Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 125

It appears that both Wikipedia and Commons refuse to allow file uploads with similar names. For example, if a poor-quality file named blah.jpg exits, and I want to upload an SVG equivalent of better quality called blah.svg, none of the dialogs permits the file to be uploaded, even though the name is clearly different. The system tells me that a file by that name already exists, yet when I try to access the file named blah.svg, it isn't there, either on Wikipedia or on Commons. As recently as a few weeks ago, there was no issue in using the same base file name, as long as the file name extension wasn't the same and the file type was different. In some cases the the original file name is poorly chosen and it is desirable to give the vector replacement file a different name, but in other cases forcing the user to change the base name is simply chicanery. The way it originally worked, the dialog would simply warn the user that a file with a chosen name already existed, but it wouldn't absolutely prevent the user from uploading it. This bug needs to be fixed ASAP. — Quicksilver^{T @} 02:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

What are steps to reproduce (with URLs)? Any specific example? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

to confirm, if you upload via special:upload (not upload wizard) and check the ignore all warnings box, does it work? There is an open bug about not working with upwiz, but it should currently work with old upload form when ignoring warnings. Bawolff (talk) 21:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

That works — sort of. I got it to work on Commons just now via special:upload. Once the form has (improperly) decided that I'm trying to upload a file with the same name, even if I check the "Ignore any warnings" box, the form fields are all disabled. Then, I click the "Upload file" button, and it does upload, but the body of the page is blank and needs to be created manually. That's fine, if one is familiar with the page format and templates, but totally mystifying to a novice. I'm near-certain that the upload dialog didn't behave that way in the past, although at the moment I've been unable to find a recent example in either Wikipedia or Commons where I uploaded a SVG file with a base name identical to an existing PNG or JPG file, with the intention of replacing the raster file with an equivalent vector file in an article by just changing the file name extension from .png or .jpg to .svg. The system doesn't consider "blah.svg" the same file name as "blah.png", so why should the upload dialog treat them as being the same? The Unix-like operating system on which Wikipedia and Commons run is case-sensitive with respect to file names, so it would treat "blah.png" as a different file than "blah.PNG". It makes sense to block de novo uploads like that, differing only in the capitalisation of the extension. To me, though, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for the upload scripts to block uploads where the file name extension is completely different, even when extension capitalisation is not used as a criterion. I'd like to see the rationale for it having been made so. Maybe there was no rationale: I may simply be a bad algorithm in the script. — Quicksilver^{T @} 22:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

For bugs with the default upload form on Special:Upload on commons, should be reported at commons:MediaWiki_talk:UploadForm.js. Bawolff (talk) 21:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I read a report from a logged out user (an IP address) recently that he could see hidden categories, and I have just logged out and can confirm this. This is unwanted behaviour. Is this already being logged (Bugzilla?) and solved? Fram (talk) 08:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Which page(s), which categories? I've just tried Iffley Halt railway station - logged in, I see seven cats; logged out, just five (Category:South East England railway station stubs, Category:Disused railway stations in Oxfordshire, Category:Former Great Western Railway stations, Category:Railway stations opened in 1908, Category:Railway stations closed in 1915). The hidden categories not shown when I'm logged out are Category:Coordinates on Wikidata, Category:Articles with OS grid coordinates. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:02, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, it looks like only hidden categories on categories are shown to logged out users. On random category Category:20th-century Swedish actors, I see Category:Underpopulated categories when logged out. On Category:Neuroscience, I see Category:Categories requiring diffusion and Category:Commons category with local link same as on Wikidata. Fram (talk) 09:52, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a bug report. If reproducible, it would be nice if somebody could create a bug report in the Bugzilla bug tracker by following the instructions How to report a bug. Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's a bug. See WP:HIDDENCAT 'Notice that "hidden" parent categories are never in fact hidden on category pages (although they are listed separately).', which was added with this edit - more than five years ago. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:24, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

It is noted (thanks, hadn't seen that), but I do believe it is a bug. I see no reason why hidden cats should be shown to logged out users when on categories, but not when on articles. Fram (talk) 10:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

User:AKlapper (WMF), Sofixit! I can't, as you blocked me from Bugzilla... Fram (talk) 10:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I won't fix it, because I don't write code. When it comes to fixing, you're not blocked from Gerrit (just for the records). --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

My post was a reply to your "it would be nice if somebody could create a bug report in the Bugzilla bug tracker by following the instructions ". I assumed that was obvious because a) it was the only post you made here, and b) I explicitly referred to Bugzilla. Apparently not though... So, for clarity: @AKlapper (WMF): why don't you create the bugzilla report yourself, instead of hoping that "somebody" here would do it? You have access to and supposedly some knowledge of Bugzilla, and are now aware of the situation... Fram (talk) 12:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I haven't done that because some community members here said that they don't think it's a bug. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I've found that it goes back at least six years. See Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 10#Update WP:CAT, fourth bullet "Hiddencats are not hidden in Category-space. There is separate listing for hidden parent categories." which is in a post by SamuelWantman dated 08:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC). --Redrose64 (talk) 10:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Got it. It's not a bug, but a bugfix. See bugzilla:13140 and rev:31250 - the change came in with mw:MediaWiki 1.13. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Strange. Why would anyone who can't or doesn't want to see hidden cats on articles, want to navigate hidden cats in categories? The request doesn't make sense to me. Fram (talk) 11:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Because otherwise they can end up at pages where there is basically no content and no links out except for the page furnature on the left hand side and top of the screen. Stuartyeates (talk) 19:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Examples? I don't believe we should have any non-hidden categories which are only categorized in hidden categories, that doesn't make any sense. I have never noticed such a thing, does this scenario really happen? Fram (talk) 08:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

IP's don't have the option to show hidden categories but may still want to navigate hidden categories, and they are usually only members of other hidden categories. If you go to a subcategory then you should have a navigation link back to the category you came from. Articles often have a large number of hidden maintenace categories which can be annoying if you don't want them. Categories for articles will rarely have more than one hidden category which is easier to live with. If a category is member of many hidden categories then it's usually a maintenace category and when you navigate those, you are probably interested in maintenace and want to see the hidden categories. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Split from above section

But this is a good opportunity to remind you that all the fonts are scheduled to change (for people using the default/Vector skin, which is most of us) in about an hour. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Terrible idea. For shame. Shame on you. zzz (talk) 10:56, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

And it's live, helmets on and buckle up! — Edokter (talk) — 19:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Helmets? We don't need no stinkin' helmets! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 20:16, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Arrgghh!!! Well 1/2 Arrrgghh, anyway!! I like the new font. It's in line with research that I read a while back that Calibri (and its near relatives) are the best online/computer screen fonts. BUT, BUT, the difference between regular print/script and LINKS is hard to see. VERY HARD. I know I'm shouting, but I think this is a BIG DEAL. Tapered (talk) 09:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Since the procedure for articles for creation began encompassing drafts in the user space (whenever that was), I've twice fixed broken links created by the {{Afc decline}} template, the second instance being here. In each case, the link was to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/X/sandbox when it should have been User:X/sandbox. I guess the template needs to be fixed so it can accommodate review drafts whether they are at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation or in user space or in the Draft space. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I asked at WT:WikiProject Articles for creation#AfC_templates_in_user_space, but it looks like you can add "full=" in front of the userspace article name, that is, use |full=User:Example/subpage. That should be in the documentation. —PC-XT+ 08:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Known issue that should be fixed up as part of the move to Draft: space and the introduction of the new AfC wizard/reviewing scripts. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 11:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I noticed this

Stack trace from load.php, function mw</<.log</log.warn, line 148. load.php:148

Blocked loading mixed active content "http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fran_McCrory/CH2.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"

in Firefox 28.0. The page referred to was moved to User:Fran Rogers/CH2.js. Paradoctor (talk) 16:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

No idea about the context as no steps to reproduce were given, but that can normally be fixed by replacing a link starting with "http://" by only "//" so it becomes protocol independent. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 16:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Ooops. This is the page this occured on: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Saw&namespace=3&limit=500

"fixed" Ok, but I have no idea who needs to know this. Paradoctor (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

On User:Paradoctor/monobook.js you import User:Krimpet/CH2.js which imports User:Fran Rogers/CH2 en.js which says importScriptURI('http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fran_McCrory/CH2.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I fixed this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:38, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Prompt service, thanks. Paradoctor (talk) 19:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Please, remove these two lines in the protected Template:Country data Democratic Republic of the Congo:

| link alias-football = Congo DR national football team
| name alias-football = Congo DR

because Congo DR national football team is "double" redirected back to the DR Congo national football team.
Thanks, Maiō T. (talk) 21:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Redirects are not a problem, though to avoid this one, "Congo DR" should be replaced with "DR Congo" in both lines. Removing these lines entirely will create links to Democratic Republic of the Congo national football team, another redirect. A request like this is better asked at Template talk:Country data Democratic Republic of the Congo, with {{TPER}} added if needed to gain attention from admins and template editors. SiBr₄ (talk) 22:16, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

You should raise an edit request at Template talk:Country data Democratic Republic of the Congo, that way anybody wanting to know why the template was edited can easily find out. They're unlikely to come here - or if they do, and it's more than a week later, they'll need to wade through the archives. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

After clicking on the "Special characters" tab on accident while on the edit screen and it "dropping down", now every time I hit edit on any page the Special characters drop down starts in the down position instead of up and out of the way. I can't figure out a way for it to stay in the up position and out of my view. Thank you kindly for any ideas you may have one how to pin it back in place. Regards, —  dainomite   21:46, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

What happens when you click on the "Special characters" heading again or the triangle next to it? What is your browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:35, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the normal behavior is to leave it in whatever state you last used it in. So if you manually close it, it should stay closed for all future editing sessions. (That's what haapens for me). If that's not happening for you, then please tell us more about your web browser and computer. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Well since it seems to "default" in the down/expanded position when I click on the "Special characters" drop down it goes back up into its collapsed/"normal position"... until the time when I hit "edit" on another page then it starts off in the down/expanded position and the vicious cycle repeats. Also, even when i hit preview or show changes it goes back into the down/expanded position. I use SRWare Iron for my browser, version 27.0.1500.0 (201000). Hope this helps. —  dainomite   23:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The editor uses cookies to keep track of state. Since this code hasn't been touched in ages and no else has complained, I suspect that SRWare which seems to be messing with cookies to keep you safer, missed a beat somehow, causing you to have a cookie that you cannot change the value of any longer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know who's responsible for this, and most people are out because it's the weekend, so your report is now T65586. In the meantime, if the problem persists through the usual cookie-clearing and whatever else you want to try, have you tried clicking the "Cite" menu? At least if the Cite menu were to stick open, it would take up less room than the special characters one. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. I did click the "Cite" menu and now that is persistent. Since it only takes up one line it's not too shabby but rather interesting that the drop down being expanded persists regardless of what menu header is clicked. —  dainomite   23:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting... I even switched computers (I was on my laptop previously) and now I'm on my desktop which has the same browser/version as the laptop and I still have the problem. Just more tidbits for whomever tinkers with that bug report. —  dainomite   05:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I've followed advice given above – Preferences → Gadgets → Vector classic typography (use only sans-serif in Vector skin) – returning Wikipedia pages to something approaching the pre-2 April version. Problem I'm finding now is the way an image is rendered in Infobox Song, as shown here. (My system's Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5, by the way.) I'm not sure how the same examples appear without the opt-out.

Can anything be done to avoid the unsightly formatting text appearing around these images? Thanks, JG66 (talk) 02:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

It's not a typography-related problem, as far as I can tell. I checked the documentation for {{Infobox single}}, which said to use just the file name (without wikilinking) in |Cover=, so I made this edit. It looks better to me now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, but without the wikilinking it's not possible to reduce images to a size that's suitable for the context. That example (like others) is only a face label from a 7" disc – not a whole disc – so it looks way over the top at full size, in my opinion.

Thanks very much for trying, but I don't think that's the answer at all. Is it not possible to fix the issue I mentioned without losing the resizing function? JG66 (talk) 04:30, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I fixed the technical problem with the "unsightly formatting text", as you requested. I do not see a way to get the image resizing function that you request, but I am not an expert with infoboxes.

If you want to display a cover image in {{infobox song}} or {{infobox single}} that does not fill the default 200-pixel space, I recommend that you ask for help at Template_talk:Infobox_song. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:41, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks again, JG66 (talk) 11:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The infobox has no size parameter and always sets the size at 250px. The output of a template can be manipulated with {{replace}} as in {{replace|(infobox code)|250px|180px}} which would curently work in the example, but it's an unstable method and I don't recommend it unless it fixes a far more serious issue. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Just to let you know Jonesey95 – and anyone else – I've taken this over to Infobox song. Seems that the new-look pages led to a change having to be made with the infobox. JG66 (talk) 13:34, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Just a general question. Has Wikipedia changed its Typeface slightly recently? The characters are a bit different.--BabbaQ (talk) 11:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a huge discussion above at #Font size and style. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear editors: Is there a way to tell the creation date of a web page? For example, THIS OLD DRAFT, created in February 2012, was copy-pasted to NASA Space Universe a month or so later. However, there is also http://www.linernotes.com/o/1/NASA_Space_Universe, and I am trying to determine whether the last one is copied from Wikipedia or visa versa. If the draft came first, a history merge (and a severe NPOV editing of the subsequent mainspace article) may be in order to show that. If the Liner Notes page came first, I guess the whole introductory paragraph will have to go from the article. I tried Firefox page info, but it only tells when the page was last edited, not when it was first created. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Some web developers - but by no means all - helpfully include revision information, sometimes visibly, sometimes in the form of metadata within the HTML source (possibly <!-- ... --> hidden comments, possibly the <meta /> element) but there is no requirement or even a recognised format. Wikipedia pages include embedded comments like

<!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwiki:pcache:idhash:1192206-0!*!0!!en!4!* and timestamp 20140406004148 -->

but this gives the current revision, not the creation. In the absence of such information, you really need shell-prompt access on the servers which host the pages. All websites with any reasonable amount of security will prevent such access. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; I rather suspected this was the case, but I was hoping... —Anne Delong (talk) 14:55, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Anne Delong! Sometimes it is possible to find archived versions of a webpage on Internet Archive, but not this time i'm afraid. Still, it's often a very useful service. --Atlasowa (talk) 18:40, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm... I knew about the Internet Archive, but I hadn't thought of using it in this context.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Template:sockpuppet does not seem to recognise the username of the sockpuppeteer. It outputs the following message: An editor has expressed a concern that this account may be a sock puppet of User-multi error: "{{{1}}}" is not a valid project or language code (help)... See also: User talk:Wendylee885. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 18:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Probably caused by today's edit to template {{User3}}. - DVdm (talk) 18:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It seems that Mr. Stradivarius (talk · contribs) has been making changes to Template:User3 and some modules (don't ask me to investigate the modules). --Redrose64 (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you guys. No problem. I'm sure Mr. Stradivarius will fix it in the end. Thanks again. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 18:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed {{sockpuppet}} and restored the new version of {{user3}}. The sockpuppet template was using a user3 invocation like this: {{user3|Example|Example}}. The second "Example" is a leftover from before user3 used Template:User-multi, when it was used as a display value. However, that hasn't worked for years now. I've been updating all the user links templates to use equivalent syntax to {{user}}, which uses the second parameter as a project or language code to link to users on other projects. Invalid project or language codes result in an error, whereas there is no error if they are absent. Previously there was no error, as {{user-multi}} could not see the second parameter, but when I passed it through it thought it was a project code and duly reported it as an error. This could also be fixed by just not passing the parameter through, but for consistency's sake, I think passing it through and fixing the broken transclusions is the better solution. If anyone is interested to see which pages have errors on them, they are all in Category:UserLinks transclusions with errors. The category is suffering from job queue delays, though - archives should not be categorised with the new version of Module:UserLinks, for instance, but there are still quite a few left in the category. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello. Do you know if there is a template like Template:16TeamBracket-2leggedSF, but the 2legged start from QF and not for SF? I mean that Round 16 one leg, QF and SF two legs, final one leg. If not, can you help me create it? Xaris333 (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know to answer your first question (there's Template:16TeamBracket-2legs-except_final, but that has the Round-of-16 as 2 legs too... Couldn't find any with 1-2-2-1 yet), but considering how that's being put together, i think creating what you need wouldn't be too hard. Btw, how would the new template be called? -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 20:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Template:16TeamBracket-2leggedQF2leggedSF. Xaris333 (talk) 21:02, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Enjoy using it. -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 22:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello. Do you know why the page http://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/pcount/index.php?name=Xaris333&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia is not working? Is there any other tool? Xaris333 (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi! Yes, there is: http://tools.wmflabs.org/supercount/index.php?user=Xaris333&project=en.wikipedia It has been reworked.--Piramidion (talk) 21:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Can the text of a template be varied based on the userrights of the editor who posts it? (e.g. different wording for admin / non-admin users). NE Ent 22:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

You can add text that is admin specific using the class sysop-show. The following is only visible to sysops: To be used sparsely and not inside content END. It's used in a few maintenance templates. Similar technique is available for accountcreator, templateeditor and autoconfirmed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Note that using those classes will result in it looking different based on who is reading it, rather than who is posting it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

That's probably not useful here; i read the question as "Can the final text, visible to the user to whom it was addressed, be different based on the accessrights of whoever posted it?"... Something like #switch on some magicword for those userrights. -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 23:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm asking. NE Ent 01:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

In August last year, all publication data in {{infobox book}} was merged into one new |published= parameter. Work began on migrating existing uses to the new format, until questions were raised about the effect this had on data granularity.

Any input and suggestions on a proposed fix, which keeps the new one-line per edition formatting while providing full data granularity would be much appreciated (centralised discussion here). Thanks. ‑‑xensyria^T 23:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

08:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Query on this template's talkpage here ("Div not span..?"). Sardanaphalus (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I've been doing some work on the Lua/CSS/JS CodeEditor to make it and its toolbar a bit more usable, but I'm looking for some input on what YOU want in the toolbar

Some possible options are:

A list of existing key commands is here And ACE itself has a demo site that shows a few of the options as well, if you want to experiment.

I've now got a button to show invisible characters, and a button to show the find and replace dialog and wondering where to go next. Of course most options are available already trough key commands but many people are not familiar with those, so what do you think should be in the toolbar, what do you think should NOT be in there, and do you have additional ideas to the ones I listed above. I can really use the input. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Wait, the editor has syntax checking that works? Right now I rely on a crude hack to have it.

"Go to line", indentation guides and indentation converter would be great. Also, remove buttons that are only relevant to wikitext. Keφr 06:34, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

A patch to remove all the other buttons is being worked on, a patch for code completion is waiting for review and a patch to enable syntax checking is already merged (preview of the last available on beta labs) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:26, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Finally. Those forgotten commas were driving me nuts. How about stripping trailing whitespace from lines? I think it should even run automatically before saving a JS/CSS page.

Also, can the JS linter be customised or hooked somehow? For example, I would like to turn off warning about assignment-expressions in conditionals (I like using the if (m = /regex/.exec(s)) idiom). Or warn when using some specific symbols, like deprecated MediaWiki features. Keφr 15:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

As long as it is supported in JSHint, then with this technique, we can make some 'initial' changes, or even you as a user can make some changes, by hooking into codeEditor's mw.hook event. (I should document that part btw). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• There are tickets on Bugzilla for word-wrap and an option to turn auto-complete off. There may be others. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 15:34, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Linewrapping. And with auto-complete, do you mean automatic brace and quote matching perhaps ?) or code completion? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes, T55915. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 16:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Nothing to do with the toolbar, but could we make the font size a bit bigger? For me it is significantly smaller than the default wiki font size, so I have to change the browser font size every time I switch from wiki pages to CodeEditor if I want to avoid squinting. I'm not sure where the setting is best applied though. Also, is there a way to override the ctrl+R shortcut? I have been known to press that instead of ctrl+F, and it has made me lose work more than once, as on Firefox and Chrome it is the shortcut to refresh the page. Out of the toolbar buttons listed above, I think the most useful ones would be enable soft wrapping of lines, show invisible chars, search and replace, go to line, and indent/unindent. I don't see myself using disable gutter/line numbers or tab/page guides. Also, what does the "edit snippets" feature do? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:29, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

We can, though for me it's already quite big (12px Monaco). I think that if you don't have the Monaco, it's probably significantly smaller. I'll think about how to solve that. With regards to the shortcuts, I plan on adding the dialog to warn you about unsaved changes, but currently it's conflicting with dialog of the plain wiki editor, so I need to spend some time refining it. But having that dialog should make the problem of keyboard shortcut conflicts less problematic I think. Edit snippets is a mode where you can maintain and keep templates that you can reuse. I'm not sure on how to do that yet, preferably they are saved to some userspace page. It will likely be last on my list, since there is plenty low hanging fruit for now. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, having the dialog to warn about unsaved changes would do the trick. I don't think there's any need to make the edit snippets feature available for now, either. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:28, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Keep the font size as it is, please. These old eyes have no problem reading the text in the editor using Chrome.

Tool bar help menu should be appropriate to the code editor and should include the list of keyboard commands and perhaps links to css/js/lua references.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:13, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing on Ubuntu with standard fonts. Trappist, is that any different from what you are seeing? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 13:28, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Font on my machine is completely different from yours. The code editor font and the font in this edit window (not the enhanced editor) are similar to each other. The beta code editor and the current code editor, for me, have similar fonts.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:00, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• Every editor that supports Unicode should have a function to display the code (and perhaps name) of a character. This could be a character pointed to by the mouse, or the character at the cursor location. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:37, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
  • That is not something that ACE currently supports, but I'll put it on the list. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:50, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• Remembered something now: relegate the "search and replace" function to another shortcut (Ctrl+H seems customary), instead of Ctrl+F twice. The rationale is that I often use Ctrl+F with the intention to simply move the keyboard focus to the search box, and sometimes I forget it was already there. — Keφr 06:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • There are a couple of commands that have already been removed (not reassigned) for similar reasons. The problem with reassigning is that it also 'messes' with your expectations. I'm not sure what is better. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
• I now added a warning dialog when you try to save something that contains errors. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Warnings do not count, apparently. Can that be added as an option? How about adding a window listing all the detected anomalies?
    • I plan to have those visual with a statusbar. The patch has been submitted for review and this is a screenshot of how that would look. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

  Also, when can we expect the changes to go live? — Keφr 07:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

  Every merged change in git is immediately visible on betalabs, takes up to half a week to reach MediaWiki.org and test.wikipedia, up to a week to reach most non-Wikipedia wikis and up to 1,5 week to reach english wikipedia. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Another thing which would be great: Lua linter warning about globals other than built-ins (mw, table, ipairs, etc.), just like JSHint can do. Though this would probably require changes to Ace itself, and maybe even the underlying Lua parser. — Keφr 14:02, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
• I experience a weird behaviour by the CodeEditor when editing Lua modules. Most often I get a regular WP edit screen (plain text), but sometimes the edit screen opens in CE mode (with the numbered lines). This CE shows more often when trying (failing) to Save page with code errors, and after hitting the Changes button. I see no pattern, and can't tell if it is related to the changes discussed here. I have not actively changed my settings for the CE editor AFAIK (i'd like to use it though). Would it help if I make an extensive report here, or is is a beta-thing that will go away over time? -DePiep (talk) 15:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

copied from the Help desk, with small change of my own words, 14:30, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, when the word Talk of the talk page tab of an article is blue, I often click on it to see if there are any disagreements about the content of the article. I am used to do this as well when using Wikipedia to learn something, not only when editing.

On the English Wikipedia however, many talk pages only consist of a template with information about ratings, Wikiprojects, etc. I am not interested in those templates, so this causes many times a disappointment about unnecessary page loading. I once read that other people sharing this feeling made some gadget or so which changes the colour of 'Talk' in these cases. So there is not only red (when there is no talk page) and blue but also a third colour (green for example), for template-only 'Talk' pages. The word Talk only being blue when there is really talk.

I forgot to bookmark the place where I read this and now I can't find it any-more. Does anybody know about this?

Best regards, Bever (talk) 02:13, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Curious as well, that sounds like an interesting tool.Naraht (talk) 10:23, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like something that could be added to the gadget "Display an assessment of an article's quality in its page header (documentation)", the feature request page for which is User talk:Pyrospirit/metadata --Redrose64 (talk) 14:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

@Bever, Naraht, and Redrose64: That would be Anomie's User:Anomie/talklink script. I'll add screenshots to this section, for clarity. :) (I've used it for a while (in vector), and love it. I'd definitely support integrating it with the existing gadget, or making it a new one.) –Quiddity (talk) 19:07, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I've had it since I saw this post a few days ago; it's great! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:07, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

As part of IEG project me and Ravid ziv wrote a user script similar to RefToolbar but for VisualEditor - it allows to easily add citations templates (Cite web/Cite book/Cite journal/Cite news). The scripts adds a "cite" option in toolbar, in which you can select a citation template, fill its parameters, and then it adds the template, within reference tag (<ref>) to article.

More information cite button, citation dialog (selecting template) ...

cite button	citation dialog (selecting template)

Close

We think it can be very helpful for editors who use VisualEditor and makes it much easier to insert citations. To use the script add to your personal JS the following code:

{{subst:iusc|User:ערן/refToolbarVeLoader.js}}

We invite you to use and test it. You are welcome to suggest missing features or share other ideas that may improve the use of citations in VE (or a nice idea for icon ). Eran (talk) 14:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Where do you want the feedback?

• 'month' is deprecated and will now give an error; 'date' now supports year, month year, season year and day month year/month day year. We are only keeping 'year' when a disambiguator is need for Harvard/shortened footnotes.
• Unused parameters are added
• Spacing around = is inconsistent (my preference is no space)

--  Gadget850 ^talk 15:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

|coauthors= is also deprecated and will give an error.

I don't know if it would be better, but maybe using "first1" and "last1" would give people the idea that if they have more authors, they can add them in Preview mode using "first2", "last2", etc.

Is it possible to nag people when they try to add a parameter that requires another parameter? For example, |accessdate= requires |url=, and using |url= without a |title= will generate an error message.

I haven't tested it, but does your code properly encode characters like | and = when they are used in parameters where they would otherwise create errors? Using | within a parameters will create an "unnamed parameter" or "unsupported parameter" error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback.

• Deprecated parameters - We removed coauthors parameter. Where is the deprecated month parameter? (in which template?) the tool doesn't add it as far as we test (It is possible however to add additional parameter - all the supported parameters declared in the template documentation)
• Empty/unused parameters - the tool doesn't add them any more to source code.
• Spacing around = - it is the default convention the VE adds spacing. Both options are fine, but we want to be consistent with the rest of the VE (standard template dialog)
• Regarding constraints between parameters (accessdate and url) - it isn't possible to specify complex constraints between parameters currently, but TemplateData allows to specify simple constraints (required/optional param) and sets of associated params.

Eran (talk) 17:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Re constraints: {{cite web}} without |url= generates an error, so you could require that. It's OK to have |url= without |accessdate=, so you can't require them together, unfortunately. I do not see any other parameters in your code that are required or that interact, other than the ones I described above. Keep up the good work. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

@ערן: There might be a slight problem here... I believe the VE team in collaboration with community feedback, has already put a lot of time and effort into an official and cross-wiki-utilizable "Citation feature" for VE. You can see details and discussion about that here: mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog, and see yesterday's Metrics meeting overview of the feature (youtube at exact timestamp), and try it out at beta.wmflabs. Did you talk to the VE team about your work on this? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news :( –Quiddity (talk) 18:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity, thanks for letting us know, it seems that there was some misunderstanding with the VE team and duplication of work, and we will talk with the VE team to integrate the benefits of our gadget (such as adding optional parameters easily), and the comments above to VisualEditor itself. He hope to see a core support for citation live in production in the near future. Eran (talk) 08:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Eran, have you connected with anyone about this? Let me know if you need help. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF), I can't catch Trevor currently on the IRC, but I sent him a mail. Thanks, 21:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

VE should have really had support for the cite templates before it launched. Glad to see this is being created. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor did have support for citation templates when it was launched. What it didn't have was convenient support for citation templates: You had to add a reference, insert a template, hope that TemplateData was defined, insert each parameter separately, add each bit of data separately, and hope that you didn't forget anything.

It's better now, but what it really needs is autofilling. They're working on at the moment, but it sounds like it will be some months before that's truly complete. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You should also include {{Citation}} as a citation template. Like Jonesey95, I recommend |first1= and |last1=. I would differ from Gadget slightly in having a space after the "=" (and also preceding the vertical bars). A big point to consider: full citations need not, and in fact do not, always go into footnotes (<refs>...</refs>). If someone wants to add a citation in a "References" section you should allow a non-footnoted insertion into a list. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a list of all namespaces used on WMF wikis? It's just been pointed out to me that Module:Namespace detect will have problems on en.wikisource because they have a namespace named "Page". The module automatically detects namespace names, converts them to lower case, and allows them as parameter names. The problem is that there is also a "page" parameter that is used to set a page name for testing purposes. The next time I choose a default parameter name I'd like to avoid clashes like this one, so a comprehensive list would be very helpful. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

As you know, there are hundreds of namespace names as translated for the other-language wikipedias. Beware namespace "Format:" for templates in Romanian Wikipedia, with hundreds of others: Clowan, Mal, Mall, Malline, Modele, Mudell, Patrono, Plantilia, Plantilla, Predloga, Προτυπο (Protypo), Sjabloon, Snið, Stampa, Templat, Template, Templet, Veidne, Vorlage, etc. (hundreds). Consider making parameter names as code-symbols or numbered, such as "pg=" or "v2=" or "&page=" with a leading ampersand for each parameter name, etc. -Wikid77 07:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

With the way extensions can add namespaces and such, your best bet is probably to hit /w/api.php?action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=namespaces|namespacealiases on every wiki. Anomie⚔ 11:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Latin uses "Formula" for "Template". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips. Looks like it's finally time I should learn how to use Pywikibot. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 06:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Is InitialiseSettings.php.txt still current? If so: 'wgExtraNamespaces' => array(. --Splarka (rant) 07:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

@Splarka: It is current, but only includes extra namespaces (like, for example, the "Draft:" namespace here on en.wp), not translations of default ones (like "Template:" → "Vorlage:" in German). Matma Rex talk 19:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so I'm now thinking of updating Module:Category handler, and that has the following parameters: "categories", "category2", "nocat", "subpage", "all" and "other". If any of those might conflict with any existing namespaces on any other wikis, they shouldn't be made into default parameters. However, every time we change a default parameter name it's going to mean an extra argument lookup, which has a performance cost. (And this is a very widely-used module, often with many uses on one page.) At the moment I'm thinking we should change "all" and "other" - does anyone else have any advice on the best thing to do? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 07:01, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

For some reason I can no longer see the this user's sig [Windows7/Firefox]:  ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  Screenshot:

Is this part of the known WindowsXP/Windows7 font change bug? —Neotarf (talk) 05:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It was me picking Unicode characters for my cat-face that aren't supported in the font you're using. While it looked fine in MacOS X (on my system, which is not vanilla), I just tested it in Windows 7 (not vanilla either, but not heavily customized) and got a "less bad" result (only missing the left whiskers), but that's bad enough. In nearly-vanilla Windows 8, the characters all show up, but the middle one looks like two separate characters and doesn't work for this idea, in the default font in Firefox, for non-logged in users at Wikipedia; same result when logged in with the Typography Refresh beta turned on. I've switched to a simpler kitteh in my current sig and worked around the middle-character problem by picking something else. Looks fine in Mac OS X, Windows 7, Window 8.

I don't know anything about a "known WindowsXP/Windows7 font change bug". Can you link to something specific?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

bugzilla:63512 is probably the related bug report here, just for your info. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:30, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I wish we had a Lua module where you could paste in a set of characters, or the unicode numbers from inside the box when they don't display, and get back a download link for a Wikipedia-recommended font to display them. I could code the module and paste in a data set... the problem is, I don't know where to find out what font to recommend! Wnt (talk) 22:56, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there a menu available for User:Talk pages that lists the special pages for the respective user, or are we limited to writing it down, or memory? In other words, username/sandbox2 or /archives or /banner links, or whatever?? Atsme☯ talk 13:11, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If you mean you want a list of all your subpages, you can put the following on your user page: {{Special:PrefixIndex/User:Atsme/}}. — Edokter (talk) — 13:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

You can use User:PrimeHunter/Subpages.js to add a toolbox link saying "Subpages" to list subpages of the current page. Use User:PrimeHunter/My subpages.js if you want a link to your own user subpages at the top of every page. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:16, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: What is the banner about at that page? It reads:

Code that you insert on this page could contain malicious content capable of compromising your account. If you are unsure whether code you are adding to this page is safe, you can ask at the appropriate village pump. The code will be executed when previewing this page. Atsme☯ talk 15:06, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

The software displays that warning whenever you edit a ".js" page. But the code on PrimeHunter's two pages is harmless. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:19, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's a standard warning at MediaWiki:Userjsyoucanpreview, automatically displayed on all .js user pages, also your common JavaScript when it's empty before adding the scripts if you want them. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

You don't need any of these scripts if you're prepared to make one extra click. When you're on a user page or user talk page, look for the "Page information" link in the sidebar. Click that; in the first box, look for the row "Number of subpages of this page". This should be bluelinked; click that. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you much to all. Good lessons learned for this newbie. Atsme☯ talk 19:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Propun să se creeze obligativitatea inserării informative a imaginilor care să conţină următoarele elemente:
--localitatea ex Bucureşti (Rom);
--Locul: strada şi denumirea instituţiei ex-cal Victoriei-Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a
României;
Deci: imagine>>> Bucureşti-cal Victoriei_Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României.
Mai propun ca toate informaţiile editate in limba engleză a Wikipediei să fie inserate şi in limba română a Wikipediei.ro
Cu consideraţie, M Drosu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.39.206.89 (talk) 15:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

This page is for communication in English. I don't know Romanian and it's hard to tell exactly what you propose from the below machine translation by Google Translate. Wikipedia language editions are edited independently. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Image Presentation Technique

I propose to create informative insertion obligation images containing the following elements:
- Eg city Bucharest (ROU);
- Location: the street and the name of ex-horse-Victoria National Museum of History
Romania;
So: >>> image Victoriei_Muzeul horse Bucharest Romanian National History.
Proposes that all information published in the English Wikipedia is inserted and the Romanian language Wikipediei.ro
regards, M Drosu

I'm a native speaker and it's still difficult to understand much of the message (it might be about an image-naming policy, but i can't be sure). But here it is, using a proper translation instead of an automated one: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jokes Free4Me (talk • contribs) 16:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Image Presentation Technique

I suggest to create the obligation of informative insertion of images containing the following elements:

- Locality, e.g. Bucharest (ROU);

- Place: the street and the name of the institution, e.g.- Victoriei Way- National Museum of History of Romania.

So: image >>> Bucharest-Victoriei Way_National Museum of History of Romania.

I also suggest that all information edited in the English Wikipedia to also be inserted in the Romanian language of-Wikipedia.ro

regards, M Drosu

What is the Mediawiki interface page for the "Watch this page" checkbox text? I found MediaWiki:Minoredit for the "This is a minor edit" checkbox, but have been unable to find the other one. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:16, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn: MediaWiki:Watchthis. In general, the easiest way to find the source of a message is to add &uselang=qqx to the URL (example). See also mw:Help:System_message#Finding_messages_and_documentation. πr² (t • c) 03:22, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! That was quick. Good tip too. The interface is missing an interface explanation template, that's why I couldn't find it. Wasn't in Category:MediaWiki messages with interface explanation. Off to bed now. I'll add one at some point. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:30, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello! Recently, the parameter |Animated= was added to the {{WikiProject Film}} template, in order to include articles in the Animated films work group. I have started to add the parameter to talk pages, however the articles are not being added to the project with the proper classification, since the Film project does not use the |importance= parameter. Therefore, they are showing up on the assessment table for animated films as "Other". I understand that this one is unique, because it's technically a work group of the Animation project, but none of the other Film task forces use importance. Is there any way to have these articles default to the importance for the {{WikiProject Animation}} template? Fortdj33 (talk) 13:06, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure that I already answered this... --Redrose64 (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64:, I appreciate the information that you provided, when I asked you about this problem directly. I re-posted the question here, because I realized that the concern is really just how the data is displayed on the assessment table. Therefore, if a script can be added to modify the display of the table, no additional parameter on the project banner would be necessary. For example, something that would make articles default to the value of |film-importance=, if present on the {{WikiProject Animation}} template, and default to "NA" if the parameter is not present. Fortdj33 (talk) 21:02, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

In the Competition_between_Airbus_and_Boeing article the File:Boeing 787 Roll-out.jpg image is not shown, but when I edit the 'Controversies' section it appears in preview. Ruslik_Zero 19:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. One of the images before it wasn't closed properly. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:23, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know whether the X users have enabled this feature (in Beta features, accessible from the top right of your page) indicates the X "on enwiki", or the X "across all wikiversions"? I'm wondering because the high numbers of enabled users doesn't seem to correspond with the number of active editors, or the number of editors who use a feature on enwiki. For VisualEditor, it claims "29,074 users have enabled this feature." which is extremely unlikely to be correct for enwiki only, and which is very misleading otherwise because it is enabled by default for most other wikis, no becaues 29,000 people actually want and use it. Fram (talk) 13:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Other wikis show much lower numbers, for example https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Einstellungen?uselang=en#mw-prefsection-betafeatures, so it's presumably for this wiki although 29,000 also sounds high to me. PrimeHunter2 (talk) 14:23, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It is for the local wiki and the 29k number is perfectly accurate. Here's some raw database data:

mysql:wikiadmin@db1052 [enwiki]> select count(*) from user_properties where up_property = 'visualeditor-enable';
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
|    29092 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

So yeah, I think more people use VE than you thought did :) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:45, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: The "Automatically enable" feature had a bug for many months that prevented it from working at all (bugzilla:60748, that was only fixed in late March, wmf19) and has a remaining bug (bugzilla:62815) whereby it only triggers if we "visit Special:Preferences, or whenever the 'GetPreferences' hook is run". So, the numbers prior to that time are accurate - ie. ~25,000+ editors did manually click the button to opt-in to VE, at Enwiki. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 17:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Just because it is enabled doesnt mean people use it. Look here for edits made on the wiki with Visualeditor Christian75 (talk) 15:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the discrepancy between how many users have supposedly actively enabled it, and how many users actually use it, is gigantic. No idea why... Fram (talk) 08:47, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The number given is the number of accounts currently opted-in. It is not, unfortunately, the number of accounts opted-in that have ever used the feature, or the number of opted-in accounts that have edited (or even logged in) here recently. It is a bit like the problem with the number of people watching a page: a page can be on a thousand watchlists, but if those editors haven't logged in for years, then it's not actually being watched by anyone. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The strange template fonts (such as in "Competitor for Belarus" here or similar in Template:Egyptian Dynasty list) in my Mozilla browser appeared before the new April font rollout. I recall seeing less obtrusive template fonts before, so wonder what's going on. I tried vector.css, bypassed the cache, but nothing happened. Could anyone drop a hint? Brandmeister^talk 17:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I've worked out that your screenshot is from Darya Domracheva. Now that I know that, I can look at what templates are used; and I find that the culprit is {{MedalCountry}} where we have the line

! colspan="3" | '''Competitor for <span class="country-name">{{{1}}}</span>'''

that is, a table header cell which is boldfaced. Table header cells are normally boldface by default - they don't need the boldface markup ''' ''' as well, so this is a case of double-bold. As occasionally discussed on this page (and elsewhere), double-bold behaves inconsistently between browsers - and also depends upon installed fonts. To get a consistent appearance, remove the ''' ''' --Redrose64 (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

{{Egyptian Dynasty list}} is basically the same problem: boldface inside a table header cell. It's a nasty template: it's a mixture of Wikimarkup, raw HTML, and some inline CSS. It produces a one-column two-row table, with the cell in the first row being a header cell, and that in the second row being a data cell. The header cell is subdivided using several nested <div>...</div> and it ends with </div><div style="font-size: 100%"> both of which are unbalanced. Some of the inline CSS uses a property text-weight:bold; which I can't find in the CSS documentation; but there is some bolding using the <b>...</b> HTML, and also using the ''' ''' Wikimarkup. What it comes down to is again boldface within a table header - double-bolding. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

{{Egyptian Dynasty list}} is an old template, originally created in 2004, so no surprise it has some problems due to cruft. Is there any way to identify templates that have been around that long so someone could do a preventative check for the same? -- llywrch (talk) 16:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Could someone with SQL chops and access to a copy of the DB please produce me a list of all redirects in the Template namespace that have a target whose name begins with "Template:WikiProject"? Thank you in advance! — Scott • talk 17:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

@Scott: toollabs:paste/view/d1e6613c. Both columns are titles in Template namespace. Left=source, right=target. πr² (t • c) 18:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The formatting was not very nice unless the font size was small, so here is just the redirect "from" list: toollabs:paste/view/24616ae3 πr² (t • c) 18:13, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. — Scott • talk 18:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

@Scott: The result is very nice! If you would like more data, feel free to ask. πr² (t • c) 21:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes, I forgot to report back here with what I had planned to do! Thanks for the offer; one of these days I shall finally get around to setting myself up at Tool Labs so that I don't have to ask other people to help out. :) — Scott • talk 21:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@PiRSquared17: Actually yes, I do have a request. Would you be able to produce me transclusion counts for the entries in this section, please? I see from the source of Jarry's tool that there's a templatelinks table that can be queried. — Scott • talk 10:17, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@Scott: Sorry for delay, just saw this. Here it is. Sorted by transclusion count. Thanks for the hint about templatelinks. I only included titles not beginning with either "WikiProject" or "WP". Do you want help with setting yourself up on Tool Labs? πr² (t • c) 11:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

toollabs:paste/view/d17a844f is case insensitive match for excluding "WP" "WikiProject". πr² (t • c) 12:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, thanks again. No need to apologize, this isn't mission-critical stuff, and you've saved me a bunch of time. Thanks for the offer of help, too; I will take you up on it at some point. The main obstacle has been setting aside the time to really get "in the zone" for it, but I'm sure that will happen soon. — Scott • talk 22:41, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Fixed I no longer have the "Cite" menu on my editing toolbar. There are the icons just above the text box for Bold text, Italic text, signature and timestamp, link, embedded file, reference, and drop-down menus for "Advanced", Special characters", and "Help". That is all. I use to have one that said "Cite". I am quite dependent on it. Please help! I've tried switching browsers from Chrome to IE, restarting the computer, and searching under "My Preferences". Chrisrus (talk) 06:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

What is your skin and WP:REFTOOLS version? Mine is MonoBook and Reftools 1.0, and I have the cite icon. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:33, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Helder.wiki, Edokter: could MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Protected edit request on 7 April 2014 be related? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Since today I have exactly the same issue (posted it at the help desk). I occasionally had this issue in the past and found that a page refresh or two was all it took to make it reappear but no amount of refreshes or restarting the computer helps this time.--Wolbo (talk) 09:56, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I have the Vector skin and RefToolbar 2.0b. However, under the row of RefToolbar 2.0b I have two rows of buttons in the style of RefToolbar 1.0 so my toolbar looks like a mixture between these two and this is how it has appeared for some time (but with the 'cite' menu).--Wolbo (talk) 10:25, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Solved. In my preferences section under 'Editing' - 'Editor' the setting 'Show edit toolbar (requires JavaScript)' was not selected. After selecting and saving the 'Cite' menu appears again. I had not manually changed this setting and don't know if before this issue it was selected or not.--Wolbo (talk) 10:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, that was actually one of things that the last change was fixing, forced loading of toolbars, even though people didn't have them enabled. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Chrisrus, is there any error in the console of your browser (CTRL+SHIFT+J on Google Chrome)? Perhaps something like TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'options'. If so, I think it is because of the missing dependency I mentioned at MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Protected edit request on 7 April 2014. Helder.wiki 12:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Solution presented by User:Wolbo. Thanks! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:02, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For the second time in as many days, I was logged out right in the middle of an edit. Last time it happened when I clicked "Save". And this time it happened when I clicked "Changes". And it logged me out globally, but when I log back in to English Wikipedia, it did not globally log me back in. Yes, I have checked "keep me logged in for..." And then wait a minute or two, and I'm magically logged back in globally.— Maile (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such a bad time of it. This is an annoying problem, and it creates a lot of work for OTRS. I've started wishing for a cookie-based pref setting that aggressively discourages logged-out editing. My idea is that if I edit from a computer, my prefs would leave a "scream loudly if you try to edit as an IP" cookie (expiring a few days or maybe a week after my mosr recent edit). Then when I'm logged out, it wouldn't be the small "Guess what, you were logged out" notice; it would be large and irritating and require clicking in six places and solving three CAPTCHAs and proving that you can divide by zero, or whatever it takes to get me to notice that I was logged out unexpectedly.

The first time was probably due to the Heartbleed bug, described above—a case of horrible timing. I don't know why it would have happened again, though. If it happens a third time, would you please post and let us know what your browser and OS are, and whether you've done anything about cookies that might make them suddenly disappear? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

This happened to me several times yesterday after the change in certificates, and I reported it in #wikimedia-dev, where it was identified that it was affecting at least one other person in the channel at the time. Not sure there's much to be done about it - I caught it on enwiki but not all projects have the "you're editing logged out" message, so it's a nuisance. Risker (talk) 23:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

This is just guessing on my part but I suspect the login cookie invalidation didn't reach the entire server cluster at the same time. Your queries would reach an arbitrary server through some load balancing scheme, which means depending on which server you happened to get with a particular query, the cookie might work or it might not. I'd expect it will be sorted soon. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 04:25, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps an explanation is found on Commons: Wikimedia Foundation servers have been updated since a vulnerability was discovered in the OpenSSL software. As a precaution, all Commons users were forced to log in again using new, secure version of the software. While there is no evidence of any breach of servers or loss of user data, the Wikimedia Foundation recommends that all users change their passwords to ensure maximum safety of their accounts. — Maile (talk) 11:58, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

While reading arcuate fasciculus, I noticed that the arrow-shaped cursor had morphed into a pointing finger, while resting within the graphic image area, and also when the cursor is sitting on a URI. The arrow cursor remains on some pages, fortunately. I find that the pointing hand disturbs my reading, possibly due to its novelty. A cursory search of my preferences lists came up with no way I can see to reset the pointer back to the arrow. Can a less-exasperated editor guide me to the proper setting so I get back to my article? Thank you, --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:24, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm just getting the usual wikilink finger on wikilinks themselves, nothing else (Firefox 28.0, Windows 8). I'm not sure what would be causing it for you, but it's not a global thing. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:31, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Supernerd11, thank you. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 02:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, you see something similar to the one in this image when hovering over a link or image, correct? If so, that's the default for all links, so I'm not sure how you were getting arrows for links. ~huesatlum 02:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, it's hardware dependent: as you point out (pun intended), on a Windows 7, Firefox 28 box, I just found that it's a white hand, and it's a squished black hand for Chromebook/ Ubuntu Firefox 28, and there is no cursor at all on my tablet (using Puffin browser). So, if I want to avoid the cursor shifting shape while reading, I should stick to my tablet. To keep things looking the same across platforms, I should set my preferences to render the pages in desktop mode, rather than in mobile mode. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 05:04, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

If you wanted to change it just on Wikipedia, you could custom css (the 'cursor' attribute); and perhaps using a Firefox addon you could change it across all websites. But it wouldn't be easy. - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 11:38, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis: Actually, it's fairly easy in Firefox. You just need to add this: a {cursor: default} into a new file located at "...\mozilla\firefox\xxxxx.default\chrome\userContent.css". If that doesn't make sense, try glancing through this guide (I've used the 1st example given in step#3 for many years) or this overview of the feature. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

When will be it updated? http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryTrends.htm --Kaiyr (talk) 10:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Erik Zachte would know. πr² (t • c) 11:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether this is intentional, whether it is related to the recent typography change, or whether it is just because of my browser (Firefox 28.0), but for some reason the diff view on the English Wikipedia doesn't show yellow and blue highlighting anymore for me, making it hard to identify small changes in big paragraphs. On other wikis (I've tried Commons and the Dutch and French WPs) it still looks how it used to. Are there more people experiencing this, and does anyone know why? SiBr₄ (talk) 13:12, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

• On Internet Explorer 11.0.4 I don't have this problem. SiBr₄ (talk) 13:29, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
• Seems to be some missing CSS. Try clearing your cache. — Edokter (talk) — 13:37, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

  I didn't even have to do that, the boxes and colors are already back. Thanks anyway. SiBr₄ (talk) 13:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

• It does that to me sometimes, too; I think it's just when the page doesn't load all the way (I sometimes can't use Twinkle, various scripts don't work, etc as well). Most of the time, reloading the page fixes it. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:14, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

  I think I know which issue you are describing, though that's a different problem. In this case it showed the sidebar, user menu and page preview correctly, but the diff view lacked the colored boxes and highlights. This happened with every diff page I viewed this morning and stopped suddenly (maybe because of the page move I did this afternoon?) SiBr₄ (talk) 15:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I am User:Sky6t's another account. She (I) edited her (my) common.js (User:Sky6t/common.js) so now it looks like:

location.href="http://www.guokr.com/";

And now she's (I'm) regretting having done this. She (I) can't use English Wikipedia now, because every time she tries to (I try with the account called Sky6t, more precisely), the page would refresh to http://www.guokr.com/ :(

Please help me by emptying this page. Zeroto (talk) 13:00, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Done. I've solved using my own account. Sky6t (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For the record, Zeroto/Sky6t: you could just disable the JavaScript in your browser temporarily, remove that code, save and then enable JavaScript again. Helder.wiki 13:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC) PS: I needed help with something similar in the past (the save button disapeared after I edited my CSS... ).

Template {{Winners}} is not applicable to youth national teams. Because it works like this:
{{winners|sport|title|nation|opt. number of title|opt. flag variant}}
and the youth teams need one parameter more, e.g. fbu|20 (for men's under-20 national football team) instead of fb (for men's national football team)
So, I want to edit the template by this style (but I don't know how):
if
the sport-parameter is fbu or fbwu or bku or bkwu
then use this variant
{{winners|sport|age category|title|nation|opt. number of title|opt. flag variant}}
instead of the default one.
Can this be achieved? Who can help me? Maiō T. (talk) 16:22, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I've created a sandbox version which I'm now trying to get to work. SiBr₄ (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

@Maiō T.: I just moved it live. Does it work correctly in all articles? SiBr₄ (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

• Why not just add a fbu-20 version for the sport instead of adding a new parameter? (this can of course be expanded to any age bracket or sport) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 18:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

@SiBr4: Yes. Thanks a lot !!! It's perfect !!!

@Technical 13: fbu-20 ... and what next? Men's fbu-19, fbu-18, fbu-17, fbu-21, fbu-23; women's fbwu-19, fbwu-18, fbwu-17, fbwu-21, fbwu-23, and almost the same number of templates for M & W basketball and possibly the other sports, too. Tens of templates. No, no. Maiō T. (talk) 19:19, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

From 2012: "WP:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_103#HTML 5 snafu - pushpin points moved south"

To discuss map markers, see: "Talk:National_Constitution_Center" where the evidence is growing that some older browsers (IE7, IE8?) have the map marker shifted lower ("south") when the "caption=" is specified in {{Location_map}} (but not for captions in other map templates). We especially need users with access to IE7 to compare results and note which OS+browser versions (such as Windows Vista+IE7) have trouble with the map marker shifting one or two lines lower near the bottom of a map. Previously, a marker's div-tag needed "line-height:0" but perhaps other styles should be used to prevent the optional caption div-tag from shifting the marker lower in some browser. Discuss here or there, to keep the discussion going from year to year until solved. I will be gone for hours now. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

How do I log into one WMF account (say, Wikimedia Commons) from another (say, Wikipedia)? I'm not sure whether it's the network I'm stuck on doing it or something else, but sometimes I get the "Please reload the page to automatically log in" message, and sometimes I don't and have to manually log in (which for whatever reason the login screen is always blocked, but most of the rest of Commons is hit-or-miss about whether I can get on or not). I've looked a lot in the View/Manage Global Account, but haven't been able to find a workaround. Does one even exist? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting question. You have a global account so moving from one project to another, you should automatically be logged in, at least most of the time. It may be something in your personal browser setup that prevents this from carrying over. Risker (talk) 23:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Probably just some side effect of the censorship shit the school put on these things. Thanks anyway. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@Supernerd11 and Risker: This has actually been happening since the implementation of SUL2. Sometimes you are automatically logged in. Other times not logged in. Also if javascript is disabled in your browser, you will have to manually log in. --Glaisher [talk] 12:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to add two parameters to {{Infobox mtgset}}, but when I do, nothing changes. I've tried adding them both in the /doc page and the template page, but to no avail. I'm not very experienced with templates, and I've never done anything with the underlying code of them before, so could someone with a little more success offer some advice? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's what I would do. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click to create a sandbox version of the template, then copy the whole template to the sandbox and add your changes there. Then click to create the testcases page and try using the new sandbox version of the template {{Infobox mtgset/sandbox}} there. Does that help, or do you need more detailed instructions? – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Alright, got it. I'll let you know if I get the new parameters added. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Supernerd11:, just in case, i think it might be worth it to always purge when testing templates. I've recently had an issue of having changed a template, forgot to purge, and the tests i've made were misleading because of that. -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Another question: I've got the infobox to display the new parameters, but I'm not sure how to do a custom header. Is there a way to input a header at each page you need it? (There's "First set in the Innistrad block", but as far as I know, there's no way to have it go by order of the blocks). Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 17:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, got it figured out and the infobox is good to go. Thanks for all the help! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:17, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

A certain user Cush asked this more vaguely above but I wanted to know specifically, do we have a moratorium? (A WMF employee reverting the disabling of the update on de.wiki "to give users time to try it out" would suggest that we do.) And if we do, how long is this time period?

If (or when) this discussion gets locked ideally I would like it to be by a member who is not a salaried employee of WMF. (The amounts of COI in all of this are alarming as it is.) Neitrāls vārds (talk) 22:26, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm neither salaried nor an employee, so perhaps I'll ask my question: Why on Earth would you expect this discussion to be locked? Is that common at the other projects you've worked on? It's rare at the English Wikipedia, and it's basically never done by WMF staff (unless there are lawyers involved).

As for what a sensible waiting period would be, it kind of depends on what your goal is. This kind of thing, even if it works exactly as designed for your computer, is a shock for a lot of users. Everything is different when the font changes. If you want people to have a fair opportunity to get over the initial shock and to make a thoroughly informed decision (e.g., to see how it works in tools they don't use very often), then the general rule of thumb for this type of change (on any website) is that you'd need to wait at least two weeks or so for daily users (longer for others). If you want to know more about first impressions, then of course you need to have the discussion immediately. So the real answer is that when to have the discussion depends on your goal. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Erm, Whatamidoing (WMF), why are you posting with a username restricted to WMF staffers if you are claiming you are not a WMF employee? Risker (talk) 23:42, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Because, according to their user page, for the next couple of months, [they're] a part-time independent contractor for the WMF. Prkbably not a road that's necessary to go down. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

No, I think it is; in fact, Whatamidoing is a contract employee right now, and has been speaking on behalf of the WMF for months. If WAID wished to speak as an individual, then the right thing to do would be to log into their personal account and respond with that. Instead, they're using their WMF account to give the impression they're not a WMF staffer. It muddies the waters to use an account only granted to WMF employees (including contract employees) and then say they're not an employee. It's spitting in the face of the user who asked the question, it devalues the restriction on granting of accounts with the (WMF) suffix, and it seems that WAID is actually giving a personal opinion, which should be done with the non-WMF account anyway. Risker (talk) 00:04, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

As another WMFer, and one using his volunteer account, "spitting in the face of" seems a wee bit hyperbolic. Yes, WAMID made a mistake; those tend not to be cleared up with hyperbole. Moving swiftly on... Ironholds (talk) 01:42, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Risker, I'm not an "employee" at all; I am an independent contractor, and that's not just a distinction that matters to the tax authority.

IMO if any editor is worried that such a reasonable question might be "locked" by WMF staff, then it is perfectly appropriate for any WMF staff who happens across it to point out that this particular worry is misplaced. If you'd seen it before I did, then I think you would have said much the same thing, because what I said is a factual description of the WMF's policy, not a personal opinion: WMF staff members don't "lock" community discussions, except under rare orders from the lawyers. Neitrāls vārds need not worry about that. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:21, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) "locked" was just the first thing that came to my mind to refer to the pale purple background and the message The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. that a couple of discussions above have been wrapped in. So, 2 weeks, that's something to work with. I do wonder after this period how the success of this update could be gauged? A call to all those voting to restore to give their opinions of whether they've grown to like it (and vice versa)? Perhaps an unobtrusive yet noticeable site-wide message (I think color:beige does wonders in this regard, if you ask me) because I think it is surprising how many people have found this vote given that you have to navigate through 2 pages between here and clicking the "Community portal." Quickly scanning I saw 2 "restore" votes by people wearing glasses (I wonder if this is representative of the general population) I suspect, however, that there may be more who we haven't heard from.

@Risker, the (WMF) kind of does give it away, if I say so! Well, at least there's an estimate of how long the "try out" period should be, now only "gauging its success" remains a question. (Strictly, if you ask me, an "Increase text size" menu item or better yet "A A A" (like pretty much any other site offering accessibility options) should have been the way to go. The latter being (at least initially) compatible with any script as physics and chemistry symbols, for example, are universal across languages.) Neitrāls vārds (talk) 04:45, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like something that a script could do, or maybe have a gadget for it by the "Vector classic typography" option. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:20, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. It's T26739 (T50946 for mobile).

Neitrāls vārds, I've got no connection to the Typography Refresh work, so I don't know everything on their minds. I haven't heard of a specific date, so all I can tell you is that two weeks is the industry norm for this type of change. I've also not heard of any plans to do user surveying. That could mean that there are no plans, or it could mean that there are plans that I don't know about. Speaking for myself, I believe that quick, simple surveys should be used for every user-facing deployment, and that dissatisfaction that is sustained beyond a reasonable adjustment period should result in reversal (or at least a partial reversal). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

As pointed out in the ticket, we already have a gadget to change the font size User:Edokter/FontSizer.js. In my opinion, we should not have controls built in for stuff like this, browsers support this well enough. 10000 controls does not a better site make. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:31, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

That is not a gadget, just a user script. I may convert it to a gadget yet. — Edokter (talk) — 12:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I noticed that the keyboard accelerator (alt-shift-w) for "watch page" is missing in the tooltip in edit mode. It's there in non-edit mode. Not really sure off the top of my head way to go about fixing it. I noticed it in Vector but seems to affect all skins. Help adding it would be a good thing. (The accelerator does work in both non-edit and edit mode.) Jason Quinn (talk) 02:06, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Confirmed as missing in edit mode (Windows XP, Firefox 28, MonoBook); but for me, Alt+⇧ Shift+W does nothing in edit mode so its absence is valid. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:06, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh. It does do something - it toggles the "Watch this page" checkbox - the "watch" tab is unaffected until the save goes through. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:08, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It's now toggling the "Watch this page" checkbox for me too. Last night however it was not doing this. It was toggling Vector's watch star. I did it like 50 times before posting. Now I cannot get it to do that. I don't know how or why the behaviour has changed but it has. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:13, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

PS Do you know if these tooltips are handled by the skin code or by Mediawiki itself? It's noticed a couple other minor issues with these tooltips and I may have to file a bugzilla report. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:15, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

The access keys are defined in the HTML generator of the skin, and the tooltips are updated to show OS dependent metakeys using the function updateTooltipAccessKeys in the javascript file resources//src/mediawiki/mediawiki.util.js of the MediaWiki source code. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:34, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi,
I think it's time to transfer Wikimedia servers from USA somewhere in Europe. Yellowstone Bisons are running out of Yellowstone NP area - this means supervolcano will erupt soon. And, if supervolcano will erupt, big part of North American continent will be affected (distroyed). I don't want that one day wikipedia disappear from web. So, please move WMF servers in Europe. Thank you. 188.213.216.18 (talk) 23:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern, but if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, we've got bigger problems than accessing Wikipedia. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

...and for the records, Wikimedia also has a data center in Europe. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:40, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For caching purposes only. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 13:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

...and even if we didn't, our US datacenters are in Ashburn, VA; Tampa, FL; and San Francisco, CA...none of which are in the affected zones in the linked image. --MarkTraceur (talk) 22:22, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, it looks like the video is a fake. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:15, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For the a while now, Internet Explorer 11 does not remember that I logged in (even in a new tab after having done so previously). But when I click "Log in", it suddenly remembers that I am logged in. It shouldn't be a cookie issue (cookies are always allowed for wikipedia.org and wikimedia.org), or related to the "Heartbleed" bug (problem existed before it was discovered). I even reset the browser to its default settings, and am still seeing the same behavior. Any thoughts? Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 01:24, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

For more information, please see thread above. And this on Commons: Wikimedia Foundation servers have been updated since a vulnerability was discovered in the OpenSSL software. As a precaution, all Commons users were forced to log in again using new, secure version of the software. While there is no evidence of any breach of servers or loss of user data, the Wikimedia Foundation recommends that all users change their passwords to ensure maximum safety of their accounts. — Maile (talk) 12:24, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

As I mentioned, my problem was not a one-time reset in relation the Heartbleed bug, but an ongoing issue that has occurred before and continues to. Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 21:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Just got ths when I shought to see the revision history stats.Lihaas (talk) 02:44, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you got to wikidashboard.appspot.com from the English Wikipedia. When I went to Indian general election, 2014, clicked on "View history" and then clicked on "Revision history statistics" it opened this link to the article info tool on WMF Labs, which timed out and gave an internal error. I didn't see any links pointing to appspot.com. What steps did you take to get to the link you posted, and why are you concerned about it? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 10:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

U duid the same thing, expecting to get the rlevatn linkLihaas (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there some way I can turn off the Education Program article log so when it changes it won't be displayed on my watchlist? I seem to get a lot of them and it just clogs up my already overflowing watchlist. Example: (Education Program article log); 21:54 . . Southern Playerlistic (talk | contribs) removed themself as reviewer to article Piracy in the 21st century worked upon by Johnb742 as part of course Education Program:California Maritime Academy/Information Fluency in the Digital World (Spring 2014) Thanks, —  dainomite   22:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I guess you are watching Piracy in the 21st century and not getting Education Program article logs from articles you don't watch? I don't know whether the log can be removed from your watchlist. By the way, I noticed Education Program article log has a non-working link in the watchlist but this is already reported in bugzilla:48495. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:24, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep yep, I have the article on my watchlist. I was hoping that there would be a checkbox for show/hide the Education Program article log on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist but I was sadly mistaken. —  dainomite   02:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to have. Why don't you file a feature request for it on bugzilla:? Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:14, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

That's probably not going to happen, considering that MediaWiki developers have recently been removing unwanted preferences. Graham87 11:26, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Where is declared class "infobox biota" used in {{Taxobox/core}}? –XXN (talk) 01:30, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The class itself is declared at the very top of the template. The infobox class receives styling from MediaWiki:Common.css. I don't think the biota class currently results in any styling. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I've seen a (succinctly-named) template that generates a blank/empty {{flagicon}} of usual proportions etc – but haven't managed to guess what it is or track it down. Help, please..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 03:56, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking through Category:Flag template system I found {{Noflag}} -- John of Reading (talk) 06:12, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

That's it – thank you! Sardanaphalus (talk) 08:18, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

An empty {{flagicon}} does the same thing. These templates work differently ({{flagicon}} adds a blank image, while {{noflag}} adds an empty span box), but look about the same:

Western Sahara ({{flagicon}} [[Western Sahara]])
 Western Sahara ({{noflag}}[[Western Sahara]])
 Western Sahara ({{noflag|[[Western Sahara]]}})

SiBr₄ (talk) 08:49, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

{{flagicon}} with no parameters – something else that didn't come to mind. Thanks also. Sardanaphalus (talk) 10:35, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

How can I localize the File Upload Wizard to one of the sister Wikipedias? The current wizard there is Special:Upload, which should be replaced by File Upload Wizard. Especially, I need to know that how to activate file upload wizard in MediaWiki:Sidebar/toolbar. If so, I can look after rest of the work. I have enough rights there to take necessary action. Can anyone guide me on this?--Anton^Talk 06:46, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Local rights don't help. It's controlled by the setting of mw:Manual:$wgUploadNavigationUrl in http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php. You can make a request at bugzilla:. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:50, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the info PrimeHunter. I'll try there. --Anton^Talk 14:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I made an infobox for my article Helmut Paul but I cannot enter the picture "Helmut Paul 2014" from Wikimedia commons into the infobox Meyrick12 (talk) 08:32, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done--Anton^Talk 09:20, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

@Meyrick12: To amplify: image names are case-sensitive on all except the first letter, just like article names. File:Helmut Paul 2014.jpg and File:Helmut Paul 2014.JPG refer to different files - one doesn't exist, the other does. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:30, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Redrose64!Meyrick12 (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Until a week ago, CodeEditor (the default editor for module pages, I understand) behaved a bit strange, like only randomly showing the layout with line numbers as advertised. Now since a few days, sometimes it folds the edit box at page opening into invisibility. That is, when the edit screen has been build up, there are only the top and bottom boxes. I must have done something wrong, but I have not ventured into setting changes AFAIK. At least I'd like to go back to the default settings, to have something stable & useful. Any suggestions? Any more info needed? -DePiep (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

i do not see the problems you describe. you can try and toggle "code mode" a couple of times on and off, by pressing the /* button - maybe it will kick it back to good behavior. other than that, unfortunately, i don't have anything. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:52, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Do you have wikEd? If so, does it happen if you disable wikEd on the icon at the top right? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:56, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Clear cache & restart browser: For months, some users have noted garbled screens or lockups, and tried clearing cache with no luck at times; however, I think after deleting local cache files, a restart of a browser might clear the problems. In some cases, a few of the many thousands of CCS classes in use might be garbled in the browser cache files. It might help to think of the "Quantum Internet" like Schroedinger's cat, where webpages can exist and not exist at the same time, depending on how garbled the browser cache files are for various versions of the thousands of CSS classes in use. Remember, there are so many CSS classes, there is even one for class="center" among the many, many thousands which a browser might need to process, etc. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:07, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Clearing the cache restored a functioning module editor, thanks (sorry I bothered you all without preparing my post with the obvious). What now remains is that the editor does not show the box with line-numbers layout (it shows plain text edit box). A convenience issue.

Now this happens: the wikEd icon (top-right) says in its title/mousehoover: Loading error - wikEd 0.9.124a G (March 08, 2014) Click to disable. Then:

When wikEd enabled, an edit click always gives the plaintext edit box (edit click = click the basic wiki "edit" tab).

When wikEd disabled, every second edit click produces the line-numbers layout (OK). If more systematic tests would clarify, please say so. -DePiep (talk) 10:52, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

No. Broken again. No edit box visible for me. -DePiep (talk) 20:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Allow me to requestion: What is the default module editor, and what may I expect from that one? -DePiep (talk) 20:25, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Using Firefox 25.01 on OS 10.6.8, accented characters show up as bold and their kerning is off, both in headers and in ordinary text. Using Safari 5.1.10, only the kerning problem is visible if you look closely. See Japanese ironclad Fusō for an example.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Could you please bring this up on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Typography_refresh which is the central feedback place? Thanks! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:02, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Will do.

I can't reproduce this on my Mac (10.8.5, FF 28 and Safari 6). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks fine using OX 10.9.2 and the latest versions of Safari and Firefox.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66:, question, do you have Microsoft Word installed ? Or OpenOffice/LibreOffice perhaps ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:21, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I do have MS Office 2008 installed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

<includeonly>|</includeonly> can bloat the lengths of lines of (template) code significantly. Is there anything more succinct that can be used in its place..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 10:17, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I see you have edited {{British Army Mounted Brigade/troops}} so I guess your purpose it to make the template page display parameters which are optional when the template is used. I don't think there is anything better for that purpose. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:55, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, {{British Army Mounted Brigade/troops}} is a recent reminder. Apart from the bloat, though, I imagine multiple "<includeonly>|</includeonly>"s can make code look overly daunting to newcomers/novices, which is regrettable. (I imagine it did for me.) Thanks for your response, Sardanaphalus (talk) 11:40, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

If you write template documentation explaining the parameters and don't rely on the template page to be self-explanatory with automatically displayed parameter names then you can skip includeonly around the pipes. There are also many novices who don't know how to use an undocumented template where the template page displays "Ammunition Column, [[{{{ammun_hq}}}]]". PrimeHunter (talk) 12:19, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm in-between each right now. Thanks for your advice. Sardanaphalus (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong here?

I am trying to create a full path link to Google Images from this file: File:Chocolate maccaroon 2014-04-13 00-25.jpg.

Normally, I use this:

• [//www.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=http:{{urlencode:{{filepath:<Image name.ext>}}}} Google Images]

which yields

• [//www.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=http:{{urlencode:{{filepath:Chocolate maccaroon 2014-04-13 00-25.jpg}}}} Google Images]

which yields

• [//www.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=http:{{urlencode://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Chocolate_maccaroon_2014-04-13_00-25.jpg}} Google Images] (which correctly points to //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Chocolate_maccaroon_2014-04-13_00-25.jpg)

which yields

• [//www.google.com/searchbyimage?image_url=http:%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fb%2Fb6%2FChocolate_maccaroon_2014-04-13_00-25.jpg Google Images], which decidedly doesn't work: Google Images.

What am I doing wrong? Template is commons:User:OgreBot/new upload, and it works for 99.9% of images, but not this one. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 15:57, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The Google search link is working fine for me. I'm seeing the Commons maccaroon picture in the Google search, which I presume is the correct behaviour. Maybe it's a browser cache issue? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:14, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

You don't need {urlencode:}; {filepath:} already takes care of that: Google Images — Edokter (talk) — 17:42, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

@Mr. Stradivarius: I am 100% positive it was not working earlier. Maybe it's a Mediawiki caching problem.

@Edokter: that breaks other images like this one: File:Them & Us.JPG => Google Images. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 22:27, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Then {urlencode:} should inside {filepath:} and include the filename only, as only the filename needs encoding. — Edokter (talk) — 22:42, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Your example Google Images only broke because you added an extra pair of //. Otherwise it works:: Google Images. As far as I can tell from experimentation, Google Images is forgiving and works both with and without the extra encoding. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:14, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

How to use the sets in TemplateData and how to put sets from VisualEditor?Sunpriat (talk) 17:11, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The TemplateData extension is still in development. The documentation states that sets are groups of parameters which are to be used together. I suspect that the intent is to list a group of parameters which would normally be presented to the user based on the user's selection of a type of sub-functionality from the template corresponding to the set name. Frankly, the documentation is not clear, and I am guessing.

You may find more helpful responses at Extension talk:TemplateData. However, given that you have started a thread then asking why the sets are no longer being displayed in the examples on mediawikiwiki:Extension:TemplateData, it appears you are already aware of that location.

You might be able to get more information from the various people who have posted on mediawikiwiki:Extension:TemplateData, including the "Product Manager" for the VisualEditor team, @Jdforrester (WMF):. — Makyen (talk) 07:14, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

@Sunpriat: Hello. Makyen is right, the sets functionality is not yet used in VisualEditor so we haven't documented it very heavily; the idea is to express how parameters go together, like "Longitude" and "Latitude" or "Year", "Month" and "Day. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Say I go to a page like User:Example 200, which doesn't exist. But I was actually trying to find someone with a much longer username I couldn't remember but had "Example 200" in it. Special:Search/User:Example 200 takes me in an endless loop back to Example 200. Another example: Windows xP. This is a simple grammar error. Special:Search/Windows xP takes you to Windows XP. But what if I was merely trying to search what articles Windows XP appears in? In a similar fashion, Special:Search/Windows XP also takes you straight to Windows XP without even an option to standard search it instead. KonveyorBelt 22:02, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The lead of Help:Searching mentions ways to make a search instead of going directly to a title match. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm talking more about that the inline links in the "this page does not exist" template are broken. KonveyorBelt 03:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

{{replyto|Konveyor Belt}} better now ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Konveyor Belt confused the issue by giving two cases with different messages and behaviour, and calling the second "another example". Your change to MediaWiki:Newarticletext makes a fulltext search on "search" at Windows xP. The search loop is for Special:Search/User:Example 200 which leads you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Example_200. The "Search" link there is Special:Search/User:Example 200 which brings you right back where you were. It displays MediaWiki:Noarticletext which transcludes Template:No article text. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:14, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Umm... was this edit really a "fix", or just a not-too-destructive vandalism? -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 18:56, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks more likely to just be an innocent misunderstanding. I guess User:Spudgfsh doesn't know that {{replyto}} causes a notification – which happened when it was added, so deactivating it made no difference. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:34, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at the before, it made the entire page invisible. All I did was try to make all of the page visible again. => Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 19:46, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The edit did no such thing. If the page was invisible for you at the time then it had another cause. For example, it's conceivable that a mistake was made in a template transcluded earlier on the page. Another time you can try a purge. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:55, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

@Spudgfsh: I concur with PrimeHunter, i'm sure BaRD that it's not due to {{replyto}}. Is the contents of that "before" revision still invisible to you now? ( or, in fact, is the current version of this page invisible, since i used {{reply to|Spudgfsh}}?! ^^ ) -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 00:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

My mistake, seems to be ok now. I'll probably remember to null edit next time. => Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 17:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

When I delete pages, after a couple of seconds the tab I have the "Action complete" screen in closes itself, presumably using JavaScript. (For reference, latest Chrome on Windows.) Is this from some gadget I have switched on in my preferences? I can't work it out. It's pretty annoying. — Scott • talk 11:44, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The "action complete" tab didn't close for me just now when I deleted a page, so it's not a default thing, whatever it is. I'd check your browser add-ons first, followed by your gadgets. You can try disabling the add-ons, removing the gadgets, and bypassing your browser cache. That might help to narrow down the culprit. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. I can't imagine what add-on could be causing it (it literally only happens on that specific page on this website) so finding the culprit is going to be interesting. — Scott • talk 17:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I found this bit of code in User:East718/voa.js, but I'm not sure if this is the culprit. ~huesatlum 21:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

 if (document.title.search(/Action complete|Internal error/) ==0)
  {
  setTimeout('window.close()',1000);
  }

Hello,

I am really hoping someone can help, and that I am at the correct place to ask this question. The WikiAfrica Incubator, which is a soft landing for newbie editors in Africa, has been obliterated by a redirect to an article about a museum in South Africa - the Montagu Museum (ironically, the article was originally created in the Incubator). I have checked the history hoping to revert it back to a previous edition, but for some reason all the logs for the home page of the Incubator seem to have disappeared; this is what I get when I go to the history of the redirect or the history of the page. I didn't think it was possible to do what this user did!!?

I have asked the original creator of the Incubator to help, but I am not sure how often he checks his email or userpage. The other pages do not seem to be affected, such as Help Desk and The step by step guide. Please let me know how I get the original WikiAfrica Incubator back? Looking forward to hearing from someone and finding a solution! Isla Haddow 15:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

further to posting the above, I checked my watchlist and found this "(Deletion log); 00:03 . . AnomieBOT III (talk | contribs) deleted page Wikipedia talk:WikiAfrica/Incubator ‎(G8: Broken redirect to Montagu museum. If this bot is malfunctioning, please report it at User:AnomieBOT III/shutoff/BrokenRedirectDeleter)."

I will also be asking the Bot creator how to sort this out. But please help if you can. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Islahaddow (talk • contribs) 15:09, 13 April 2014‎ (UTC)

The problem was that the creator of the article moved the Incubator and then overwrote it, then on 30 March Orangemike incorrectly speedy deleted it, thus consigning the history of the Incubator to the trash. I've fixed it. — Scott • talk 15:23, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Scott • talk, you are amazing. thank you so much for doing that. Even given your explanation, I still don't understand as Lorinda did not create the Incubator, but it is back now, and I am a very happy person. Thank you! Isla Haddow 08:28, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

The harvnb template for a translation date looked odd to an editor, because the original Latin was newly translated some 250 years later, which seemed to be an anachronism, and I would appreciate any suggestions which will keep the citation links operating. The good faith edit broke the citation links, unfortunately. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 22:40, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you can either use Additional comments or quotes: |ps= to get something like "Newton, 1687, translated by <Translator Name>, 1999", or Citation format does not support anchors: {{wikicite}} to use whatever manually-inputted text you wish to use. -- Jokes_Free4Me (talk) 00:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Jokes Free4Me, thank you for pointing out a way forward. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 04:59, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jokes Free4Me and Ancheta Wis: the use of {{wikicite}} is somewhat complicated; and in fact neither necessary nor desirable: notice the third and fourth paragraphs of its documentation - the ones beginning "This template is only needed for handwritten citations, or citations using non-standard citation templates ..." and "This template is not necessary if the citation uses a citation template ...". {{wikicite}} dates back to a time when {{citation}} etc. didn't create anchors within themselves.

The {{citation}} template has a |ref= parameter, and its use for the situation under discussion is described at More exotic Harvard citations {{harvid}} or {{harvs}}. The code to look at here is the use of {{harvid}}, but {{sfnref}} (which is also mentioned on that page) functions identically. In order to use {{harvnb|Newton transl|1999|pp=794–6}} you merely need to add |ref={{harvid|Newton transl|1999}} to the {{citation}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:00, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm Using a Samsung Note. What's The Best App For Editing WP? Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: This might be a question for WP:RD/C. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Cannot judge what's the "best" app, but the official app is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 11:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:33, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

07:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Currently under preferences the max selectable thumb size in articles is 300px (the default being 250px ). On many of today's monitors that is not much larger than a postage stamp. Can we get that limit increased? Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The default is 220px. Thumbnails are not ment to act as full size images; they are 'thumbnails' after all. Try the new Media Viewer beta. — Edokter (talk) — 22:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Further, our non-free content policy, which uses low-resolution non-free images, would not allow for images to be displaed at much larger sizes. --MASEM (t) 22:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Why the lecture as if I am an idiot? I know what thumbnails are intended to do. I am saying they too small to be of any use on high resolution monitors. It was fine when all we had was 1024x monitors but now the defaults are often higher than 2560x. Moreover I wasn't asking for full resolution images, just slightly larger thumbs so I could at least see enough detail to decide whether the image is even worth opening. As to the beta Media Viewer, how is that functionally different from clicking on a thumb? Even if I were to use the viewer I would still need the thumbs to be larger.

The issue of "fair use" is a red herring. I was not asking for the actual image to be larger just the thumbs in the articles. Moreover, there is no firm legal criteria on allowable resolutions for non-free content. The guidelines only mention that images should be rescaled as small as possible to still be useful as identified by their rationale, and no larger. The image size to respect this notion seems based on old criteria and predicated on lower resolution monitors. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

In general, it is inappropriate to assume any particular window size. You are applying what is typical for you and desiring to push it onto everyone viewing a particular article when doing so might make the article look much worse to them than the inconvenience of having a relatively small thumbnail image is to you. When adjusting this sort of thing on an article it is a good idea to view the page in a window which you can resize to a variety of widths so you can find a compromise which is reasonable for everyone. Further, keep in mind that a considerable amount of WP readership is now on mobile devices which tend to have a much smaller number of pixels available to display content.

As an example of going the other direction, the mw:Typography refresh recently was intending to force all MediaWiki projects using the Vector skin to a maximum page width of 715px. Upon getting negative feedback, they relented. This is intended as an example to indicate that opinions vary greatly as to the "proper" size of the window to view anything. The reality is that we should adopt page layouts which look acceptable under a variety of conditions. — Makyen (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• I am not doing any such thing and I would appreciate people stop talking out of their arse. If you go to your preferences and select appearance then look at the file options you will see an option to select your preferred thumb size. Default as pointed out is 220px. The max you can select for yourself is 300px. This is the size you will see when a hard pixel size is not included in the wiki code for a thumbnail. These smaller resolutions were fine on lower resolutions monitors, but is becoming inadequate now with QHD and 4K monitors. I asked that users be able to select a larger thumb size for themselves... NOT everyone else. Saffron Blaze (talk) 00:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the problem here: On QHD/4K Monitors you would have to scale up the text anyway (otherwise it would be much too small to read). If you scale up the text your browser should also scale up the thumbnails for you (if it doesn't maybe check you browser settings). Therefore the thumbnail is shown much larger than 220px, even if the setting you mentioned is kept at it's default. Therefore problem solved, isn't it? Since the images have defined a srcset HTML attribute you won't just see an upscaled image but an actually a higher resolved version therefore even gaining quality. --Patrick87 (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Your inability to understand the issue makes it seem clear you won't have the answer yet I am confronted with another patronizing response. The assumption in your response is wrong. I don't want the text to get larger, I just want the thumbs to be larger. Saffron Blaze (talk) 04:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Text sizes are normally given in points, not hard pixel values. Hence, for text, a properly-configured system should use however many pixels are needed for the text to appear at the desired size. E.g. 12 pt text should appear at a height of about 1⁄6 of an inch. However, image sizes are given in pixels. The same number of pixels are used regardless of resolution, so the physical size of the image is smaller at higher resolutions. Zooming is not a solution, since it also affects the properly-sized text. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:52, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

The options are determined by mw:Manual:$wgThumbLimits which says: "In order to reduce disk usage, users can only select a value from this list." The Wikimedia settings at http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php say:

'wgThumbLimits' => array(
	'default' => array( 120, 150, 180, 200, 220, 250, 300 ),
	'+itwikiquote' => array( 360 ),
	'svwiki' => array( 120, 200, 250, 300, 360 ),
),

So the Swedish Wikipedia has a larger option 360 but fewer options in total (confirmed at sv:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering). I don't know whether this was a compromise they requested. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, thanks, at least now I know it is possible and there is precedent for it. Saffron Blaze (talk) 04:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

First off, I do apologize, I certainly misunderstood what you were asking about.

However, I strongly suggest that you step back and assume good faith on the part of other editors. In response to three different editors you have come back with a response that has a belligerent tone and indicated that you believed the editors were "lecture[ing] as if I am an idiot", "talking out of their arse", or giving you a "patronizing response". Of the three, perhaps you could characterize what I said as "talking out of [my] arse", but it is much more productive to say something like "You appear to have misunderstood what I was talking about. I was referring to the personal preference available from the Appearance tab in your Preferences."

As a side note, you might find it beneficial to ask a more generalized question about how others deal with having small images on high resolution monitors rather than locking yourself into only thinking about one way to solve the generalized problem. There are a variety of methods to solving, or at least alleviating, the problem. — Makyen (talk) 06:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

If all people ever do is lecture about things they don't even understand it gets annoying and frustrating. People spend more time in telling people why they are wrong than actually helping. It's the power culture here at WP. I am just tired of it. Thanks for another useless lecture that serves nothing other than to bolster your own ego. Your suggestion does not address my concern nor help me in any fashion. Saffron Blaze (talk) 10:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

• Makyen, you were clearly talking out of your a**. "Under preferences the max selectable thumb size in articles is 300px ... Can we get that limit increased?". This is not regarding MOS, not regarding how it displays with others, and it is definitely not related to window size (except as it is related to the screen's absolute maximum). The question was clear. The initial answers were well out of left field. PrimeHunter's answer below is much more useful. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:33, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Saffron, I understand your annoyance. Replying without understanding the question is a frequent problem when discussing technical matters. However, venting off at people who get it wrong is not constructive. It deters others who might be able to help. Politely saying that a response is unhelpful and discussing why is better; if you can get someone to understand the issue, there's still a chance they could help. Even where they can't help, there could be others who didn't understand at first who could assist once given further explanation. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:22, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I was hoping it would deter others from spouting wiki-isms and nonsense, as is all too frequent. I am indeed glad PrimeHunter wasn't scared off. Then again, he knew what he was talking about. Funny how that works. Saffron Blaze (talk) 23:36, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Bugzilla:11118 - "Allow larger/user-specified thumbnail sizes" was closed as WONTFIX in 2008, apparently based on this 2007 statement by Brion Vibber: "That's not likely to happen; we'd prefer to reduce the number of available thumbnail sizes to save on bandwidth, cache, and thumb disk space."

Bugzilla:27839 - "Offer 460px and 620px as thumbnail size preferences" was a request for the French Wikipedia. It was first accepted but later reverted in 2013 by Antoine Musso as WONTFIX with the statement "The original request can not be fulfilled, that will cause too much stress on our caching and storage infrastructure. I have reverted the original fix with: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/51182". That says: "Having different thumbnails sizes per wiki is not something we can properly support right now. Our cache and files infrastructure will end being filled with thumbs which are barely used beside on the french wiki." Bugzilla:41712 - "hewiki asks to change default image sizes for thumb and gallery" was not about the maximal options but also had some relevant posts. The English Wikipedia is the largest but perhaps a suggestion for larger thumb options should be at meta: and linked at other wikis? The max of 300 appears to be older than 2007. That seems like a long time considering the development in screen resolutions and storage prizes, but the number of files is growing and I don't know the involved costs. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:27, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'd be happy to initiate but still not clear on process. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Since the new "Media Viewer" is being developed (which will requires the creation of a whole lot of new Thumbnails anyway) and srcsets are used as stated in my "useless and patronizing" answer above (that means thumbnails are already generated at sizes of 330px and 440px as alternatives to the standard size of 220px and similarly at 1.5x and 2x the size of the other selectable thumbnail sizes) I think in principle a big number of cached resolutions should already be available and storage space / RAM seems not to be that much of an issue any more. I think it would be important to choose the sizes wisely though (so the already cached versions can be reused and as few new thumbnails as possible need to be created/cached) and all projects should use the same values. However larger thumbnails require a lot more of space, maybe that's the reason many small sizes but no large sizes are available. --Patrick87 (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Before bitching at you I tried the media viewer. It does nothing until you click on the image. What I was hoping for was to see the article itself illustrated with larger images. If I wanted larger images by clicking I can get that already. Perhaps I am missing something as the viewer is beta, but if the viewer is intended to provide larger thumbs at some point that would indeed meet the aim. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Blaze Saffron, I am trying to understand the issues you are raising. I offer my personal setup and experience with a section in one of the oldest WP articles, scientific method#Overview, specifically the Galileo image in the Overview section. The markup is in old-fashioned style, from about 10 years ago.

[[Image:Galileo.arp.300pix.jpg|thumb|150px|According to Morris Kline,... ]]

If I edit the wikilink so the width of the thumbnail is 450px, After clicking 'Show preview' I get the article, with Galileo embedded in it, but with Galileo's image increased in size (similarly, Galileo decreases if I edit the width of the thumbnail to, say 50px).

Is that what you are trying to accomplish for viewing on your hi-resolution display?

On the secondary monitor, the article is 22.5" wide, with Galileo's image width 2.4" wide when viewed with defaults.

My current secondary monitor is 24" diagonal, about 22.5" across, and 12.75 " high. The displayed resolution is 1366x768. I can view the secondary monitor without strain or magnification, while leaning back in my chair, a viewing distance of 48". The primary monitor is 11.6" diagonal, 10" across, about 5.6" high (a Chromebook, but I am running Ubuntu on it). I can read Wikipedia without strain on the Chromebook (I do lean forward when viewing the Chromebook), but the secondary monitor is essential when trying to read the details in stopped videos, for example.--Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:34, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

• Ancheta Wis, In the example you provided the markup has a hard pixel size of 150px. That is very unfortunate as it forces me to view that image at the forced size despite using a WQXGA+ monitor. If you remove that hard pixel size then people will see it at 220px unless they change the default setting in their preferences. A user can increase their default thumb size is to a max of 300px. On any monitor at QHD or above, that 150px image is but a tiny bit of colour and even at 300px it is barely acceptable, especially for landscape oriented images. I would find my reading and viewing of articles more rewarding if the thumbs were more like 400-450px. So, you essentially described the effect I want to achieve, but I don't want it done through hard pixel sizes as in your example (using hard pixel sizes is actually frowned upon in the WP MoS and image use policy). Does that answer your question? Saffron Blaze (talk) 04:21, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Coming back from above, non-free images are not a red herring in this discussion. People reduce non-free to no more than 300px - for the most part - because no thumbnail presently can go above this size. If we increased the max thumbnail size that people would select, this would encourage (not via policy) for people to reduce only down to that size, which harms the free content mission and our fair use defense should that ever be challenged. Yes, free imagery doesn't have this problem but the max thumbnail size is irrespective of works being free or not. So there is more to this than just making WP look better for people with large monitors. --MASEM (t) 04:42, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually "fair use" is anathema to the free cultural works movement because by definition "fair use" imagery is not actually free. That's why it is not hosted on Commons where "free to use" is taken literally. Regardless, I think your concerns over "fair use" image size is unwarranted when you see what sizes news media orgs use when applying "fair use" doctrine. The case law does not support your position as well. You are looking to restrict people's enjoyment and access to this project over the boogey man in the closet and we all know the bogey man does not exist. Saffron Blaze (talk) 18:10, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

It's not just "fair use" issues, it's our non-free policy. We are specifically more stricter than fair use so that we stay fair outside the point where the legal defense of fair use could be possibly challenged. One example is stressing we use smaller images to avoid our fair use taking from being too large and/or impact the commercial value. Thus why NFCC Policy is related to the thumbnail max size since we're not going to want to store images that are much larger than that. This is a mandate from the Foundation so this is not a boogeyman to worry about but part of the limitations that the Foundation has set for non-free use. --MASEM (t) 18:28, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Even the strict image use guidelines for non-free content places the lower end at 320px and discusses images up to 1000px. Suggesting 300px is the upper end is not only wrong it is detrimental to the project. Saffron Blaze (talk) 18:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I never said the max image size for NFC can be 300px, but that 300px is generally the max size because 1) for nearly all original media, this size is of sufficient reduction to be okay by fair use, and 2) the max thumbnail size is 300px and we shouldn't be uploading pics of normal aspect rations that go much above that. --MASEM (t) 19:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh for crying out loud User:Masem, I can see why Saffron is frustrated when met with such responses. As you say, our restriction on non-free images is to ensure they are not detailed enough to have commercial value. This applies to the image we host, not the size as it appears on the user's display. If the underlying image is restricted at 300px, say, then displaying it as a thumbnail at 400px involves basic digital enlargement the same as someone using the Zoom feature on their browser, and not dissimilar to just moving their nose closer to the monitor, neither of which breaks any copyright laws. There is no fundamental reason why the fair-use cap cannot remain at 300px while the displayed thumbnail is 2 or 3x that if desired. If current guidelines/practice have conflated thumbnail size with free-use max then that is trivial to rectify. Let's not create imaginary obstacles.

While the web has moved forward towards recognising differing display abilities, Wikipedia has not advanced. I've not been impressed with the beta features and had to turn them off. I see more and more editors using hard pixel sizes and ignoring the standard thumb. This stores up a problem that is not trivial to fix. If the default/max thumb does not increase with technology then editors will find a way round it, and do, to the detriment of users stuck with older tech in the third world, say. Better that editors could choose small/medium/large for thumbnails and leave the user's preferences to sort it out (or better still, adaptable per display). Many of use use different monitors at various times. I have an 1920 x 1080 display on a laptop, a measly 1280 x 1024 at work, a super 2560 x 1440 in my study, a lowly 960 x 540 on my phone and 1920 x 1280 on a tablet. If storage/memory-use is an issue for caching (and I suspect it is less of an issue than it used to be) then fewer choices are the answer -- it should be straightforward to get stats on which sizes are widely used. Larger sizes aren't just a cosmetic issue -- the richer an image we can display the more our educational mission is served. A map or diagram with more readable legends, a building with more detailed features, a face with more character. Really, this is a discussion about a decade past its date. -- Colin°^Talk 19:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not complaining that a thumbnail that is scaled from a 300px to a larger size is a fair use issue. But what can happen is that if we do allow a larger size of thumbnail for all images, people that use the larger size, let's say, 450px will upload non-free thinking their image size is fine considering this thumbnail policy. And then others will follow to upload at this size, even though 300px is just fine otherwise. I won't deny that this argument alone is a potential slippery slope in considering the non-free aspect only, but it is a point in conjunction with the other arguments against the size increase (including the server limitations for thumbnails) to keep 300px as max. --MASEM (t) 20:52, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I contend that your basic premise and concern that non-free content only be uploaded at 300px is baseless and bankrupt and not predicated on anything but a guess and a wave of the consensus hand. It has no legal standing and is not part of any policy statement from the WMF. However, I am willing to be proven wrong so I brought this issue to the WMF legal via Meta. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:53, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Again, I never said the maximum size a non-free could be uploaded is 300. But 300px is a good size to encourage uploaders to reduce their works to via the fact that thumbnail can never go larger than that (if no other size parameters are given), and thus better keeps us within the issues of fair use. There are certainly plenty of places for >300px non-free, but the issue I'm point out that we can maintain the average (this typically being covers of published media) at ~300px by noting that thumbnails max out there. If you increase the maximum size of thumbnails readers can set, that could potentially drive editors to upload at higher resolutions and that starts putting us more at risk, espcially when most art doesn't need to be at that size (per WP:NFCC#3a non-free should only be used at the size that is necessary.) --MASEM (t) 22:59, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

It is NOT a good size. 300px is too small. 400px or even 500px sizes are still small enough to respect fair use doctrine and they will not break the bank, particularly if they are being generated for the media viewer anyway. Saffron Blaze (talk) 23:27, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There seems to be a level of FUD about this argument to keep the maximum thumbnail size at 300px. It seems daft (to me at least) to impose such a major restriction out of fear and speculation that others could get thumbnail sizes mixed up with our non-free content policies. Even if they did, it can be fixed in the usual wiki way: upload a new copy of the image at a smaller size then delete the old version, while giving the original uploader a talk page message explaining why the original image size was inappropriate. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:39, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Sorry Masem, but of reasons not to allow for larger thumbnail sizes in preferences, I do not find the NFCC argument compelling in the slightest. Resolute 23:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

First, I am not trying to say "no we can't increase the thumbnail size above 300 px only due to NFC.", because as you've misintepreted what I've said, NFC does not have a hard limit, but we strongly encourage the 300px limit as a natural balance of the max available thumbnail size presently, and the nature of WP's policies to keep non-free use to minimum take and avoid endangering commercial opportunities. What I've been saying here is that considering the suggestion to increase the thumbnail size, the issue of NFC should be considered along with the stronger issues regarding the WMF's choice to keep thumbnails small to prevent stressing servers.

Second, this is not FUD. We presently are in no danger of any legal issues with NFC, but that's because we tell people to keep images small. If we suddenly had thumbs at, say, 500px, and suddenly 500px was commonly used for NFC uploads, we probably wouldn't be in any legal trouble but we are going against the Non-Free Resolution to minimize non-free use (as defined by policy). And of course, what happens when the next big screen resolution comes in and we want to get to 700px or higher? Remember, DVD resolution is around this size, so a screenshot at this size would be no longer respecting commercial copyright. This is why 300px is naturally a decent size to aim for for NFC images - for nearly all standard images one can imagine that would fall under NFC, this is far from challenging the commercial opportunity. Yes, even if we had 700px non-free images, the rest of non-free would help to be our fair use defense (education/transformation use, single images or frames, etc.), but this weeks how strict our NFC has been.

Yes, we could always fix uploads that are larger than 300px back down (we have a tag and category for that) , but one has to realize that non-free imagery, one of the few areas that the Foundation requires us to be proactive in, is woefully under-admined. This would be more work for us.

But again, I stress this is like the second or third reason to not change the thumbnail size, with a lot more weight on the first, primary argument of the stated server issues that would happen with larger sizes, given above. That factor has to be overcome first, before we talk the effects on NFC. --MASEM (t) 02:44, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

You keep stressing something that four other people have told you is baseless. Your concern has been weighed, measured in pixels and found wanting. Now, if server load is truly an issue I am sure someone will chime in and that will be that. However, as pointed out earlier, with media viewer development the availability of the larger thumbs may render both your concerns mooted. If that is the case then those same thumbs should be made available to those not using media viewer through larger pixel preference choices for thumb sizes on article pages. Saffron Blaze (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

BS, I have to refute the misstatements others are making on what I am saying (like the claim that I said the max NFC size was 300px, which I never said). And any change that has the potential to affect NFC handling has to be considered because this is mandated policy by the Foundation. It doesn't need to be determined now, but if you somehow get the Foundation to allow that change to thumbnail size, then we have to review that change in the NFC framework. That's all I'm saying - there are tied issues in this but they don't come into play until you have the larger thumbnail size possibility. --MASEM (t) 03:16, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

What you said was using thumbs larger than 300px would counter our non-free content usage guidelines and bring legal risk to the project. As a consequence it should be a factor is not allowing people to select larger thumb image sizes in their preferences as it would encourage people to upload non-free content at larger sizes. We understood you perfectly and found your rationale and concerns unfounded. Moreover, there is no "Foundation" policy that dictates image size for non-free content use. I invite you to prove me wrong on this issue. Regardless, the sizes being considered would never invoke the kind of concern you seem to be harboring. What stands as a guideline has been continually debated and subject to interpretation by the community for years. People use WP differently today than they did 10 years ago. They need choices to deal with all the various ways they access WP content. The old tired guidelines you keep espousing, if they actually exist, are not fulfilling that aim. Saffron Blaze (talk) 06:49, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

What I am saying, Masem, is that the NFCC argument is not even valid. There is no argument to be made at all to limit images sizes - and therefore limit Wikipedia's usability - due to an imaginary problem. Particularly given the basis of your argument: A non-free image at 500px would still be smaller, relative to users on high screen resolutions today than one at 300px was at what was a high resolution in 2007. This point is simply irrelevant to me. The question of bandwidth and other technical limitations is really the only one that should be persuasive here. Resolute 03:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Masem, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were trolling. Several people have told you your argument is baseless. You've created an imaginary concern. Please drop it. If you don't, I suggest others treat Masem's concern as though he were trolling (which I'm absolutely not saying he is) and ignore it. It is not helping this discussion by creating a huge timesink irrelevance. Masem, if privately you still think your concern has any weight whatsoever, then please go chat with WMF legal and come back when the argument has some backbone. -- Colin°^Talk 10:05, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I've been involved in the NFC area for the last 6 years - I know there is an issue here that is not obvious if you don't spend time in that area. It is not a direct legal concern but it does involve the Foundation's free content mission and how we have practiced that through NFC for the last 6 years since that Resolution was stated (And perhaps even earlier since en.wiki's NFC policy was the basis for how the Resolution was made). To restate, we don't have a hard (server or policy) px limit for non-free content, but we strongly encourage non-free images to be no larger than 300 px because with the 300 px max thumbnail, there's no reason to upload higher resolution images, and 300px is a good size that assuredly makes sure our fair use taking of commercial and copyrighted works stays small for the bulk of available copyrighted media. That is, we ask people to aim for about 0.1MP in image size (per WP:NFC). We obviously allow larger sizes, but higher resolutions require a justification in the non-free rationale about why the image needs to be that large. But I'd guess that right now, about 90% of our non-free images are tuned to the 300px/0.1MP size range. Should the max thumbnail size become 500px, and we make no change on what non-frees we have, we are either going to have the case that non-free images would be scaled up to 500px from their current size (which could make them blocky-looking), or that they would be fixed at a max size of 300px and appear small against all all free images. For the same reason this change was suggested - that on monitors with large resolution that the images look tiny - I can foresee a demand to increase the target non-free file size to 500px - doubling the number of pixels from 0.1MP and 0.2MP. For most non-free this is still probably nowhere close to tipping the fair use, but the issue becomes "where will this end"? What if people want 700px thumbnails (in general)? That's 5x increase in pixel count from 300px thumbs, roughly, and approaches the default size of many visual works.

Let me restate this is another way: should the thumbnail size increase, you cannot expect non-free images to follow. We are still going to aim to keep images around 300px/0.1 MP because that is a "right size" that balances all aspects, and still the thumbnail size that the majority of readers will not exceed. So as long as those that go to 500px understand that non-free will not follow, then there's no issue. But if you are expecting non-free policy to allow higher-resolution uploads to meet this new larger thumbnail size, then there's a major issue that has to be resolved.

I'm absolutely not trolling about this - this is a serious issue for non-free policy has it has been practiced. --MASEM (t) 15:31, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, even if you remove the whole issue of thumb sizes, your concern and adamant belief 300px/.1mb is the right size for NFC is also wrong and baseless, but this isn't the venue for that. Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:IMAGERES is the guideline on image sizes, it's not baseless. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Masem, would it help if I said I was in no doubt that the maximum thumbnail size has no link whatsoever to acceptable sizes for non-free content? I would not expect any tolerance of larger non-free images due to a change in thumbnail sizes. I'm also not sure it's a good idea to encourage non-free uploads at 300px – they should be uploaded at the smallest size that allows them to be of use in the relevant article(s). For many images, this could be less than 300px. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:28, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Resolute, restricting the pixel size of non-free images is about restricting the amount of detail in the image, not their size relative to the monitor. (We can't do anything to restrict their physical size; people can easily zoom in.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:28, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

There is a non-direct but important connection between thumb sizes and how've handled non-free reductions due to the fact we encourage and/or require scaling to no larger than the largest possible thumb size to minimize non-free particularly those higher resolutions where it would not be used. As long as it understood that we at NFC will continue to encourage and enforce the 300px/0.1MP size regardless of how big the thumbnails for free images may go, then we're fine and the matter is nothing else. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

• It was nothing to begin with but your insistence has highlighted another problem not related to the OP. You have made it so abundantly clear that a baseless guideline at NFC is making a mockery of fair use doctrine. Its overly restrictive nature serves nothing other than someone's arbitrary belief. I will have to see about addressing that as well. Saffron Blaze (talk) 02:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Clearly you aren't clear how important and the goals of NFC policy here. It is two fold: one: to encourage free content over non-free content and meet the free content mission, and two: to keep us as far from possible from tripping over the fair use defense in what non-free we offer. Size is a critical importance, because one aspect of fair use is to respect commercial opportunities, and thus reducing images to ~300px/0.1MP easily avoids treading on that. The combination of these two are summarized in NFCC#3b as well as the Foundation's resolution to minimize non-free taken. This is has been the case for 6+ years if not longer. This is why this is all connected to the thumbnail, because, as you are imply, you're going to be asking for larger NFC images to be used, and that will not fly. --MASEM (t) 02:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

• Sure it will. If you build it they will come. Did you really think 300px as a guideline would last forever? It is not even founded in any case law. It's just a 7 year old wild ass guess made by a very small crew of involved editors. Certainly well meaning but getting out of date. Saffron Blaze (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

'wgThumbLimits' => array(
        'default' => array( 120, 150, 180, 200, 220, 250, 300 ),
        '+itwikiquote' => array( 360 ),
        'svwiki' => array( 120, 200, 250, 300, 360 ),
),

'wgThumbLimits' => array(
        'default' => array( 150, 200, 250, 300, 360 ),
),

Are we affected by the Heartbleed bug? If so, should I go change my password? --NYKevin 16:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm kind of curious about this, too. Are we affected? Should we worry? Ging287 (talk) 16:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Certificate Patrol on my browser, several Wikipedia SSL certificates have been replaced. That could indicate that they were vulnerable and had to create new certificates. --cesarb 17:57, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

According to the Server admin log, they upgraded libssl today, so I'd say yes, Wikipedia was vulnerable. --cesarb 18:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Aye, we were vulnerable and have updated everything. We don't have any reason to believe we were compromised but as a security precaution we're going to be invalidating user sessions as well ( see wikitech-ambassadors email ). They are recommending people reset passwords but I don't think it's being forced right now. Jalexander--WMF 21:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jalexander: Do you have plans to update your certificates as well in case someone was able to compromise them? Magog the Ogre (t • c) 00:07, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Magog the Ogre:My understanding is that all of the certificates were replaced earlier (last night I believe?) working under the assumption that they were compromised (there is no way to tell) but I will ensure that is correct. Jalexander--WMF 02:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jalexander:It seems that is not the case as of right now: The *.wikipedia.org cert was issued in 2012 (or at least, that's the cert I'm seeing on https://en.wikipedia.org/ right now). Are you sure all of the certs have been revoked and reissued? --NYKevin 19:41, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I see the same wildcard certificate, dated 10/21/12. However, http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ indicates that the server has been patched. So if the certificate was compromised in the past, there is a possibility of a MITM attack, but sessions are now supposedly secure against passive eavesdropping. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 21:33, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

@NYKevin:@Magog the Ogre: Sorry for the time it took to respond. I did confirm that we replaced all of the star certs. The reason you aren't seeing it (and neither are the tools to check the vulnerability) is that while the private/public keypair was changed (and hence the fingerprint) the 'not valid before' date remained the same (Oct 21 2012). For better or worse we don't have any choice over the matter, that's what our vender does when replacing certificates and so the only way to verify that it is different is to have a copy of the finger print from before the change. Jalexander--WMF 22:32, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

From what I've read, one of the "features" of this bug is that exploitation leaves no traces in logs (see http://heartbleed.com/, under "Can I detect if someone has exploited this against me?"). Would a password reset for anyone with advanced privileges (>admin) be in order? MER-C 02:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

From what I understand, the probability for this happening in our infrastructure is so implausible as to basically be considered impossible (without us having noticed). Users are being forced to re-login (as sessions are far more vulnerable) but passwords should be generally secure. (Of course this doesn't mean that you shouldn't change your password, especially if it's one you re-use on another site that may or may not already be patched against the vulnerability) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 04:49, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the https pages are being served with a non-PFS cipher suite, which should be considered a weakness in its own right, that should be fixed. It means among other things, that passwords can be recovered from old recorded traffic, if the server private key was captured using heartbleed. I think of the types of entities capable of recording large volumes of old Wikipedia SSL traffic, and think 1) yes it's likely or at least plausible that they did it, and 2) they're not that likely to actually use the passwords, they want the data for other purposes. Overall I'd say don't panic, but yes, go ahead and change passwords. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 07:23, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Company policies normally force their employees to change passwords every so often. I'd say Wikipedia is being lenient towards their volunteers. TeleComNasSprVen (talk • contribs) 09:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe there's research to suggest such practises reduce overall security. Also we're talking about an encyclopedia, not nuclear launch codes. Bawolff (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it sometimes reduces overall security. People will cycle through the same set of passwords or make only minor changes (let's see, I need to change the password every quarter, must have a number and a capital letter, I can't reuse any of the previous three... Hmm, how about 1stQuarterPassword, 2ndQuarterPassword, 3rdQuarterPassword, and 4thQuarterPassword?). Also, because there is normally no warning when passwords are being reset, they pick something that they can think of quickly (Quick, I need a new password, um, um, Coffee! I'm drinking coffee right now! Okay, how about "Coffee1"?), without thinking about how secure it might be. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• At Commons I saw the message

Wikimedia Foundation servers have been updated yesterday after a vulnerability was discovered in the OpenSSL software. As a precaution, all Commons users were forced to log in again using new, secure version of the software. While there is no evidence of any breach of servers or loss of user data, the Wikimedia Foundation recommends that all users change their passwords to ensure maximum safety of their accounts.

But it did not have any discussion link. Where to discuss this issue? Plus, a couple of months ago, they forced us to change password, again today we need to change password. It becomes very difficult (specially if we have to make changes in alll websites with same password) --Tito☸Dutta 16:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a thread on wikitech-l about it , which may be of interest to some. Discussion at commons happened at commons:Commons:VP#Users_are_being_forced_to_log_out. Otherwise I'm not aware of any discussions. Here seems like a great place to talk about it, if it needs to be talked about. Bawolff (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The Commons message is from commons:MediaWiki:Sitenotice. I have linked the discussion on the talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• Note that this does feel like something we need a watchlist message for on en.wiki, as long as we can point to a WMF recommendation on what they did (eg any changed passwords now are after clearing the bad SSL libraries). --MASEM (t) 17:36, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• A couple of notes about the Commons sitenotice: a) it was added by a user there, not by WMF; and b) if you look in the edit history it's implicitly quite clear that WMF don't intend to escalate to forced password changes. ("based on their risk assessment, the WMF Ops & Platform teams don't consider notification via sitenotice essential"). That said, there have been at least two occurrences where passwords were force-changed; once in 2013, noted above, and a slightly weirder one in 2007 where a number of admin accounts were hijacked in very rapid succession and some other vulnerable ones were reset. Andrew Gray (talk) 09:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

• Forced password change = end of my volunteer services on this site. Recommending is one thing, and strongly recommending for admins and higher is certainly in order... but forcing it? - Floydian ^τ _¢ 18:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

  Nobody is being forced to do anything. If you're not afraid of losing your account, feel free not to do anything :) It seems that the chance of anyone's account being actually compromised is rather minute. Matma Rex talk 18:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

  The only thing forced is that they cancelled all current sessions and are forcing you to relog in with your current password to refresh the session with the new SSL certs that avoid the heartbleed bug. It's a situation that every security effort is recommended the change but clearly no one is forcing WP editors to reset their passwords. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

  And even if they did decide to force you to change your password, why would that necessitate the end of your volunteer services on this site? If a website is forcing you to change your password, it's probably because there's a high likelihood that your password has been compromised, and therefore it's in everyone's best interest to change your password. ‑Scottywong| comment _ 18:41, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

  I thought Floydian was reacting to the mention of a policy used by some corporations, that requires periodic password changes whether there is a suspected breach or not. IMHO for a site with really high security requirements, password-only authentication is a weak practice in its own right, and two-factor authentication should be required. At that point the password changes become less useful, so the practice can be considered obsolete. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 20:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

  No, I'm just opposed to the idea that, for example, I need a number and uppercase letter in my xbox live password while my bank account is a four-digit number, no more, no less. I am responsible for my own security. If my account gets compromised, it is my fault, and website have no (zero, 0, zilch) liability in such a matter. By being forced to use various passwords, change them on a timely basis, or follow rediculous rules that determine my 20 lower-case letter password as "weak", I get to write passwords down on paper or on a computer file so I can remember all the damned things. I do not want wikipedia to go this way (and am relieved that it is not), and my protest against it, if it were to happen, would be to walk away after 10 years and nearly 30,000 edits. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 00:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

  Even if you're really willing to re-imburse a company for any expenses they incur in dealing with your compromised account (e.g. the spam), it's unlikely they'd have a process in place to accept it for many reasons including the fact that few people would be willing and regardless of the legal issues, it just doesn't make business sense to pursue people for most such costs. Not to mention I'm not sure how you'd even calculate the costs? (Calculating the costs could easily cost more than the costs themselves.) And let's not forget it could easily extend beyon the company itself. If your twitter, email or whatever account is compromised and you spam malware, a number of people, including people you don't even know could end up being affected, how you plan to work out what you're responsible and compensate them, I'm not particularly sure.

  For that matter, it's unclear to me how you plan to compensate the volunteers and possible staff who may deal with any mess from your compromised account.

  In other words, while you may have a point that such rules sometimes create more problems then they fix and are unfair to users of whatever service involved, your idea you're assuming all liability is just silly. No, when some account of yours is compromised you can be fairly sure someone (depending on the severity, plenty of people) will incur some cost from dealing with it which you won't compensate them for.

  (In fact a funny related point, I don't know if you program and if you do, whether you are involved in any open source project. But let's say you are, if your account in some project is compromised, someone using your account submits or commits some dodgy code which lasts for 2 year and when it's found puts 17% of secure servers on the internet at risk. What sort of liability are you planning to assume in such a case? Zero because you'd have no liability (as you shouldn't) if you had intentionally submitted the code? And to be clear, this isn't a criticism of the people who submitted or committed the code involved in such a bug. Simply pointing out the idea you can magically assume all liability or that there would even always be agreement on what you should assume is highly flawed and that even if you did and there was agreement, it may not negate the negative effects from your compromised account.)

  Nil Einne (talk) 14:23, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

• Do I need to change the "common password" again in all sites? See meta:Talk:October_2013_private_data_security_issue#Common_password. --Tito☸Dutta 18:47, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that would be affected by the same bug. That said, as discussed above, the likelihood that your password was intercepted by someone likely to misuse it doesn't seem high. Changing your password is recommended as a precautionary measure but it's a more important issue for advanced permission holders. If a normal user account gets compromised it's not a big deal--it gets blocked, bad edits are reverted, some effort is made to return control to you if there's a way to authenticate that you're the real owner, or in some cases you may have to enroll a new account and abandon the old one—not that big a deal in the scheme of things. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: I've started a thread about creating a Sitenotice regarding this. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 19:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)