Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 65#Search page help

Isolating editors edits in an article

Okay, lets say I have the article: SuperFerry 9. Edit history here: SuperFerry 9 (history)

Is there anyway to isolate the edit history of one editor on that specific article?

For example, on SuperFerry 9, this page:

:http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=SuperFerry+9

Shows that: User:Shinerunner has contributed 19 contributions to the page. Can I see those 19 contributions on one wikipedia page?

Thanks in advance. Ikip (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

:Bugzilla:10788. The API can already do this, for example see: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=SuperFerry%209&rvlimit=max&rvuser=Shinerunner titles=SuperFerry_9 + rvuser=Shinerunner]. You could also add [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=SuperFerry%209&rvlimit=max&rvuser=Shinerunner&rvdiffto=prev rvdiffto=prev] which would give you the table-wrapped diff of each edit (escaped of course, and only where cached). These api features would make such a tool easy as a bot or userscript. --Splarka (rant) 07:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

::Splarka, I would give you another barnstar, but a second in three days would be presumptuous. :) THANK YOU! Ikip (talk) 07:29, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Oh crap, it is XML. That works, but is there any more easy way to see these diffs? Ikip (talk) 07:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

::::There are several formats you can get the html table wrapped in (but note it is escaped in most of them), see the end of [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php the api help]. But no, you can't get the diffs in anything but the html tables that mediawiki uses. --Splarka (rant) 11:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

In case you're interested, this sounded pretty handy, so I put together a small script that allows you to filter the standard page history view by user. It adds a little box to the history page where you can enter a username, and it will display up to the last 500 edits that user made to the page. For monobook and Firefox/Chrome - dunno about the others, definitely not IE: importScript('User:Ale_jrb/Scripts/userhist.js'); // User:Ale jrb/Scripts Ale Jrb^talk 13:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

:That is handy. Already used it to pick out and revert some repeated vandalism mangled by partial reverts. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

::It turns out it works fine in vector also. Yay. Ale Jrb^talk 20:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

:::thanks for your time once again splarka. would I put this gadget in monobook Ale jrb? Ikip (talk) 15:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Yeah - you copy the bolded text exactly onto a new line in User:Ikip/monobook.js (assuming you're using the monobook skin; use User:Ikip/vector.js if you're using vector) then bypass your browser cache - there are instructions on the JavaScript page for doing that. Ale Jrb^talk 21:04, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

There's also "Per-page contributions – finds all the edits by a user to a single page", which I came across today at Wikipedia:Tools. Presumably it uses the API mentioned above. –Whitehorse1 19:34, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Better diff engine needed

Wikipedia's diff engine [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ACriteria_for_speedy_deletion&diff=311075194&oldid=305262248 sucks]; for instance, trivial changes cause the diff engine to give up and reproduce the older and newer versions verbatim. WikEd's diff engine fails in the other direction; for instance, look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29&diff=311110831&oldid=304926164 this], and see how it reports a completely new section [Delimiting (grouping of digits)] as if it were a mish-mash of random words from two sections. Surely, somewhere in the world, someone has written a better diff engine. Can anyone point me in the right direction? - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

:Diffs are tricky. Every diff engine I have seen has some fault or another. If you can find a better one that is open source I am sure it will be given consideration. Chillum 17:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

::The better diff algorithms have upper bounds of O(n⁴) which allow denial of service attacks since usable constants are harder to place. Also you may want to have a look at mw:Visual Diff. — Dispenser 04:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Thanks kindly! - Dank (push to talk) 12:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion vandalism

I just came across a vandal adding a speedy deletion template[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cui_Yingjie&diff=313486845&oldid=294789432], and I'm wondering if there is any technical way to prevent that. It probably doesn't occur often enough to justify any nontrivial programming effort, but I thought it can't hurt to ask. — Sebastian 03:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:How exactly do think should the software guess that it's a vandal? Any anonymous editor adding a speedy deletion template? Svick (talk) 09:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Pop-ups

Is there anyway currently in wikipedia to create popups, similar to Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. Thank you. Ikip (talk) 05:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:What do you need that for? I don't think it would be a good idea to use popups in articles, if that's what you want to do. Svick (talk) 09:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::LOL you are the first person to ever ask why I want to do something on tech. Usually editors simply happily help me oblivious to the fact that they are complicit in my evil plans to take over the world. ;-)

::Articles: absolutely not. this would apply only to subpages of a wikiproject.

::I assume it is not enabled, because I have never seen it outside of Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups Ikip (talk) 10:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::What exactly are you intending to pop-up? :S It's not a question of it being 'enabled' - popups are a user JavaScript that makes a pop-up appear when you hover over any wiki link. If you want them, add it to your monobook or enable the gadget. Ale Jrb^talk 10:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Scraped Google news result for current AFDs, but these pop ups would be on a subpages of a wikiproject, as mentioned above.

::::How would i go about making my own pop ups? is there documentation? I am familar with what monobook.css. thanks for your time gentlemen. Ikip (talk) 11:30, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::Yikes :P. Firstly, you can't really use the existing pop-ups as a basis here, as what you're trying to do is completely different. Secondly, you'll have to create (or get created on your behalf) a whole new script to do what you want. Finally, you will have to get anyone who wants to use it to install it on their monobook.js pages. Alternatively, you could get a bot created that does the scrapes and just posts the results - this would then need maintaining, but you wouldn't have to install anything; not sure what would be better/easier. Ale Jrb^talk 11:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::::::Yikes

::::::Your telling me :) I could never do this myself! Way to complex.

::::::Oh, the scraping part is no problem. I have a friend who is an expert on autohotkey thankfully working on this now. I would simply paste the generated info to the page.

::::::The monobook.js part (having editors add pop script) is okay. I just need to find someone willing to do write the script. Where could I request help for this? Ikip (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::::Not Help:User style, it redirects from Help:Monobook.css, but there is nothing on the talk page... Ikip (talk) 16:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent) So you're going to copy and paste the scrapes of various Google pages onto a subpage somewhere, and you need a script that will display the information in a pop-up when a user does something. Hmm. It would be more efficient if the script itself did the scraping, but more effort for the script coder. The place to go for a script request is Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Requests but the average response time is about never, so you'd be better approaching a coder directly - preferably one who would find the thing useful. Ale Jrb^talk 16:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:Your advice is fabulous. thanks.

:You enthusiasm for the the possibility that I would be getting help with this is heart warming. :) j/k. Ikip (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ideas?

Tonight,

wikED stopped working. I get the basic editor only.
User contributions link vanished from the toolbox.

I have tried:

If I log out, the contributions link returns, so it isn't browser related.
Contributions behaviour is the in all 3 browsers I have (just to be sure).
Contributions acts the same on 2 different computers.
I reset my preferences (ouch), but that didn't help either problem.
I checked my monobook.js file and it remains empty.

I am mystified. Any ideas? I have put too many computers through the recycling crushers and the @#$% things hate me.Sinneed (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I also killed the watch/unwatch tab at the page top in the debugging, it seems.Sinneed (talk) 06:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:* OK I found the wikED problem...I had turned off the toggle at the top right corner of the page.

:* I remain clueless about the user contributions and watch/unwatch links. I can still reach them by submenus...but did something change or did I "brokeded" it? :}

Any wisdom would be welcome.05:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Linking categories outside Wikipedia Commons to file in Wikipedia Commons

I can't seem to use a category from Wikipedia English on a file that is in Wikipedia Common. Wikipedia Common says it is a non-existent category. But the category does exist in Wikipedia English (e.g. Category:Military operations involving the United States). I am hoping there is a way to do this.Mfstelmach (talk) 07:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::en:Category:Military operations involving the United States should work. PC78 (talk) 11:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::Note however that Commons has a separate categorization system from en.Wikipedia (and all other projects as well). Categorizing Commons content based on another project's category pages is a bad idea, just as it would be a bad idea to categorize things here based on Commons categories. That being said, I'm fairly certain that Commons has a similar (if not the same) matching category of their own already. Attempting to use the :en:Category link will only create a link, and not actually categorize the file, anyway.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 12:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Perhaps I misunderstood what was being asked. The method I described above will only create a link to the en.Wikipedia category. If you're trying to categorise a file on Commons then you can only use the categories there. commons:Category:Military operations seems to be the closest fit, but you could always create commons:Category:Military operations involving the United States if you feel it is necessary. PC78 (talk) 12:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Interesting ... Thanks for great technical information. However, wikipedia seems to need a significant expansion of capability in this area. Being able to only create a link between en.Wikipedia and Commons does not seem to be very useful. Why not allow categorising a file on Commons. Why is it a bad idea to increase category cross-references between Commons and other area. Maybe I am missing something. But it seems like we are trying to keep files in Commons hidden so they will never be found or used. Also, if it is so difficult to categorize and cross-reference files in Commons to content in en.Wikipedia then maybe it is better to put images and media outside of commons in en.Wikipedia. It seems like a quite a bit of work to replicate the en.Wikipedia categories in commons. But, it is impossible to replicate en.Wikipedia content in Commons. All of the fertile synergistic category cross-referencing between en.Wikpedia and Commons is lost. Seems like an incredible waste to me. I hope this is fixed soon. Best regards, Mfstelmach (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::Don't forget that English Wikipedia isn't the only one. And as its name suggests, Commons is common for all language versions of Wikipedia. Do you think it would be useful to have the same image categorized in dozens of similar categories, only in different languages? But I think that English Wikipedia category page could contain a link to corresponding Commons category. Svick (talk) 21:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::::::You are right. Thanks for your comment. This issue is not limited to en.Wikipedia. I believe it would be extremely useful to have the same image categorized in dozens of similar Wikipedia categories, only in different languages. Maybe some day this will be possible to do on Wikipedia.Mfstelmach (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Some Wikipedia pages don't open but start a download

Sometimes (but not always!) when I click on a link to a wikipedia article the browser will not open the page but a window will open asking whether I want to open or download the page. If I click on open it will anyway start a download and not open the page. When I have Getright active, the download will be handled by getright, otherwise MS IE does the same thing.

It also happens when I search the term from the Wikipedia main page. It does not happen with all search terms, only with some, so I am not able to read these articles.

I am using IE8 and Windows XP. Can anybody tell me how to resolve the issue? I did not find it discussed in the Q&A yet.

Windows message:

Windows has the following information about this MIME type. This page will help you find software needed to open your file.

MIME Type: application/x-gzip-compressed

Description: UnKnown

Windows does not recognize this MIME type. --Toscanaman (talk) 13:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:Please see [http://blogs.msdn.com/chaun/archive/2009/06/06/ie-8-seems-unable-to-display-some-wikipedia-pages-application-x-gzip-compressed-mime-type.aspx this MS blog post]. It might be of some help. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::According to the [http://forums.keynote.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=93&threadid=410 KITE product manager] 4/13/2009, reverting to IE7 is the work-around. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Better still, install Firefox instead. Lugnuts (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::::I get this with FireFox occasionally. I think it occurs when my connection gets slow and the page is only partially rendered, thus FF does not recognize it as a web page and prompts to save it.---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Technical Issue

I’m really unsure where to discuss this, so I’m leaving it here to be forwarded to the appropriate parties:

Look past the fact that this link is to a fictional person:

:Template talk:Star Wars character#Ditto .22height.22

The discussion link above mentions that personal attributes such as those seen on any standard Personal Information Document (drivers licenses, wanted posters, etc) do not, in fact, appear on ANY page on individual persons (for example, [Ghandi|Mahatma GANDHI] in any orderly fashion; I submit that revamping the personal tables (where the picture usually is located) with exactly this information (height, weight, eye color, hair color, race, ethnicity, religious preference, etc) should be included, with “Unknown” or “Not Applicable” when appropriate (with Unknown as the default/placeholder entry). There will be those that say such information is irrelevant; I submit to you that it is precisely relevant. In GHANDI’S case, for example, his passive (non-violent) policies were sculpted by his experiences in early life (that violence only brought more violence in turn) and his religious upbringing. Those that feel it’s “not worth the effort” should leave their laziness elsewhere, and not waste other people’s time if they don’t wish to assist in the process. (Yes, I’ve seen that excuse before as well.)71.34.70.201 (talk) 19:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[http://www.geocities.com/andering_reddson|Andering_J_REDDSON]

:Note: this thread has been moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::What have height, weight, eye colour, etc. have to do with career influences in childhood. How would you put "his passive (non-violent) policies were sculpted by his experiences in early life (that violence only brought more violence in turn)" into an infobox? Such things, if indeed relevant, belong in the text of the article, not trivially enumerated in the infobox. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Mistakes made with AWB

Help? I made a really bad mistake using AWB. Because of a mistake in the creation of a regular expression I changed and unknown number of level three headers to become level two headers. There might be over a thousand pages involved. Is there a way to roll back that may edits. Waiting is only going to make things worse. I'll watch his page. --droll [chat] 00:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to all who responded I think I can handle it. I've fixed about 700 already. Only about 1 in 12 of the articles have a problem. I want to get it done ASAP. I should have it done by late tonight. --droll [chat] 02:05, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

:Note: this thread has been moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Hiding stubs

I'm working on an article and the subject of the article falls under 5 stub types. As I don't really want 5 stubs to show up on the article (the sub list would be longer than the article info), is there a way to hide the stub comment but still have the stub be active (not using a hidden comment)? I haven't been able to find any info in a short search. Thanks. OlYeller^Talktome 14:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

:Maybe just adding the category added by the stub would be the best way as the rest of the stub template it just for show anyway. OlYeller^Talktome 14:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

::I have been in such situations also. Why don´t you put scroll-bar boxes or collapsible wiki-templates (like this one) for such cases? - Damërung ^{...ÏìíÏ...}_{_ΞΞΞ} . -- 19:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

:::The {{Template:Asbox{{!}}asbox}} template is fine for this, the main intention is not to have a lot of stubs in one page, nor keep icons, but have the correct categorization of the respective stub category. --Woglinde 02 (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

::::Note: this thread has been moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Help with statistics

I'm trying to determine how many hits the page 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 gun got while up as a DYK, but I got a problem: every time I use [http://stats.grok.se/ this tool] I get the results for the page 16. Can some one tell me how to fix this, or work around it, so I can see the stats? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

:You want to post this question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Normally I would suggest contacting the tool's author, User:Henrik, but it does not look like he is very active. I tried using the html names from viewing the article's page source in my browser but it didn't work. Good luck :-) --Commander Keane (talk) 08:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

::I think [http://stats.grok.se/en/200908/16%22/45_caliber_Mark_6_gun these] stats are accurate. The tool works for the display of stats, but formats the link incorrectly if you then try to change the date displayed or click through to the article. At any rate, the stats for the article 16 are very different.-gadfium 09:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

:::Note: this thread has been moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

coloring 'legend' with css on 'my preferences' page

In my css I have the following:

fieldset {

background: #000000 !important;

color: #FFFFFF !important;

border: 1px solid #FFFFFF !important;

}

legend {

background: #000000 !important;

color: #FFFFFF !important;

border: 1px solid #FFFFFF !important;

}

This works for everything on the 'my preferences' page except the row of buttons. the source code looks like this:

User profile

Basic information

The second 'legend' is the right color but the first one (User profile) isnt. That legend, unlike the second, is also a button. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 19:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:Try this:

fieldset, legend, .page-Special_Preferences #preftoc li

{

background: #000000 !important;

color: #FFFFFF !important;

border: 1px solid #FFFFFF !important;

}

.page-Special_Preferences #preftoc li a {

color: #FFFFFF !important;

}

:-- Codicorumus « msg 19:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::Thank you. That did it. ☺ Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 19:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

expand the main page contents to full screen?

I deleted the portlets in the sidebar using the following css:

p-logo,
p-navigation,
p-interaction,
p-search,
p-tb,
p-coll-create_a_book,
p-lang {

display: none;

}

But now how do I expand the main page contents to full screen? I tried the obvious things but they didnt do anything. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 19:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

: See "css for removing the navigation tab" on WP:HD -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 19:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

::Great. Thank you. It gives this code:

div.generated-sidebar { display:none; }

div#p-logo { display:none; }

div#p-search { display:none; }

div#p-tb { display:none; }

div#p-lang { display:none; }

div#content { margin-left:0; }

::Didnt they leave out #p-coll-create_a_book, #p-navigation, and #p-interaction? Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 20:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Can we have this conversation in one place at a time? Algebraist 20:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Something that lists transclusions of all pages from a given category

I don't think such a function or template exists (most of this is currently done via bots), but we could have a template that would generate a list of transclusions of all pages in a category. This would be infinitely helpful with pages that deal with categories and statuses, like with WP:SPI for instance (which is heavily dependent on a bot which is currently down). Has anyone thought of this, or does such a thing exists in the software? MuZemike 21:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Postage Stamps Etc.: Software Patch to Track Sizing

I propose a software enhancement. Because some images must be size-constrained by law, many of those images are uploaded by contributors who do not realize the limits exist, and Wikimedia may be held legally liable for carrying the images in illegal sizes, I suggest two processes:

--- When someone tries to upload an image, s/he should be asked if it's one of the image types subject to limits. The single question can appear on the user interface for uploading. Answering in the negative can leave all other questions invisible, and the uploading can proceed unrestricted. If the answer is affirmative, the contributor would be asked "What is the actual or life size of the original from which the image is taken? If unknown, state a range for either or both dimensions. If the image is part of the original, state the size of the whole original, e.g., one postage stamp." Whether sizes legally depend on the design or the paper or stock for one stamp has to be determined. Allow selecting length units (centimeters, inches, etc.). Then allow a preference for enlargement or reduction for an image for which life size reproduction is forbidden. The Wiki software would then enforce the constraints. Wiki editors should be allowed to easily override the preference for enlargement or reduction by going in the other direction, as well as to update the information supplied by the original contributor, with reversion possible, as with article text. Where the life size is stated as a range rather than exactly for either dimension, life-size reproduction would be barred even if otherwise allowed, enlargement would be beyond the largest dimensions stated as life size, and reduction would be below the smallest dimensions stated as life size, all to ensure legal compliance.

--- A bot using similar code can review existing images. Those that might be of a type subject to the limits should be flagged for review. Editors could then mark an image as not being of a type subject to size constraints or enter the relevant size data and resize preference.

The single question: "Is this a postage stamp (including meter stamp), revenue stamp, U.S. bird hunting stamp (Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act), other U.S. or foreign government obligation or security, or bank or corpoation obligation or security? Yes. No. Uncertain. ('Uncertain' will be treated like 'Yes.')" Have a comment field, in case an explanation is offered (e.g., if it looks like a stamp but isn't), since the image can easily be separated from a Talk entry. For the first question's answer, only if the answer is Yes or Uncertain would other questions appear.

The questions that follow if the initial question is answered in the affirmative or ambiguously would be about whether the original is postally canceled and whether the image is in color or black and white and whether the image is a full or partial image.

An argument is that Wikipedia does not display in any size, that being up to the user's monitor. However, Wikipedia does rely on common expectations respecting normal size ranges for text, and a similar theory would applies to images, thus Wikimedia may be legally liable for mis-sized images if it doesn't address these expectations, and the prudent course in case of doubt would be to publish no images that have size restrictions, e.g., no postage stamps at all. It may be that life-sizing should be entirely barred in cases where near life-size reproduction is already barred, just to be safe.

If a user adjusts their computer or browser so that reproduction is in an illegal size, and is not advised or directed to do so by Wikimedia, I don't believe Wikimedia has any liability for the user's act. Therefore, the Wiki software does not have to handle that case.

Thank you.

Nick Levinson (talk) 01:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Where to go to discuss WP "beta"?

Where do I go to discuss the new site look? SharkD (talk) 02:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

:See INTERWIKI:usability.wikimedia.org:Talk:Prototype –Moondyne 03:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Edit a new page notice

The notice received when editing a new page, such as found when clicking a red link, no longer mentions or links to searching for the term. I am not imtimately familiar with the mediawiki namespace, but it would be appreciated if an admin more familiar with them could correct this oversight introduced by recent changes. Vassyana (talk) 07:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

:Not sure if you mean MediaWiki:Noarticletext, MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new or MediaWiki:Noexactmatch. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

::I think what you are looking for is Mediawiki:Newarticletext. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3ANewarticletext&diff=313064951&oldid=308481849 Here is] the dif for when it was taken out. Consider discussing with Jredmond - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 14:14, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Beta improvement

I've thought of a new Beta feature for Wikimedia. We all know those little windows over some webpages that show Google Earth maps. I know that information is not admissible by Wikimedia, but there is OpenStreetMap, a Wiki community that designs free maps from all over the world. Is it possible to design a new feature that shows an interactive map from [http://www.openstreetmap.org]. --Schumi4ever (talk) 16:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

:The techies are way, way ahead of you on that one :) They expect to see returns in the next couple of months; for now you can click on the globe of a set of co-ordinates to get a separate (I think) but rough map. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 16:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

::So that feature is in developement. That's good, pretty good. But the maps we have now are blank with a red dot on the place you want. I mean an interactive map, in which you can zoom in and out, see streets, move to the North, South, East and West and so on... --Schumi4ever (talk) 17:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

::::You should click on the globe next to a set of coordinates once. It's called WikiMiniAtlas. And the openstreetmap work will also include this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Changed layout?

Aside from the "vanishing" articles, did the software change the layout somehow?

My watchlist looks completely different (and not in a good way, IMO), and my userpage doesn't fit my screen any more (I did have it lined up in a way that I liked).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Yea, I switched back to monobook and everything is more normal looking. The update screwed up the Vector skin.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:The watchlist had a legend added to it, see #Legend for hiding instructions. –xeno^talk 00:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Yea, I just saw your post about that above. Does "hiding" it get rid of all of the spacing between entries in Vector, though? Anyway, that's only part of the problem, since whatever changed adjusted the size of a ton on other items (headings were all changed, I think). I really don't see this as something that I'll simply adjust to, the layout of multiple things seems to have been changed for the worse.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Sorry, I haven't drunk the vector koolaid. –xeno^talk 00:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Well, the changes affect Monobook (and all of the others, I assume) as well. There appears to have been a change to common.css, I'm guessing. Is there a changelog somewhere, or a central discussion about the update at all (aside from this, of course)?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::Things always change, if you are more specific, then people can help you better. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

=Vector=

One of the big changes I see is a reduced fontsize by one point of the sidebar and personal links. Makes it a lot harder to read for me in Safari. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:I think that is the key change, but it's not limited to Vector, it actually appears to be a global change. I don't know what actually changed though, because there doesn't appear to be any changelog that I can locate(?!), so this is all pure speculation. The heading have changed for sure, the "personal links" (the area with your username, watchlist, prefs, etc... links, normally at the top of the page in Monobook and Vector) are definitely smaller, the sidebar appears... different, and I think that the default size of the frame around images is larger now. Spacing around text seems to have changed as well, although that behavior is significantly different depending on the skin you use. It's really tough to evaluate what is actually a problem without knowing what actually changed though. Anyway, if I'm just going to get snipped at about saying anything, I'll leave it up to the rest of you. Time for me to watch a movie.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 01:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::I don't like this change! UncleDouggie (talk) 14:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::This is now fixed. Trevor went through a few iterations of how to properly set font sizes (eg without interfering with browser font settings or zooming), and what we last ended up with turned out to round differently between Firefox and Safari. It's now been nudged up a little (from 0.7em to 0.75em against the main font size) and is now more consistent. --brion (talk) 23:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Hey, great! thanks Brion (and thank Trevor for me as well, please). I appreciate that you guys were doing this work, I don't want that to get lost in this... the other issue that (was here, I'm about to create another section for it) isn't really directly related to the underlying issue that you're talking about here.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::Thanks! UncleDouggie (talk) 06:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

=Changelog=

The file to check is RELEASE-NOTES. The difficulty is that that file is based on Mediawiki version, not on when the code was last updated on the live site. So the following diff should have most of the changes, but may not have all of them: [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES?view=diff&r1=HEAD&r2=52024&diff_format=h] — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Wow, so there's no one creating changelogs at all? That's just... "ghetto". Amongst all of the writers here, including people who are ready and willing to volunteer time, no one has stepped up and created a changelog system yet? The little section in Signpost seems to at least be a start. Anyway, I'm trying hard not to sound like UncleDouggie here, but "I don't like this change!" is where I seem to be ending up myself almost by default. This release just doesn't appear to be well planned out, from this end of things. :(
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 14:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::That file (RELEASE-NOTES) is the changelog for Mediawiki. The problem is, we do not update the live site just when a new mediawiki version is developed. Rather, the changes to the code are tested on the live site long before the next version of Mediawiki is released for others to use. There is an svn revision control branch dedicated to the live site, so it is possible to see exactly what code it running on the live site. And the revision control logs for that branch give a summary of every change to it. So I was trying to give a way for someone who is not familiar with svn to get a list of changes. The developers have no trouble using the revision control system to see exactly how each file has been edited over time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:56, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::No, no, I understand what you're saying, I'm not... well, I am criticizing I guess, but I'm trying to be constructive about it. Part of this is just surprise on my part, as I've never really thought to even look for a en.wikipedia specific changelog (which is a good thing, really!). I knew right away what you were pointing me towards, since I (unfortunately) have some experience with svn/vcs systems. For the developers (including you?) that's perfectly adequate, and it should really be all that concerns them. revision control logs do not make for an adequate public face for software development progress however, even for a technically inclined audience. Wikipedia has a partially knowledgeable audience, but there is a significant number of editors and readers who have never been exposed to programming let along version control. Even amongst those of us who do have experience with programming and version control, I'm sure that most of us have had the experience of looking at an unfamiliar version control log...

:::Anyway, I'm volunteering for the job I guess. I'll need to begin digging into the live and development svn logs to familiarize myself with it, but eventually I'll start... Wikipedia:Software updates? I haven't actually thought of a name. I'll have to look and talk to whomever it is who regularly writes the tech column in the Signpost as well, of course.

:::hey, look at that, there is a historic page at "Wikipedia:Software updates" I tried "Wikipedia:Updates" first, and that was redlinked.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleting monobooks

I can't think of a better place to post this, but with the new software, user javascript/monobook.js pages cannot be deleted. For instance, a user has requested deletion of their monobook for technical problem reasons, and I'm unable to grant it. I wasn't aware of this type of change until now. If this will be permanent, perhaps it ought to be noted somewhere? Like at WP:CSD#U1, and elsewhere?

Alternatively, I don't see an advantage in blocking the deletion ability of personal .js pages. I understand the implementation of personal editing and disallowance of outsiders, but if a user javascript page is explicitly being requested for deletion, there shouldn't be a barrier in that. I could be missing something, but I don't exactly see the logic behind it. JamieS93 00:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Curious. Is this true? —mattisse (Talk) 00:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Possibly just a bug. We will know later today (big bugs, before small bugs :D ) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::At 10am another admin was able to delete it. 7 01:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::The ability for sysops to edit css and js pages, as well as to delete them, was removed during the most recent coding update. At the very latest, we should get it back within 24 hours. For now, I think some of the m:Stewards, or at least the ones who have adminship on enwiki, (at the very least User:Shanel), are willing to help for urgent matters. NW (Talk) 01:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::The code says sysops have the editusercss and edituserjs rights, so this should work fine as far as I know. There may be some bug related to the way those rights were split out from editusercssjs, don't know. --brion (talk) 01:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that sysops can't currently delete/edit other users' css/js pages. — RockMFR 02:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

: I just tested this, and I can reproduce the problem as well, in both Monobook and Vector. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::This should be fixed now. http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Categories not showing

After the updates it seems that if a page has only hidden categories on them and no non-hidden categories, then no categories will appear on the page regardless of user setting. Is this affecting anyone else or is it just me? Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 07:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:bugzilla:20688 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Fix deployed. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

edit dies with out of memory error

No idea where to post software failures in the middle of an update, but i am finding internet explorer 8 (my normal browser) goes away and eventually produces out of memory errors if I try to edit a page. This may be as it is trying to create a preview. Firefox works. (as witnes my being able to post this). My computer just gave me a friendly note saying it was increasing its virtual memory, which I interpret as it having used up the 4G or so available to it. Sandpiper (talk) 08:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:That sounds like a problem on your end. Try restarting the computer when it happens. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:bugzilla:20668. Specific to the enhanced editing toolbar on IE 8. Dragons flight (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:: Definitelly not user specific, just happened with me, too. Happens only when using "Beta" skin, though. --PaterMcFly talk ^contribs 21:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::I've disabled the new edit toolbar for now until we get it resolved, which hopefully should be within a day; all our folks who can test and fix it on windows are out at the moment. :( --brion (talk) 21:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::Earlier this eveneing the problem was still there, but now explorer is doing edits (ie this one). I was using firefox this evening and that worked. I started out not using 'beta', though I gave that a try in case it helped, and it did not. The bugzilla description sounds about right. Sandpiper (talk) 01:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Roan has committed a fix, and I've deployed it. Reports indicate that this is now resolved, and the enhanced editing toolbar has been turned back on. — Werdna • talk 14:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Creating pages became harder

The "You may create the page "Foo", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered." text has been moved to below the search results. This is very annoying and makes creating pages harder. Is it an attempt to force people to read the search results first? If so, I think it is misguided. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:No, it's a misguided attempt to make people use some sort of article wizard. Complain here. ↪REDVERS ^{The internet is for porn} 11:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Are you sure it's the same thing? --Apoc2400 (talk) 11:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::If you are looking at the message page, it does not show all of the text as it uses namespace detection. Open it for editing to see. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::I am talking about the text with the redlink on the search results page. That text that appears to come from MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new. --Apoc2400 (talk) 11:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

: I agree, the change seems to have been made in r55592. The article creation link is on of the important features of Special:Search and shouldn't be at the bottom. --rainman (talk) 12:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:: You found it just before me :) It seems to be and honest bug and nothing sinister. Now to get it fixed... --Apoc2400 (talk) 12:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Fix deployed. --brion (talk) 17:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Great! That was quick. Thanks a lot. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Using a spam-blacklisted link in a citation - how/why is this possible?

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Clayderman&diff=prev&oldid=314541531], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenny_G_discography&diff=prev&oldid=314542079] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laura_Pausini&diff=prev&oldid=314541251]. The site 'ez-tracks.com' is currently blacklisted at MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. In that case, how was it possible for someone to successfully add it as a reference? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Cause the blacklist entry was malformed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3ASpam-blacklist&diff=314564220&oldid=314482271] Dragons flight (talk) 17:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Oh, right. Thanks. :) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikiblame

Wikiblame currently appears to be broken. It returns "0 versions found" for any search (including pages I know have hundreds of versions). Is this connected with the server software update. SpinningSpark 19:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:What is Wikiblame? I've never even heard of it. Perhaps you should contact the owner/developer of whatever it is. --Deskana, (talk) 19:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::WP:WikiBlame. Svick (talk) 20:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Allows you to search the history to see when a string was added or deleted. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. I use it a lot. Dougweller (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Guess it works for me; did a search for 'stuff' on history of 'Foo' and it came back with "50 versions found". --brion (talk) 00:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

[[WT:RU]]

It is not currently possible to edit individual sections on the WikiProject Rugby union talk page. Could someone please give that page a look-over and see what could be causing the trouble? – Pee Jay 21:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Seems to by OK with Firefox and a monobook skin. What browser & skin are you using? Keith D (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::It was fixed in [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rugby_union&diff=prev&oldid=314592351] which removed the magic word __NOEDITSECTION__. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:56, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::That edit must have been made while I wasn't looking. Cheers anyway. – Pee Jay 07:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Before I go mad...

... can anyone point out to me why the bottom paragraph of this page (which currently starts with the words "Okay: as can be seen") is so much more indented than the paragraph which immediately precedes it? What tiny detail am I missing here? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Its the tags in the comment above. Don't use that. Prodego ^talk 22:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::That is actually a very confusing response, let me reword it so it is understandable. It isn't the tt tags themselves, it is what is in it, the tr tag. I'll fix that for you. Prodego ^talk 22:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :::{{ec}}It is the table row tag you stuck in there. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::: D'oh. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

`Numerical or HTML entity for semicolons?`

{{tl|resolved}}

Is there a way to hard-code a semicolon character within a template, to avoid having the template interpret it as wiki markup? I am trying to have some semicolons in User:Rjanag/zh, but whenever I transclude the template it interprets them as markup (and instead of outputting a semicolon, it makes a subsection header like semicolons do in wikitext). I know there are ways of hard-coding other characters, such as {{tl|!(}} for [ and —/— for — . Is there anything like that I can use for semicolons? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC) :Never mind, I found it: ; . I hadn't realized you could use hexadecimal Unicode directly on WP...good to know! rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC) ::Or shorter variants ; and ;. Svick (talk) 12:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC) :::Or {{tl|COLON}}, which I think does the same thing for the unicode challenged. – ukexpat (talk) 15:48, 18 September 2009 (UTC) ::::No, as its name suggests, {{tl|COLON}} renders as colon, rʨanaɢ wanted semicolon. Svick (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC) :::::{{tl|;}} now exists. Algebraist 19:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

`Skip Toolserver Geohack`

Is there any way to skip Toolserver's geohack page when a click on a geo-coordinate? I'd like a script that would take me to my favorite map site instead of taking me to toolserver.org's GeoHack page where I have to scroll down each time to click on the same link I want. --Gpaper (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

:Since you don't say /which/ URL, we can't really guess, since they all seem to be handled differently. Regardless, it would require some clever parsing to change the formatted coordinates to the one your mapsite uses (which, without you telling is, would be foolish to try first). So instead here is an example script that will append an anchor to the URLs in these links, basically jumping you down the page automatically. You could modify this script to point to another section easily, or even modify it to point to your favorite map site (with some more work). {{hidden|example script| if((wgAction == 'view' || wgAction == 'submit') && wgNamespaceNumber > -1) addOnloadHook(geohackHack) function geohackHack() { var docobj = document.getElementById('bodyContent') || document.getElementById('content') || document.getElementById('mw-content') || document.body; var a = getElementsByClassName(docobj,'a','external'); for(var i=0;i var url = a[i].getAttribute('href',2); if(url.indexOf('http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack/geohack.php') == 0 && url.indexOf('#') == -1) { a[i].href = url + '#Other_information'; } } } }} :--Splarka (rant) 08:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC) ::Thanks for the script. I'm a big user of Google's Satellite map, and that's what I always go to, but I tried to phrase the question so others would be able to use it for their own service. I inserted the script from above into my custom .js page, but it doesn't seem to make any modifications at all. Do I need to put it into a wrapper to make the browser run the script after the page loads? --Gpaper (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :::I only tested it in monobook with mozilla, I see you placed it in your vector.js. Are you getting any JS errors? --Splarka (rant) 07:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`Template IMSLP broken`

The templates {{Tl|IMSLP}} and {{Tl|IMSLP2}} seem to be broken for names which contain diacritics; e.g. the code {{IMSLP|cname=Bartók|id=Bartók, Béla}} gives "{{IMSLP|cname=Bartók|id=Bartók, Béla}}" which doesn't work. I believe the cuplrit is the shortcut scores: which is defined, somewhat incorrectly, at meta:Interwiki map — the target definition is currently http://www.imslp.org/wiki/ where it really should be http://imslp.org/wiki/ (without the wwww.).

This has been discussed at 1) :Template talk:IMSLP#Strictly, wrong target, 2) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Dvorak IMSLP links are all broken, and 3) meta:Talk:Interwiki map#Scores to imslp.org. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :Temporary workaround implemented using external links. But the maintainers of the website should be informed that their redirect system is broken. Oh, and they also don't recognize the + as a space character in urls. See [http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:{{urlencode:Bartók, Béla}} another broken link] —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC) ::Thank you very much for your quick fix (the template {{Tl|IMSLP2}} needed a {{Querylink|Template:IMSLP2|qs=&action=history|bit more work}}); it seems to work now. I'll try to notify IMSLP tomorrow. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :::The shortcut has now been fixed and links like scores:Category:Bartók, Béla now work again. However, I think there is no need to revert the two affected templates. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`Word count updates`

When correcting spelling errors it would be nice if "word counts" were updated 2 times per day.

1 per day can amount to 0.5 per day if the editor is in an unfavourable timezone. It is accepted that instantaneous updates (as was the case a few months ago) apparently use too much computer resources. 2 per day would ensure that all editors see at least 1 update per day. See Wikipedia talk:Typo Team#Word count updates Typical wordcounts listed when you search for a word are: September (234567) - correct Septbmer (16) - error Septemer (23) - error Tabletop (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`An email`

I have explicit permission to post this here, otrs:2009090710049813.

From: Gary Knott To: info-en-o@wikimedia.org Subject: PDF files (and printing) Created: 09/07/2009 23:56:19 Dear W., I have two suggestions that I think would improve wikipedia. (1) Provide a PRINT option on the text (dropping the side-bars, and all the extraneous material outside article content. [Lots of sites do this, and it would help a lot of people a lot. (2) Find a way to accept and present pdf articles. This is particularly important for mathematical text. This may be hard, but it would be worth it. [I have several articles done with TeX and prepared as .pdf files that I would submit if you could handle them.] - and pdf files based on TeX are far more readable that the current wikipedia format. Shalom, gary knott He also is aware that I'm just posting here, nothing in particular can be done by email. It's just for dicussion and with this I move along. Keegan (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :Ad (1) Wikipedia has special CSS stylesheets for printing that work automatically, so that the printed version doesn't contain navigation sidebar. :Ad (2) PDF files aren't easily editable, and so violate one of the core concepts of Wikipedia, that anyone can edit it. Also, subset of TeX can be used to render formulæ (see WP:MATH). Svick (talk) 22:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :# Why, when we use CSS to remove those navigational elements on printing? :# This will probably never happen, as PDFs cannot be easily edited. :Anomie⚔ 22:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC) ::See Help:Printable for more. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`What happened to the search link in the redlink page?`

{{tmbox|text=Please discuss this at MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext#search link}}

When you click a redlink, there should be a link above the edit window to search for the title in case there's a place to redirect. Why is this gone? --NE2 21:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :Eh, trying User talk:Jredmond first. Wish me luck. --NE2 21:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC) ::See #Edit a new page notice ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC) I've put the search link back in its own list-item. Hopefully that will continue the emphasis on WP:YFA but still allow easy redirect searches. - Jredmond (talk) 14:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :I saw this post earlier this morning, and then just now I had my first real experience with the changed message. I'm trying hard not to say that I don't like it simply because it's different, but... To anyone with more then a couple of edits, I just can't imagine anything in that message aside from the search link as being important. If I could design that message for myself then the only thing that is would include would likely be the search link. :The thing is, I don't disagree with the idea behind the change. The problem is that this is one of those areas where helping the newer editors is negatively impacting those of us who are more regular contributors here. I don't know what the solution to the issue here is, but something should be done to balance the competing interests involved in this change. — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 20:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC) ::I agree that, for experienced users, the search is probably the only useful part of the message. (Deletion logs and protection notices are kept in different MediaWiki: system messages, so they aren't really relevant here.) Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to have the full YFA+search+cite+subpage message for newbies but search-only for experienced users, so (for now at least) we're stuck with a one-size-fits-all message. ::Also, could we please keep this discussion on the MediaWiki talk page? There's no way to achieve a decent consensus from seven isolated conversations. - Jredmond (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :::Ah, I didn't realize that there was a talk page there... I'll stick a note at the top of this section. — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`XML Versions of Special:<Page> pages`

I know that I've seen a method to grab Special pages in XML format, but I seem to have forgotten how... My most immediate need is for Special:Version and Special:SiteMatrix. — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 15:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

:You should be able to use the API to do this. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?format=xml&meta=siteinfo&siprop=interwikimap gives you the matrix details. For everything the API can show you, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php and do a Ctrl-F for meta=siteinfo. Ale Jrb^talk 15:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC) ::Yes, thank you! geez... total brain-fart there. I just forgot to switch to using api.php instead of index.php. — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 16:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`C's P's and F? in the category listings.`

Could anyone explain what F denotes in the new category listings? I can see that C denotes subcategory, P denotes page (such as an article page). What is F? I just saw this type of listing, in for example the Nature category in :Category:Fundamental. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

:I think I know: it is the number of media files in that cat. Such as an image. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 16:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC) ::For me at least, it is possible to rollover the bits in bracktes and have an explanatory tooltip appear. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 16:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :Ancheta Wis is correct. F is for file. hmwith☮ 21:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

`ref in sortable`

I'm editing Observation deck#List of observation decks by height and found that the two columns for height is not sorting properly. Data should be treated as numbers but the ref tags make them become string. I've read Help:Sorting and can't find any solution. --Quest for Truth (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

:I think you have to add {{Tlx|Hs|nnn.n}} before the value in each column. {{Tl|SortKey}} does something similar but lacks any documentation. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::I think {{tlx|nts}} would be better in this case, because you don't have to duplicate the numbers. Svick (talk) 11:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :::Thank you for your help. I finally finish it with {{tlx|nts}}. --Quest for Truth (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

`converting portlets to p-caction drop down menus`

Would it be possible for me to convert the sidebar lists (p-tb, p-navigation, etc...) to p-caction drop down menus? Has it already been done somewhere? How difficult would it be? Could it be done with css or would it require javascript?

:You mean like the p-caction of the Vector skin ? That should be easy to do, i specifically asked Trevor to fix the CSS so that such would be possible (I was thinking of a Twinkle menu at that time). I'm not aware of any scripts that do this atm however. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::There is a script that does exactly that. User:Gerbrant/hidePane.js I got the colors to work with my css but what I would really like to do is make the buttons stay in a fixed position at the top of the screen while I scroll. I tried everthing I could think of but nothing did anything except make the whole page not work. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :::Before I got a new hard drive, I had a Greasemonkey script installed that fixed the position of the sidebar when I scrolled. I had to select my favorite languages to show, but the rest were just cut off. It worked very well. I forget exactly what it was called, but if you use Firefox, try searching for Wikipedia scripts on the Greasemonkey website. hmwith☮ 20:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

`Nested footnotes aren't workning when list-defined`

{{tl|resolved}}

Nested footnotes aren't workning when defined in the new format, inside . So the first code is working correctly, while the second isn't: {{#tag:ref|fooref bar|group="note"|name="note1"}} {{#tag:ref|fooref bar|group="note"|name="note1"}} {{#tag:ref|fooref bar|group="note"|name="note1"}} Svick (talk) 14:26, 20 September 2009 (UTC) :This is {{phab|22707}} Happy‑melon 15:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC) ::Ah, thanks. I should've looked it up in bugzilla myself. Svick (talk) 16:12, 20 September 2009 (UTC) The following construct works: {{#tag:references| {{#tag:ref|foo{{#tag:ref|ref}}bar|group="note"|name="note1"}} |group="note"}} {{#tag:references| {{#tag:ref|foo{{#tag:ref|ref}}bar|group="note"|name="note1"}} |group="note"}} Ruslik_Zero 17:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

`Search page help`

Didn't there use to be a link from the search page (the one you get to by clicking Search) to some kind of help page (presumably WP:Searching)? Anyway, shouldn't there be? And is that page up to date with all the current options? Is there more current documentation at the MediaWiki site or somewhere?--Kotniski (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

:You probably want MediaWiki:Newarticletext (you have to open it for editing it to see all of the messages). There have been some recent changes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :Yea, see MediaWiki talk:Newarticletext#search link. There's some discussion about this above as well, but it should really be occurring on the talk page — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 23:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC) ::Thanks for the link, but that's not really what I was asking about. I don't mean what you see when you click a redlink; I mean what you see when you click the "Search" button (with or without anything in the search field). Basically - where is our search functionality documented, and how are readers supposed to find it when searching?--Kotniski (talk) 06:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::: In couple of ways, either click on Help in the sidebar, and the navigate to "Search for an article", or on the search page type in search and click on [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&fulltext=Search&ns4=1&ns12=1&redirs=0&&&search=search "help and project pages"]. --rainman (talk) 14:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::::All seems very counterintuitive. How do we get a direct link to help-on-searching onto the search results page? (Presumably there's a MediaWiki: page we can edit/create?)--Kotniski (talk) 08:56, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`Time-limited watchlist`

My watchlist has been growing over years. I periodically clean it up, deleting the issues I lost interest, however I cannot arrest it growth no matter how I try. (I am sure many old-timers deal with the issue; your advice is welcome.)

Quite often I add an item to my watchlist after doing some important or significant changes in a tangential articles, to see how other editors react. I want to watch it only for 2-3 weeks; "until the dust settles". Is it possible to add an option that an item is aded to my watchlist only for a certain time, similarly to blocks? The implementation does not need to be very exact: I don't care that the item is removed exactly after 6d 0h 0m 0s. THe cleanup may be done, e.g., at the login, or once a week, whatever. Any opinions? - Altenmann >t 22:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :Do you want this only for specific articles? I can think of some clever ways to do this for your entire watchlist (save your watchlist, then in three weeks use a list comparer to compare the saved list to your current watchlist, and then replace it with only the new items). :The way I keep my watchlist culled is by just unwatching stuff on a regular basis =) You could use something like importScript('User:Alex Smotrov/wlunwatch.js'); to add an instant unwatch button to your watchlist. –xeno^talk 23:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :This could be done by creating a list of those pages on a subpage of your user page and creating a bot that would check that page and delete old entries. The pages on that list wouldn't show up in your watchlist, but on "Related changes" of that page. Entries on that list could look like this: {{temp watch|Some page|6d}}. :Another option is that when you add a page to that list, bot would add it to your watchlist and remove it after the specified time. The problem with this alternative is that the bot would need to know your password to access and edit your watchlist. Svick (talk) 00:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC) I recall a similar proposal sometime ago about adding datestamps to the watchlist, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 42#Dated Watchlist items. -- œ^™ 00:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`Vanishing articles?`

{{resolved|Parser bug fixed. You may need to purge or edit individual pages.}}

This infobox :Template:Infobox Gridiron football person is blank, and it blanks all the text of articles it's in, but when I go to edit, the text is there. What gives? Abductive (reasoning) 23:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :I'm having the same issue on Chop Suey! (song). All the categories are still there through. Looking at the article you linked, it's blanked for me as well. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 23:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::Me too. If you look on article talk pages, some banners are visible and others aren't. PC78 (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC) :Apparently ditto with something over at Sarah Palin. I imagine it has something to do with: "Software updates are being applied to Wikimedia sites; there may be some brief interruption as the servers update." user:J aka justen (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :We're looking into it... --brion (talk) 00:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::Also, the text that suggests you can create a non-existent article (along with handy redlink to click) is gone. –xeno^talk 00:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :::(ec)Another instance with a different template on Marc Garneau. I have also noticed problems on talk pages with {{tl|WPBS}} or {{tl|WPMILHIST}} as well, on Talk:USS Texas (BB-35). I see that brion is on it, so hopefully this will be fixed soon. -MBK₀₀₄ 00:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::Just so you guys know, it is only occurring for me in Vector skin in both Firefox and IE. If I'm signed out, they render fine. About 1/20 articles are doing this for me, for ex. randoms Grzeszów, John Warner (half missing), Storm Shadow. ::::Peace and Passion ☮ ("I'm listening....")'' 00:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :::It kills cricket infoboxes on all pages like Harbhajan Singh (TFA) YellowMonkey (bananabucket!) 00:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :As User:Peace and Passion first noted at wp:an, logging out appears to have an impact, perhaps due to theme. I'm using Vector in Safari. When I log out, it's still fubar even in MonoBook, in Safari, perhaps due to some client-side cache. But when I browse from Firefox, which has no cache of Wikipedia, the articles specifically mentioned above are showing up fine. user:J aka justen (talk) 00:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :::(Moved from WP:AN) by Peace and Passion ☮ ("I'm listening....") 00:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC) for the use of the "fixers" here....'' :::Twinkle/Friendly seem to also be broken by the update (at least for me in Firefox). Manual page tagging and warning is much harder than I remember. 7 00:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::::Twinkle is broken in Opera too. And, yes, manual page tagging is much harder than it was before. ;0 Eeekster (talk) 00:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :::::I posted a twinkle bug notice and TheDJ quickly found the issue - and a fix is in the works [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Twinkle/Bugs#TW-B-326_.28new.29]. 7 00:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC) Parser bug now fixed. It was a bug in an attempt to clean up extra whitespace around category links -- sometimes it would instead delete the entire article text. Woops! :) --brion (talk) 00:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`Hidden categories & printing`

When printing an article should the hidden categories be output? It looks like they are always output regardless of user preference for their display. Keith D (talk) 00:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

:Hidden categories shouldn't be displayed when printing an article, and the current behaviour is a bug that has been fixed in revision 55727 of MediaWiki. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is currently running revision 55629, so the fix isn't on this site yet. Graham87 08:50, 14 September 2009 (UTC) ::Looks like we could have fixed it ourselves by adding a CSS rule to MediaWiki:Print.css. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :: Wikipedia is actually running revision "52088 plus numerous live hacks and single-revision merges" (as far as I can tell, anyway); since about 2 months ago the currently-running code has been published in a "[http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/branches/wmf-deployment/ wmf-deployment]" branch, which has the side effect of rendering useless the comparison of Special:Version with the [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/ trunk] revision of any fix to determine if it is live. Anomie⚔ 12:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC) :::Fixed with the update. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`Twinkle partially broken for anyone else?`

{{Resolved|Twinkle seems to be working again, at least it is for me}} Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 16:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Is anyone else have trouble with Twinkle for the past hour or so? Some of the features are still working, but "csd" seems to just do nothing when clicked. I am assuming there is some sort of javascript issue, but I cleared all my caches, and even rebooted and can't seem to figure it out. Anyone? ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 20:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :Mysteriously it has started working again. Any ideas what caused that? I'm baffled! ConcernedVancouverite (talk) 23:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC) :I've also experience this problem, where clicking on the tabs does nothing, it's still doing it for me. -- œ^™ 04:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC) ::Amalthea did a revert on one of the twinkle files last night, perhaps that is related. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

`Recovering old username`

I know I created a Wikipedia account, probably over a year ago, but I can no longer remember the user name.

I just had to create a new account in order to log in. Is there any way I can recover my old account's user name given the email address I specified when I created it? If I do manage to retrieve the old username, can I delete the new one I created today? Keith —Preceding unsigned comment added by WritermanUK (talk • contribs) Can you remember any articles you edited and approximately when? Go to the article, click on "history" at the top and navigate to the time. That might give you a reminder. The new user name can't be deleted, but you can abandon it. We can't reverse search on the email address, if you find the account, the email address means you can get a password reminder. ↪REDVERS ^{The internet is for porn} 10:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC) Registered user names can be seen at Special:ListUsers. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`Special:RecentChangesLinked going haywire at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Watchlist]]`

Half the sections don't work, and instead give ugly gibberish filled sections. But another half works just fine. What gives? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Per the sitenotice: "Software updates are being applied to Wikimedia sites; we're shaking out a few remaining issues." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::bugzilla:20689 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:05, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :This was duped to the older bugzilla:16129 which implies this is an older problem (though it may be 'spreading' as more UI messages are made flexible, so affecting more includable special pages). --brion (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

`code and tt size`

Is it just me, or has text enclosed with {{tag|tt}} or {{tag|code}} gotten a lot smaller? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And pre as well This is rather small for an old geezer like myself. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :This is a bad change. Also, the timestamps on my watchlist are microscopic. Happening in Firefox and Safari. Please revert. UncleDouggie (talk) 14:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC) ::Appears to be a change in the Vector skin; no problem with Monobook. Didn't see the issue with timestamps though. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC) :Definitely much smaller than before; added to Bugzilla as bugzilla:20706, we'll see if we can clean it up. --brion (talk) 00:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

`HTML type attribute missing`

{{tl|resolved}}

Pages are now missing the HTML type attribute. I ran Black Hawk War and some other pages through the [http://validator.w3.org/ W3C Validator] about two weeks ago (you can find some subtle reference errors that way). At that time, it validated with no errors. Now, every page has errors about missing type attributes— Black Hawk War alone has 22 errors. Errors about duplicate ids are a problem in {{tl|citation/core}} that is under discussion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC) :Yeap. The <script> tags are missing the type parameter. Bugzilla! Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 02:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC) :: Yes, now there are typically six instances of ' Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC) :I suspect that including any script which is hosted off WP would be a huge security risk and would be intentionally blocked by the interface. 7 06:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC) ::That assumption is incorrect. Scripts can be loaded from any place (as allowed by the HTML standard) and responsibility lies thus with the author of the local .js file. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC) :::ImportScriptURI(url) is the code to load such a script from a local script. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC) ::::Thank you but I must be missing something because I cant get it to work. I've tried every variation that I can think of. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC) :::::ImportScriptURI(url) is a JavaScript function that you can call from another JavaScript code. I don't know about a way to add JavaScript code to Wikipedia page that would work for all users, not just you, other than changing MediaWiki:Common.js which is exteremely unlikely to be accepted for this. Svick (talk) 19:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC) :::::: If you do find a way to add javascript for all users (besides being an admin and editing MediaWiki-namespace pages such as MediaWiki:Common.js, of course), please report it to security@mediawiki.org. Anomie⚔ 12:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

`Switch?`

{{tl|resolved}}

I'm obviously missing something in the usage of #switch. Probably pretty basic, since this is my first effort at a template. A simplified form of my template is at User:Kww/charttemplate, and, as you can see from the expansion at User talk:Kww/charttest, the parser doesn't even seem to recognize that I'm trying to use the switch control structure.—Kww(talk) 21:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC) :I fixed it for you. You had wrong external link syntax and so the software wasn't able to parse the whole {{#switch}}. BTW is there a reason why are you using User talk:Kww/charttest instead of User:Kww/charttest? Svick (talk) 22:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC) ::Now I'm wholly confused. Is the parser parsing the #switch after it has done things like link inclusion? Not before? Ouch. That's going to make my actual target output of |French Singles Chart [http://www.lescharts.com/showitem.asp?interpret={{{artist}}}&titel={{{title}}}] |{{{2}}} a real bitch to generate. Please tell me that it won't try to expand the table before it has processed the #switch. As for the "talk" problem, just a cockpit error. It'll be deleted once this testing is over.—Kww(talk) 22:13, 4 October 2009 (UTC) :The problem in the code you gave now is that the parser can't know whether you mean "table |" or "#switch |". Fortunately, you can do this by using {{tlx|!}} instead of "table |". Svick (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC) OK, I'm much closer now. Macro is at User:Kww/charttemplate2, test expansion is at User talk:Kww/charttemplate2. Serious problem, though: the contents of the references are being processed before the variables have been substituted, which defeats the purpose of the macro. Any way to change that order?—Kww(talk) 23:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC) ::Svick got it for me.—Kww(talk) 23:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC) :::I tried replacing s with {{#tag:ref}} and it worked. Svick (talk) 23:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

`question about box --- solved`

{{tl|resolved}}

in a box, is it possible to change the size of an image?? for instance: please have a look at ("my") Chelo’s Burden: when you click to get the image file, you can see it's smaller than the one shown in the box and i would get it like this (145x188) + i tried to add |120px but it does not work + Template talk:Infobox comic book title does not comment --- thanks in advance kernitou talk 08:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC) :If you read the documentation of the infobox you will note that there is an imagesize parameter. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC) ::thanks a lot kernitou talk 14:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

`Error when editing protected pages`

Quite often when I edit a fully protected page I receive, after a long delay, the Wikimedia Foundation Error notice. The edit always succeeds but the browser does not reload the page. I use Firefox 3.5. I was just wondering if this happened to anyone else? The technical output of the most recent occurence is below.

Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WikiProjectBannerShell&action=submit, from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx via knsq23.knams.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE6) to 91.198.174.39 (91.198.174.39) Error: ERR_READ_TIMEOUT, errno [No Error] at Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:55:13 GMT The xxx bit is my IP address, hidden by me. Thanks in advance. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC) :I often see this timeout when editing a highly transcluded page (which are often fully protected), and I think that's "normal". — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC) ::It's not exactly normal, but it's bugzilla:12814. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

`magic words`

Is it possible that magic words (like lc:) might be returning stuff in ascii when the rest of wikimedia is using UTF8? Or anything similar to that scenario? Rich Farmbrough, 20:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC).

:Yes, possible. I know that PAGENAME behaves a little strangely with punctuation marks. For example {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME:Bahá'í Faith}}|Bahá'í Faith|same|different}} returns {{#ifeq:{{PAGENAME:Bahá'í Faith}}|Bahá'í Faith|same|different}}. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC) ::Ok I will stop banging my head against a brick wall then, thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 21:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC). ::: Bugzilla:16474, I believe, and it's outputting HTML entities: {{#ifeq: {{FULLPAGENAME:Foo's Bar}} | Foo's Bar |Y|N}} → {{#ifeq:{{FULLPAGENAME:Foo's Bar}}|Foo's Bar|Y|N}}. Amalthea 22:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC) ::::That is exactly the problem I'm getting, space converting to &32; for example. Ill hurry off and vote for the bug. Rich Farmbrough, 18:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC).

`list indentation`

Lists arent indented very much and lists of lists with many subsections can be difficult to read. Is there any way to increase the indentation for a particular list? Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 01:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

:You can't use wikitext list to do this, and have to use HTML and inline CSS. E.g: foo bar baz foo bar baz :Note that the second level list has bigger indentation, but the third has default. You have to set it for every (or for ordered list). But make sure this is necessary, because it lowers readability of the page source for other editors. Svick (talk) 20:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC) You can do a lot with WP lists but not alway what you expect A B C D :A :*: B :C :*: D :•A ::•B :•C ::•D For example. Rich Farmbrough, 16:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC).

`RfC to increase the default thumbnail size of images`

The issue of the default thumbnail size of 180px has come to a head after many years. All input is welcome. Thanks. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

`Percentage scaling`

Part of the default thumbnail issue above stems from the technical limitation of not being able to use percentage widths for images. It should not be a big problem to automatically scale thumbnails widths to a certain percentage of the article width automatically. This would make the default widths independent of browser window sizes and zoom factors.

Therefore, I hereby officially propose to create and add such a rescaling script to the site JavaScript. E.g., the default relative rescaling width could then be specified as ~16% for the 180px user preference default. Adjustments can then be done by changing the preferences pixel width as usual. For users without scripting support the old pixel-based width would still work without change. As for the finer implementation details, the script should run before image fetching because we neither want to let the browser to blow up the fetched images (because it would lead to artifacts) nor would we like to load different resolutions from the server for the same page (maybe this needs some server-side help). To keep the server-side image scaling and caching at the current resource level, the script would scale image sizes in the current steps of resolution (e.g. 180px, 220px...) Rescaling the browser window would either not change the width (to preserve the resolution - exactly as for the current implementation of fixed image withs) or would rescale (with possible artifacts) and then load larger sized images through a background server request (browser window resizing does not happen very often, so this would not have a noticeable effect on network traffic). Cacycle (talk) 02:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC) :Images are resized server-side on-demand, and that demand is dictated by the server-side MediaWiki code running on the cluster's Apache servers. The images are stored in obfuscated file directories and links are resolved internally as the page is rendered. You cannot use JavaScript to demand an image in an arbitrary size because 1) the image will not exist in the desired size until an Apache server has requested it in the 'normal' fashion, and 2) even if the image does exist, the JavaScript will not be able to find it unless it is told by an Apache where the image in that particular size is located. Neither of these problems are insurmountable, but they only scratch the surface of the problems with percentage-scaling of images, and raise the question: what advantages would percentage-scaling offer that are so bounteous as to justify all this effort? Happy‑melon 15:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC) ::Actually, those would mostly be easy to bypass. The directory is based on md5 hash of the filename; it doesn't change for different thumbnail sizes and there's no actual randomness. If an image doesn't exist at a request size, it will be automatically generated (see transformVia404 in mw:Manual:$wgLocalFileRepo). The main problems I can see are: ::#Small images. The server will not scale images larger than their actual size. If MediaWiki determines that the requested size is larger than the actual size, it puts the full image in the page and lets the browser scale it. But it will [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a9/Example.jpg/1000px-Example.jpg refuse] to thumbnail it. This seems like it could cause problems for percentage widths where JS doesn't know the original image size. ::#Is it actually possible to run code after you know what images are on the page, but before the images are loaded? ::#Is it possible to determine the actual window size, or are we just going to get the screen resolution (does that work in every browser?) and assume people are using a full window? ::#if someone is using a mobile browser, but not the mobile site, will images even be usable? The iPhone has a 320×480 screen, so an image set at 16% is going to be at most 76px wide.File:SlaveDanceand Music.jpg ::-- Mr.Z-man 17:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC) Happy-melon: We are dealing with the rendered html page, not wiki code. All we have to do is to change the url's of tags from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/SlaveDanceand_Music.jpg/180px-SlaveDanceand_Music.jpg into http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/SlaveDanceand_Music.jpg/300px-SlaveDanceand_Music.jpg. That is super-simple and does not need any assumptions, md5 hashes, or other elaborate calculations. Because we will fetch the exact standard pixel sizes that will be requested anyway, we will not interefere with server-side scaling and caching. Mr.Z-man: : 1. This might need a server-side software change so that the server send the original size image instead which would be displayed without browser rescaling. I do not think that this would break or interefere with any existing application. Alternatively, it might be possible to catch that error message and to dynamically load the unscaled image. : 2. Yes, that is possible, the

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 65#Search page help

Isolating editors edits in an article

Better diff engine needed

Speedy deletion vandalism

Pop-ups

Ideas?

Linking categories outside Wikipedia Commons to file in Wikipedia Commons

Some Wikipedia pages don't open but start a download

Technical Issue

Mistakes made with AWB

Hiding stubs

Help with statistics

coloring 'legend' with css on 'my preferences' page

expand the main page contents to full screen?

Something that lists transclusions of all pages from a given category

Postage Stamps Etc.: Software Patch to Track Sizing

Where to go to discuss WP "beta"?

Edit a new page notice

Beta improvement

Changed layout?

=Vector=

=Changelog=

Deleting monobooks

Categories not showing

edit dies with out of memory error

Creating pages became harder

Using a spam-blacklisted link in a citation - how/why is this possible?

Wikiblame

[[WT:RU]]

Before I go mad...

Enhanced toolbar (option) is gone

Numerical or HTML entity for semicolons?

Skip Toolserver Geohack

Template IMSLP broken

Word count updates

An email

What happened to the search link in the redlink page?

XML Versions of Special:<Page> pages

C's P's and F? in the category listings.

ref in sortable

converting portlets to p-caction drop down menus

Nested footnotes aren't workning when list-defined

Search page help

Time-limited watchlist

Vanishing articles?

Hidden categories & printing

Twinkle partially broken for anyone else?

Recovering old username

Special:RecentChangesLinked going haywire at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Watchlist]]

code and tt size

HTML type attribute missing

Switch?

question about box --- *solved*

Error when editing protected pages

magic words

list indentation

RfC to increase the default thumbnail size of images

Percentage scaling

`Enhanced toolbar (option) is gone`

`Numerical or HTML entity for semicolons?`

`Skip Toolserver Geohack`

`Template IMSLP broken`

`Word count updates`

`An email`

`What happened to the search link in the redlink page?`

`XML Versions of Special:<Page> pages`

`C's P's and F? in the category listings.`

`ref in sortable`

`converting portlets to p-caction drop down menus`

`Nested footnotes aren't workning when list-defined`

`Search page help`

`Time-limited watchlist`

`Vanishing articles?`

`Hidden categories & printing`

`Twinkle partially broken for anyone else?`

`Recovering old username`

`Special:RecentChangesLinked going haywire at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Watchlist]]`

`code and tt size`

`HTML type attribute missing`

`Switch?`

`question about box --- solved`

`Error when editing protected pages`

`magic words`

`list indentation`

`RfC to increase the default thumbnail size of images`

`Percentage scaling`