:#BB0055">ster<sup>(]), (])</sup></font> 07:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Commons has historically rejected giving adminship to people on other projects unless they are also active contributors on Commons, and yes, your fear is correct, someone could just upload a local image to circumvent protection on Commons. ] 07:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== MediaWiki Software Like one on Misplaced Pages.org == | |||
I installed mediawiki software on my server and it works well. There is only one thing missing. Not every template is included. How do I install additional features so that the mediawiki software that I have installed becomes exactly like the one which is running wikipedia.org | |||
Are there additional plugins, etc available which have to be installed. | |||
For example, the following tags <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> are not parsed and look like tags only. The method that I have used is to iimport xml dumps using importdump.php and then browse the pages . | |||
<small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) 13:25, August 28 2006 (UTC{{{3|}}})</small> | |||
:Install the extensions listed at ] (Cite, ParserFunctions). --] 14:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Doubled references? == | |||
I was editing the article on ], and I added a new reference. When I previewed the page, everything seemed right, but when I saved the page, the references were doubled. What I mean by this was that there are six references, but reference one became reference 7, reference two became 8, and so on. Has anyone encountered this before, or will it fix itself? | |||
--] 19:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Seems fine here. Six references, numbered 1-6. --] 19:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I'm having a similar problem after editing ] to add a reference. I've checked twice, and there is only one set of <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> tags in the article; still, the reference is numbered as 2, and there are two identical references in the References section. Am I missing something subtle in the article body? PS Yes, I forced a reload from the server just to double-check. :-) --] 19:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Silly, silly me. I assumed my problem at ] was too bizarre to have been reported before, but obviously not. Sorry for the duplicated question below. ---] 03:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::And few more sightings of this interesting phenomena: ] and ]. Seems like references which more than one occurence get their indexes doubled, and those with only one occurence get doubled... strange... --] 15:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::See below: ]. ] 15:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== ] ref numbers duplicated == | |||
Something has gone wrong with the reference numbers at ]. The references are duplicated and the first inline reference numbers is 8. No obvious cause. --] 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: Looks like the same problem reported below with several other articles. Presumably someone broke the cite code temporarily. It seems to be fixed now. --] 02:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: I confirm the problem still exists as of 14:00 August 29 (UTC). It can be fixed temporarily with a ], but comes back if the article is edited. I first noticed the issue August 28 at 19:20 (UTC) when it was reported at ]. ] 14:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Hyperlink issues after logging in == | |||
Every time I log in using Monobook skin, all hyperlinks appear underlined. It's fixable by clearing my browser cache, but in doing so I lose the download time benefits of having the pages cached. (Note: I use Internet Explorer). ] <sup>]</sup> 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There's a less drastic way: do a forced reload on a single page (like this one). It will download again only that single page, and the CSS files (which is what you want to reload). I believe even a normal reload is enough, which should not download again the images and global CSS/JS. --] 19:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Having trouble with an article I just created == | |||
The article is called ]. For some reason the footnote citations show up twice when I save the aricle. However, upon preview there are the correct number which is three. | |||
Something is doubling the footnote citations and I can't figure out what. Help would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure it is something simple that I'm just not seeing! ]] 21:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Well, now suddenly it is fixed, and all I did was add stub. Don't understand. ]] 21:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Now suddenly, the footnote citations are doubled again -- six instead of the three in the article. And all I did was add an internal link. Could it be Wiki? ]] 22:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Having trouble with an article I just edited: similar to previous post == | |||
This problem is similar to that just reported by ]. I'm adding information with cites to ], but I just noted that a number of cites are doubled or appear multiple times in the References section. I can't figure out what I may have done wrong. Thanks! -] 21:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:In my case it either cured itself (mysteriously} or was fixed when I added a stub at the bottom. Maybe it is some sort of Wiki glitch. Now mine is fine. Try adding the <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> at bottom. ]] 22:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Thanks for the suggestion. I tired it but it didn't work. -] 22:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I'm having a similar problem with an article I'm building in my sandbox. Adding a stub tag didn't work for me, either. ] 22:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::The very first citation in ] is labeled "43". For what it's worth, I found that removing the "References" section changes it to "1"... obviously there are no footnotes then. -] 22:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::I added a mere internal link, and now the problem is back again. And that just doesn't make sense. I wonder if I should take the internal link out or revert. Very strange. ]] 22:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::I reverted to version that was O.K. before and the footnote citations remain doubled. I think it must be Wiki, although I don't understand how. ]] 22:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::::I did a null edit (save the page without changing anything) and it broke again. So might have nothing to do with your edits. --] 22:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::::That's what I'm thinking since there is no rhyme or reason to it. ]] 01:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Back Page == | |||
When I use this computer that I'm on currently, and I use the Back Page function to go to the Recent Changes page, instead of giving me the page as it looked at the time that I was last there, it gives me a refereshed page. Any ideas on why? This doesn't happen on my PC at home. I'm using IE 7 here and IE 6 at home, could that be the reason? ]|] 22:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Browser settings? In IE (6), it's Tools > Internet Options > General Tab > Temporary internet Files, Settings... then choose when you want it to check for newer versions. —] (]) 22:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::That's it. It was set to check for new versions automatically. Thanks. ]|] 22:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Strange situation with footnotes == | |||
I have an odd situation with footnotes on the ] article. The very first such link (1a in the references) doesn't go anywhere. Moreover, the links to the and show different numbers of footnotes. | |||
I have a feeling it's a malformed footnote somewhere, but are there any clues to where it might be?--] 23:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Having added a closequote to the name="something" field, the # of refs is back to 52. However, the first 2 backreferences (links from the footnotes back into the body of the article) are still broken. --] 23:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::'''Further update''': See ]. References are duplicated for some reason. Must be a bug in the cite code. I see the identical bug when logged in via firefox and as anon via IE.--] 23:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I don't know what's causing it, but purging () fixes it. --] 23:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Um, every time the page is edited, it destroys the order of the links. It didn't do that before, and you can see what it is doing to ]. Can a site admin revert any change that happened to cite.php lately? ]]<sup>(])</sup> 02:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Can you describe this destruction in more detail? For instance, is it a doubling of each footnote? --] 10:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::: There are two different phenomena. In one form, the entire list of footnotes is doubled. If there are supposed to be 10 foonotes, there will be 20 (numbered 1-20), with the first footnote in the text starting at number 11. In the other form, every footnote has doubled letters in the reference section, both and , as if a named template were being re-used. ] 10:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::: For an example of the first form, see ] (until someone clears it). ] 11:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::: I'm having the same problem (see above #51) and also the person who wrote the note below mine {#52). So far we have received no help. ]] 12:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::: We know how to fix it short-term. I'm leaving that one un-fixed so others know what we're talking about. ] 12:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::There should be a more pernament and long-term solution than purging individual pages. The sheer number of questions asking the same questions (including me) is amazing. —'']'' <span style="color:gray;font-size:70%;">August 29, 2006, 14:28 (UTC)</span> | |||
:::::The problem only seems to happen for me if I edit an individual section and rearrange the order of footnotes within or add a new one. If I edit from the top of the page things stay in order. In either case, after reloading a minute or two later, the problem seems to resolve itself. It might simply be an issue of the cache being confused. Perhaps it registers only a part of the article updating instead of the entire thing. I'm not a technical expert, but that's my best guess. ] 00:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::: Some articles have been recached. However, I'm the last edit on one article over 12 hours old, and the issue is still present. It also appears after most edits on most articles using cite.php. ] 00:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::::Hm. Do you know if anyone's been having the issue whether they edit from the top of the page or just an individual section? Like I said, it's not happened for me at all when editing from the top. ] 00:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::::: I haven't done a detailed study, but I usually edit the entire page at once rather than by section. (Editing by section seems to introduce extra line breaks at the end of the section, sometimes.) I still see the problem regularly. ] 00:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::::::I guess that answers my question. Thanks. I guess it just must be random. ] 02:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== phtml == | |||
If you go to the page http://en.wikipedia.org/phtml it redirects to Main Page (and uses real http codes to redirect), but if you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/Phtml it uses the wiki-redirect system to go to PHP. | |||
If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=phtml it wiki-reidrects to PHP and so does ?title=Phtml. | |||
If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.phtml it http-redirects to main page. | |||
So i'm guessing it thinks /phtml is equivelant to /wiki.phtml . | |||
Is there any reason why it thinks a slash is a dot? | |||
] (]) 23:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Knowing the usual syntax for ]s, and knowing that that redirect is from ] (which uses regexps), I'd say someone wrote <code>.</code> (matches any character) when they meant <code>\.</code> (matches a literal dot). Report it on ] (product Wikimedia, component General/Unknown), and a developer will fix it later when they have time. --] 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Exactly it. Fixed, thanks! --] 11:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== ] == | |||
Exists now, just thought I'd let you know. Happy editing--<i><b>]</b> <small>iso − 8859 − 1</small><b>]</b></i> 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Need help in coding, probably == | |||
Due to a second instance of vandalism in my archives by users who cannot edit my user talk page (it was sprotected after it had been vandalized multiple times by IPs of banned users) I had decided to create a subpage that I have transcluded into my user talk page. However, I do not want level two headers nor do I want sections by established users to be superceded by possibly vandalous edits by malicious vandals. Is there a way to either | |||
# Make it so the unprotected section forces level 3 headers for each section? or | |||
# Make it so the unprotected section is always at the bottom of my page, and new sections via the new section tab are placed before it? | |||
--] 01:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Oh, and I do not feel that unprotection is necessary at this moment in time. ] 01:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:No. --] 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Mysterious problem involving footnotes and citation templates == | |||
] | |||
I tried to make a little ], but something went terribly wrong and I can't figure out how to fix the problem. For some mysterious reason, all the arrows pointing to the place where a footnote occurs are doubled in the reference section. Only the second of each pair appears to be functional. Please fix it if you can! ---] 02:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: After a ] of the page, is it still there? ] 02:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: (edit conflict) Purge the cache. Something is wrong, but that appears to fix the issue, at least temporarily. Here's a screenshot of what's going on (click on the image and zoom in at the top references). ]]<sup>(])</sup> 03:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
It seems to come and go. Reloading the page was one of the first things I tried, and it didn't seem to help. To my surprise, just after making the above query, reloading the page ''did'' seem to resolve the problem, but this definitely didn't seem to help earlier today. I am still baffled, but the fact that so many are experiencing problems suggests that something in the code might have been broken by a modification earlier today. ---] 03:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: I didn't just mean purge the cache. I added <tt>?action=purge</tt> to the URL and reloaded. You probably saw the version after I did that. ] 03:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
*<tt>?action=purge</tt> has just worked for a similar problem I had. I've never encountered it before, has something changed today? ] 04:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
*I'm thinking there may be something wrong on Misplaced Pages's end because this is the first time I've encountered this problem, and others as well. Any guesses? —'']'' <span style="color:gray;font-size:70%;">August 29, 2006, 13:53 (UTC)</span> | |||
:I'm not sure if there's any connection, but I noticed that today I ''could not'' reproduce a certain error that has always "worked" in the past, namely leaving out the slash in a closing <nowiki></ref></nowiki> tag. When it "works" this error captures all or at least a good chunk of the following text, up to the next header, assuming that it's still reading the reference. However, when I tried it today cutting out the slash produced just the same results as normal in the preview, and when I returned, having cancelled the edit, my footnotes were as described here. -- ] 15:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::]. I'm going to try the purge thing.--] 16:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Yeah, that worked.--] 16:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
This question is very quickly becoming the MFAQ of the day. Is any permanent solution at hand? -- ]] 16:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: The permanent solution is to invalidate every page in the cache (which may be happening, ] seems fairly large at 420k and growing), and make sure the software invalidates a page with every save. ] 16:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I have filed ], related to this issue. ] 18:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:But apperently someone beat me, see also ]. ] 18:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: Note that it appears on pages that do not use the references comment, such as ] and ]. (Do you need a separate registration for bugzilla?) ] 18:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
I have added a ] to the top of this page to direct people towards the temporary solution (and to avoid even more sections talking about the same problem). --] 18:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I found this while editing a page. Looking at it from another browser, all was OK. ''] ]'' 08:44 ] ] (GMT). | |||
== Whatlinkshere strangeness == | |||
I recently checked the "What links here" for the article ] (e.g. ) and found it now contains a lot of articles pertaining to Italian municipalities (e.g. ]), a seemingly unrelated topic. I assumed it was something to do with the navigation templates they use (]) but I can't find any link to ] within the template, nor anywhere else in the article. Checking the "Related changes" link for ] produces a list of mostly unrelated articles (], ], ]), none of which are seemingly linked to in the page. Can anyone shed a light as to why? ] 09:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Yeah. Strange stuff. I haven't tracked down anything yet. For example I'm also utterly puzzled why editing ] says it transcludes ] =:-P. Need having a closer look on templates to make sure nobody vandalized any template. --] 09:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I on ]. But now we have the doubled footnotes problem there (as reported on this page already, scroll up)... --] 10:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: Could be a database problem. Edit a page and a number of non-present templates are listed, but once the page is saved the template connections seem to get fixed. (Then a purge to fix the foonotes... ;) ] 10:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: After checking a few articles, I wonder if the template problem is a consequence of the recent WoW vandalism. Various templates were moved around. ] 11:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::The ] page shows that the job queue is currently huge, and all cached data and stuff done through templates is probably a couple of hours out of date. ] ] 11:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::50,000 entries on job queue is nothing dramatic. --] 11:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
The job queue is now over 400,000. Could it be that every page on WP is being invalidated and recached? ] 16:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Just for the records: Job queue length is now on 890,180. I would say this *is* huge now. Never seen it that high before. --] 22:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I don't know if the two are related, but Whatlinkshere for images was patched very recently, which will require rebuilding the link table for all images. However, I don't know if those are being farmed onto the jobs queue. ] 01:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::I came here to report the same problem, whatlinkshere for ] reports thousands of links from articles which don't link to it. What's up? - ]]] 02:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I was just about the report the same strangeness for ]. I usually check ] redirects to determine whether they were meant to go to ]. This current problem is hindering that check. ] <sup>] • ]</sup> 02:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Haven't found anything in common between various pages. Simple pages seem OK. Pages for various animals seem OK (these have a taxobox infobox). Minor league baseball teams seem OK (images and simple infobox). ] thinks that ] and ] link to it; all three of these are somewhat complex and use several images, templates and infoboxes (but different infoboxes). You don't suppose the Template whose name is an exclamation point is having its name used in a context which makes it be interpreted as a program or SQL "bang" symbol? (] 05:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
:Notice ] below says a category is including articles which do not have the category. Categories and Whatlinkshere may both be using indexes of some type. Without looking at the code, I wouldn't be surprised if the job queue is a DB index of some type. Something wrong with the first two type of indexes might affect the job queue, or perhaps all three things are entangled in some sort of index problem. I'm painting with a broad brush, but all this will undoubtedly get looked at shortly by someone with more detailed awareness of the system. (] 06:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
::Two possibilies: Someone found an unprotected meta template and screwed with it, or the tables are actually screwed up. Of interest to ]-related issues, {{TI|Ann_anime}} is somehow transcluded now or at some point in the recent past to hundreds of pages for an unknown reason. ] 08:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Footnotes error? == | |||
I was just reading ] and thought that it was a problem on that end, solved easily by deleting cache etc. But after I editted ], the same error occured to me. The problem is gone and it's does not matter for me much, but I'm wondering if there's a bigger problem at Misplaced Pages's end. —'']'' <span style="color:gray;font-size:70%;">August 29, 2006, 13:28 (UTC)</span> | |||
: Read ] above. ] 13:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Solution to problems with footnotes and references == | |||
Putting this in its own section because tons of people seem to be having this problem right now. | |||
Adding <tt>?action=purge</tt> to the URL of the page you are having problems with (load the page, then in the address bar, add <tt>?action=purge</tt> to the end of the URL and press Enter) seems to fix the problem with doubled footnotes and references that don't work, at least for some people. It worked for me with the ] article I edited yesterday. I'm not sure this is a permanent fix for the article itself; it may just fix your browser, but I guess it's worth trying. | |||
Credit goes to ] in the "Mysterious problem involving footnotes and citation templates" above. --] 13:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: I think ] mentioned it earlier, ]. ] 13:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: It has been noted in ]. (] 14:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
: It is not browser specific. I tried it on two computers. It may be User or Page specific. ] 18:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
As I've been adding a lot of references lately to an article, I've also come across this problem. And I noticed something interesting, thay may hint at the cause of the problem. Editing a section creates a different result than editing the entire page. The footnotes or references start with those that are placed in that section or below, and then the entire article is scanned again, which results in only some footnotes or references being doubled. If you edit the entire page, it essentially does the same, resulting in a complete doubling. ] 14:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: It just happened to me with the ''initial version'' of ]. Plain editing did not work, purging did. ] 04:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
This is a good fix, but still very annoying. The doubling effect has happened on three articles I have edited references for -- starting yesterday. --] (]) 17:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I have tried the purge fix on ] but its getting worse - can anyone fix this article, please? ] 18:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: It seems fine: 4 refmarks, 4 notes. ] 18:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Yes, I have edited some other sections and it has fixed itself. Weird. Thanks for looking, though. ] 18:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Has anyone put in a bug report to mediawiki? -- ] 04:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:A bug report ''has'' been filed. ] 04:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There is a red notice box presently at the top of this page. For the benefit of archival readers I'll mention ]. (] 04:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
== Bot access funniness == | |||
I've recently reactivated the ] and in the process of testing it I made . This is not normally a problem, except every time I make a ''successful'' change, I get a "403: Forbidden" response code. This despite the fact that the edit happens anyway. I have no idea why and would like to know if anyone else is aware of this particular problem. — ] <sup>() (])</sup> 15:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I can't speculate about why it allows you to edit and then gives you a 403, but I know Misplaced Pages 403's a variety of user agent strings that look like bots it doesn't like. Given the venerable age of Rambot, it might have been contructed before those restrictions were put in place. ] 01:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::That seems likely. It was totally restricting me when I had no user agent specified, so when I made one up, this was the result. I could spoof another bot's user agent string, but I'd rather get this one to be used, since it is unique and would be easier to block in the event of problems. Interestingly, getting a 403 is more efficient in terms of bandwidth than receiving a success with the new page included. I'm pretty sure I don't get a 403 on any other errors. Nevertheless, for all I know this could be a bug in the user-agent filtering. '''UPDATE:''' Strike that. I changed my user agent to spoof that of the pywikipediabot, with the same result. Apparently a 403 success :). — ] <sup>() (])</sup> 12:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I think I may know what the problem is. Because the rambot predates current bot policy, and it has been running approved for years (besides being inactive for the past ~1.5 year period) without any regard to the forming/changing policy that has affected new bots. I've never been listed on ], so my guess is that the software is filtering out any account with the bot flag that are not on the approval log, or something similar to this. I'm unfamiliar with the "recent" technical limitations, but I think the rambot was the first bot with the bot flag, so any newer approval changes might not have been applied. This bug may be limited to the rambot only if that is the case, since any other new bot would have the flag AND be approved. — ] <sup>() (])</sup> 12:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::: It's listed as a bot in ], so there's nothing on the MediaWiki side of the equation. AFAIK, there's no "approved bot" flag in the database, and there's no interface to do so. Check the bot's IP, if you're running it from a different computer. Is it blocked? Are you trying to access a URL in Misplaced Pages's root folder or something similar? ]]<sup>(])</sup> 16:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::I'm to understand there's blocks on various useragents in the squid proxy cache servers to prevent poorly coded bots from running amok. Perhaps a developer would know what user agent you could specify to avoid the 403. ] 19:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::I suspected that it had nothing to do with "approval" and as for the user agent stuff, I spoofed the user agent to match the ever popular pywikipediabot, so it should have been none the wiser. And I'm editing from the same IP address and the addresses used in the bots seem like they should also work using a web browser. I don't know what the difference is. — ] <sup>() (])</sup> 20:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::: Try something completely unique, and ideally put contact information (a URL, or even a wikilink would work) as part of the User-Agent string, and try it again... if it doesn't, then you are requesting a link, after page save, that is blocked by Apache (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/.htaccess). ]]<sup>(])</sup> 20:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::::The user-agent string that I'm using *is* unique, since I just invented it to make it work at all. And the "request" is a page submit, which returns 403. If I view or edit the page (i.e. with "&action=edit") it works fine and I get a standard 200. When I view the SAME link with "&action=submit", that's when I get the 403. The only difference (besides the POST data being sent) is "edit" vs. "submit". -- ] 21:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Animated GIF too big for thumb? == | |||
] | |||
I uploaded this ] (6MB animated gif) file to Commons earlier. However, MediaWiki fails to produce a thumbnail (like to the right), making the image useless. Is there a hard limit on the max size to animated gifs for thumbs?--] (]) 19:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:fixed, any ideas what happened?--] ([[User | |||
talk:Nilfanion|talk]]) 22:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::There's a limit on time and memory usage for image thumbnailing. If thumbnailing the image comes close to the limit, then some servers may be able to scrape under it while others fail. I wouldn't recommend using animated GIF as a storage format for large videos, ] is probably better. Some day we might even have support for embedding it in wiki pages. You could generate a small animated GIF thumbnail offline, for temporary use in articles. -- ] 11:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Yeah, thats just what the producing program outputs in ...--] (]) 12:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Expunging block log entries == | |||
Anyone know offhand if there's already a BugZilla bug about the idea of expunging bogus entries from the block log? I looked, but didn't see anything that fit. This came up in this thread: ] an offshoot of ] Thanks! ++]: ]/] 21:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I oppose. Two things can be done in cases like this. First, the user can save the links to the discussions (talk pages, ArbCom, WP:ANI) where the community agrees that a block is improper. Second, a respected admin can add an unblock to the log with an explanatory summary, so anyone viewing the log is notified of the situation. ] 13:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::In certain cases, I think, pointing to history and so forth, and even a cancelling unblock, are insufficient to properly expunge a record. Specifically, in Giano's case (whatever I may think of his general civility of late) I feel he has been unfairly labeled with having committed "hate speech". In another case, we have an admin that blocked a user for one second "because they said they had a clean block log". In another case, we have an admin who blocked a user ACCIDENTALLY and labeled it with the warning he meant for the troll he was trying to block. The block log is very significant and very permanent. I do not think that expunging should be done lightly, or by just one person acting alone, but there ought to be a way to get rid of entries that clearly should not be there in the first place. I'd like to see this more widely discussed but I am not sure where exactly. I note that I have been told by several old hands that there HAVE been cases of block entries being expunged in the past, but that it took direct developer intervention and was potentially error prone, and not easy to carry out. This new interface would make it easier but I do not advocate that it have wide availability. ++]: ]/] 14:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Unlike oversight removal of edit summaries with personal information, improper block log entries will remain very rare. We would desysop an admin who deliberately added personal info to a log, for example. An interface would seem a very low priority, and its existance would encourage increased use of the option. Mistakes can be explained away as I mentioned above, it doesn't really besmudge one's record if the record shows that the block summary was in error. As for increasing discussion, you can link to this thread from WP:ANI. ] 14:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::: I agree with NoSeptember, particularily because if there is something truly egregious, then a developer can remove it, and if there's an interface, we'll go in a slippery slope, removing entries that really aren't that objectionable. (and for the record, I could benefit from this, just look at my block log...) ]]<sup>(])</sup> 17:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::There is already, I believe, a facility to ''really'' delete an edit, available to a subset of admins (arbitrators and a few others). I think the facility Lar proposes might be useful, and would support it if it doesn't involve too much work. And, for the record, the case which prompted Lar's enquiry did of course result in a desysopping - but the block record remains. --] 18:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
In an extreme case like this, where someone has been seriously defamed in a way that could cause real-life harm in easily-imaginable scenarios, I think there should be a way of getting an item out of a block log. I don't think it should be easy or routinely available, and nor do I think that the wrong suffered by Giano gives him a free pass forever to be as uncivil as he likes to whoever he likes, but I DO think he has been seriously wronged and that Misplaced Pages should find a way to do something about it. And it should do likewise in any other rare and extreme case. ] 09:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I think that this is a good idea, but should only be available to users with the ] permission. (As it happens, this consists mostly of current and former ArbCom members, and also includes two developers, three bureaucrats, and Jimbo Wales). Oversighting blocks should probably only be done on ArbCom decision, however. --] 12:02, 31 August 2006 (]]]) | |||
::'''Totally support''' the idea of improper blocks being expunged from block logs. Particularly ones with false and defamatory block summaries. ''(]])'' 12:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
Not knowing this thread existed, I posted a very similar idea on ]. | |||
I think there is a problem with NoSeptember's objection in that the way the web works does not guarantee that people will always go to a user's page to check whether he's left a note of some previous block being unjust, or the block comment inaccurate. Worse, you could have some users who are very active on contentious topics and get hit by several unjust blocks. Explaining all that is going to make for dreary reading. Much better to purge the record in good faith. It's always good to be aware that what's created on Misplaced Pages may always be taken outside of Misplaced Pages. And I can't remember a time that the defeatist position turned out to be the right one with respect to Misplaced Pages conduct. - ] (] • ]) 13:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I tend to agree, I think that it would be nice to have a (restricted) ability to purge log entries. People digging for stuff are probably going to look at the block log first, and having to maintain stuff on your user page explaining in detail why a certain block was unjust is probably not the best way to counter that. I'd like to see this for all log entries as well. This functionality might also help when some malcontent, frustrated by his edits that violate libel/privacy/copyright/obscenity/etc. laws being removed by oversight, starts putting this junk in the titles of articles, in usernames, etc. ] // ] 20:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I agree with this proposal, administrators make mistakes and there needs to be a form of oversight to these logs. I just gave myself this while trying to put an end to a bunch of socks doing this . ]+] 06:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::I agree also. Although purely accidental blocks are often easy to discern (such as the block I accidentally gave DVD R W a few moments ago <tt>:(</tt>), those accusing the blockee of hate speech and other horrendous acts leave a black smear across a user's record, harming their reputation. - ]]] 07:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::: Perhaps it would be acceptable to restrict it only to oversighted users, as they're were granted that permission to deal with these kinds of things. ]]<sup>(])</sup> 07:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::I agree that oversight is probably the correct level of authority for this privilege. ] // ] 18:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Problem with operation of category pages == | |||
A problem has appeared with the operation of category pages. ] contains entries for articles that are not in the category. ] 22:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: Might this be related to the above ]? Are we having problems with indexes? (] 06:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
::I edited one of these articles, which believed it contained the template, and the spurious entry disappeared. ''] ]'' 08:40 ] ] (GMT). | |||
: ] was fixed, and the problem apparently was stuff from recent edits being added to edited articles. So the recent flurry of ISBN-related edits was probably seeding this bug with ISBN category tags, which were then added to other articles. (] 15:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)) | |||
== Foreign language external links == | |||
I notice that these are frequently added to articles but they do not display. What do they do, please? ] 22:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:You'll find them in the left column (outside the main article block). Under the "navigation", "search" and "toolbox blocks", there will be another block called "in other languages". ] 22:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
==] - Footnotes problem== | |||
I'm trying to edit the above article, but I am running into a problem with footnotes. In ordinary circumstances this page should have 21 footnotes - but as you will see on the page, these 21 have increased to 42. For some reason the first 21 are listed as per usual, then the list is repeated for 22 through to 42. Furthermore, the footnotes in the text now start from number 22, rather than number 1. Can anyone shed any light on the problem? | |||
]<sup>]</sup> 23:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Just noticed the solution above - purging the page has done the trick. | |||
:]<sup>]</sup> 23:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Yes, this appears to be a common problem at the moment - it happened to me last night. <font face="sans-serif">''']]]'''</font> 09:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Footnotes problem fixed == | |||
Since there's five million duplicate threads above, I won't respond in any of them individually. | |||
The problem should now be fixed; use action=purge on any remaining affected pages or just edit them again. --] 11:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:See ] (status: fixed). Thanks. --] 11:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:What about the spurious entries on category pages and What links here pages? As suggested elsewhere, editing an article causes it to disappear from listings it does not belong to, but it could be years before the listings are correct again. ] 13:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Are those from editing of templates? Wait for the templates to clear, or edit the pages. --] 15:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Odd results from What links here == | |||
What is Compost doing in the "What links here" results for "Tiberian Hebrew"? There are other entries in that list that probably don't belong there either. Is there something inaccurate about "What links here"? --] 12:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I don't get compost in that list. Try purging your cache on that page: Mozilla/Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera/Konqueror: press F5. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 13:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: That's because compost was just edited. If you edit any page, the links and categories for that article are updated and returned to normal. ] 13:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I would like the ability to see which pages used to be linked to a page. Also, to see which pages used to be included in a category. Some sort of history page to track these things would be useful at times. ] 14:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I agree, category history and category watching (so the Category shows up on your watchlist when a page is added to it) would be a great thing. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Technical inability for sysops to unblock themselves == | |||
Since it is already discouraged for sysops to unblock themselves, this inability should be "codified" in the MediaWiki software, in order to prevent intentional and unintentional abuse. Perhaps only bureaucrats and stewards should be allowed to unblock any sysop.] (]) 14:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There are good reasons to be able to unblock oneself, technical reasons. As long as we are willing to desysop admins who improperly use this ability (on a case by case basis, due to mitigating factors), there is no real need to codify it. ] 14:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Sometimes it is necessary for a sysop to unblock themself, such as if they are autoblocked due to someone else's vandalism. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:: Try being behind AOL and not be able to unblock yourself. ]]<sup>(])</sup> 17:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
==text color== | |||
How do you add custom text color? ] 18:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Like this: <pre><span style="color: COLOR;">TEXT</span></pre> replacing COLOR with the color of your choice (either in English or the hexadecimal code) and TEXT should be the text you want to change the color of. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 18:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
However, please avoid doing this as it will break the consistent nature of articles on the site. In addition, forcing text to be a specific colour harms accessibility. ] 19:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Basically, colored text is good for signatures, user pages, portals, and a few other things. Other than that, though, it should not be used. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 19:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::...and some might argue against even many of those. Certainly signatures that look like can be distracting and annoying. —] <small>(])</small> 16:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== ] == | |||
Can someone fix the wikiness of this article? The first three "edit" links are groups halfway down the third section in the middle of a paragraph -- ] 20:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Fixed. See ] for a detailed explanation on how to fix it in the future. --] 21:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
==Interwiki linking== | |||
Is there a page about interwiki linking/external linking and how it should be, especially in regards to wikia and how ] links to . - ] 20:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:These pages might be useful to you: ], ], ], ], . ] 21:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I guess I mean what are the rules about what's appropriate, not what' the syntax. - ] 22:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::That's a question for ], not (technical), actually. ] might give you some directions. (], ]). 15:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Userpage Work == | |||
Hi, I'm a small time user and I wanted to add some spice to my userpage. I really don't think I have enough content on my page or enough experience here that it is worth someone who is good at this to overhaul my userpage (like ], ] or ]), but I thought of adding a border, some new font color (I just found out how to do that by reading above), or some show/hide stuff. Is there a place I can visit or do I just have to stare at the complicated formatting on a well done page and try to figure it out? --] 21:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Most effects are done using ], which you can research elsewhere in the web; for instance, for a black 1 pixel border, surround the content by <code><nowiki><div style="border: 1px solid black"></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></div></nowiki></code>. To hide a section, you have to use magic classes parsed by a magic code at ]; see {{tl|hidden}} to see how it's done (you can use <nowiki>{{hidden}}</nowiki> directly if it fits your needs). --] 21:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Thanks I'll look into that. I'm not really sure what I want to do yet, but this really helps. --] 02:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Or you can do what everyone else does; find a page you like and copy the layout :). —]<font color="green">]</font>] ] 20:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::Yeah I've seen people do that. I'm not sure, but I'll consider it. --] 20:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
==Trying to put user contributions on watchlist== | |||
Hi, I was trying to find a way to be notified when known repeated spammers contributed, so that I could check their edits. I know there is some kind of complicated (for me!) workaround with CSS and enhanced recent changes. I asked at the help desk, and was told: | |||
<blockquote>Make a subpage that lists such users and use the related changes feature to see what changes they make. - Mgm|(talk) 11:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)</blockquote> | |||
which was an adequate (if not ideal) workaround in theory. | |||
I ''am'' having a little trouble getting it to work though. I've set up a page at ], but when I click "Related Changes" from the toolbox, I can only get some edits to appear, although there are edits made after then. I'm not sure if others see the same thing, but (for example) no contributions from the first link ] appear on related changes. Thanks in advance. -] 07:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
: I don't think related changes works with Special: pages. One could potentially write a quite script to output in a more user-friendly format... It could be done in javascript or elsewhere, not necessarily on the toolserver. --] 16:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
That's a pretty interesting solution, but unfortunately I lack the skills to write any kind of script to deal with that... It does appear that some of the Special:Contributions pages are picked up by related changes, it just doesn't appear to be complete. (You might need to extend the date range for the example above.) -] 06:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== I can't up load an image == | |||
I try to upload a small jpeg and get the error: | |||
"." not valid file format | |||
any ideas? ] 12:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Maybe name's wrong. Is your computer configured to see known file extensions? If not, configure so, and, if file name ends in ".", ".jpeg" or other strange extension, change it to ".jpg". If it hasn't extension, add ".jpg" | |||
{{User:Nethac DIU/Sign|en||15:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)}} | |||
== How to use Block log? == | |||
Someone put a sign on my page saying: It is suspected that this user may be a sock puppet, meat puppet or impersonator of Shravak. Then it says go to block log for evidence. How do I use block log to find out the evidence against me? ] 16:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Go to your contributions page (from the links at the top) and there will be some links under the title. One of them will take you to your block log. —]<font color="green">]</font>] ] 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Well, I don't get it. I am supposed to enter something in there in the middle box? I aready removed the sockpuppet thing because the directions said that if there was no evidence entered on the red link, I could. That's correct, isn't it? ] 17:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::You did not answer me and now ] has put it back. I am going to take it away because where is the evidence? There is nothing at the block log page. ] 19:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::Here's ]. ] 19:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::But I made one edit to that page. Why am I being lumped in with someone else? ] has already received warnings from ] and ] which he erased from his talk page when ] specifically told him not to do any more erasing or change of his comments. ] 19:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::::It looks like ] has misunderstood the methods of determining sock puppets and then reacted offensively to the consequences. So relax, if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about. ] 12:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
==Delay on Search function seems to just get longer== | |||
Having made enquiries at ] about the long lag for the search index (the answer seems to be that the search index is updated whenever someone can get around to it, and as the Search function is not considered a priority, this is quite infrequently), I'm wondering at what point the Search function becomes so out of date that it's considered an urgent problem. From my own experience it currently seems to be over three months since it was last updated (question: is this for the Misplaced Pages as a whole, or is the search index more up to date for some articles than others?), which is more like several months than the "weeks" mentioned in your FAQ at the top. Is there a way we can petition those who can update the search index to somehow set a regular timetable to do this (in principle, the oftener the better, but I recognise they are busy with a great many things, so perhaps weekly or fortnightly at least is practicable)? ] 01:47, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:You can ask, but that won't actually help. I just need to sit aside for a few hours without being asked to do other things and get it fixed up. --] 08:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Fair enough. I suppose I'm just hopeful that the necessary-but-not-always-urgent job of updating the search index could somehow be squeezed into the regular schedule of jobs amidst all the important-and-urgent ones that demand attention. I fear that it has a tendency to fall by the wayside until it too becomes urgent (as perhaps is the case now). I appreciate that updating the search index is a dull, onerous, time-consuming and thankless task. I can't do anything about the first three, but I can with respect to the last one: thank you! ] 01:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
==talk/contribs links in signature== | |||
Please explain how I can set up my user name to include the talk/contribs links when I use four tildas to sign a message. I probably wouldn't want to do this every time - is there a way of toggling it on/off (five tildas, perhaps?) I find these quick links incredibly useful. Many thanks, ] 07:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
: The short answer is ''no''. You can change your sig but you can only have one at a time. I'll tell you how to do this ''and'' show you a workaround. | |||
: Go to ] and put any text you like in the '''Signatures''' box, including links to your talk or contribs. It's a small box but will hold plenty of text anyway. ''Please, out of respect for other editors, don't get too cute.'' Images and templates are forbidden; colors and weird characters are usually ugly and make you look silly, not cool. Check the box '''Raw signature'''; this removes your default sig, which is just a link to your user page. Insert your new sig plus timestamp anywhere with '''four tildes'''. | |||
: '''Five tildes''' inserts only the timestamp. You can make this work in your favor. Create a subpage within your own userspace (e.g, ]). Put your sig there and from that point on, sign your talk page posts like this: | |||
:: <code><nowiki>{{subst:User:Foo/sig1}}~~~~~</nowiki></code> | |||
: Obviously, you can create a sig2, sig3, sig4 page. '''But please note well''' that all your sigs should include, at a minimum, your username and a link to either your user page or your talk page. It's probably ''unwise'' to avoid overelaborate sigs in general ''and'' avoid using widely different sigs from page to page. | |||
: There's a generic template you might consider, {{tl|user}}. To show you how it works, I'll sign ''this'' post with it. Good luck! ] (] • ]) 03:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
==my contribs aren't being recorded!== | |||
for some reason, many -- most -- of my contributions aren't listed on my 'my contributions' page. does anyone know why an edit wouldn't show up there? thanks, --] 08:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Could you point to some examples? A common reason might be that you made edits while logged out. --] 08:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Another common reason is that the contribution was to an article which was subsequently deleted. --] 15:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Unicode font selection == | |||
(moved from Misplaced Pages Help Desk) | |||
Hello. I have several Unicode fonts installed on my computer, for use with various typefaces in some graphics work I do. (For example, there is a Unicode font resembling Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, etc.) Anyway, when IPA characters in a Misplaced Pages article appear, they are in one of the very light fonts I have installed, and are difficult to read. Is there any way of telling Misplaced Pages which Unicode font I want displayed, or does it always default to something? Thank you. — ] 08:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Yes. If the IPA is properly tagged, you can edit your user CSS (] if you are using Monobook; for other skins, see the list at ]) and add the following: | |||
.IPA { font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans" } | |||
:replacing "Bitstream Vera Sans" by the name of the font you want to use. As for the default, if you are using IE, it defaults to a ]; if you are using anything else, it uses your browser's default (all browsers but IE are able to get characters from other fonts if they do not exist in the current font). --] 15:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Edit toolbar buttons won’t load (except ) == | |||
I’ve been unable to edit any wiki page from one particular computer running IE6 and XP sp2. Logged in, logged out or cleared cache, has no effect. This problem is roughly 1 month old, it all worked fine before, and I can’t remember to have changed anything significant on that installation for a long time. | |||
===The problem=== | |||
Reading pages goes okay. Edit window will load till it hits the toolbar buttons, it will load the Redirect button (), but non of the others (it’s trying to load it from …/skins-1.5/…etc. but will never happen). From that moment on that particular IE window is locked. Other IE windows will ‘http 404’ on all wiki sites, but not on anything else. Closing IE has no effect; I have to reboot to be able to read any wiki content again. | |||
The closest bugzilla report I could find is and related/duplicate reports, but I’m running IE6 on XP, not mac/safari. Anyway, I haven’t been able to solve it. Has anybody a suggestion where I should look to solve the problem? Thanks. --] 14:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:The button is being added via ] (the section under <code>/* add a redirect button to the edit page toolbar */</code>. Odd that that would work as an onload, but that javascript in the page wouldn't. I can suggest a few things to try, maybe, to narrow down the problem. Try these to see which stop the lockup: | |||
:1. Try disabling javascript, this should obviously work (but maybe not?). | |||
:2. Try going to the edit window of a user style page, these don't load the toolbar: ]. Also try going to the view-source of a protected page, eg ] (if you aren't sysop). | |||
:3. Try disabling the addbutton function temporarily. Put into ] and then clear your cache: | |||
<pre>function addButton() { | |||
// do nothing | |||
};</pre> | |||
:4. Try other Wikis for the problem: | |||
::A. ] | |||
::B. ] | |||
::C. ] | |||
:Report results here (anyone else have any ideas?), this will help narrow down the cause. --] (]) 07:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Any documentation on the various #if functions? == | |||
Hi folks, I'm trying to play around with the #if, #ifeq, and other commands. Is there any published documentation on how to use these things? I've been going at it blind, but I'd like to go at it with a better idea of the syntax. Thanks, ] ] 17:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
: See ]. --] 17:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::See also ] for practical examples of usage. -] 19:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Wonderful. Thanks, guys. --] ] 19:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Template:Hidden - Auto Show/Hide == | |||
The show/hide box produced with {{tl|Hidden}} automatically remain open unless there is more then one of those, when all of the boxes remain closed. These is no way to set individually if the boxes should be open or closed by default. I think that editors should be able to control each box individuality if the boxes should default open or closed. It would be nice if a coder would be able to build this feature. It could be controlled by adding "|default=hidden" to the template syntax or writing something in the actual code. I am not too good with JavaScript, so I don't know what will work. If someone can build this feature it would be nice. See the discussion at ] | |||
The boxes are powered from the base javascript and are affected somewhat from ] This feature premiered at ] --] 00:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
: This feature doesn't work ''at all'' in my browser (Mozilla 1.2.1 and ''please'' don't ask why). Please don't use it. {{unsigned2|02:39, 2 September 2006|John Reid}} | |||
:I coded up a replacement for the <code>createNavigationBarToggleButton</code> function at ] which allows one to specify if the box should be open or closed by default. It can be found at if you want to check the code. Once it's added to Monobook.js (replacing the function already there), using <code>NavFrameDefaultHide</code> instead of <code>NavFrame</code> will force the box to be hidden by default, and using <code>NavFrameDefaultShow</code> instead of <code>NavFrame</code> will force the box to be shown by default. I intend to add the code to Monobook.js in a few days if nobody complains. --] 16:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Show as a tree / Show as a list in Catgegories == | |||
When did this come about? Any additional info available? ] ≠ ] 01:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Do you like it? Duesentrieb volunteered to make an announcement, since he did most of the work. He announced it on commons, de and the category tree page, saying that he wasn't active on en. I've now followed that up with a post to wikitech-l, which is hopefully a more visible forum for Wikimedians generally. Here is the archive of my post: . -- ] 05:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Haven't had a chance to play with it very much yet, but my initial impression is that it will be very useful. ] ≠ ] 12:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::: It could be useful (though I suspect I shall mainly stay with list), but it was very confusing when Cats started showing as a tree without my having selected it. ] 12:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
I find it very confusing, mainly when many subcategories exist, and I'm totally opposed to the fact that categories appear as a tree by default. ] 12:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
I like that new feature. Kudos to Duesentrieb and Tim! --] 14:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
In response to some criticisms, Duesentrieb has just implemented a "unified view", which combines the strengths of both the tree view and the list view. There's apparently also an override parameter for bots. -- ] 14:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Categories are now appearing as a tree by default with no apparent means of over-riding this - help please! I find the list view much easier to read and navigate. ] 15:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
One potential problem is that people who click on the "+" sign and get the "nothing found" result, might think that is the end of the road: no articles there. Of course, it really means that there are just no subcategories. But will new users realise they need to click on the category link to see the articles inside the category? ] 16:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Another problem is that it is slower and less intyitive than the list, and depriving users of the choice (as appears to have happened) will discourage editors from exploring the categories to find the best ones for articles. ] 16:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::I might (eventually) prefer the option to switch between views, rather than this "unified" version in use at the moment. But please, where was this discussed? It could be a great feature, and I use many of the Category tools, including the awesome , but I really want to see a debate about this rather major change (or be pointed to one if I missed it). There is also a post by Tim Starling that explains some of this. Also, Tim's comment above was ''"In response to some criticisms"'' - well, where can I read these criticisms and add my own? Thanks. ] 16:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Edit summary stubbornness == | |||
Occasionally, I get the message warning me of no edit summary, even though I've provided one. Cute workarounds, like previewing again and then saving, with or without copy-pasting the edit sum, sometimes work and sometimes save the page without any edit sum. I feel it's ''vital'' to edit with good summaries, so this is an issue for me. ]] 02:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I don't think it counts the section that you are editing as part of the edit summary (the part of the summary that's like <code>/* Edit summary stubbornness */</code>). Could that be your problem? —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Zero section editing == | |||
Hello all. I suggest adding a feature to display '' link for zero section as this is done in Russian Misplaced Pages. You should append<pre> | |||
/* Making "edit" link for zero section */ | |||
var disable_zero_section = 0; | |||
function edit_zero_section() | |||
{ | |||
if(disable_zero_section != 1 && (document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML.match('class=\"editsection\"'))) | |||
document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML = "<div class=\"editsection\" id=\"ca-edit-0\"></div>" + document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML; | |||
} | |||
addLoadEvent(edit_zero_section); | |||
</pre> | |||
into ] and <pre>.editsection { float: right; margin-left: 5px; }</pre> into ]. This link looks like all other '' links. If doubt, please test in your own ] & ]. In Russian Misplaced Pages this is a default. ] 07:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Full support. If the specialists don't find any no-go's I would love to have this. I tested it in my user js/css and found a bug. The js should be: | |||
<pre> | |||
/* Making "edit" link for zero section */ | |||
var disable_zero_section = 0; | |||
function edit_zero_section() | |||
{ | |||
if(disable_zero_section != 1 && (document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML.match('class=\"editsection\"'))) | |||
document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML = "<div class=\"editsection\" id=\"ca-edit-0\"></div>" + document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML; | |||
} | |||
addLoadEvent(edit_zero_section); | |||
</pre> | |||
:--] 10:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::If that means what I think it does (having an edit box for the lead/intro, the text before the first section header) I most definitely support that. --] 11:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Aye, you can see it in action on the ]. However, if we decide to have this, I think it would be better to write it directly into the software, because: | |||
:::* No Javascript would be used. This means less downloading and some people don't have Javascript enabled. | |||
:::* It seems like a simple task to write it into the software. | |||
:::* It would work with all the Wikipedias. | |||
:::* <s>It could respect <nowiki>__NOEDITSECTION__</nowiki>, or maybe this does that already?</s> | |||
:::] 12:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::: Arguments against Javascript are too common, not related to this idea. The fact is that we need this feature right now (it provides great traffic economy when zero section should be edited in big article). Also, this code ''supports'' NOEDITSECTION: it only appends edit link for zero section if there is already at least one edit link (so it will not be displayed for articles with NOEDITSECTION or protected articles, for article without subtitles or when user disables edit links in preferences). ] 12:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::: Cool, that's good that it works like that. I disagree that we need it "right now". Wouldn't it be better to wait a bit longer to get it implemented directly into the software so that it can benefit everyone, instead of rushing it in just for us? ] 12:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::::: I think that increasing global JS in size isn't so bad for users while it is cached by browser. Yes, you'll be forced to reload about 3K after this change but you spend much more reading your watchlist once :). About engine implementation: MediaWiki developers are too busy; haven't you seen number of unresolved reports in ]? ;) So, I think that's not good idea to place some fixes on our side right now... ] 12:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::::::: Perhaps it is okay to get it written in like this for now, and then a permanent solution could be implemented in the future. I doubt it'll save much bandwidth, but it's useful at least. Do you know why the pages don't have links written into the top already? There may be a valid reason for that. ] 13:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I strongly support this being added to the site js and css. Why not common.css and common.js though? —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::There is no ]. See ]. --] 15:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
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. | |||
== Using images from other wikipedia == | |||
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.— ] • ] • ] • 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
I usually write in CAtalà viquipedia and sometimes I need an image that it's not in Commons but I find in GErmany wiki, for instance. The only solutions I know is copy this image to Commons and, then use it from Català wiki. Is it possible to use an image from English, French or whatever wikipedia without move it previously to Commons?. What should be the sintax to display the image?.Thanks. --] 09:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:I don't think that there is a way to do that. You either have to copy it to your local Misplaced Pages if it's under fair use or put it on commons for everyone to use if it's under a free license. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
== Blacklisted website not on any blacklist == | |||
== Job queue == | |||
I wanted to save an edit containing a link to tradingview.com but it keeps showing a message: | |||
A couple of things I've observed about the job queue at ]: | |||
#If only <nowiki><noinclude></nowiki> text is edited in a template, which of course has no affect on pages transcluding it, the job queue still grows. In the case of very heavily used templates like {{tl|WPBiography}} this can add a 6 figure number to the queue unnecessarily. It would be better if Mediawiki were able to filter our changes of this kind. | |||
#It would seem also that if a template is edited, and then changed again whilst the first round of changes are in the job queue (not desirable, but sometimes a bug is found or an edit reverted) the job queue grows again. Wouldn't it be better to queue up articles only once and perform all changes when the article reaches the front of the queue. --] 15:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
"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 " | |||
:# Could it be that you meant text in ]? If yes, ] solves that problem. | |||
:# Would be nice, but is nothing to make us bothered, as this is the job of the developers to optimise the servers as far enough as needed to support what is allowed. Or disallow by technical restrictions (example: ]) what is unwanted and will never be tolerated. Of course this as an ideal ;-). --] 14:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:::Whoops, I did mean <nowiki><noinclude></nowiki>. Thanks. --] 17:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
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) | |||
== Listing redirects to a template == | |||
: It's on the global blacklist at ]. ]] 14:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::Yeah. It was added in October 2017. See the ] and ]. – ] (] • ]) <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) | |||
== ] == | |||
I've just moved a heavily used template ({{tl|WikiProjectSongs}}→the much easier to remember {{tl|Songs}}). | |||
When I try to view this special page I just get the following error: | |||
My problem is that this template is used on over 13000 talk pages ({{WP1|Song}}) and the what links here list is very large. Is there any way of finding out which pages ''redirect'' there only, so I can check for double redirects? --] 11:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:There are no double redirects. I set the limit to 5000 (]), which covered all links/transclusions, and looked for the word "redirect", it was only found once, so there's no double redirects. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Excellent, thanks - and thanks for the tip. --] 17:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
{{!tq| 2024-12-21 18:40:02: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\RequestTimeout\RequestTimeoutException"}} | |||
== Odd article names == | |||
Is anyone else getting this error when viewing that page? Thanks. ] (]) 18:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
I was looking through the dump of the database looking for some words for the wiktionary when I ran into a whole bunch of odd article names: | |||
: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... – ] (] • ]) <small>''Please do '''not''' ] on reply.''</small> 15:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
*] | |||
:Tracked at ]. – ] <small>(])</small> 18:00, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
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== Colors of images in {{tl|Infobox government agency}} are inverted in the dark mode == | |||
Notice that these are article names with the space(s) removed. They are redirects. Any idea why these exist? (Someone at wiktionary asked about finding a list of all single word WP article names that didn't have entries in Wiktionary.) ] 14:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:No idea. Maybe initial typos that were moved later? —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 14:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:Early versions of MediaWiki used ] to generate wikilinks, and other wiki softwares still do. These are probably very old articles or had such redirects made to catch links created in that style by users who are used to link like that from other wikis. --] <span style="font-size:75%">]</span> 15:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::Yes, these are old CamelCase redirects. They probably need to be kept for historical reasons. ] 16:22, 2 September 2006 (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) | |||
:::Well, that's interesting. Thank you. ] 17:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
:@] it's most likely by {{ping|Jonesey95}} that has introduced the behaviour. Probably best discussed at ]. ] (]) 18:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
To confirm this, you can look back to the date of creation. For example, see the . ] 17:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
::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. ] ] 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. ] ] 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 == | |||
== Namespace question == | |||
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: | |||
Hi! Quick question: If I make an edit to ], then in which namespace would my edit be counted to be in—user space or article space? TIA!--]<sup>a.k.a.D<font color="green">]</font>epu<font color="white"> </font>Joseph |<font color="green">]</font></sup> 14:11, 2 September 2006 (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.}} | |||
:User space. It is a subpage of page Example in namespace User. ] 14:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
* deletion, 7 October 2005: {{tq|block upload of local logos for other wikis. Commons now uses ] as the site-wide logo. See also ].}} | |||
::Okay, thanks! I was beginning to wonder why I was having so many user space edits. This explains it. Thank you.--]<sup>a.k.a.D<font color="green">]</font>epu<font color="white"> </font>Joseph |<font color="green">]</font></sup> 14:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
] is also interesting. : | |||
== wikify template == | |||
{{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.}} | |||
Um, is something up with the wikify_date template? I think someone messed with it, and I don't know how to fix it. Thanks. ] 17:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
}} | |||
Does anybody remember any further details? | |||
:Please ask ] (, ). --] 18:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC) | |||
Thanks, ] (]) 20:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
::Perhaps also point out that the {{tl|Wikify}} template now appears to use the first optional parameter for two things, the date and whether the template is being used on an article or section. ] 18:14, 2 September 2006 (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) | |||
==Assistance needed at Wikiversity== | |||
::Thanks. ] (]) 14:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== Log out == | |||
Over at the English ], we're working on a ]. It contains some bugs that need to be eliminated, and I'm hoping to recruit an experienced coder to take on the task. In particular, we need to add <nowiki><h2> and </h2></nowiki> elements to the headings in the right-hand column, and the image is off-center (and lacking the right-hand border) in IE6. Also, the original designer used a complex system of transclusion that hopefully could be simplified, and I'm sure that plenty of our code is sloppy and inefficient. | |||
I keep logging out every time I close the browser on my phone. ] (]) 22:11, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
Thanks in advance! —] 09:03, 27 August 2006 (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) | |||
:No one has responded, so I'm bumping this to the bottom. If anyone can help, please step forward. —] 08:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC) | |||
::{{ping|TheDJ}} I have some sort of ad blocker enabled. ] (]) 22:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
== Cat-a-lot gadget == | |||
::Out of desperation, I'm bumping this one more time. We have consensus to implement the new Wikiversity main page, and only the need to fix these bugs is stopping us. Is anyone able and willing to help? —] 18:06, 2 September 2006 (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) |
Latest revision as of 23:42, 23 December 2024
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- A request for adminship is open for discussion.
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Seeking bot that checks for duplicate sources
Is there any bot on Misplaced Pages that will check an article for sources that are used multiple times (and could be combined)? ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 22:26, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- There is a tool available at https://yabbr.toolforge.org/ that helps combine duplicate references. – DreamRimmer (talk) 02:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like that's a different function. It finds articles where someone has twice named a citation using the same refname. I'm looking for something which finds duplicate URLs, so that I can combine them into one citation that can be referred to multiple times. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:ReFill is also helpful in combining duplicate references, but it is mainly used for fixing bare references. – DreamRimmer (talk) 02:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds like the ticket! I'll give it a try. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Grorp: There's User:Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences, but I've not used it myself. I did come across it here, inspiring me to do this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: Thanks! I've tried it out and it works great. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 03:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Grorp: There's User:Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences, but I've not used it myself. I did come across it here, inspiring me to do this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- That sounds like the ticket! I'll give it a try. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:ReFill is also helpful in combining duplicate references, but it is mainly used for fixing bare references. – DreamRimmer (talk) 02:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- Looks like that's a different function. It finds articles where someone has twice named a citation using the same refname. I'm looking for something which finds duplicate URLs, so that I can combine them into one citation that can be referred to multiple times. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
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:
- 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.
- 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:
- 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 Special:BotToken, check some boxes, and then submit.
Admin Bot (I run it): For this specific case I am permitted to run my own admin bot.Withdrawn per Rchard2scout and WMFviewdeleted
policy.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.- 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)
- 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)
- 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 beblock
,blockemail
,unreviewedpages
, andunwatchedpages
. 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)
- Hi Rchard2scout, thank you for your new comment and feedback. I hope your morning is going well! Ah yes
- 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)
- Hahaha, great minds think alike I guess! Thank you for your input. :) MolecularPilot 09:33, 18 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)
- 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)
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)
- Can confirm this is me! :) MolecularPilot 06:24, 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 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.
- 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)
- I guess I'm just too careful or chicken even if most people would refrain from casting aspersions.
- 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)
- 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)
- 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)
Why are frwiki talk pages so much nicer than ours?
Take a look at (for example) https://fr.wikipedia.org/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Oracle#Li_M'H%C3%A2_Ong_(2). This seems to be typical of talk pages on frwiki. The threading of replies is so much easier to follow. Is this just some snazzier CSS they're using, or something fundamentally better to edit the pages? RoySmith (talk) 01:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- It looks like just some snazzy CSS. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- I see no reason not to adopt the CSS over here, or some other form of threaded discussion by default.JayCubby 01:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- There are some gadgets that support it. I think ConvenientDiscussions is one of them. I'm not a general fan of the styling. Izno (talk) 02:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- A screenshot of Convenient Discussions for reference:
- Threads are collapsible, and a change is coming that would allow to collapse/expand all replies to a comment in one click, similar to how you can do that on Reddit with a +/− button.And, of course, pure CSS is only a half-solution here since markup and HTML produced by it are trickier and don't correspond to the actual comment structure as one-to-one. Jack who built the house (talk) 05:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'd love to see that too! – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:06, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- There are some gadgets that support it. I think ConvenientDiscussions is one of them. I'm not a general fan of the styling. Izno (talk) 02:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- I created my own experimental CSS stylesheet to add style formatting to discussion threads; see User:Isaacl/style/discussion-threads for an example of how it looks and instructions on using it. There is an accompanying user script to temporarily turn the style formatting off for the current page, should you want to see how the page looks by default. isaacl (talk) 02:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't personally like that layout, but the customer is always correct in matters of taste I suppose? It's just styling hacks (see without). frwiki has thousands of lines of custom css being loaded by default (e.g. from w:fr:MediaWiki:common.css , w:fr:MediaWiki:Vector-2022.css, w:fr:MediaWiki:Gadget-Mobile.css). Someone could write a "pretty talk pages" script here, and if it was popular we could make it available as a gadget. — xaosflux 14:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- What's been done in the past is A/B testing of different gimmicks by the WMF. I'd be curious to see the rate of abandoned comments now versus with a shiny new layout is. JayCubby 15:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- My stylesheet continues to be used by (double-checks)... only me. I like it, but it's not evident yet that there's a significant demand for different styling of discussion threads. isaacl (talk) 18:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- That looks HIDEOUS. All the boxes and colors distract me from the text. I would find it harder to follow those conversations. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- The threading is entirely frwiki's custom CSS. It's pretty easy to do, with how talk pages use nested definition-list syntax for discussions already;
body.ext-discussiontools-replytool-enabled dd { border-left: 2px solid lavender; padding-left: 1ex; }
gets you about 95% of the way there. There's plenty of room to get fancier, of course. (And sometime people use unordered lists instead, which would need to be handled separately.) - There's also a visible difference since enwiki is the only place that the DiscussionTools "visual enhancements" haven't been turned on yet (T379102). That's why they have the fancier thread summaries in the topic list and under the headings, and the more button-like reply links. If you're curious what that'd be like here, you can turn it on with the dtenable URL parameter.
- We did experiment with going much further in page-reformatting with DiscussionTools as well. You can see our structure-debug page for an example of that. It's actually what the talk pages in the mobile apps use now -- they get the talk page data from the DiscussionTools API and build the view from that, rather than from the normal wikitext render. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 16:39, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- This looks so cool! I'm really looking forward to it on enwiki :) any way I can opt-in to DiscussionTools improvements like this sooner? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- You can enable DiscussionTools in the beta menu. I don't know where that's located in Vector 2022's menu (I use MonoBook), but it's in there. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Right, I have it on, but it looks like FrWiki and other wikis are using a newer version with more features (which is what I'm interested in). – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- You can enable DiscussionTools in the beta menu. I don't know where that's located in Vector 2022's menu (I use MonoBook), but it's in there. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 04:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- For the record, those boxes don't show up on mobile. That issue, combined with the fact that replies aren't as far apart in the new version, makes it harder for mobile users to tell who is replying to who compared to the current version. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- This looks so cool! I'm really looking forward to it on enwiki :) any way I can opt-in to DiscussionTools improvements like this sooner? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Woah, it looks like MediaWiki has an even nicer talk page GUI? Any way I can enable that on all wikis? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- I have since learned that this would be a terrible idea. (I still like the look, though, and it would be great to have some way to sort threads by age.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- It would be indeed great to have more control over sorting threads, especially since there are a number of wikis (including the main wiki I contribute to, Russian Misplaced Pages) which have to resort to bad hacks to display certain forum pages in recent-oldest sorting order and not oldest-recent as it is default. It would’ve been great to see these hacks made obsolete with DiscussionTools, see phab:T313165, but AFAIK no one actively develops it any more, so I guess we’ll have to wait till WMF decides to fund it again. stjn 21:40, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- That's Flow. It failed for complicated reasons, has limped along unmaintained since 2016-ish, and is currently in the process of being completely removed now that DiscussionTools was deployed as the outcome of the 2019 talk pages consultation. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is also as ugly as homemade sin. Way too much whitespace.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- I have since learned that this would be a terrible idea. (I still like the look, though, and it would be great to have some way to sort threads by age.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Undesirable (and new?) line wrapping
I don't know if it's just me noticing something that has been there for a long time, or if something new is happening, or if my CSS or browser is to blame, but I am noticing undesirable line wrapping that I have not seen before. I am seeing references after full stops (periods) that wrap to the next line. I'm seeing the ")" in "f/16)" (in the lead of Exposure value) wrapping to the next line. And I think one other kind of wrapping that should not be happening but that I can't remember at the moment. I don't think this sort of wrapping was happening before; references stayed with the preceding punctuation, and a closing parenthesis would stay with the text that preceded it. I could be wrong or misremembering, of course. My gut feeling is that I just started noticing it in the last month or so.
If it's just me, I'll live with it, but I thought I would post here to see if this prompts anyone else to chime in. I am using Vector 2022 on the latest Firefox for Mac OS. I can link to example pages and even provide screen shots as needed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
I am seeing references after full stops (periods) that wrap to the next line.
- This has unfortunately always been the case. I found Phab tasks and comments documenting this going back to 2016: T100112#2027495, T125480. There have been cases where line wrapping around references behaved even worse than that (interesting ones I found: T96487, T110057, T132255), and those have been fixed.
I'm seeing the ")" in "f/16)" (in the lead of Exposure value) wrapping to the next line
- I can reproduce this, screenshot for reference: F58028918. This is caused by using
display: inline-block;
in the template {{f/}} (basically the same issue as T110057 mentioned above, actually). It was added not quite a year ago: . I'm not sure what these rules are for, but someone could probably find a way to do this differently and avoid the problem. And I think one other kind of wrapping that should not be happening but that I can't remember at the moment.
- Well, it's a bit tricky to guess from that ;), but my crystal ball shows me you're thinking of T353005, where some error and warning messages now break words with hyphens when wrapping lines, starting also about a year ago. I heard a few people complain about that and I find it a bit unpleasant myself. Did I guess right?
- Matma Rex talk 01:54, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Adding a
‍
after the span in {{f/}}, as shown in Special:Diff/1263967231, would at least fix the issue in that template. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Adding a
- The problem with NOT wrapping (especially when dictated by templates), is that it works for 90% of the cases. But there is also the 10% of cases where the value is too small to fit in the infobox or on a mobile screen in 1 line. But the templates can't make that distinction, so it's generally a bad idea to put 'no wrap' as a default in a template. Overall it is better to depend on the browser to mostly do things right and not fret too much about the occasional times that it gets it wrong. Because flipping that assumption around tends to create harder to maintain wikitext that gets it wrong about the same or even more often. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for the responses. As I said, I really can't tell if I'm seeing something new, or if I noticed one and now the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is in effect. If I see something really egregious, I'll take a screen shot. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:50, 19 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)
- 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
- @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)
- 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)
Updating broken JavaScript user script for adding a template to RefToolbar 2.0
Hi! Hopefully this is the right place to put this. Template:Cite RCDB's documentation contains a suggested user script to add the template to RefToolbar 2.0. However, it imports User:Mr.Z-man/refToolbar 2.0.js, which hasn't been a think since 2013. On the page is now a note saying "This script is now enabled by default." The existing script, however, does not work out of the box, throwing the error below. If someone who knows JS could help modify the script to work without the linked user script, that would be great!
VM385:2 Uncaught ReferenceError: $j is not defined at <anonymous>:2:913 at globalEval (startup.js:1141:17) at runScript (startup.js:1292:6) at enqueue (startup.js:1179:5) at execute (startup.js:1399:5) at doPropagation (startup.js:748:6)
Plighting Engineerd (talk) 01:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- The instructions were VERY VERY outdated. I have updated them and tested the 'new' fragment and it works. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks so much! Works perfectly now! Plighting Engineerd (talk) 13:23, 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)
- Likely also worth noting that, above the error, it says
- 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)
- 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)
- @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)
- 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)
- 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)
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:
- protection, 11 July 2005:
it's the sitewide logo in the upper left corner. Very bad if it were to get vandalized.- deletion, 7 October 2005:
block upload of local logos for other wikis. Commons now uses Image:Wiki-commons.png as the site-wide logo. See also Template:Deletion_requests#Image:Wiki.png.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)
Category: