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Village Pump - Archive

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These dicussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Post replies at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical), copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Note: Please add new material at the bottom of the page. Preceded by the following: =Sections archived on ~~~~~ =

Sections archived on 13:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Can't make new pages with IE

Here's another strange one... ever since the block I mentioned above was listed, I've been unable to make any new pages with IE. Every time I try, I get "HTTP Error: Resource is not found". I can still create pages OK with Safari and Mozilla, but I don't always have access to them. Editing existing pages with IE seems to be fine. It's got me stumped - anyone got any idea what's going on? (I haven't changed my preferences at all, so it's unlikely to be anything to do with that). Grutness...wha? 14:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting - sounds like it may be related to the recent change to make non-existent pages correctly return 404 Not Found. When exactly do you get this message (steps to reproduce)? And do you know if you're using a proxy server? Tom- 15:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, my bot has been getting the same error. If I create the new category, it runs fine, but if I dont' I get the 404 error. I thought it had to do with using this link en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=NON-existant-article&action=edit instead of en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=, but I got the same error with both. This is only when trying to create a new file. ∞Who?¿? 15:38, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

You use Macs, don’t you? There is special processing for Mac IE now, see bugzilla:2676. Susvolans ⇔ 15:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh yea, no, no proxy server for me. Windows XP btw. The page works fine with Mozilla, but shows up different in IE. When my bot runs this command:

GET http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Category:Bosnian_football_managers&action=edit

It gets this in return response. I think the new changes send a 404 code with the page, IE sometimes will igonre the server side 404 page and use its own, Mozilla will use the server 404. Perl on the other hand just sees the 404 and dies. ∞Who?¿? 15:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm also having trouble creating new pages. Will try another browser and let you know the results. paul klenk 22:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an IE thing. Just created a new page with Mozilla. paul klenk 23:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, I do use IE and Mac (IE5.2.1 and OS10.2.8), but creating new pages was no problem at all up until yesterday. As I said, it's fine if I try to create new pages with Safari or Mozilla, but not IE. I don't know if I'm using a proxy server (sorry), but the step in the process is identical to that mentioned above. If, say, I tried to load either or it would try to load but would be unable to, coming up with the message as mentioned above. Grutness...wha? 23:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I have the same problem. When I click on a red link, I get a 404 error instead of an edit page. And I'm on Windows Me. User:Zoe| 03:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Yep, it works fine with Firefox, but I've been having problems with Firefox lately and hate to use it. BTW, with IE I also get the 404 error when I try to "delete" a page that somebody else has already deleted. 172.184.238.193 03:16, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Whoops, that was me. User:Zoe| 03:26, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Windows ME? Egads! Which version of IE? android79 03:28, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

6.0.2800.1106. I can't afford to upgrade my operating system.  :( User:Zoe| 03:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Our article on the 404 error says IE will ignore a 404 if it's less than 512 bytes. A quick look at the sample Who's linked to above shows it's almost 25 kilobytes, so it shouldn't be a problem. We really need to do something to reduce the bloat. --cesarb 03:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

A quick look shows more than 10 kilobytes are used by the <charinsert> bits on MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning. --cesarb 03:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Works fine for me in IE 5.2.3, Mac OS X 10.4.2. --Brion 22:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

strange - still no go in IE5.2.1/OS10.2.8. Grutness...wha? 01:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Still happening for me. User:Zoe| 03:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Zoe, I had this problem before, but have since been able to create new pages. Now I just tried it again, and was unable to. paul klenk 05:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I've switched back to Firefox in order to access Misplaced Pages, though I hope it isn't going to hang my computer up like it has been doing. But this is unacceptable for people who have no choice but to use IE, the largest browser in the world. User:Zoe| 03:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I cannot find any report on bugzilla about this problem. If it is still happening, someone should file a bug report there. --cesarb 23:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay. (Embarrassed silence) So... erm... how do you do that? Grutness...wha? 00:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/, you have to register with your email (which is visible to anyone, unlike here), chose "Enter Bug", "MediaWiki", and enter the details. I'd do it (I already have an account there), if not for the fact that I do not have a computer with MSIE, and so the bug report would end up like "someone said somewhere MSIE has some problem with something related to 404s on the edit pages". --cesarb 00:29, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Did you already report it? It's not necessarily an IE issue, as perl's get function is now receiving the 404, where as it didn't before. I have a temporary workaround, but think they must have changed something in the response headers for this to happen. I don't think it has to do with a Microsoft update because it effected people with Macs too. «»Who?¿? 10:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I found this report bugzilla:3161, it deals with the Special:Export function, but it discusses 404 header on the GET function but not with post. I am not sure this is the same issue or not. «»Who?¿? 10:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Now submitted as bugzilla:3730

This is still happening. This needs to be fixed now. Not only does it make it impossible to warn vandals before I block them, I can't create new AfD entries, I can't see the contributions of users whose edits I see on Recent Changes, and it's going to drive away new users who will almost surely be using IE. 22:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Since Tom hasn't made any further response on this I've gone ahead and reverted the change for now. Please let me know if it's all working properly now. --Brion 02:48, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Now works fine using PERL using GET, described above. Thanks. «»Who?¿? 03:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! I can now make new pages in IE again! Whee! Grutness...wha? 11:11, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Me, too! Huzzah! User:Zoe| 02:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Disabling the new skip to navigation and skip to search links?

Is there any way to disable the new links at the top of the page that take you directly to the search and navigation sections? I don't need them because I can already use keyboard shortcuts to access the sections, and the links are a distraction for me. Also, was there a discussion page for this change, and if so, where was it? - Graham/pianoman87 talk 04:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

They are hidden in the CSS, and are designed for text-mode and voice browsers. If you're seeing them unexpectedly, can you provide details of your browser configuration and preferences? --Brion 04:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I am using a screen reader to navigate wikipedia, so I guess it means I should be expecting them. I'm using internet explorer 6 with windows xp Service Pack 2 and jaws for windows. - Graham/pianoman87 talk 04:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm also using the monobook skin. I only started seeing them today. - Graham/pianoman87 talk 04:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

See User talk:Tom-#Jump links. --Brion 01:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi there, I'm now back after a week away in sunny Edinburgh, going to look into this in the next few days. May well make an option to disable these, but they really need to be enabled by default. Tom- 15:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It would be best if they were enabled by default, for novice users of accessibility products. As I can use shortcut keys to accomplish the same function, they are not needed. How is it determined whether or not I am using a screen access program? Graham/pianoman87 talk 11:45, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

These can now be disabled with a new preference: Enable "jump to" accessibility links. Tom- 00:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The Mystery of the Disappearing Watched Page

I've noticed that some of the pages in my watchlist occasionaly get removed. In particular, I have to add Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism to my watchlist on an almost weekly basis. Has anyone else noticed this? - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 00:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I've had this same problem with a couple of the pages on my watchlist. Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion seems to be the most often one to disappear from my watchlist. BlankVerse ∅ 02:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if it's at all related to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Watchlist weirdness... —Cryptic (talk) 07:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Image display problem???

Can anyone figure out why the first image at Great Lakes Storm of 1913 won't display? It does exist, if you go directly to the image page, but it won't show up in the article, just as a red link. It also doesn't show up at Gallery of 1913 Great Lakes storm images/Other images. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-21 03:15

The problem is that it's a PNG which is over the 12.5 megapixel limit. Please reupload it in a format that won't kill the servers, e.g. a JPEG or small PNG. -- Tim Starling

Way to break our shit. --SPUI (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Same to you. You crash the site, I'll break your shit, fair deal? -- Tim Starling 18:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Bad Section Edits

A few minutes ago, I made two section edits that went awry and erased everything but the edited section. It may have happened to others; I'm not sure. The diffs I could find, all showing the trademark "section edit" summary, are http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:Superm401/Sandbox&diff=26228979&oldid=26228910 and http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk&diff=26228252&oldid=26228181 --Superm401 | Talk 01:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Can you describe the editing and submission process for these edits? On both, you had made the previous edit shortly before. Was there simultaneous editing going on? Back/forth clicking? etc --Brion 02:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I didn't ever have either open for editing in more than one tab(or window). I also didn't use the back button in these cases. First, I edited the RD talk and posted a section(I think manually, not with the new section button

Numerous times on a very old, slow laptop I have found that if I don't wait for the entire page to render in Firefox (any version) then the submit button will act like a preview button. It's very annoying. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It also happens on newer desktops. I've been getting this every now and again - especially accompanying the "preview" glitch mentioned a bit further up this page. If I'm editing one section of a long page and press save and it comes back with preview, I've learnt to copy what I've written to clipboard, reload the article and re-edit the section - otherwise I'm liable to lose the rest of the page. This happens in IE, in Safari, and in Mozilla. Grutness...wha? 22:47, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Whitespace issue

Far too much whitespace! what is going on? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe somebody inserted a <br clear="all" /> tag? Just for testing, I inserted that tag between your post and mine. Thue | talk 12:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I just came across this on another article (Hugo Chávez). The problem is the two images, one directly above each other, each "connected" to a different paragraph. The formatting, as it's given, requires that each of their tops be aligned with their respective paragraphs, and the only way for it to manage that is to add a bunch of whitespace and shift the lower image's paragraph downwards... Anyway, to avoid it, you can either move/remove/resize one of the images, or move one of them over to the other side. Or add more text, of course. Also note that one reason why this problem isn't usually caught is because you won't see it if you just use section editing on one of the two paragraphs involved; whoever added the image that "broke" it didn't notice because of that. --Aquillion 07:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I have seen the same problem on a lot of pages. They look fine in Firefox, but "spaced out" in MSIE. I have solved the problem, especially if the text to images ratio is low, by putting the images together at the top of the article rather than attaching them to paragraphs. Hard to explain, but if you look at the before and after results and look at the code you'll see what I mean. Sorry, the only page I've edited recently that I can remember had this problem deals with the vagina, so you have been warned:

• Before
• After
• Diff

If you look at these pages in Firefox, they will be identical, but in MSIE 6 on Windows XP you will see that the "before" look is spaced out and the "after" looks fine.

--Craig 10:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Block link in the toolbox

There's now a block link in the toolbox for administrators when visiting user and user talk pages. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 09:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to work in the Classic skin, however. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:53, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Commons image problems

See User:SPUI/wtf. Image:Amtrak schematic.png exists on commons, and I can embed it full-size or in a frame, or even thumbed as part of the text. But thumbing it in a frame gives a red link. --SPUI (talk) 09:23, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• See above, where I had the same problem. They no longer thumbnail images larger than 3500x3500. For you, your best bet is to make a smaller version and add a link to the larger version on its Image: page. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-24 11:50
  • Argh, what bullshit. A smaller version won't show everything. --SPUI (talk) 21:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
    • In this case it may be a good idea to adopt the scheme that was used before thumbnailing was implemented. Create a super-simplified fat-line version with no text (maybe with a simple US coastline - I can give you a vector of that if you need one) but the same basic scheme (colors etc.) as your mega-detailed version. Put that in an image-frame on the target page, and link to the full version from both the frame caption and the small image's imagepage. Even if the thumbnail code did work on your Amtrak map, the thumbnail would inevitably look spindly and blocky and generally nasty. It would be particularly cool if SVGs had adaptive level of detail, but (right now) one has to do that stuff manually. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
• I made a smaller version of commons:Image:Tectonic plates.png, so the thumbnail in Plate tectonics would work. It got reverted. Maybe that means more poorly-announced changes are about to take place. (SEWilco 20:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC))
  • Further activity no longer implies any changes. (SEWilco 14:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC))

reverting an image

A new user uploaded a new pic replacing the image "Resurrection.jpg". How do I revert the image? (I already told the new user about this and asked him to upload his image under a different name.) Thanks - Tempshill 18:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Click on the (rev) link next to the revision you want to revert to. ~~ N (t/c) 18:33, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Tempshill 23:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

what if the page i want to create is already created, but the already created page feautres a different definition/information?

i'm very sorry if this is mentioned somewhere else on the site, but i can't find it.

please help.

Say you wanted to make an article about "Joe Taylor", a baseball player. But there was already an article at "Joe Taylor", for a politician. Then you'd create "Joe Taylor (baseball player)" instead, and you'd put a little note on the top of both Joe Taylor pages pointing to the other, saying "For the baseball player, see Joe Taylor (baseball player)". More details at Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

(the following post was written at the same time as the one above e.g. i got an edit conflict)

see wikipedia:disambiguation for details but you basically have 3 choices depending on the relative merits of the two topics.

add an inline disambig link to the existing article pointing at your new one.

move the existing article and put an inline disambig link at the top of your new one (be VERY carefull with this choice though you are likely to ignite flamewars but sometimes it is the write option)

move the existing article and put a disambiguation page in its place. Try not to do that if there are only ever likely to be two articles on that disabiguation page though that just means everyone has to navigate to a second page rather than a portion of them (and hopefully that portion should be less than half if you choose the primary topic correctly)

remember when moving articles always do so by using the proper page move feature. If you can't do it yourself go through requested moves or ask an admin directly. Plugwash 00:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Article not appearing in category

Article Ça Va has category Category:Avant-progressive rock albums, yet it does not appear in Category:Avant-progressive rock albums. What gives? --Bruce1ee 06:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

It showed up after I null-edited the article. I've noticed that sometimes "failed" edits go through on the article, but related things like category listings, whatlinkshere lists, and image links don't get updated. —Cryptic (talk) 06:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The last edit I did on the article (which was to add the cat) did give an error and it logged me out - hence the anon edit. BTW how do you do a "null edit"? --Bruce1ee 06:51, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit the article and hit "save" without changing anything. —Cryptic (talk) 07:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Internal Links

I'm curious, I made an article WITH internal links but without any categorization (I'm new at this), and then somehow the logger didn't record any of them and then the admin reinstated some (not all) of them, along with the categorization. I'm very curious as to why the logger would remove them? Is it because I didn't put a categorization? I'm just confused because I wouldn't want to go through all of it and put internal links all over again in another instance. And my friend doesn't believe me when I tell him I did indeed put them in.

• What is the name of the article? Joyous (talk) 01:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• The reference to "the logger didn't record any of them and then the admin reinstated" suggests to me that perhaps "the logger" may be "my watchlist". As the watchlist only shows the most recent change, the person only saw someone else's edit which added categorization. The editor may be unaware of the ability to go to an Article and using the History feature to see all edits. (SEWilco 14:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC))

Non Isolated High Voltage DC Testing

Looking for procedures, experiences and practices on how to complete a non-isolated 24kv DC test placing a engineer/human at equal potential to the 24kv DC test object without personal protective equipment (PPE) utilized.

Please reply with any technical references, practices, references, etc.

J. Harvey

<email removed>

This question should be asked on the reference desk. --cesarb 15:14, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Missing entries in Watchlist

No matter how much I fiddle with my watchlist, some edits are missing. If I look at my contributions, all edits they appear, and the page history, they're all there too, but not in the watchlist. In fact, it seems like the most recent edit of a page is listed, but earlier edits aren't. If I edit a page, the listing gets updated to that edit, and any previous ones disappear.

I saw an old bug on bugzilla that was fixed, so its not that. I try Ctrl+F5, restart FireFox, restart PC to no avail. Also happens in IE. --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 03:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

That's not an error, that's normal! By design, the watchlist shows only the most recent edit. It's a short overview of what's been changed, not a complete list of all changes. --Brion 06:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Bizarre. I guess I never noticed that that's how it works. Anyway, I wish it would show all the edits; then I can monitor pages just with the diffs from the watchlist. Oh well! --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 06:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

HTTP 500 errors

I keep getting "HTTP 500 - Internal server error", over and over again, whether I want to view a page, edit it, delete it, whatever. I have to keep trying five or six times before the task finally takes.

Also, if I use my Back arrow to go back to the Recent changes page, instead of taking me to the most recent version of the page, it takes me to the first version of the page I saw tonight. User:Zoe| 03:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not experiencing any such problem, is it over? --Brion 06:16, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I've been getting this a lot for the last couple days. "Refresh" usually works though. What is interesting to me is that it is a new error; I'd never seen it until a couple days ago. (Occasionally I get the "sorry we have a problem" error on a refresh of an HTTP 500 error page.) Antandrus (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to be happening tonight. User:Zoe| 03:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Back and Forwards Button Behaviour with Articles with Same Name and Different Capitalisation

I ran into an interesting thing when looking at two articles: ETA and Eta. I have duplicated the same problem in both Firefox and MSIE on Windows.

To see this problem for yourself you need to have visited some other page (anywhere on the Web) before going to one or other of the above pages. Then load one or other of these pages. If you load ETA first you'll see that there is a disambiguation link at the top to Eta; if you load Eta first, the first link in the second section is to ETA. Click through to the "eta" page that you did not load. Now click your back button. You will go back two pages; the back button will skip the intervening page. Then click the forwards button; with Firefox you will go to the first "eta" page you loaded, but the forwards button will then be disabled, not allowing you to go forward to the next "eta" page; with MSIE you will go to the second "eta" page you loaded, skipping the intervening "eta" page.

Actually, here's an even more straightforward demonstration. Open a new browser window (Firefox or MSIE), type in the address for one of the "eta" pages, then click on the link to the other "eta" page. Look at your back button; it is still disabled, so you can't go back to the first "eta" page you loaded.

I'm not going to run an exhaustive survey of all the possible permutations and results, as I think I've made my point. It's also interesting that it happens in the latest versions of both Firefox and MSIE, so perhaps (since Windows is not a case-sensitive operating system) it's a Windows problem. Anyone out there running a desktop Linux system who can duplicate the problem?

Suggested solution: Perhaps the powers that be (forgive me; I'm new here) should restrict creating articles that have the same name, but are capitalised differently. Any thoughts, or am I missing something or the 50 billionth person to bring this up? :) I did look around but didn't see anything similar.

--Craig 11:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Another example: from any Wiki page (say Main Page), go to CAT, then from CAT go to Cat (another article). Now hitting the "Back" button takes you back to the Main Page and not CAT. This is in IE6 on WinXP. --Bruce1ee 11:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

These are simply bugs in IE and Firefox (not exhibited by Safari on Max OS X, BTW). The hostname portion of a URL is case insensitive (because DNS is case insensitive), but the rest is case sensitive. Instituting a naming restriction in Misplaced Pages to cater to software bugs strikes me as completely unnecessary. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I agree with you 100% from a technological point of view and am aware that the host name is case-insensitive by definition. From a practicality and usability point of view I disagree with respect to the URI; what is right in a perfect world isn't necessarily right in the real world. In addition to that, I think that having articles with identical names but with different capitalisation (ETA/Eta, CAT/Cat, and probably lots more) is just confusing, especially to the masses who have forgotten where their "Shift" key is, so I would think that would tip the balance in favour of avoiding the issue. That said, if there are thousands of such articles out there then perhaps it's more work than it's worth, but I do think it's worth the consideration of whoever would actually make such technical and policy decisions. --Craig 15:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if my answer sounded overly flippant. I meant in this case, not in general, I don't see a reason to change Misplaced Pages for these specific bugs. I'm not sure how many sets of articles there are with names that differ only in capitalization, but I suspect it's at least thousands. In all of these cases I think it's important to include a link to articles with titles in other capitalizations to address the confusion factor. With the 1.5 version of the software, article titles can now even include non-ASCII characters - I strongly suspect moving to case insensitive from where we are would be very unpopular (there's even a subset of users unhappy that the first character of an article title is always converted to upper case). And, if you're wondering, technical decisions are generally made by the volunteer developers who work on the project (anyone who can help is more than welcome to join the effort) and policy decisions are generally made by community consensus. If you feel strongly enough about this to pursue it in either the technical or policy arenas, please do so. I'm a user, just like you (perhaps I've been around longer) - ultimately your opinion counts just as much as mine. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

No worries about the almost-flippant reply. :)

It's not a life-threatening issue (the browser bug, that is) and I will sleep well tonight... assuming I actually go to bed for a change. (Thankfully the weekend is coming and I'll get away from the computer for a bit.) By the lack of response it seems I'm the only one (or one of two) who was rather alarmed by the discovery -- more "Cool, I found a bug!" alarmed than "Oh my god!" alarmed, mind you -- because the structure of Misplaced Pages URLs is rather unique compared to most other Web sites, so it's not something you'd usually run into on other sites. But balancing usability, technical and administrative issues, based on what you say it makes the most sense give the most weight to the administrative issue of retroactively dealing with a whole lot of articles with the same name and different capitalisation.

I will clarify though that I wasn't implying Misplaced Pages use a case-insensitive system; I've seen that issue addressed elsewhere. Although I didn't elaborate, my suggested solution (using "ETA" as an example) would have been to make both "ETA" and "Eta" a single disambiguation page and then require the "ETA" article on the Basque terrorist organisation to have a different title, either the full name (in Basque, Spanish or English, depending on existing guidelines) or something like "ETA (Basque organisation)".

Finally, thanks for the reminder about the Wiki organisational structure vis-a-vis consensus decisions on technical and policy matters. You correctly noted that I am rather new, and one of the things I am still learning is how to participate effectively and where, besides the obvious task of editing and creating articles.

--Craig 03:39, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I reported the bug a few days ago and someone said it should be fixed in the next release of Firefox (1.5). -- Kjkolb 12:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Great! Now can someone let Bill know? :) --Craig (t|c) 13:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Works for me on Firefox 1.5 beta2, so the bug should already be fixed. --cesarb 15:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Slow, sluggish and database problems

I've noticed that, over the last three days, Misplaced Pages has been rather slow, and the database is down 30% of the time Sceptre 18:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, hop on #wikimedia-tech on irc.freenode.net and give us a hand. I see from your user page that you're a PHP programmer. Why not help out with some optimisation work? -- Tim Starling 19:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I figured out the problem, it was something with Greasemonkey, not with Wikpedia Sceptre 08:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

would like to place a link

Dear Sir/Madam, I am representing my client who owns a website on "coins and coin collecting". We would like to place a link in your website,please let us know how we go about it. Thanks for sparing some time. sukumar

Sorry, that's not appropriate for Misplaced Pages. If you have an incredibly notable website that an unrelated person would feel inspired to write about, then an article would be appropriate. I know the article title is offensive, but see Misplaced Pages:Spam. Thanks - Tempshill 04:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

If the site is quite comprehensive then adding a link to it under "External links" in coin collecting might be worthwhile. violet/riga (t) 10:35, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Remove one licensing choice from Upload page

Hi,

On the "Upload file" page, can we remove the "Images copyrighted by Wikimedia" choice from the "Licensing" popup menu? That choice tags the image with "CopyrightByWikimedia", which says:

This image is copyrighted by the Wikimedia foundation. It is one of the official logos or designs used by the Wikimedia foundation or by one of its projects. Notwithstanding any other statement on this page this image has not been licensed under the GFDL. © & ™ All rights reserved, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..

No ordinary user will ever use this tag, so it shouldn't be in the popup menu. Obviously the tag should exist, but anybody who will be using the tag will be familiar with using {{double brackets}}.

This came up when a user tagged Image:Le Marche.JPG with this tag from the popup menu because she wished to donate the photo to Misplaced Pages, and thought "CopyrightByWikimedia" would be nice to use. Thanks - Tempshill 04:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Posted to Misplaced Pages:Bug reports. Tempshill 18:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Help fixing a link

For the Reference desk, I'm trying to create a link that will help people ask their questions. To that end I've created a link, which is supposed to lead to an edit page with an special page at the top, to explain the rules.

The syntax is or variations thereof.

The odd thing is that Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/science does work (although it's useless as it points to a page named Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/science (uncapped science). The correct link should point to Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Science, but that one doesn't seem to work. The template that should explain the rules does not appear (and neither does the standard template).

Does anyone have any idea what I'm missing? Is it a bug or am I misusing something? -- Ec5618 10:14, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to have something to do with the fact that the page already exists, in which case there is no need for the standard Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name.-banner. Is there any way this can be enabled/bypassed? It would help to be able to do this on pages such as WP:RD, WP:HD , WP:AFD and the like. -- Ec5618 10:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a great idea and could have many uses, but I think you've figured the problem yourself. Perhaps it's just a mediawiki tweak. violet/riga (t) 10:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Drat, I really wasn't looking to spearhear a campaign to change the Mediawiki software. How would I go about fixing this? Who do I see? - Ec5618 17:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

No Google search of Commons

Google searching for "Rosa Parks" in en.wikimedia.org search or commons.wikipedia.org search produces no results. A .wikipedia.org search only produces 40 results, many from "Kate's Quickview". (SEWilco 15:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC))

The English Misplaced Pages is at en.wikipedia.org (with a 'P' not an 'M': pedia, not media), Commons is at commons.wikimedia.org (with an 'M' not a 'P': media, not pedia). Adjust and re-search. - Mark 15:26, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Oops. I had started with commons.wikipedia.org search (produces no results) and forgot to change domains for wikipedia.org. So "en" still works, while "commons" does not. (SEWilco 15:35, 28 October 2005 (UTC))

Were there any Rosa Parks images on commons when google last spidered it (sometime in the last month, probably)? Searching commons for Monument Valley works fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Current SVG support?

What's the current state of SVG support in Misplaced Pages? The meta page m:SVG image support seems to be rather outdated. I've been trying to use SVGs for the first time (at polarizer), but the server-side renderer seems to have problems. Sometimes my images don't appear, and when they do render, the text (despite the glyphs apparently being properly embedded) doesn't use the correct font. My picture look ok off-line in the Adobe SVG renderer. I'd like to convert some of my diagrams (e.g.: image:Abbe-diagram.png) to SVG but not if the text doesn't render correctly. Is this as good as it gets at the moment, or am I doing something wrong? --Bob Mellish 16:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

At the moment we're using a slightly out-of-date version of librsvg to render SVGs; we'll upgrade that soon the latest goodies which should fix some bugs. In the future we may move to Batik as a renderer, but this requires some more footwork (setting up a server of some sort to get decent performance, etc). --Brion 21:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I should also add that our librsvg is patched to disable external image references; this will cause files with such references to fail to render. (Otherwise it will happily grab any file off the filesystem and try including it as an inline image; this could be a security risk.) --Brion 21:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

subst: problems

There are two issues I have with subst; it is not exactly equivalent to simple template transclusion.

First of all, it doesn't process <noinclude> and <includeonly>, which means some templates will behave differently if they are used as {{subst:template}} instead of {{template}}.

Second, parameters with default arguments remain in the substituted text. For example, in {{{2|Blah}}}, if the subst'ed template did not have a second parameter, it will insert {{{2|Blah}}} in the wikimarkup instead of Blah. This isn't a problem (currently), but it looks pretty silly. I can't seem to get in BugZilla at the moment, otherwise I'd have put this there. — squell\ 22:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• • Both issues are listed on BugZilla. squell 23:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

editcountitis

I've noticed that the User edits counter doesnt work, which is a shame, because I want to see how much of a life I haven't got :) Sceptre 03:21, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that it was intentionally disabled. (It was never a supported application, and it was up to Kate (talk · contribs) whether or not to provide it.) You can still figure out your edit count on your contributions page by hand! — mendel ☎ 04:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It appears to be working now. -- DS1953 23:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

no, it was never intentionally disabled (well not recently, anyway :). please stop spreading this rumour. kate.

External Link Icon Problem?

I am using Opera 9 tp1 and it is displaying external link icons after internal links for all but the menu, tabs, and class .plainlinks. This didn't happen in 8.5 iirc. I can't find where this icon is put in (in the CSS) so I can't see why it's doing this. Please help me as this is getting really annoying. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Fixed by adding something to User:Ilyanep/monobook.css, thanks User:IceKarma. Perhaps adding it to the sitewide stylesheet would help? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 04:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Using Contributions page to track Related changes

It appears that currently, we can't click on "Related changes" on a contributions page. This would be a useful feature, especially for tracking the edits of anons. I'm trying to reply to an anon that uses a small range of IPs, but have no way of knowing what their current IP. They are only editing a small number of articles, so I could check the history of each article to find the new IP. It'd be much easier to just click Related Changes. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-30 13:51

Uploading .pdf files

No response on Policy in 5 days, so I'll try here:

I've been patrolling images the last few days and noticed a few instances of people uploading .pdf files. Image:Turinys.pdf is an example from today. What is the intention of letting people do this? It won't show up as an image in our pages. (And, probably beside the point, it's not really a free format.) Tempshill 22:06, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

SVG image not rendering

Can anyone suggest a reason why Image:UK_IT_and_NIC_2005-06.svg will not render correctly in Misplaced Pages? The file itself renders correctly in Firefox 1.5 (beta2), Opera 8.5, Adobe SVG viewer in Internet Explorer and Adobe Illustrator CS -- but not in Misplaced Pages. I would be grateful of any suggestions. --throup ✆ ✍ 17:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I've got it working now (at Image:UK Tax.svg). The problem was that my text editor (TextPad) was saving a UTF-8 BOM which was obviously confusing the server. Thanks to the W3C Validator for solving that one. --throup ✆ ✍ 20:59, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Editintro with new section

No links in the format http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=PAGENAME&action=edit&section=new&editintro=INTROPAGE will work unless PAGENAME doesn't exist. As an example, http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Reference%20desk/Humanities&action=edit&section=new&editintro=Misplaced Pages:Reference%20desk/How%20to%20ask doesn't work. They still load a section edit page, but the edit intro does not display. Is this a feature, bug, or "issue"? :) Superm401 | Talk 18:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Artificial delay (very brief block) after username registration

Would it be possible to introduce an artificial delay between the time a username is registered (and appears in Special:Log/newusers) and the time the newly-registered user can make their first edit? It should be at least 60 seconds, perhaps a few minutes, and perhaps this could be enforced in the software by automatically applying a very short block (one that doesn't affect the underlying IP).

This would not inconvenience normal users, who normally only register one username, ever. However it would help to deal with certain abusive sock usernames. Obviously, vandals can register innocuous-sounding sock usernames, but very often the whole point is to create a throwaway single-use username to leave a (taunting or sometimes even obscene) "message" in the contribution history. It would be nice if such "messages" could remain confined to the newusers log.

Right now, vandalbots can make their first edit only seconds after registering, and that's often too fast to block by manual or artificial means. Since the throwaway name is only used for a single hit-and-run edit, there's little benefit to blocking it after the fact, although we do so anyway.

As mentioned above, this wouldn't stop all vandalism, just "taunting username" vandalism. It would remove much of the motivation for even trying to registering "on wheels" or "is communism" sock names, since routine RC patrol would catch these in plenty of time. Right now, such names are often created in bursts, where the vandals engage in a race against time trying to get their edits in before each sock is blocked. We could put an end to that particular bit of nonsense, at least.

-- Curps 19:59, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

i certainly find i get highly pissed off by any form registration delays on sites (mainly in the form of waiting for e-mails) and i'm far less likely to actually contribute to a site if i face such a delay. Maybe wikipedias allowing of anon edits would mitigate this a bit but i still think it would piss off prospective contributers. Plugwash 20:16, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It's only 60 seconds. I think this is a good idea. ~~ N (t/c) 20:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

If it's 60 seconds and we tell them why, maybe it would be acceptable, especially as I'd think genuine contributors would often take nearly that long to go (back) to the article they want to edit, read relevant bit, edit, and save. However a simple IP block would lose edits made before 60 seconds are up, wouldn't it? Whereas in that case we'd want to say "hang on, this will appear in 37 seconds because it's your first edit (unless you're blocked between now and then)." Rd232 20:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree; 60 seconds is reasonable. A minute goes by quite quickly when you're navigating a new website, and this delay would be helpful in fighting vandalbots. Antandrus (talk) 23:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• Maybe an even better idea would be a delay that depends on how many usernames were registered from that IP in the past day or so. 1st user name - 10 seconds. 2nd user name - 1 minute. 3rd user name - 2 minutes. Etc. Prevents massive account creation. Radiant_>|< 01:45, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • There would have to be some special provision for shared IPs, or the delays could easily become quite large in some cases. Rd232 21:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Uploading New Version of Image

Hi, I am trying to upload a new version of an image over the top of the earlier one, which I have done many times before. The specific file I am trying to upload over is Image:Yarralumla_IBMap-TEST-MJC.png. I am getting a page that tells me "A file with this name exists already; please go back and upload this file under a new name." and doesn't give me the option to overwrite like I used to get. Is this a problem with the code? --Martyman-(talk) 03:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I have received the same error on Image:A1a_at_ksc_small.jpg. I cannot find any options to change, and I am able to make revision changes to other images. Figure it must be a misconfiguration. --Mcmillen76 04:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I've talked with Tim Starling and Brion Vibber, and they told me that it is because they've disallowed it while they're fixing problems with the rendering of images. That restriction will be lifted as soon as they finish the transition to a new server. Titoxd 05:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I just asked again how long it's going to be down, and they estimate a few hours. Titoxd 05:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It's back. Go wild! --Brion 06:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism report

I was looking up Greek history on wikipedia tonight and came across this Plato page with a picture of a penis on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Plato

I don't know what to say other than to report it and hope it gets fixed immediately.

thank you.

I think you're confused. The last edit of that page was about 12 hours before you posted your message, and there are no pictures of penises on the page. In any case, if there was you have the ability to edit that page yourself to remove it, which is the whole point of this encyclopaedia. --Craig (t|c) 04:46, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The vandalism was to the {{Otheruses}} template. It was reverted after two minutes, and unfortunately you were one of the users who looked at an article which used that template in that time.-gadfium 05:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. Learn something new every day. :) --Craig (t|c) 05:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Bad rendering at Category:User_en-N

In the article Category:User_en-N garbage appears right after its own self-cite; this appears to not be a browser problem, but some template gone deeply amok. Alas, I have not the technical wherewithal to diagnose whence the problem actually is. --moof 13:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

That's because somebody placed a tfd on Template:User sco N. See Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion#User sco templates. Lupo 13:37, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Subst'ing templates

A bot is under production to automatically subst certain templates. It is generally accepted that certain templates should always be subst'ed rather than transcluded, for page stability and to reduce server load (see WP:AUM for details). If you have suggestions for templates that should always (or never) be subst'ed, please contribute them to Misplaced Pages:Subst. Radiant_>|< 23:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

vandals

someone vandalised the page on Plato by inserting "Hi mom u rule" in the first sentence.

I cannot seem to edit the page.

Somebody please remedy.

I see nothing like that on Plato. Are you talking about another page? --Craig (t|c) 13:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

AFD does not display on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion

Hi all. I was putting up an article for deletion, Midwest lakes policy center, and I noticed that another article, Midwest Lakes Policy Center, was already on the list. They are two different pages, for the same topic. There is just a capitalization difference between the namespaces. However, only one of them shows up on the list, even though in the AFD list's source code both of them are there. I think this is a bug; can anyone comment? --mdd4696 14:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The issue seems to be resolved now. Perhaps a cache issue? Next time, try to click on the "Purge server cache" link just above the Table of Contents. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

information requested of flavor

Dear Sir:
 We have mixing plant and flavor business in Iran .
 We would like to have more information about raw materials
 of liquid flavors and powder flavors (e.g seasoning ) and
 circumstance mixing these raw materials and making flavors .

 Best regard
 Asgharinia
 manager director

You should ask at the reference desk. Dmharvey File:User dmharvey sig.png Talk 13:01, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Frequency of household power and it's relationship to electrocution risk.

Does the 50 Hz used in EU countries pose more or less of an electrocution risk than the 60Hz used in the USA?

The frequency wouldn't much matter (although it might have a slight effect on the degree to which muscle spasms cause the victim to hold onto the wire). The amperage is the most important factor, but voltage also matters. And, whether the skin is wet, whether the person is grounded, whether they have a heart condition, etc., also come into play. StuRat 02:36, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Formatting

Okay, when I refreshed a page a moment ago, everything went weird as if it had been reformatted in an XPish sort of way. It was too specific to just have been a loading error. What's going on? It went when I refreshed again.

Audio links

The problem: We want a way to briefly link to audio files, like so:

Bordeaux ( pronunciation) is a port city in...

But if you click on the loudspeaker icon, you go to the image page for the loudspeaker icon, which obviously confuses a lot of people. So it currently looks like this:

Bordeaux (Audio file "Fr-Bordeaux.ogg" not found) is a port city in...

Ideally, we would be able to use css or software changes to make a clickable icon for audio files. One way I found that works is to add the image to all ogg files, in the same way that external link icons are added after all external links:

#bodyContent a {
    background: url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Loudspeaker.png") center left no-repeat;
    padding-left: 16px;
}

This is probably a bad idea, though. We probably want the icons on a case-by-case basis. We should be able to make a class for this:

.audiolink {
    background: url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Loudspeaker.png") center left no-repeat;
    padding-left: 16px;
}

This mostly works for me. Problems:

• This behaves a little differently than the other example. The loudspeaker is not actually clickable, which is better than going to the image page but worse than going to the sound file. Someone who knows css should be able to fix this. Probably because the style is a span now instead of being the actual a?
• We can't link to nothing and get a lone loudspeaker that links to the audio, since a link with no text defaults to a number: . Maybe this is ok, though.
• It doesn't override the external links icon, so that would have to be added or else all audio files would get class="plainlinksneverexpand" also.

See Template talk:Audio#Possible solution and MediaWiki_talk:Common.css#Audio_links User:Omegatron/sig 19:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

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