Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Strange things happening with a template

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{{Village pump page header|1=Technical|2=The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

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Viewing watchlist by date added?

I'm familiar with the Raw Watchlist view, but that's alphabetical. Is there any way to get a listing of all articles on one's own watchlist, ordered by date added? -- Avocado (talk) 21:35, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

:No. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:31, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

:: Expanding a bit ... If you look at the page about the database table you will see that the date added is not recorded. Maybe it should be, but I don't see such a change happening soon — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 11:20, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Ah, thank you. Yes, that would indeed make it impossible. And even if they started recording it in the future, that wouldn't help much with pruning my present watchlist based on prior waves of now-abandoned editing interests, nor with retrieving a list of pages I've edited in a particular period (though the latter could probably be achieved through some grouping of contribution log records, I suppose). -- Avocado (talk) 12:07, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::@Avocado User:Ahecht/Scripts/watchlistcleaner lets you purge items from your watchlist that you haven't edited recently (and lets you specify what window of time you consider "recent"). --Ahecht (TALK
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19:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Thanks! That looks potentially useful. Personally, there's some select stuff from ancient history that I'd be sad to have removed. Hence the desire to manage it myself but with date as sorting criterion. -- Avocado (talk) 21:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::: OTOH, sorting by the wl_id field may give you an equivalent to "ordered by date added" (just not the date itself). But I don't know of any way to do that without direct access to the production databases; existing UIs look like they generally sort by namespace and title, or don't sort at all. Anomie 13:01, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: {{ec}} phab:T125991 phab:T67187. * Pppery * it has begun... 13:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Oh, sorting by ID is a good idea! Is that data accessible via API? If so, where might one look for docs about that? I could probably produce a quick-and-dirty script to pull that data in an afternoon. Even if the ID isn't in perfect chronological order, it'd be better than nothing for current purposes. -- Avocado (talk) 14:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: No way to fetch it that I know of or can see in a quick search. Anomie 23:07, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::I appreciate your looking into it! I think I'm going to try to pull some of this off by reading the full contribution history from the API, since I have "watch page" on by default. Should be close enough. For read-only access, is one required to apply for bot operation permissions before creating a bot password for authenticated access to the API? -- Avocado (talk) 23:57, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::: No, there's no such requirement. Anomie 00:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikidata list

Hello, I need assistance with generating a list based on Wikidata. I would appreciate any help. Regards. Riad Salih (talk) 12:55, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:d:Wikidata:Request a query is a better place for that query. If you do post there, specify what you are looking for specifically. Snævar (talk) 16:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:Thanks, but I have already created the page; there is just a problem with the list being repeated. Riad Salih (talk) 16:38, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::@Riad Salih: you forgot to include {{tl|Wikidata list end}}, the bot has no idea when to stop. Sjoerd de Bruin ({{int:Talkpagelinktext}}) 15:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@Sjoerddebruin Thank you, it worked! I really appreciate it. Riad Salih (talk) 16:09, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Discussion Timeline script

When a discussion gets many replies by many people it can get pretty difficult to see in what chronological order the posts were written.

Is there a script that allows you to travel through time through a discussion? I mean other than User:Polygnotus/Scripts/Timeline.js of course. Polygnotus (talk) 04:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:While cumbersome, using the page history to select the earliest edit you want to see, than selecting "next edit" on each successive page would do that. Donald Albury 13:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::For those using a desktop browser, the "Browse history interactively" dropdown that appears at the top of a diff page lets you hover over a bar graph to see the edit summaries of each edit. isaacl (talk) 15:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks both! Hitting "next edit" works indeed, but gets a bit tiresome.

::The "Browse history interactively" dropdown only shows up on diff pages and requires you to scroll up, click a diff, scroll down, try to find what changed, et cetera.

::With this new script you can just click and hold the slider and drag the mouse to the left and right.

::Kinda figured someone must've already made something like that but I guess not. Thanks! Polygnotus (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Verification request

Hello guys! I did some changes on "Wi-Fi Protected Setup", and i want them to be verified by someone to make sure they are correct. If you want, and know something about Wi-Fi networks and cybersecurity, i would be grateful if you check them. Thanks in advance!

P.S. i am sorry for adding this request on the technical discussions.

--Dimitrie569 (Talk) 19:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

:Discussion about an article's contents takes place on its corresponding talk page (in this case, Talk:Wi-Fi Protected Setup). There's a link to it below the article title. If no one responds, you can look at the list of associated WikiProjects at the top of the talk page, and use their talk pages to post a link to the discussion on the article talk page. isaacl (talk) 15:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::Hmm ok, i should keep it in mind the next time. --Dimitrie569 (Talk) 18:52, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Font change in desktop view on mobile

Did the CSS just change on mobilein desktop view as seen on mobile? Page body text on my phone is a lot denser today. Chrome on a Galaxy phone. Largoplazo (talk) 14:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:Not on mobile, but on the usual Vector2022 view on a desktop I'm seeing text that appears a lot denser today as well. It's hard to tell because I don't have before and after screenshots, but my suspicion is that the leading (space between consecutive lines of text) has been reduced. I went into my custom css and increased the line-height (mine has a line ".vector-body {font-size: 115%; line-height: 150%;}" but you may not want such extreme values) and it looked a lot better again. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::I just realized, it isn't mobile view, it's desktop view though on my phone. I've edited my original post. Largoplazo (talk) 19:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::On the other hand, I'm not noticing a difference on my desktop monitor! Largoplazo (talk) 22:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:On desktop my icons are smaller today too... Sock-the-guy (talk) 19:38, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::File:Block message size.png MonoBook here, and while I don't see that, I do see the pink box atop the editing window that - for instance - has the this-user-has-been-blocked-by-who-and-why looks to have larger text today. Or maybe it's always been this way and I'm losing my mind, that can't be ruled out? - The Bushranger One ping only 19:27, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::No, you're right, it is bigger. Remember, WP:ITSTHURSDAY. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:13, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::woah I didn't know about that. Thanks! Sock-the-guy (talk) 21:21, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Aha. That would explain the larger text in the block notices. I also noticed the text in the box here looks odd ({{ping|Parsecboy}} since I'm linking your page for an example!). And I'm going to guess that Wikimedia Commons got rolled out on Wednesday, which might explain the Metadata text looking bigger that I noticed there yesterday... - The Bushranger One ping only 22:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::The new CSS rule affecting the pink box is: .cdx-message__content,

.cdx-message__content > * {

font-size: var(--font-size-medium,1rem);

line-height: var(--line-height-small,1.375rem);

} and since it seems to be general for pink boxes, it also affects the pink box shown whn you visit the redlink of a deleted page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::The same rule is picked up by the brown boxes, which explains Izno's post of 23:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC) below. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:12, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:I've also caught that it impacted the old revision notice, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Izno&oldid=1261463683 my user page for example]. Izno (talk) 23:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::Based on the phab chatter, this is phab:T394305 and should be fixed already +- caches +- hard refreshing. Izno (talk) 23:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  • And just now I noticed that the "Mark this page as patrolled" button on the lower right of unpatrolled pages is absolutely huge now. Was this really intended?? - The Bushranger One ping only 18:11, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
  • ...also it almost looks like the text on this page is larger than it used to be now. Was this part of the "dark mode" rollout somehow? Because it's...not great. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:17, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

= Fonts changed in deletion summaries? =

Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or ... is the font size in deletion summaries, such as the one posted at Yoshi Falls, bigger and/or has less space between lines than they previously did? And if so, was this intentional? (In case it is relevant, I'm using Vector legacy 2010.) Steel1943 (talk) 22:51, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:This is #Font change in desktop view on mobile above. Despite the section heading, it's not just mobiles. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:For what it's worth, I am using "desktop on mobile". Steel1943 (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::Givent the timing, I suspect this can all be blamed on "changes to suit dark mode". - The Bushranger One ping only 23:53, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Who Wrote that not working

{{tracked|T394517|resolved}}

I removed it from Chrome checking whether any extensions were causing problems (it was bad memory). Replaced it and it no longer shows up in Tools. Windows 11. Than ks. Doug Weller talk 16:03, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:I didn't uninstall anything and it doesn't work for me either. I can see that it throws an error "TypeError: mw.Uri is not a constructor" in browser's (Firefox 138) console and doesn't load further. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 16:21, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::Odd. Doug Weller talk 19:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@AstonishingTunesAdmirer see [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_Tech/Who_Wrote_That_tool#Problems_on_en.wiki] discussion at Meta. Doug Weller talk 19:11, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:Sorry about that! This is fixed in version 0.22.3, which is already live on the Firefox web store, and should go live on Chromium-based web stores soon. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you! It works for me now. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 23:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Home / Away formatting in Module:Sports results

I'm curious to know whether this module can be edited to format the team header to use Template:Diagonal_split_header or _2. When adding either template to an individual table using team_header={{diagonal split header 2|Home|Away}} the result only shows the class and style in plain text, presumably because the module creates the table using class="wikitable plainrowheaders"? StatmanIbrahimovic (talk) 18:24, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{ping|StatmanIbrahimovic}}class="wikitable plainrowheaders" is unrelated. Special:ExpandTemplates can show the generated wikitext. It happens because the module adds scope="col" | with a pipe before team_header. {{tl|diagonal split header}} includes cell formatting code which should be before a pipe so it adds its own pipe but everything just becomes cell content when there already is a pipe.

:

{{#invoke:Sports results|main

|team_header={{diagonal split header 2|Home|Away}}

}}

:produces:

{{#invoke:Sports results|main

|team_header={{diagonal split header 2|Home|Away}}

}}

:It works if we remove the unwanted pipe with {{tl|replace}}.

:

{{replace|

{{#invoke:Sports results|main

|1=team_header={{diagonal split header 2|Home|Away}}

}}

|2={{!}} class="diagonal

|3= class="diagonal

}}

:produces:

{{replace|

{{#invoke:Sports results|main

|1=team_header={{diagonal split header 2|Home|Away}}

}}

|2={{!}} class="diagonal

|3= class="diagonal

}}

:But don't do that. It's a bad hack. I don't know a good solution without modyfying the module to allow cell formatting by the caller. A pipe is needed somewhere after scope="col" so it wouldn't work to always omit the pipe. The normal solution is to add an extra optional parameter with code to insert before the pipe. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::Is that template accessible? Do screen readers read it correct with the entire table? If it doesn't work, then we shouldn't support it. Gonnym (talk) 16:48, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Toolforge down?

One of my regular tools I use is to check for empty categories which is on Toolforge and I now get this message:

::Webservice is unreachable

::The tool responsible for the URL you have requested, https://empty-categories.toolforge.org/go, is not currently responding.

I've already informed the tool creator but I don't think it is just a problem with this link. Any idea when this might be fixed? Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 19:25, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Liz All of my toolforge tools are currently working, so it's likely just a problem with that specific tool. --Ahecht (TALK
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19:28, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::That's interesting. I also work with User:DreamRimmer bot II and that's been out of commission for the past three hours, I'm not sure there is any connection. It's a challenge when the tools you use every day don't function, you learn how much you rely on them. Thanks for the update on your end, Ahecht. Liz Read! Talk! 19:36, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

invoke:cite causing harv and sfn no-target errors false positives

The article Gaza genocide has recently had a number of citation templates changed to use #invokle:cite. Unfortunately this causes the article to appear in :Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors and also false positive messages from User:Svick/HarvErrors. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 20:01, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Trappist the monk This appears to be an issue with switching from Module:Cite web to Module:Cite, and will likely require updates to Module:Footnotes to accommodate the new module naming scheme. --Ahecht (TALK
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20:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::This is not really a fix, but the usual workaround for false positive harv errors is to use {{tl|sfn whitelist}}. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::That needs to be done on a per-article basis. If more than one article is affected, it's easier and quicker to add an entry to Module:Footnotes/whitelist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:18, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Neither of those 'fixes' should be pursued. The 'fix' is to fix Module:Footnotes so that it recognizes {{#invoke:Cite|xxxx|....}} and can then extract the necessary info from the invoke.

::::—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::{{re|David Eppstein}} there are about 500 instances, the sfn whitelist would be ludicrously and unmanageably long. DuncanHill (talk) 21:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Trappist the monk@Hike395: I think I've implemented that at Special:Diff/1271779136/1290610723, but would appreciate a second/third set of eyes on it. It should work for both cases like {{mlx|cite|web|...}} and {{mlx|cite tweet||...}}, but it would interpret {{mlx|cite tweet|main|...}} as {{tl|cite tweet main}}.--Ahecht (TALK
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21:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Editor Hike395 rewrote most of Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list to the point where I no longer recognize the code so I am not the best person to say if what you have added was a good addition. I do notice that the 'template' names created from #invokes are not listed in template_list. Edit this version of my sandbox (don't change anything) and click Show preview. Then, in the Parser profiling data dropdown, click show under Lua logs. You should see something like this:

:::::::template_list = table#1 {

["Cite SSRN/new"] = 1,

["Template:Harvard citation no brackets/sandbox"] = 1,

}

::::::In my sandbox page there are two {{#invoke:Cite|news|...}}. Change one of them to {{Cite news|...}}. Show preview; Show Lua logs. You should see something like this:

:::::::template_list = table#1 {

["Cite SSRN/new"] = 1,

["Cite news"] = 1,

["Template:Harvard citation no brackets/sandbox"] = 1,

}

::::::Where is the missing 'cite news' from the invoke?

::::::—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:36, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::The answer to Trappist's question is because the template_list variable is populated by template_list_add() here, and that function accepts the raw template string Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list/sandbox#L-762 at line 762, not the hacked version produced by template_get_name Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list/sandbox#L-762 at line 761. Is that right? It seems to me that template_list_add() at line 762 can be replaced by list_add(template_name, template_list). But I'm not 100% sure.

:::::::By the way, 95% of the code in Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list is still Trappist's code. You can see my diff {{diff|Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list|1269310281|1235097998|here}}. I changed the way the global variables were updated (for caching and to handle errors correctly), rewrote a little code for efficiency, handled "fascicles", and added citeref_patterns_make(), but that was it.

:::::::To answer {{U|Ahect}}'s question -- I'm a bit nervous about turning all invokes into fake-o templates, because I don't know if that will generate any false positives or negatives. You may want to only turn {{#invoke:cite|XYZ}} into {{cite XYZ}}, because that seems safer and more predictable. — hike395 (talk) 02:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Also: I am concerned that {{U|Ahecht}} has only hacked template_name and not template itself. There are a large number of regexps in Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list that manipulate template directly, and those will not understand {{#invoke:cite|XYZ}}. — hike395 (talk) 02:59, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::@Hike395 My impression from the code is that template_params_get() only looked for named parameters, so it should automatically ignore lua function names, and similarly date_get() only looks for parameters starting with date=() (or an alias). sfnreg_get(), anchor_id_make_harvc(), and anchor_id_make_anchor() don't look at citation templates, so it doesn't matter there. The only other function that might potentially be impacted is template_list_add, which despite a comment saying that it handles case differently than template_params_get() is functionally identical as far as I can tell, so I just refactored it to use template_params_get() here. @Trappist the monk can correct me if my assumptions are wrong. --Ahecht (TALK
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20:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:This version (permalink) of Gaza genocide directly precedes the edit that converted Module:Cite web and others to Module:Cite. Note that that §References section in that older version also has lots of harv errors. From that, I conclude that the change to Module:Cite {{em|did not}} cause any new problems. It appears that these errors began appearing 2025-05-03 at this edit (permalink). Since that time no one has bothered to notice or if they noticed, did not say anything. Of course, that harv error message is hidden so that might explain why the silence. No doubt, there are other articles where these sorts of error messages have not been noticed.

:

:User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors does not show any error messages. The only error messages that I see are from Module:Footnotes.

:

:For those interested, Module:Cite web, Module:Cite news, and a few others are soon to be deleted so look now before their deletion prevents you from confirming what I have written.

:—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::The edit on the 3rd May marked the use of #invoke, so it seems to be #invoke that is causing the problem. As for not raising it earlier, I am sorry but I have a life. DuncanHill (talk) 21:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:How about not using invoke to get around an article being to long, and instead split and summarise better? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:15, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::Wikimedian challenge: impossible. Izno (talk) 20:16, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Phab report needed for signature vulnerability

{{tracked|T394522}}

A report at ANI (permalink) shows a troll with two external links in their signature. In this case, the links (which have been replaced) are apparently offensive but in general could be an attack on people who click the invisible external link. I can't find a report in Phab on this topic which makes me suspect I don't have the necessary skills so I'm hoping someone more familiar with that process will investigate and, if necessary, open a case. It's a shockingly bad weakness. Come to think of it, I believe this was reported many months ago in relation to how it could evade the black list. Johnuniq (talk) 11:28, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:Custom signatures should be part of [https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/mediawiki-core-preferences/ MediaWiki-Core-Preferences] I believe. Nobody (talk) 13:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{reply|Johnuniq}} I created a phab ticket phab:T394522 for this issue. cyberdog958Talk 15:06, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:How is this different from just copy-pasting an external link in the wikitext while editing? Matma Rex talk 16:58, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{reply|Matma Rex}} I don’t think it’s really different per se, but it seems more insidious in this case as a signature link is the easiest way to get to a users user page or talk page, which were both spoofed in this case. It looks like the user intentionally hid the link using {{tl|plainlink}} because the external link icon wasn’t present in his signature. Also, if using this method bypasses the blacklist, it makes the blacklist pointless to would be vandals. I can’t think of any legitimate reason an external URL would need to be in a signature to justify allowing them. cyberdog958Talk 18:09, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::They didn't use {{tlx|plainlink}}, but they did use {{tag|span|params=class="plainlinks"}} which does the same thing but gets around our WP:SIG#NT policy. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::::That makes more sense, thanks. cyberdog958Talk 18:19, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{ec}} It isn't, really, except that it violates WP:SIG#EL: {{tq|Do not include links to external websites in your signature}}, which is both explicit and clear. ELs in sigs - whether to offensive websites or not - are a crime. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:10, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Template-generated redlinked category on userspace page

The latest run of Special:WantedCategories features a weird {{cl|PagesXXXXXXusingXXXXXXgadgetXXXXXXCalculator}}, being autogenerated and transcluded by the use of {{tl|calculator}} on a user sandbox page — but if I try to strip out instances of XXXXXX in the page, then it turns into the still-redlinked {{cl|PagesusinggadgetCalculator}} instead of the bluelinked {{cl|Pages using gadget Calculator}}, meaning that there's another problem on the page besides the XXXXXX thing.

But I can't justify going through the whole page to wrap all 145 invocations of the calculator template in {{tl|suppress categories}} to make the redlink go away (both because that would be an excessive timesink and because it's a tracking category where userspace content isn't considered a problem), and I don't know how to figure out what the other problem is — so could somebody take a look at this and figure out how to fix whatever's causing the template to transclude a nonsense corruption of its tracking category? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 15:33, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

: Done. It's not the template's fault, it's that it's input was wrapped in a string replace op. I've just fixed that by suppressing categories for the problematic two uses. * Pppery * it has begun... 15:38, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

First watchlist item messed up

Ever since yesterday, when I use the desktop version on my mobile phone, the first item in my watchlist is a long column of text with 1-2 characters per line, and partially obscured by the "List of abbrevations" box. If you don't know what I mean, it's similar to how it looks on mobile with desktop view when discussions get too indented. Only happens when reading phone in portrait mode, not in landscape mode, I assume because there is more width available in landscape. The rest of the entries look normal, except maybe (not sure) the margin is wider than it used to be?

Is this something I just need to get used to, or is it something about to be fixed? Or am I the only person on the planet it is happening to? Is this somehow related to the "Font change in desktop view on mobile" thread above? Have I explained it so poorly that no one knows what I mean?

This is one of those things that's only a minor annoyance, except I see it every time I look at the watchlist, so the annoyance kind of accumulates after a while.... Floquenbeam (talk) 19:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:Seems unrelated to the other font changes. T331086 changed how line breaking of text works on the watchlist, and this seems to be an unintended consequence of that. I proposed a patch to improve it: [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/core/+/1147070] Matma Rex talk 22:50, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::On suitably narrow screens the legend probably shouldn't float at all. Izno (talk) 05:05, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::... and I guess the corollary is that maybe it would make sense to allow special pages to tell the skin (or vice versa, idk which way) whether they support mobile friendliness, as we work toward e.g. Vector being available as a 'mobile' skin rather than something which phones have to guess at what's important and what's not. Izno (talk) 05:24, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Language list gone in Vector 2010

The list of languages in the sidebar (I use legacy Vector 2010) seems to have disappeared, and been replaced by a single link to Wikidata. Testing it under the default V2022, it remains under the list of languages at the top. Why has this been changed for V2010? I deal with cross-wiki stuff all the time, and this is a huge productivity hit for me as it requires multiple steps and additional time to get to my destination. Please, how do I get the language list back again in the left sidebar? Mathglot (talk) 19:51, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:Could you link to an example where it is not working for you? Perhaps also try to reproduce the problem with this link which properly shows the language list for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example?useskin=vector&safemode=1 (Context: using mw:safemode will "deactivate all on-wiki scripts and stylesheets at once"). HTH, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:: {{u|Quiddity}}, thanks for your reply. Your Example page works with the safe mode url suffix (and shows six languages in the sidebar) but it fails without the suffix. I hit Random article until I found three more pages with language links, they are: Ninzic languages, European turtle dove, and MILGEM project, and they all display [​[Wikidata item]​] under small-font heading, 'In other projects', and none of the individual languages. In each case, if I add {{kbd|1=?useskin=vector&safemode=1}} to the url, the language links in the sidebar come back again.

:: My most recent changes to commons.js was 4 April 2025 (and .css = 17 March). It occurred to me that perhaps one of the scripts I load may have changed recently, so I blanked my commons.js, bypassed my cache, and tried the three articles listed again, same thing: no links, but they come back in safemode. The only other thing that occurs to me, is that I believe there is a Preference setting somewhere to list my languages in the sidebar in English, not in the local language (i.e, I normally see: "German, French, Spanish", not "Deutsch, Français, Español"); should I hunt that down and disable that as well to see what happens? My common.js remains blanked for the moment. Mathglot (talk) 21:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

File:InterlanguageLinks-Sidebar-Vector.png

::: I have some clues: the languages are still there, but they are hidden, as if the list were toggled to 'hide'. It used to be, that when languages were listed, there was a down-pointing triangle and if you clicked it, it turned into a right-pointing triangle with the languages hidden. Now, the triangles act differently depending what browser you are on. Chrome, Vivaldi, Edge, Firefox, iOS desktop mode: no triangles at all, but if you click where the triangle ought to be, it toggles the list back and forth; Opera: down triangle is visible, right-pointing is invisible, toggling works if you click where it ought to be. There is also the question of why the language list got hidden in the first place, as I always keep them in 'show' mode. Mathglot (talk) 22:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Is the toggle to hide/show a specific script you have? Mine have never done that, and on Ninzic languages I see the 3 interwikis displayed normally above the "Edit links" wikidata link. CMD (talk) 09:53, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: Hi, {{u|Chipmunkdavis}}. No, the behavior is the same even after I have blanked all my scripts, both in my common.js as well as global.js on meta. But the toggle behavior does go away at Ninzic languages in safemode. But are you sure you do not have that behavior? What happens when you click the header 'Language' above the language list, nothing? I'm not sure what it means that the language list toggling doesn't work in safe mode even though it does work in normal mode with all my scripts blanked. (I do not have a vector.js.) Sounds like I will have to try turning off gadgets next. Mathglot (talk) 03:26, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::I don't have an arrow, and there is nothing for me to click, it's just a h3 tag:

Languages

. CMD (talk) 03:33, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::: Found the culprit, finally: it is gadget 'Allow navigation menus to be collapsed', which I never would have suspected. Whew, what a pain! Now I can restore my js files. But, I still need to report a problem with that gadget not displaying the toggle triangles anymore, as it used to (see screenshot). Adding {{u|Quiddity}}, who may be curious to discover how it all shook out. {{ec}} Mathglot (talk) 03:36, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::: Nobody has an arrow (except Opera users); that is part of the problem, the triangle used to be there as in the image. I have the identical Html for the H3, but it is embedded in some code starting

Patrol on new user page

Hi, can anyone tell me the link/ discussion thread for the patrol's new user page? As you can see below, there are two editor user pages with the "mark this page as patrol" tag. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphasciences ] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85] . Thank you. Cassiopeia talk 23:46, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:The second page was deleted, so I can't comment on that. The first page [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=169837150 was patrolled by you].

:I can't quite understand what problem you are trying to describe, but this seems like a discussion for Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. —⁠andrybak (talk) 15:03, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{U|Andrybak}}} Thank you and I know. The second page I nominated for user name violation and that is the reason it was deleted. Stay safe and thank you. Cassiopeia talk

:Pages in any namespace can be patrolled, and the "Mark this page as patrolled" option is not new. You don't see it on mainspace pages because the Page curation toolbar hides it. Patrolling a page with this option is the same as marking it reviewed through the Page curation toolbar. The toolbar is easier to use and offers more features, which is why NPRs prefer that. You can mark userspace pages as patrolled, but we usually review only mainspace pages because patrolling other namespaces isn't necessary and is a waste of time. – DreamRimmer 16:28, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{u|DreamRimmer}} I have been patrolling for both NPR for many years and this is the first time I saw the in new user page. To me it doesn't make sense as we can mark patrol if all content added by the new user is adhere to the Wikipedia user page guidelines but we can guarantee the new user add something out the guidelines the next day or in the future. Thank you and stay safe. Cassiopeia talk 23:20, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Efn groups

I have added a table to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Alternative names. There is an {{tl|efn}} note, with the |group=Names parameter set.

Immediately after this sentence, I want to be displayed. However, this reference list is empty, and the footnote appears in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Special explanatory note instead of being displayed by itself(←primary goal) inside the table(←secondary goal).

What have I gotten wrong? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{Re|WhatamIdoing}} The {{tl|efn}} family of templates do accept a "group" parameter, but only with the specific values listed in the documentation. An arbitrary choice such as "Names" only gets you the default behaviour. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::Huh, I assumed that efn would emit whatever group name I chose, even though the {{tl|notelist}} wouldn't accept it. Thanks for [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section&diff=1290842383&oldid=1290805986 fixing it]. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Can't access Gerrit

Suddenly it's started to return a 403 (Forbidden) for me. Can you access it? https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/ Dragoniez (talk) 05:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

: Works for me. — Alien  3
3 3
06:04, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Alien333 Thanks for letting me know you could access it. That helped me figure out the issue. It turns out it was something on my end, not Gerrit's.
Looks like it was a browser compatibility thing. Even after clearing the cache, it still wouldn’t work, but it loaded fine on other browsers like Firefox and Chrome for iOS.
On my desktop I use Chrome, and apparently I was stuck on version 122.0.6261.129 because auto-updates weren’t working. I manually updated to version 136.0.7103.114, and now Gerrit works just fine. Dragoniez (talk) 11:21, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:: {{u|Dragoniez}}, I find commercial sites like [https://iidrn.com iidrn.com] (think: is it down right now) very helpful for figuring out if it is just you, or everybody. Mathglot (talk) 07:54, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

details, summary and arrow (left, down)

{{tag|details|o}}, {{tag|summary|o}} and arrow (left, down)

Now the section opens with the word "Show / Hide". This decision was justified at the dawn of the Internet 30 years ago, when HTML was version 1.0.

Now there are tags

, .

Probably, there are more beautiful solutions with an arrow (left, down).

In Wiki there are enough arrows as it is, even this topic, which I opened, has arrow (on mobile). But at the top of the page, the main sections are still opened using «Show/Hide». Seregadu (talk) 19:55, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:A closely-related matter was raised recently at Help talk:Collapsing tables and more#Noscript solution?. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:It would be a massive amount of work to transition literally every use of mw-collapsible, and that's even ignoring that I have had to yank teeth and still haven't 'won' the yanking to get these whitelisted. See phab:T25932 for the general discussion (and teeth yanking) and phab:T31118 for the specific. Izno (talk) 05:18, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::Or just have details and summary added to mw-collapsible (in jquery) and then no wiki edits are necessary. Snævar (talk) 10:25, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::But then there is also no effective benefit to it. Additionally, mw-collapsible does more than what details/summary can do, so no matter what, you have to do both, in which case the original mw-collapsible is more maintainable. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 19:23, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I can’t analyze the page in DevTools, in terms of external scripts (it’s easier to look at clean code). But I will assume that the old implementation from the 2000s (as now) Show/Hide with (addEventListener("click", (event) => { })) is much more complex than the modern

, .

::::I'm not sure the complex structure of the Wiki won't break within these two tags. Seregadu (talk) 19:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Database servers in extension1 are overloaded

I keep getting:

Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.

Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.

(Cannot access the database: Cannot access the database: Database servers in extension1 are overloaded. In order to protect application servers, the circuit breaking to databases of this section have been activated. Please try again a few seconds.)

Somtimes goes away on reload, sometimes takes a few times. DuncanHill (talk) 21:29, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:Just started happening to me too. SilverserenC 21:30, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:: See phab:T393513Alien  3
3 3
11:56, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Is the auth domain notice still needed?

Two months ago we added a notice about SUL3 to the login prompt per /Archive 218#MediaWiki:Loginprompt ?. Is this still needed now, or can it be removed? * Pppery * it has begun... 04:22, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:It would be good for new, and dormant but returning editors (two groups) to have the notice as they may not be aware that they have to modify their blocking tools (extensions, firewall, etc) that they may have to allow requests to the auth domain. The first can be easily settled with assuming that new editors are not auto-confirmed editors and use the CSS class to show the text to them, the second group is harder without enabling some form of last login tracking.

:At the very least, the wording of the notice can be tweaked or simplified given that the enhancement is no longer 'recent' (2 months or more ago?), i.e. "All logins are processed on auth.wikimedia.org. If you are using blocking software, you will need to allow access to this domain to log in. (technical details)" – robertsky (talk) 05:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:: This message appears before you log in, so you can't know whether the account they are going to log in to is new. And even if you could CSS classes like "autoconfirmed-show" don't work on the login page. * Pppery * it has begun... 13:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Opps. My wires were crossed. Then shortening the text is the alternative. – robertsky (talk) 01:24, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:In theory sessions can last for up to a year if you select the "remember me" option. So it seems likely that there are active editors who're going to log in using the new workflow for the first time in about 10 months' time. taavi (talk!) 15:26, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

I have removed "As part of recent enhancements" from the login notice. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Its says there are 0 steward on wikipedia

says 0 here Special:Statistics#:~:text=43-,Stewards,-(list of members

but there should be 34 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%2034%20stewards Jhoncena1234 (talk) 19:03, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

: That is the list of members in the local "steward" group, which is almost always empty. The global "steward" group is listed elsewhere. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:04, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::More specifically, [https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=steward here at Meta], which is linked from their statistics special page. Graham87 (talk) 08:34, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:::To explain a little more, the English Wiipedia is part of a unified login system for around 1000 wikis run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Most user groups are local and only apply to one wiki where they are assigned and listed. The steward group is global and applies to all wikis. It is only assigned and listed at the central Meta wiki. It's admittedly confusing that Special:Statistics says Stewards 0. Maybe it should be explained in MediaWiki:Statistics-footer. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:39, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:::If you look at Wikipedia:User access levels and search for "steward", you will find that in the sidebar there is a link to Wikipedia:Stewards, which itself is a soft redirect to meta:Stewards. There is also a section Wikipedia:User access levels#Global rights, which says {{tq|... stewards are appointed globally across all public Wikimedia wikis.}} --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:33, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Dark-mode navbox styling

For some time now, since the introduction of the dark-mode skin, this is how navboxes like Template:Seinfeld episodes appear in Vector 2022 when using dark mode.

(I've applied various tools and hand-edits to inline all of the styles and remove all CSS classes and element IDs, such that this should appear the same regardless what skin you're using, or what color-mode (if applicable). The only thing I can't control is the link coloring, since there's no way to inline-style a wikilink.)

=Current appearance of [[Template:Seinfeld episodes]] in Vector 2022 dark mode=

Seinfeld_season_1
Seinfeld_season_2
Seinfeld_season_3
Seinfeld_season_4
Seinfeld_season_5
Seinfeld_season_6
Seinfeld_season_7
Seinfeld_season_8
Seinfeld_season_9
† Indicates two-part episode

Note, especially, the top and left borders in the rows for odd-numbered seasons.

=What happens, and why=

This appears to simply be a mistake in the dark-mode CSS. One of the applicable rules — I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but it's loaded with the page according to ny browser's development tools — is this one (warning: brain-melting CSS ahead)...

html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox td:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox th:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox-above:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox p:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox > div:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox caption:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox--frwiki td:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox--frwiki th:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox--frwiki p:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox--frwiki > div:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox--frwiki caption:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .sinottico th:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .infobox-header:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .skin-nightmode-reset-color:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navigation-box:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .metadata:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .quotebox:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .side-box:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .side-box div:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-subgroup:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-group:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-even:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-abovebelow:not(.notheme),html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-title:not(.notheme) {

background: inherit !important;

color: inherit !important;

border-color: var(--border-color-subtle,#c8ccd1) !important

}

That rule includes (third-from-last) .navbox-even in the list of classes it applies to, but 'not .navbox-odd

=Fixed? appearance of [[Template:Seinfeld episodes]]=

Here's what happens if I use devtools to modify that rule, so that it also applies to html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .navbox-odd:not(.notheme)...

Seinfeld_season_1
Seinfeld_season_2
Seinfeld_season_3
Seinfeld_season_4
Seinfeld_season_5
Seinfeld_season_6
Seinfeld_season_7
Seinfeld_season_8
Seinfeld_season_9
† Indicates two-part episode

Presumably, that's the intended appearance. Seems more likely than what we currently have, anyway.

=My question: WHYYYYYYY???=

In so many ways.

Yes, of course,

  • Why were odd-numbered navbox rows left out of the dark-mode border styling?

but also, perhaps even more fundamentally,

  • Why is dark-mode implemented like this, as a set of forced (!important, ugh), centralized style overrides?
  • Why were the applicable navbox TemplateStyles (Module:Navbox/styles.css) not updated with dark-mode support, either instead of or in addition to the central changes?
  • Why do we even bother with TemplateStyles when the skin is going to force them to be ignored?

Oh... and, of course, "Can this please be fixed?" FeRDNYC (talk) 21:03, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

: To answer the question of where the CSS comes from: https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-WikimediaMessages/blob/master/modules/ext.wikimediamessages.styles/theme-night.less#L79. I'll let others deal with the broader questions. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:29, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:Triple batch of questions is probably best answered as "WMF wanted to get things done at 900 wiki scale" and no real other reason. We can take these styles upon ourselves when phab:T365330 is done and then applying :mw:Extension:WikimediaMessages#Site admin helper to the corresponding navbox-dark option. (Doing it before that task is done requires you or anyone else to work on the night mode related items at MediaWiki talk:Common.css/to do, though that may or may not be up to date in so far as there may be more to sort out.)

:I can't explain why navbox-odd was forgotten. You could submit a patch upstream if you want. I haven't bothered because when the Phab ticket is done we can fix it directly ourselves, and it's not seriously impeding anything. It's a double thickness line of a slightly wrong color, but obscures no text from a contrast perspective, which was the priority. Izno (talk) 22:43, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

::NB specifically navbox-odd has been previously commented on at Template talk:Navbox/Archive 24#Dark mode white border.

::This discussion could probably have been had at Template talk:Navbox. Izno (talk) 22:55, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

[[MDWiki:WikiProjectMed:OWID|OWID visualization within MediaWiki]] (Part 2)

We at Wiki Project Med have been working on decreasing bandwidth usage since this was raised as a significant concern during the last discussion. We have succeeded in dropping usage from 36 Mb down to 498KB. See MDWiki:WikiProjectMed:OWID

We would like to request turning on this functionality on EN WP so that it can be tested further. And of course are open to more feedback. Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:14, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:Notified: WT:GADGET, WP:IANB. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:47, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Module-smuggled redlinked categories

The latest run of Special:WantedCategories once again features two redlinks being autogenerated by modules I can't edit, which I can't figure out what to do with:

  • {{cl|Sweden by county category navigation with 6–15 links}}, autogenerated by the use of {{tl|Sweden by county category navigation}} on various Swedish "by county" categories. While I can find evidence that this template generates numerous other categories tracking grey links, including the already-existing {{cl|Sweden by county category navigation with 6–15 grey links}}, I can't find any evidence of any other categories existing for any other number of just plain "links" without the "grey" modifier — so I can't figure out why this exists for the 6-15 range, but not for any other number, and thus can't create it if it isn't expected and doesn't have any other siblings. So could somebody with module-editing privileges figure out how to make it go away?
  • {{cl|Pages using old style mw-ui-constructive}}, autogenerated by the use of {{tl|Clickable button/sandbox}} on various userspace pages. I could probably just wrap the template invocations in {{tl|suppress categories}}, but I note that these invocations aren't new ones — they've all been on the pages for a long time without ever generating this category until now, meaning the category results from a new module edit within the past couple of days, and thus possibly could recur in the future if it isn't addressed some other way. So if this is a tracking category we would want, then could somebody who knows what they're doing create it — and if it isn't desired, then again, I need somebody with module-editing privileges to make it go away.

Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 14:28, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::Never mind on the Sweden one, it turns out I was able to clear that out just by null-editing it, because it was just one of those "category not actually on the pages despite nominally appearing to have pages in it, because it had already been corrected but failed to purge" things. Bearcat (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::: {{ping|Andrybak}} * Pppery * it has begun... 14:38, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:Ideally, the userspace pages shouldn't use the sandbox of the template. Would Wikipedia:User pages#Ownership and editing of user pages allow switching them to the live template?

:Otherwise, feel free to undo the automatic categorization in the sandbox of the module. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:47, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::Bearcat, :Category:Pages using old style mw-ui-constructive has been cleared. —⁠andrybak (talk) 16:48, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Image placement

I remember seeing a template that let me combine two images into one placement. Anyone remember what that template is named?

Also, I have a bunch of templates on my user page that put images down the left edge of the page. If I want to put them horizontally is there an easy way to do it?

Thank you.

RJFJR (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:{{tl|Multiple image}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:35, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 18:09, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-21

MediaWiki message delivery 23:09, 19 May 2025 (UTC)