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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Squigish (talk | contribs) at 16:28, 24 May 2006 (→Isolated database issue?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.

Frequently Asked Questions:

  • Intermittent database lags can make new articles take some minutes to appear, and cause the watchlist, contributions, and page history/old views sometimes not show the very latest changes. This is an ongoing issue we are working on.
  • The search index is often out of date, sometimes taking weeks before it's updated. Because of that, recent changes are not immediately reflected on the search.
  • If all the links in the articles suddenly become underlined (or the opposite), it's probably because your browser failed to load one of the stylesheets. Do a forced reload or bypass your cache.
  • If you have problems making your fancy signature work, check Wikipedia:How to fix your signature.
  • If you changed to another skin and cannot change back, use =monobook this link.

Newcomers to the technical village pump are encouraged to read these guidelines prior to posting here.

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

[url=http://bcheck.atspace.org]backgrounds[/url]

Bad thumbnail

The 70 pixel thumbnail for Image:I-5.svg seems to be broken (it comes out as a fully transparent/blank image). Is there any way to force it to regenerate? Thanks. Mike Dillon 19:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing with thumbnails of Image:Wiktionary-logo-en.png (image on Commons). It may display, or may not, depending on the size of the thumbnail. For example, the 200px thumbnail displays fine, but not the 20px version or 705px version. ~MDD4696 21:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In case it matters, Image:I-5.svg is also a Commons image. Maybe it is only affecting Commons images or maybe not. I just thought I'd point out that both noted problems involve Commons images. Mike Dillon 22:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed the same problem on Commons itself while browsing commons:Category:Interstate Highway shields. Many of the 120px thumbnails are missing. Mike Dillon 22:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be an ongoing problem with SVG images. Sometimes simply waiting will work; if not, adding ?action=purge to the image page URL (on the wiki where the image is uploaded, so on Commons for Commons images) will give you another shot at getting the thumbnails generated. You will also need to make sure that you clear your cache to see the latest version of the thumbnail. (BTW, to clear images on all but the latest versions of Safari, you need to make sure that the thumbnail is not being displayed in any window before you empty your cache.)
I see that this is already in Bugzilla as #5463. --iMb~Meow 00:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just did this for the 70px thumb of commons:Image:I-5.svg. I had tried the action=purge thing before, but it didn't work the first time. Mike Dillon 00:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another one, from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Bug?:

Check this version of Macedonia (Greece) vs the next one. The image (flag) dissappears if it has 195px width, and reappears with 194px. I hope the problem is less significant than a narrower flag by 1 pixel!  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 14:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

--cesarb 19:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And: Thanks. Btw I think the purge procedure ruined the good version of 194px too! Check the article now... NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 11:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(both copied from WP:AN#Bug?)  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 11:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page not included in searches

I submitted an article to Wikipedia in March but the page has never come up in the search engine, even though it still exists in the exact same form.

How can I get the wikipedia search engine to recognise the page?

Thanks. --87.81.62.126 20:02, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The search index is rebuilt only when a developer manually initiates a rebuild, which has not been done for several months. I don't know why it's been so long. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's been done several times in the last couple months. English Wikipedia is a bit finicky, though. --Brion 22:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why is the search engine only updated so infrequently? When so many new and updated articles would be missing out? Is there any form of timeframe on how soon an article will appear after being created? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to either track new articles in the search, or have even a update every few days (NB: I have no concept of the power that would take btw)?DanielBC 10:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image metadata

Is there any way to track the metadata of images being uploaded? Geni 09:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your question is far too vague. What do you mean by metadata? Which do you need to track? How do you define track? Rob Church (talk) 21:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To take a random exampleImage:P6100149.JPG has a metadata section. Images covered by copyright tend to have a certain pattern of metadata. I was woundering if there was a way to use this to produce a list of questionable GFDL and other free lisesnce claims.Geni 00:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how would one produce a list? What sort of queries would we be running? Rob Church (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Total lack of meta data on jpgs is generaly a bad sign. More focused there are certian types of image sources that you don't see on legit images (eg quicktime). It's quite posible there is no way to do this without working from a database dump. I was just woundering if it was posible to come up with some filtering tools to make new image patrol more effecient.Geni 23:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser

How can I use CheckUser on myself? I think this would be an important feature, so it is harder to frame people for sockpuppetry. Lapinmies 08:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can't access the CheckUser tool unless access is granted; on Wikimedia wikis, the policies state that this must be done with the approval of the Board, or the local project's Arbitration Committee (or similar), or via a request for permissions on Meta. This is due to technical and political (including legal) issues surrounding the tool's use.
Your question seems to indicate that you feel it is possible to "frame" someone for sockpuppetry. While it might be, in theory, we use more evidence than a mere IP check to state whether or not a user seems to be using abusive sockpuppets. Rob Church (talk) 14:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You could log out and edit a sandbox with ~~~~, but there are likely easier ways to check your computer's IP address. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 17:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are indeed about a hundred ways to check this. FWIW, I have a little CGI script on my leased web host that simply dumps the environment information the web server sees. This is occasionally useful if you're not sure exactly what NAT steps might be happening between you and "the outside world". I.e. 'ifconfig' and the like will tell you what your computer thinks it looks like, but not what happens to all your packets on the journey out. It also verifies, e.g. the browser identification you are sending out. Sure, you can use 'traceroute', or even packet sniffers, and the like to dig out more information. But anyone who wants to is welcome to do a quick check with this little script: http://gnosis.cx/cgi-bin/simple.cgi (I suppose if I get a million people who do it, and clog my server, I might kill it; but that seems unlikely). LotLE×talk 18:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
100+1: Special:Version, last line. -- Omniplex 07:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Image license to uploaded image after it is marked for deletion

I added an image, neglecting to put the license info. It was tagged for deletion, so I tried to edit it to correct this. The edit page came up blank, saying the file did not exist, although it was still viewable in the article linked to it. I just re-uploaded the same image with a slightly different filename (Erythronium_albidum.jpg instead of Erythronium_albidum.JPG), but I'm wondering why I couldn't fix the original (it had 5 days left before deletion.) The original is Erythronium_albidum.JPG and is no longer linked anywhere, so is there a way to remove it now (even though it will automatically be removed in 5 days)? -- PJV 16:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Erythronium albidum.JPG was uploaded to the Commons, whereas Image:Erythronium albidum.jpg was uploaded to Wikipedia. You'll have to go to http://commons.wikimedia.org to edit the image or request it to be deleted. Images on Commons can be accessed from Wikipedia, which is why you can see it here. ~MDD4696 03:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Getting confusing text instead of edit-buttons


This is known bug #5747 in Wikisource. It was broken in mid-April. --John Nagle 18:56, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A small handful of people have reported this, but we cannot reproduce the problem or guess what's wrong. It may or may not be a problem specific to your browser, configuration, computer, or network. --Brion 03:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thnx :)  It worked fine on the identical system until about a couple of weeks ago, and no new hard or software has been installed that could be the cause. I guess it might have something to do with some JavaScript and/or CSS enhancements that have been installed recently in the Wikimedia environment. -- ParaDox 16:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sibling username problem

A user named User:Clyde Miller apparently edited under my username. It seems that he used the same computer I had been using, and did not log out in the top corner of the screen until after he had edited his userpage under my name. Clyde is my little brother, and doesn't edit on wikipedia too often, so he didn't realize he was under my name until he had completed an edit under it. He started freaking out over it, and apologizing for using my name. I was always under the impression that a computer would automatically log out of my username if I closed the browser and walked away, which apparently did not happen. What do I do? Is there a way we can attribute my edit on his userpage to him? I told him it's not a big deal, but he is quite upset.--The ikiroid (talk)(Help Me Improve) 22:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's theoretically possible to reattribute the one edit, but it would require a system admin to go into the database, track down the revision, confirm it, change it, etc etc. To be frank, it's too much effort for a single edit. Rob Church (talk) 22:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, no big deal.--The ikiroid (talk)(Help Me Improve) 16:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thumbnailing animated GIFs

How come thumbnails of animated GIFs look so screwed up? How long has this problem existed? Is anyone working on fixing it? —Keenan Pepper 02:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is that the x,y coordinates of the frame positions are not scaled properly. Actually the combination of different frame sizes, transpareny and indexed colours would make resizing animated GIFs deviously hard (without doing a conversion to ARGB with equal frame sizes, followed by a conversion back to GIF and some file size crunching). It might also be possible tht only the first frame is resized. I noticed this a few months ago at Sieve of Eratosthenes, so this bug has probably always been there. On a side note, if you have popups installed, you can see what happens if you let your browser resize the image. Firefox has no problems with Image:Animation_Sieb_des_Eratosthenes.gif, but does with Image:Water drop animation enhanced small.gif. —Ruud 16:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't they simply disable it, if it's never worked properly? —Keenan Pepper 15:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a "hide" button to a template

Can someone add one of these to {{cent}} so we can hide it on AFD pages? Alphax τεχ 03:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added one, somebody else should take a look at it though, as I'm not very experienced with coding this kind of stuff; I left the original template beneath mine hidden in comments, in case you want it back. J. Finkelstein 04:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm worried that users might not click on the links if they're hidden, making the template ineffective. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Titoxd. Part of the beauty of {{cent}} is that someone might just see it at a glance and say, "Oh, they're discussing something that I might be interested in contributing to." Only the very interested/curious will bother hitting a show/hide button. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 04:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine with me, I don't even look at AFD pages much :D . J. Finkelstein 04:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, but is there a way to default that button to 'open' instead of default 'hidden'? J. Finkelstein 04:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. --cesarb 04:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you read the section title again, you'll see that I asked for a hide button, not for it to be hidden by default. Someone removed it though - is there a more efficient implementation of it? Even if it can't be hidden completely, can it at least be collapsed? Alphax τεχ 08:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen it done before (it seemed to depend on the number of divs you used), but I believe the code has since changed, and I don't know if it still works that way (it's the same "hide" button, only with the default flipped). --cesarb 17:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Television station block for Bowling Green, KY TV market

Hello,

I created the page for WNKY. Based on the language used in the page, the block containing the TV stations in the market at the very bottom seems to be pulling from another source that I am having trouble reaching.

How do I edit this? The reason I want to edit this is because I think it should include UPN affiliate WUXP from Nashville. Since I used to live in Bowling Green, this station provides one of the strongest signals out of Nashville into Bowling Green, and this is the closest UPN affiliate to Bowling Green.

Thanks,

Steve McIntosh

Hi! When asking for help it often helps to give a link to the thing you're asking for help with as we may not be able to tell what you're referring to, in this case I can't quite tell what article you mean without doing a search. Also don't forget to sign your posts with ~~~~, it's way better than manually signing your name. As to your specific question, it sounds like maybe there is a template being used in the article that has other info in it. While editing the article, look at the bottom, below the edit box, and there will be a list of all the templates used in it. Check those out to see if one of them is what you want to edit to add the new station... Before you add the info you're suggesting, you MAY want to check the template's talk page, it may have been added and removed before with good reason. Hope that helps and happy editing! ++Lar: t/c 12:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's helpful to sign your talk page posts with four tildes: ~~~~. This adds your name and the date automatically, allowing us to easily determine that you're User:Stevenmcintosh and thus find your contributions to get some context. As it is, I found that out through the edit history[1], but it would have been more convenient if we didn't have to.

Templates can be "transcluded" onto pages by using the syntax {{templatename}}. Thus, when you see the text {{Bowling Green TV}} at the bottom of WNKY, it really means "Add the contents of Template:Bowling Green TV here", so that's the page you want to edit. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cloud of other lang wikis

In the main page, currently other language wikipedias are clustered on the number of articles into 1000+, 10000+ and so on. It requires manual involvment to update this list which is difficult particularly in other language wikipedias with a small number of users. Also, searching for a particular language is not easy here. An alternate system could be an interface similar to a tag cloud where each language is rendered in a font whose size is proportional to the number of articles it has. If you like the idea, vote for bug:6002. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Afrikaans · Albanian · Alemannic · Arabic · Aragonese · Arpitan / Franco-Provençal · Asturian · Azeri · Basque · Belarusian · Bengali · Bosnian · Breton · Bulgarian · Catalan · Cebuano · Chinese · Chuvash · Cornish · Corsican · Croatian · Czech · Danish · Dutch · Esperanto · Estonian · Faroese · Finnish · French · Galician · Georgian · German · Greek · Haitian · Hebrew · Hindi · Hungarian · Icelandic · Ido · Ilokano · Indonesian · Interlingua · Irish · Italian · Japanese · Javanese · Kannada · Kapampangan · Korean · Kurdish · Latin · Latvian · Limburgian · Lithuanian · Low German / Low Saxon · Luxembourgish · Macedonian · Malay · Marathi · Minnan · Neapolitan · Norwegian · Norwegian Nynorsk · Occitan · Ossetian / Ossetic · Persian · Polish · Portuguese · Ripuarian · Romanian · Russian · Scots · Scottish Gaelic · Serbian · Serbo-Croatian · Sicilian · Simple English · Slovak · Slovenian · Spanish · Swedish · Tagalog / Filipino · Tamil · Tatar · Telugu · Thai · Turkish · Ukrainian · Vietnamese · Walloon · Waray-Waray / Samar-Leyte Visayan · Welsh · West Frisian · Yiddish —Ruud 02:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! I presume that, for an illustration, you've used only two sizes. In an actual implementation this shall have font sizes proportional to discretised actual number of articles. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 05:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks awful. I've always hated those clouds. As it is right now, it's very nice to oversee what the important wikis are. —Michiel Sikma, 14:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The edit toolbar is missing. Does anyone else notice that too?

Where is the edit toolbar? Why don't I see it anymore?

This morning, I noticed they were all gone. Is it just me or does anyone else notice the toolbar missing? --Shultz IV 15:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Everything's appearing normally for me. Are you referring to the toolbar directly above the edit screen, or the special characters box below? — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Try hard-refreshing the page to purge your browser cache and re-request the .js and .css files. Alphax τεχ 08:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to create invisible anchor

I am working on a manual inside Wikipedia that references the html element "paragraph". I wanted to link "paragraph" to its reference in Wikipedia. I found the Paragraph page, and the html <paragraph> definition is a couple of screens down. I have tried to put an anchor at that point so folks won't go to the English paragraph but to the html paragraph. I searched Google and it says the format would be #anchor, but when I did that my anchor text was visible on the page. Is there a way to create an invisible anchor on someone else's page so I can link to it? Thank you, -Susan Booher

To link to article section, add #section_title after the end of the page name. In your case, the wiki code would be, Unless I am mistaken: [[HTML_element#Block-level]]. Circeus 16:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you ant to actually create a true anchor, then you'll have to use an empty element with the "id" attribute, such as <span id="anchorname"></span>, although this would be recommended. Circeus 16:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've had some luck with the <div id="example"> </div>, although it seems to need some text between the tags (even just a single space) or it doesn't work. See Help:Anchors for a bit more. Is there a template that hides this, similar to {{Clr}}?Ewlyahoocom 17:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Did you want to link to Paragraph#Paragraphs in HTML? Wikipedia automatically places anchors at section headings. Just use [[Paragraph#Paragraphs in HTML]] to link to it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you're not linking to a section heading, <div id="example"/> works. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would <span id="example" /> be more appropriate, or is my lack of up-to-date HTML knowledge showing? At any rate, div would give you a line break, which might not be wanted, no? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As long as it's an empty div without a explicit size, it won't give any line break. --cesarb 04:26, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to link directly to sub-sub-paragraphs?

I can link to Security interest#Types of Security fine, but if I try to link to Security interest#Types of Security#Pledge it just leaves me at the top of the screen. I have tried subsituting in "##" and "+", but I can't make it work. Can it be done? Legis 16:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep: Security interest#Pledge — EncMstr 16:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The one thing I didn't try. Thanks a lot. Legis 17:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, if you want to see how to link to the anchor for a section, just roll over the link in the table of contents (or use whatever your browser's method is to determine the target of that link). — Knowledge Seeker দ 18:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to search for material in WikiMedia

If I create a link in a talk page or elsewhere to m:Help:Footnotes as I have just done here, it works and it takes me to that help page in the MediaWiki Handbook. However, if I enter that same link into the search box on the Wikipedia Main Page, I get told that the page cannot be found. In fact, if I go to http://www.mediawiki.organd use the search box there, I also get told the page cannot be found.

I have had the same sort of trouble trying to search for images in Commons using the search box in Wikipedia.

How should pages or images not in Wikipedia itself be searched for? Where is there a write-up or a help page that tells us how to access material in Commons or in Wikimedia?? - mbeychok 20:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is (diff)(hist) at beginning of line in en.watchlist and hopping around in de

Image:ParaDox 2006-05-17 screenshot en and de watchlist 800x600x256.png -- ParaDox, 17 Mai 2006 

German:
18. Mai 2006
    04:45 Wikipedia:Fragen zur Wikipedia (Unterschied; Versionen) . .
 K  01:08 Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Wartung/Bewertung (Unterschied; Versionen) . .
17. Mai 2006
    22:54 Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/EMS (Unterschied; Versionen) . . Chrislb
    22:37 Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Religion/Stichwort- und Assoziationsliste (Unterschied; 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
English:
18 May 2006
    * (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Village pump (technical); 05:41 . . Rick Block (Talk 
14 May 2006
    * (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Manual of Style; 10:13 . . Mccready (Talk | contribs)
=======================================================================================
Replaced thumbnail through link und text representation. -- ParaDox 05:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
click on "diff" to see the difference made by the last edit to the page its listed next to. click on "hist' to see that pages edit history. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
oops sorry misread the question :)

The MediaWiki software and design has all sorts of little differennces differences between the different. language wikis. fr:, for example, has a "references" namespace. Circeus 01:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your preferences are set differently on the two wikis. Go into preferences and check the 'watchlist' section. --Brion 02:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no – the options are set the same, and there are only these 5 in both de.Wikipedia and en.Wikipedia:
  • Number of days to show in watchlist
  • Hide my edits from the watchlist
  • Hide bot edits from the watchlist
  • Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes
  • Number of edits to show in expanded watchlist
Thnx anyway :-)   -- ParaDox 05:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The option is actually under recent changes, though it also affects your watchlist. It looks like you've ticked 'enhanced recent changes' on en. but not on de.. --Cherry blossom tree 10:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your hint, Cherry blossom tree, enables me to bring “the bottom line”:
[ “My preferences” – “Recent changes” – “Enhanced recent changes (JavaScript)” ]
has to be unticked :-) -- ParaDox 15:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Switch template on another MediaWiki

I'm an admin on another site using MediaWiki (CPDL, also known as ChoralWiki). I was attempting to set up a case: statement using the {{switch}} template which I borrowed from here, but doesn't appear to work on CPDL. I've tested in the Sandbox here without a problem, but no go over at CPDL. So is it that CPDL's Wiki installation is too old (*cough* 1.5 beta 4) and {{switch}} simply won't work without particular functionality that arrived only in later versions of MediaWiki?

The template is defined simply as:

{{{case: {{{1|}}}|{{{default|}}}}}}

i.e. identical with the template of the same name here.

The output I get when attempting to do a simple test of the template, e.g.

{{switch|foo|case: foo=''hello''|case: bar=''world''|default=''neither foo nor bar''}}

is not Don't write <code>{{switch</code>, write <code>{{#switch:</code>., but rather it simply returns the definition of the template:

{{{case: {{{1|}}}|{{{default|}}}}}}

Does anyone have an idea on what's going wrong? --Philip Legge @ 01:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

You may need to either enable the HiddenStructure class in the other site's MediaWiki:Monobook.css, or preferable, install the ParserFunctions extension. However, it would be a good idea to upgrade to a newer MediaWiki installation as well. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tito. Boy do I feel stupid - on Template_talk:Switch it explicitly says MediaWiki 1.6 is required (don't know how I overlooked this, I did read that page before I posted my question). So if I can rephrase my question - is there a similar template which will work under MediaWiki 1.5? --Philip Legge @ 01:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope. All the template logic functions use the parameter-default functionality, which was added in 1.6. You may want to check out m:ParserFunctions; those might work with your version, and they're more efficient as well. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The ParserFunctions extension also requires MediaWiki 1.6. Rob Church (talk) 06:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template weirdness

It'd be nice if a developer took a look at Wikipedia talk:Navigational templates#Bug in template system?. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested one explanation there. Rob Church (talk) 10:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CategoryTOC doesn't display

While using Monobook skin recently, I noticed that {{CategoryTOC}} was not displaying on my screen, e.g. Category:Year of birth missing. I can see the source in the edit window, but there is nothing in the preview or the article. Trying to track this down, I emptied my monobook.css and monobook.js with no effect. I've now changed to each of the standard skins in turn, but still no change. All this happens in both MS Internet Explorer v6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519 and in Mozilla Firefox v1.5.0.3. However, if I logout, then the CategoryTOC is visible in both MSIE and Firefox. Can someone point me in the direction of another variable that is or could be affecting this behaviour, please. Thanks, Ian Cairns 08:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Check your preferences for "Show table of contents (for pages with more than 3 headings)". {{CategoryTOC}} uses the same CSS classes as a normal TOC. I don't know whether that preference hides the TOC via CSS or disables generating it, but if it is hidden with CSS, it would cause the symptoms you are seeing. --cesarb 18:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bingo! All working now. Many thanks for spotting that. Now all I have to do is to resurrect my .css and .js file. Thanks again, Ian Cairns 21:54, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Enabling rel="nofollow" outside the main namespace

I have posted a proposal for this at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Proposal: Enable rel="nofollow" outside the main namespace. Please comment there. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is now active. Note that old cached pages may continue to not including the rel="nofollow" until they are re-rendered due to edits or other updates. --Brion 21:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Printable Version.

How does one print out an article without making it look like the printable version?

Go to file, then click print? --Lord Deskana Dark Lord of the Sith 08:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That would still make it look like the printable version (in fact, it always did; the "printable version" link is superfluous, and was added only because people expected to have to click on such link before printing). --cesarb 15:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose the question would be what material are you trying to preserve that doesn't appear in the printable version? — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply)

Adding words for redirection purposes

Hi. If I want to add words that are similar to the article's title, how do I do it without having to create another article.

For example:

for the article Husayn ibn Ali, I have been told that there are obviously many variations of his name because it is a word that has been transliterated from Arabic in to English. Potentially, for such articles there could be over 15 words that people would type in order to get to the article; in this case, they may type: Hussain, Husein, Hosayn, Hosein, Hossayn etc. How do I add possible words (that people would type in the search box) in order that they can be directed to the actual article, without having to create an article titled "Husein", and then redirecting people from it by writing: #REDIRECT Husayn ibn Ali. There must be an easier way. I appreciate your time. --- Alex 20:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid the many redirects path is the way to go. It's a problem for arabic (and, to a rather lesser extent russian) where there isn't an agreed upon scheme for transliterating into the english (or other latin-based western) alphabet. It gets combatorially horrible when one considers alternate spellings for first names, tribal names, patronymics, etc. But you can limit the work - a redirect is only sensible if there's a reasonable chance that someone would enter that term into the search box. And for most such arabic names, in practice that person has mostly been named in the english speaking media by only a few possible spellings (Saddam and Osama are notable exceptions, and as a result are the subject of many name-spelling redirects). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there is no easier way at the present time. You have to manually create all the links. Someone might be interested in writing a bot to do it, though—it should be fairly predictable (find all articles with some variant of "Hussein" in title, make redirects for all variants, rinse and repeat for all other common Arabic words). You could try asking at Wikipedia:Bot requests. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be glad to write a quick script to do this for you. It's quite a bit more difficult to have to interpret every transliteration of the name, but it wouldn't be too difficult to have something where you would type in each variation of the name, hit go, and then it would create each redirect. Unfortunately, as stated above, there must be a redirect created for each spelling, but writing a bot to do this is not at all difficult. Get back to me if you'd like me to do this for you. AmiDaniel (talk) 22:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See also the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Arabic)#Arabic names are a pain.21. —Ruud 07:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Related issue: Is there any chance we could get a script to look for article titles with diacritics and suggest redirects without them (Axel Hagerstrom is, and Axel Haegerstroem could conceivably be, a redirect to Axel Hägerström) whenever these are lacking? It would also be useful if it could identify every case where a possible redirect is a full article (or redirects somewhere else). In many cases these are probably articles on something completely different or disambiguation pages (Åmål, Amal) but in some cases these may be duplicates which should be merged and redirected. Tupsharru 08:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for not noticing your question on the Village Pump earlier. I think that would be quite plausible and simple to implement--I can simply a table with ö → oe → o, etc., and then on each entry compose every possible combination of those. Let me work out the specifics of it, and I'll get back to you. My offer still stands to write the script to create redirects from user input as well, and we could likely merge these too ideas into one. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ami Daniel, that's very kind of you to offer it. I don't know really. I think it's a good idea if it doesn't take long. But if it does, I guess there really is no problem doing it using the current method, i.e. creating the articles. It's up to you. --- Alex 16:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Captchas

I notice that mediawiki.org gives you a Captcha to fill in when you try to add an external link. Is this part of MediaWiki and how is it turned on? What anti-spam measures does MediaWiki 1.5 and 1.6 have? Gerard Foley 22:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably the ConfirmEdit extension. See meta:Anti-spam Features for other anti-spam measures. --cesarb 23:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Gerard Foley 23:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can one create a wikilink that takes you to a random article each time it's clicked? I am aware of the random article link on the sidebar. I'm just curious if that functionality is available in wikilanguage, too. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 16:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Random does the trick, and you can pipe it like any other link. Another useful thing not many know about is you can use it for different namespaces e.g. Special:Random/Category or Special:Random/Wikipedia. the wub "?!" 16:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Thank you so much. Very useful, especially the category thing. I've got some interesting ideas as to how I can apply that for what I had in mind. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 16:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Special:Random/Category wasn't what I thought it was. Too bad you can't do "random page within a category." — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 20:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That feature has been requested here (as there seems to be no way to do it easily). Splarka (rant) 07:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know. It'd be useful, for example, for those people who just wanted to grab a random article out of the various categories Wikipedia puts articles in that need work ("articles that need copyedit", "articles that have unsourced statements", and so on). — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 18:09, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Show Changes Edit Boxes - Right Often "Off the Screen"

Very often, when I'm look at a diff, the right diff will be large enough that it will scroll a little off the screen. I presume this might be due to long URLs or other non-broken-by-spaces weirdness. Has anyone figured a way to counteract this effect? I'm thinking in the back of my mind that perhaps someone might have altered the code in their monobook to handle it, or perhaps via a Firefox or Greasemonkey "wrap long text" functionality. Thoughts? — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 16:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Fix diff width. --cesarb 17:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Brilliant. Much thanks! — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 18:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mac OS X Apps for Wikipedia Editors?

Sorry for the trilogy of questions. Just a number of tech questions that are flooding my head at once. Last one, I promise. ;-)

I have occasionally noticed Windows applications built to make Wikipedia editors' lives better. I'm wondering ... has anyone has developed similar mechanisms and/or applications for Mac OS X?

Much obliged for all the help. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 16:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized I was thinking along the lines of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser. But assuming there aren't any such features, or someone would've responded by now. SubEthaEdit does have a Wikipedia mode, though. Still, anyone else? — WCityMike (talk • contribs • where to reply) 20:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Popups work under OS X (okay, the scripts don't work well at all with Safari but they're just fine with Camino and Firefox). --iMb~Meow 22:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to change name of user groups

I've just installed MediaWiki on my website, and I was wondering how I could change (which file I need to change and how) the name of the groups "sysop" and "bureaucrat" to something else (e.g. "editor", "moderator"). Also, to change existing usernames I guess I need to query the database, but what should I do exactly? TracyCh 21:10, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Leave the internal names alone and change the descriptions. See Special:Allmessages and search for the message to be replaced, then hit the link to the message page and edit it. To rename users, check out the Renameuser extension. Rob Church (talk) 23:58, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the Tropico article, I notice that when viewing with Firefox the edit hyperlinks are piled down in the Music section rather than on each heading. But it looks fine in Internet Explorer. Does anyone notice this? Rolypolyman 21:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a common problem (it affects Safari as well), with a potential solution described at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 39#Proposed addition: Avoid float stacking. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

System Messages

Does anyone know where I could get some actual documentation on the System Messages? Even technical stuff would be a help.

The best documentation is the code itself, which you can see at http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/. You can also see all the messages, together with their defaults, at Special:Allmessages. For the CSS and JS ones, there's some partial documentation at Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes. --cesarb 17:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I kinda need some help with my monobook.js script, and would be pleased if someone could help.

A few days ago, i attempted to put the 'godmode-light' script in my monobook file, but my popups started to screw up... I cleared the whole file, and started again. I put VoiceofAll's stuff in (which includes Lupin's stuff) - inc. popups; but i had no popups at all this time, so i reverted the changes, and now i get half popups (just the top part - no preview of the page), and i get an error message:

NAVIGATION POPUPS ERROR: op or cl is null! something is wrong

What's wrong!?

Ta, Deon

It's a bug in the script - please clear your cache and try again. Thanks! Lupin|talk|popups 03:58, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Lupin, Thanks for the speedy reply. Cache cleared = Problem Fixed. Thanks Heaps. --Deon555 04:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contrasting Colors

I believe that it is too hard to read articles and stare into a white screen. It's like a light-bulb! I think Wikipedia should offer an inverted color scheme to make it easier on the eyes.

You're looking for a new skin. I don't think any of the standard ones are light-on-dark, but you can make your own. —Keenan Pepper 06:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Or turn your monitor brightness/gamma/contrast down ;) Your eyes will thank you. Without the ambient daylight, I have to turn mine down in the evenings. -Quiddity 06:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Go to the preferences or options in your web browser. You should find options there to override web sites' styles with your preferred color scheme. --Brion 21:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category Sortkey with a ParserFunction

Hi all. I'm trying to use a ParserFunction to specify a Category's sortkey over in {{Archive}}. When the tagged article is in the mainspace, I want the category to be "(Main) archives" and the sortkey to be "Main", but it's being stubborn and keeps using "(Main) archives". I just want the subcategory to appear under the "M" heading at Category:Wikipedia history, not the "(" heading. Any help? ~MDD4696 16:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed that: the "(" came from the category tag in the subcategory, not from the one in the template. I also removed the now-useless sort key from the template, though it'll take a while for that to take effect. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh! Thanks :). ~MDD4696 17:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Tools

Please see my talk page for my question. (Please use my Talk page to answer the question also. Thanks for any help.

-----Jacnoc (Discuss | Desk | Contributes) 18:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from the user's talk page:

What is the location of:

  1. Extension folder
  2. Localsettings.php
Both would be in the directory you installed MediaWiki to. Rob Church (talk) 23:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Making non-ISO-recognized national flag icons

I have read the instructions for flag creation, but I am still lost on how to make flag icons. For example, I am making a lacrosse team roster with one player whose has played on the Iroquois National team. I would like to use the Iroquois Nation flag to represent his nationality (as opposed to being American or Canadian), but since there is no IOC or ISO 3166 code for First Nations/Native American Tribes, I do not how to make such an icon. The flag is in the public domain.

This would also help in making a roster page for the World Lacrosse Championship, as well as in the future for the Indoor Championship in 2007.

Thanks.

--Paploo 20:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The .us top level internet domain has a subdomain "nsn" for Native Sovereign Nations in the US. For the Iroquois flag, I'd suggest US-NSN-Iroquois although I also recommend bringing this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template before implementing anything. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Checking new pages of specific user

Is there a way to check for pages created by a specific user along the line of the contributions page?Kim van der Linde at venus 20:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

user:Interiot will create such lists on request. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

strange...

Earlier today, I reverted Sonic Youth to an older version after wrongly thinking that Tawkerbot2's version was vandalized as well. After realizing my mistake, I tried to revert my edit manually instead of using the rollback button. However, for some reason, something caused me to overwrite talk:Sonic Youth instead. Anyone know what might have caused this? --Ixfd64 01:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you describe the procedure you used to manually revert? --Brion 21:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Enhanced Watchlist?

I'm operating from a Mac OS X Firefox install, and it appears that there's no enhanced watchlist. I don't see it in my preferences, either. Was the feature removed, or is there something specific to my install that causes me not to see the option in question? — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 02:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What version? Alphax τεχ 07:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1.5.0.3. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 16:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone? — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 22:17, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nothin', huh? I'm seeing the same absence of an enhanced watchlist on a Portable Firefox install on a Windows machine. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 16:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Got my answer from reading another thread (link), although I think this is a slight usability oddity. Turns out that turning on "enhanced recent changes" also enables the "enhanced watchlist." That may be a "no, duh" thing with some people here, but it didn't really occur to me. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 16:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, "enhanced watchlist" was the old description for what is now labelled as "expand watchlist to show all recent edits" or something similar. 86.138.46.182 17:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. Not what I was thinking of. You can see what I was talking about for yourself. Look at your watchlist. Then go to your preferences and either turn on, or turn off, enhanced recent changes, depending on your current setting. Now go back to your watchlist. Its appearance should've changed. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you revert to a previous version when you accidently deleted some material & notes?

I deleted some text and accidently deleted two notes plus more text. Can I revert to previous copy?KarenAnn 02:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

If you deleted some text and then accidentally saved that version, just click the "history" tab at the top of the article. You'll see all the previous versions of the article, so you can easily click on an earlier version and save it. Joyous! | Talk 02:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:REVERT for an explanation. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Javascript errors

I use Firefox as my main browser, but sometimes I'm in IE, and if I use VandalProof that also uses the IE interface. I have my monobook.js set up perfectly for Firefox, and it works fine with no problems. The problem, however, is that when I go into Internet Explorer, I get tons of script errors everywhere. I was wondering, is it possible to automatically detect what browser you're using and then use a different js depending on the browser? —Mets501talk 04:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. There's an article on it at Devmo:Browser Detection and Cross Browser Support (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Browser_Detection_and_Cross_Browser_Support until the Interwiki map gets updated). Alphax τεχ 07:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Thanks so much. —Mets501talk 16:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: direct editing interface

Would it be feasible to write a user interface to allow direct editing, without clicking on an "Edit" link? This would have a number of advantages. First, the directness would be much more inviting for anyone to edit. Second, it would be much easier to use. The current interface requires me to load an entire article or section to edit its introduction, and introductions are very long, making it difficult to find the particular sentence I wanted to change. Third, the interface would probably reduce server load. Currently a page is loaded once to be viewed, then a section of wiki text is loaded to edit, then again to be previewed before posting, etc. The new interface would show the edited page without sending it to the servers, and only send the changes (not whole sections) once the user clicks on "Save". The interface could be implemented as in AJAX, and atuomatically load into the web browser together with a wikipedia page, and not require separate installation. It could be cached by the browser, so that it is not loaded every time. Having only one mode would probably require making it semi-WYSIWYG. I would be happy to design the interface and the implementation, but I cannot actually implement it on my own. -Pgan002 07:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about that: it seems almost too easy to edit, like it could just be done accidentally. —Mets501talk 16:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're volunteering to write this? It sounds like a rather large undertaking, so you may want to check in with Brion or Tim on IRC first to discuss it (although Brion will probably be responding to this here as well, since he does keep an eye on the VP technical). In my opinion, it would be a fantastic feature, although probably only for registered users, and best as a toggleable mode so that nobody accidentally erases articles. Anyway, the general procedure for this is that you submit the code as an attachment to Bugzilla, in this case , and then a developer with Subversion access can add it to the codebase for you once they've reviewed it. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See m:WYSIWYG_editor — Omegatron 19:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will editing Wikipedia ever be anything but hellish?

It has just taken me half an hour to add/amend three references to Greg Norman due to multiple edit failures. Frankly, editing Wikipedia is a gruesome experience all too often. I don't know how many types of error I have seen, but they seem to effect about one edit in four. ReeseM 09:41, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What kinds of failures did you encounter? User:Zoe|(talk) 19:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Editing failure reports have been at pretty much an all time low the last couple months. If you can provide some details, we'll take a look. --Brion 21:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

æ ligature in <math>?

Is there any way to get the æ ligature inside of <math> tags? æle ✆ 2006-05-21t13:28z

I don't think so for this wiki software. When using LaTeX in general, "\ae" will do it, but it won't work here. Not even using "\mbox{æ}" will do it. —Mets501talk 16:26, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The m:blahtex extension can handle ligatures like that inside math tags, but sadly the developers do not seem to have time now to try it out. Dmharvey

Proposal: striped table CSS class + JS

I think that sometimes, wikitables are hard to read and would benefit from having so-called "striped" rows. It's possible to do this pretty easily with some JS and CSS. I've tested this in my own CSS space and found that it works quite well.

Here's an example of how a table should look like with some small JS and CSS additions:

Example of striped table rows
You type... You see... 
{| class="wikitable-striped"
|+ Table tags
! Tag
! Description
|-
| <table>
| Defines a table
|-
| <th>
| Defines a header
|-
| <tr>
| Defines a row
|-
| <td>
| Defines a cell
|-
| <caption>
| Defines a caption
|}
Table tags
Tag Description
<table> Defines a table
<th> Defines a header
<tr> Defines a row
<td> Defines a cell
<caption> Defines a caption

I think that this would make new tables that use this CSS class much more readable. Since it uses a new CSS class rather than the old one, it also won't break any old tables or cause discontent for those who don't like the stripes.

To get this to work, you'll need the JavaScript: 

var stripe = function() {
	// This function will add stripes to all tables that have the "striped" rel attribute.
	var tables = document.getElementsByTagName("table");
	for(var a = 0; a != tables.length; a++){
		var table = tables[a];
		if (!table) { return; } // If there are no tables, abort.
		if (table.getAttribute("class") == "wikitable-striped") {
			var tbodies = table.getElementsByTagName("tbody");
			for (var b = 0; b < tbodies.length; b++) {
				var even = true; // We start with an even stripe.
				var trs = tbodies[b].getElementsByTagName("tr");
				for (var c = 0; c < trs.length; c++) {
					if (even) {
						trs[c].className += "even";
					} else {
						trs[c].className += "odd";
					}
					even = !even;
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

// Perform the striping.
window.onload = stripe;

... and the modified CSS: 

table.wikitable,
table.prettytable,
table.wikitable-striped {
  margin: 1em 1em 1em 0;
  background: #f9f9f9;
  border: 1px #aaaaaa solid;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

table.wikitable th, table.wikitable td,
table.prettytable th, table.prettytable td,
table.wikitable-striped th, table.wikitable-striped td {
  border: 1px #aaaaaa solid;
  padding: 0.2em;
}

table.wikitable th,
table.prettytable th,
table.wikitable-striped th {
  background: #e8e8e8;
  text-align: center;
}

table.wikitable caption,
table.prettytable caption,
table.wikitable-striped caption {
  margin-left: inherit;
  margin-right: inherit;
}

tbody tr.even td {
  background: #eee;
}
tbody tr.odd td {
  background: #f9f9f9;
}

Note: the CSS was also changed slightly to make colors with the striped tables more visible. Normal wikitable headers would also get a background of #e8e8e8; with this change, although we can of course always change that if this is not desired. Anyway, if there is support for this, please let me know. I, for one, think this is nice. It would be best to do it in PHP, of course, but this will do for now. —Michiel Sikma, 14:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. Maybe you want to move this discussion to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) though. —Mets501talk 16:28, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Or MediaWiki talk:Common.css. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll move it to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and leave a note about it on MediaWiki talk:Common.css. —Michiel Sikma, 05:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tables: Headings: Shading

How do I change the background colour of a table done with pipes when the cell is a heading on a line staring with ! ? I know how to do it for cells starting |. See Talk:Monthly events, 2006 for an example. -- SGBailey 22:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using style="background-color: #xxxxxx;" seems to work. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)"[reply]
 
|- style="background:silver;"
! ''[[Wikinews:2006|Wikinews]]''
|[[Wikinews:Wikinews:2006/January|  ●  ]]

where would I put it in this sample from a table - the silver only gets applied to the | cell, not to the ! cell. -- SGBailey 07:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this is browser dependent. Both (applied to the row)
Wikinews Wikinews:Wikinews:2006/January
and (applied to the cell)
Wikinews Wikinews:Wikinews:2006/January
affect the background (of the row and just the header, respectively) for me using Safari (and Mozilla, and IE 6.0). -- Rick Block (talk) 14:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The first bit of code displays as desired here, but not on the page I'm trying to put it on (XP & MSIE). Using both bits of code gets the job done, so thanks. -- SGBailey 22:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is because the table is declared to be of class "wikitable" which has a CSS stylesheet that sets the background color of the TH cells. Setting the color of the row affects any cell that does not otherwise have a background color specified, the TH cells do (via the wikitable class). To override this, you have to specify the color per TH cell. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have found an article, that from the looks of it has been completly copied out of a US Naval Historical Database, and then slowly edited to be what it is now. What should be done about it. I can be reached here or better thorugh my usertalk Rekov 03:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the US Naval database in the public domain? If it is just put a notice at the bottom of the page saying that the original version came from that database. BrokenSegue 03:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


thanks will do Rekov 03:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

get current user name

Does anyone know, is there a template/variable/special page that when subst'ed returns simply the username of the currently logged in user? Thanks! --Charlie( @CIRL | talk | email ) 05:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~~. Splarka (rant) 07:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, according to m:Help:Magic_words :( dewet|✉ 07:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is no such variable and requests to add one have been closed. The reason for this is that such a magic word would harm our ability to cache pages, and caching is one of our main defences against the 12,000 hits per second we receive. 86.138.46.182 16:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recognize the ability to cache is very important. However would it be possible to create such a special object that when not substed returns a static message, but when substed returns the username of the currently logged in user? Or perhaps a parser extension that would automatically subst such a magic word like the ~~~ for signatures. (I was wanting to extract a username, which is why the tildes doesn't exactly work here). --Charlie( @CIRL | talk | email ) 00:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
12,000 hits per second? Is that peak or average? If that's an average, Wikimedia really gets a billion hits a day? (okay, that's slightly off-topic) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External editors

Hi, I just got in trouble by using the option "use external editor". It would offer to download index.php when I clicked edit. Is this supposed to happen? If so, how can I then upload the edited content? Also, is there a vim language file for wiki markup? Thanks VladDogaru 13:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, what ends up being downloaded is a control file which tells a helper application (which has to conform to a certain specification) how to obtain the content and how to replace it on the server. See m:Help:External editors for more information. 86.138.46.182 16:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On my userpage the edit section links are missing. Another user suggested that I ask here, so here's the post. That user was able to see the edit section links.

BTW, I've tested it with XP Home SP1 Firefox 1.5.0.3, XP Media Center SP2 Firefox 1.5.0.3 and IE 6.0, and with all 3, no edit section links. I also tried removing all of my userboxes, but to no avail.

Thanks, -ReuvenkT C E 14:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have section editing turned off in your preferences? -- Rick Block (talk) 14:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. I checked my preferences. There was already a checkmark next to "Enable section editing via [edit] links." I see them on other pages. -ReuvenkT C E 14:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This could be another incarnation of bug #6037, which is causing some users to receive the cached CSS files reserved for other users with different preferences, leading to some interesting (but apparently non-critical, although we're still going to look into it) interface "glitches". 86.138.46.182 16:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Accommodations for the blind

User:PierreLarcin2 on Talk:Rotary International has voiced that "Wikipedia is not accessibility-compliant" for blind users. Specifically he claims that long lists are difficult for readers to handle and that the links in lists are not indicated correctly. He also states that reader software is unable to parse the Village Pump making it impossible for blind users to access this part of the site. Does anyone know of any solutions as this is the first time I have heard of such problems? Thanks. -- 127.*.*.1 16:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Huge discussion pages like the pump are pretty hard for anyone to deal with. There may be improvements on that coming in the future (but this will be some months away).
I would prefer to hear something specific, though. What kind of problems are there? --Brion 21:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Directory of Pages in a User Space?

Okay, this is driving me nuts. Yesterday, I found a "Special" page (I think it was Special) on Wikipedia that basically gave you a directory of pages in a userspace. I used it to find a few strays I had never deleted. Now, I can't figure out what the heck that command was. Any advice? Much obliged in advance. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 17:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this is the one you mean, but it works just fine: Special:Prefixindex/User:WCityMike/ will give you a list of all subpages in your userspace (the slash excludes the userpage itself). Use Special:Prefixindex/User talk:WCityMike/ for talk subpages (you have some, it seems). -- grm_wnr Esc 17:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, that is what I was thinking of. Great! Thanks very much. — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 17:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and if you drop the {{subpages}} template on a page, it will create a link to a list like the one above automatically, see here: all subpages of this page -- grm_wnr Esc 17:24, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. :) — WCityMike (talk • contribs • replies) 17:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to make it so that a page does not show up in another page's "What links here"? I wonder, because some people link various things on their userpages, which results in a mix of namespaces in the What links here, which in my view makes it a less useful tool. In addition, many are flooded with recent changes from date links included only for preferences, rather than being contextually relevant. I've tried prefixing links like this with a colon, not sure why that would help, but I tried it. Does anyone know if there's a wiki-fix? Mak (talk) 18:26, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If a page links to another page, then it's counted in Special:Whatlinkshere for that page. Because, y'know, we want to keep track of what links where, etc. So no, we won't be allowing you to suppress that information from our link tables, because we need them for various important functions. 86.138.46.182 20:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Example link: Oroshigane. But that breaks all sorts of normal conventions, so it should be used sparingly. Alternatively, vote for Bug #4624, and then it won't be a big deal if people spam whatlinkshere. --Interiot 23:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah! That bug was really more what I was thinking of. I'm sorry, robchurch (if it's you), I really don't intend to break your wiki. Please accept my pleas of ignorance. Mak (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's extremely useful having all pages that link from something show up in whatlinkshere, irrespective of namespace, so I'd be against this. it would be nice, though, if there was some way to sort whatlinkshere in the same way as sorting user contributions (i.e., have a toggle at the top that allows you to pick a namespace). Grutness...wha? 03:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Side note: WP:AWB can create its list of pages from the What links here of a page and filter out non-main pages. The list can be stored as a text file (and thus edited and read back). --Ligulem 07:42, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Links inside <gallery> tag descriptions are not included in Whatlinkshere, but that's just a bug. Also, going through the interwiki map with the "w:" prefix supresses it: w:stuff, but that's also most probably not a cool thing to do... -- grm_wnr Esc 13:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That bug should have been fixed some time last week. It won't magically fix existing pages with galleries until they've been null edited (since the link tables won't be updated) though. Rob Church (talk) 19:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like the current "What links here" as it is. PS If you can add a count to each page to show how many people have it on their watchlist, you'll be very popular with me. This is quite a good rule-of-thumb guide to the accuracy of an article. Stephen B Streater 19:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That seems like a security risk, but something admin-only like Special:Wathclistcount/Pagename or Special:Mostwatchedpages would be partially useful (like Special:Unwatchedpages ... TINC!). --Splarka (rant) 07:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image but no history?

The page Talk:Ascension includes Image:Grängsbo Lillkyrka Sweden.JPG. But that the image page, there's no history, and no ability to delete the image. The image has a tag for unknown copyright status, but I can't tell how long it's been so tagged. According to the CheckUsage tool, the image is used on a handful of other Wikipedias. Can someone who knows what's going on take a look? -Rholton 18:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The image originates from the Wikimedia Commons. The first template on the image page takes you to the description page at Commons where the image and page histories reside. You should alert a Commons admin to the copyright issue, as the template appears to have been there since October 2005. -- Michael Warren | Talk 19:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Linkimage

Seeing all links/wikilinks underlined anywhere I go on Wikipedia doesn't make it look as good as it did before. Does anyone else notice this or is it just me? How can I fix it? Can the devs change it back? --Shultz IV 06:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to reload the style sheet. Ctrl+Shift+R does it for you in Firefox. It is a known bug that happens occasionally. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 06:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If C+S+R doesn't work, you can also view the source of any page and grab the line that looks like:
@import "/w/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=#######&ts=##############";
Where ### are numbers (a timestamp, so that when you change your preferences, the page isn't cached). Go to that link and reload and your underlines should return. Also, thanks for shrinking my link below, I didn't think of prettyfying it ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 08:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feel kinda stupid asking this...

Wikipedia is so huge, I can't find the userbox category. Also, is there a link to searck the wikipedia:blah pages? --Kargath64 07:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You mean Category:Wikipedia_userboxes? And to search one namespace (when the search is working) go to Special:Preferences and the [searching] tab and edit Search in these namespaces by default:. Or go to google and use creative operators (inurl: for example), eg: [2] --Splarka (rant) 08:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parser change for tables

I've changed the order of operations in the parser so that some weird interactions with tables and prevented. Although this hasn't broken anything in my testing, it's possible that some less conventional or more complex table layouts now render differently. If you find such a page, and it's clearly incorrect, please file a bug report with a link to the page and I'll take a look. --Brion 07:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A bug affecting TOC generation on pages using <ref> or <references/> has been fixed. Edit or purge any affected pages to repair them. --Brion 10:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

linking to new species url

I feel that I should know the answer to this. How to I link to the new wikispecies url (species.wikimedia.org) as an internal link? I'm responding to a request about fixing the sisters link on the Main Page, which sends the user through species.wikipedia.org. wikispecies: links to the wikipedia.org, but commons: links to wikimedia.org. (Not sure why species: isn't the link.) Thanks - BanyanTree 12:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just continue to use wikispecies:. The interwiki table will be updated after a bit, and the URLs are 100% compatible. --Brion 17:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Start New Talk Section" bookmarklet?

I have a feeling this could be done -- and could be useful -- but I'm not competent enough in JavaScript/bookmarklet programming to handle it myself. It'd be nice to have a bookmark that could transform the current URL, say, from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman (or) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman

to

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Neil_Gaiman&action=edit&section=new

Basically providing the functionality to start a new section on the article's talk page with a single click in your browser.

Perhaps I should pop this over in proposals, though? Nothing earth-shattering, just thought I'd bounce it off y'all. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 13:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note that in the older skins, the "post a comment" link does this (unless the page has a __NEWSECTIONLINK__ tag, in which case things get interesting). Rob Church (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Right. And the little "+" sign does it with Monobook, I agree. I was just looking for a way to streamline it from the editor viewpoint ... got a little hogwild with making things efficient for myself via some Firefox keywords and thought, "I need a way to do this." — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 19:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to delete a single revision?

I recently had need to delete a single revision from an article (a vandal had added a phone number). The only way I could figure out how to do this was to delete the article, then restore all the other revisions by laboriously clicking on each checkbox except for the one I wanted to keep deleted. Is there a better way? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can restore the bad versions, move them to ArticleName/bad, delete the bad versions again, and then restore the rest of the article. It's less clicking and, when the same thing happens later, other admins don't have to worry if there is a previous deleted version that they need to look out for when they are restoring. - BanyanTree 14:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please be sure not to do this on major articles as it can be very disruptive. Until I've got a more convenient system up (should be later today), e-mail me directly at brion@wikimedia.org with a URL to the revision(s) in question and I'll zap them in the DB. --Brion 17:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we have images on WP and on Commons?

Why is it that we store images on both the :image namespace and on the Commons? Furthermore, why is it not a requirement to categorise each uploaded image into at least one category so it can be found?

I find it quite difficult to find photos which I know are there but can't remember what they're called. Most images are not categorised and doubling up of WP and Commons by both hosting media files is just confusing. Why can't they be centralised and effort put into their proper categorisation. That way every Wikimedia Foundation project has equal access to the files (the intended purpose of Commons) and WP can focus on its core business rather than categorising and tagging images.

I'm probably missing something here because it seems to confusing a system to be the way I described it, maybe that is the way things are moving and I've just not noticed the slow shift. Can someone explain or point me to the right policy page. Thanks, Witty lama 13:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images on Commons are supposed to be sorted and categorised, and many of them indeed are. On en.wikipedia, not so (sadly). On the Commons/local duplicity, the most basic reason is that en.wikipedia accepts fair use images, and Commons most emphatically doesn't. So any fair use material must be uploaded locally. Since there's no easy way to distinguish between them (and the uploaders often are somewhat clueless), the local upload can't automatically decide to put the images directly to Commons based on the tag. So, lots of Commons-compatible images still get uploaded locally. Moving stuff to Commons is done, but not stringently, and deleting the local copy is done even more rarely (mostly because it's a hassle, since the images have to go through IFD per the current policy). -- grm_wnr Esc 14:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Is there a move afoot to create an easier local->Commons transfer (including easy deletion of duplicate image) or a comprehensive system of image categorisation on WP? If not, why not? Furthermore, can someone on, say, fr.wikipedia get access to pictures uploaded on en.wikipedia and vice versa. Witty lama 15:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. commonshelper makes moving images to Commons far more foolproof and hassle-free.
  2. For easier deletions, various proposals have been made to make images duplicated on Commons speedyable, but none have stuck.
  3. A really comprehensive image categorisation system on en is hampered by the fact that fair use images should not be put into topical categories, because galleries (which categories create) of fair use images are strongly discouraged - use in galleries is not usually considered "fair" on Wikipedia. Also, really, Commons is a project dedcated to hosting and sorting images, and if we start making grand category schemes locally we might just as well not bother at all.
  4. To get images under a free license from en to fr, move them to Commons (with commonshelper), if they're fair use upload them to fr (fr, like en but unlike many other projects, accepts fair use images).

Hope that helps, -- grm_wnr Esc 15:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is the total page count correct?

Is it true what is says on Meta here that all pages that have been deleted by admins remain in the tally of the total number of articles? If this is true, then the the English WP may not have more than 1M articles and we've all been thinking we're bigger than we actually are. Is it possible to fix this bug? Witty lama 15:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion decrements the count for pages that would have counted. However the counts aren't 100% accurate, some errors do creep in. --Brion 17:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It should also be pointed out that what MediaWiki determines an "article" to be is rather subjective. Our definition of a page in the main namespace, which isn't a redirect, and contains at least one wiki link, won't fit that of others. Rob Church (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Line Spacing After Super/Sub script

Using subscript or superscript on wikipedia introduces increased line spacing which doesn't look so nice. Why can't this be fixed? It doesn't do it in word processors. You don't find it in books. So why here? --Username132 (talk) 20:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the web. --Brion 00:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to an edit page, but with the some content in the URL

I want to be able to like to a page that doesn't exist, and have it fill the edit box with a basic template. I'm sure I've seen it, but I can't remember where, so I can't see how it was done. So, how do I do that? --Lorian 22:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

m:Help:Inputbox —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok well I have got the code I need to make an input box, but how would I make this: somerandompagethatdoesntexist preload another page, if it doesn't exist? --Lorian 07:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to get an entry based on value or null

I want to create a template which is used to get either a specific entry or all of them depending on the parameter.

Let's say I have a list like this

  • Item 01 - May
  • Item 02 - Critical
  • Item 03 - Exact

And I want to put it into a template, let's call it FUZZ so that if I simply use a macro call of {{FUZZ}} I get

  • Item 01 - May
  • Item 02 - Critical
  • Item 03 - Exact

But if I use {{FUZZ|01}} I get

  • Item 01 - May

But if I use {{FUZZ|02}} I get

  • Item 02 - Critical

I know in some way this requires {{#if:}} or some macro, but I'm not sure how.

Is there a way I can do this? Second, is there a way I can have the macro generate text only if the parameter is null? So that I could put a header if the parameter is null but no header if the value of {{{1}}} is not null.

Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) 22:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if this is exactly, what you want, but perhaps something like this?
{{#switch: {{{1|}}}
 | 01 = *Item 01 - May
 | 02 = *Item 02 - Critical
 | 03 = *Item 03 - Exact
 | #default = 
  *Item 01 - May
  *Item 02 - Critical
  *Item 03 - Exact
}}
You might want to check out m:ParserFunctions for a better explanation of things. In regards to null-parameters, {{#if: {{{1|}}}|do this if it is set|do this if it is unset (null)}}, is that what you're looking for? Hope that helps! Jude (talk) 02:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First article

Hi, I've included my first article, about John Crawford, the songwriter and musician.

It went okay but I ran into some glitches....for example, occasionally my paragraphs got pulled into these long rectangular boxes and spanned across the page.

Another concern: I was hoping to make a discography and a list of external links, but after submitting the article, I don't really see how to change the template. You might think I'm lazy, but there are so many forum topics sometimes I don't know where to begin to get the info!!!

Thanks for your help --

Keith Walsh Keithwalsh88 00:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Keith. Hm,long rectangular boxes...
You mean like this?
If you indent the beginning of a line, the software assumes you want to opt out of automatic formatting, so it does the long boxes. Make sure there aren't any spaces or tabs at the beginning of each paragraph, and you should be fine. I'm not sure how to interpret your second question. If you re-edit the article, it should be possible to change those things. FreplySpang 01:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image tagging

Got a question on image tagging that wasn't made clear by the copyright tag page. If I find something like a photo taken by a user that doesn't make me question if it's a copyvio, but it's orphaned, should I mark it with source and license tags as I have here, or something else? And, same question, if it seems to be an obvious copyvio problem, is this correct? Thanks. Tijuana BrassE@ 04:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another one: how do I treat images that are only used for user pages, i.e. Image:Brady.jpg ? Tijuana BrassE@ 04:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. All images must have source and license information, whether or not they're orphaned.
  2. Obvious copyvio problems should be {{imagevio}}d and PUId, as you did.
  3. All images must have source and license information. Images used outside of articles must have a free (not fair use) license.
  4. Ask questions like this at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights rather than here. That way you're more likely to get answers from people who know about copyright. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Monobook

Is anyone else's Monobook skin broken right now? All the content is here, but the entire layout is gone. Angr (t • c) 14:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hard refresh? --lightdarkness (talk) 14:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was happening on every single page I was opening, including ones that couldn't possibly be cached as I had never opened them before, for about half an hour. It's over now, though. Angr (t • c) 14:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was probably something with your css file not being loaded properly, which is why I suggested a hard refresh, not to fetch new content, but rather a new monobook :-) --lightdarkness (talk) 14:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isolated database issue?

My WP is missing!

WikiProject Illinois State Routes

But the subpages are not...

WikiProject Illinois State Routes/Progress Reports

I'm assuming this is a scattered issue, but also temporary? I haven't seen this reported elsewhere. —Rob (talk) 15:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also having trouble with bringing up diffs (of any article), as well as older versions of articles in general. What's goin' on? --Ashenai 15:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've got 10.0.0.102 and 10.0.0.233 that return this error: (Can't contact the database server: Unknown database 'enwiki' (10.0.0.233)) —Rob (talk) 15:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to go to WP:RFA hits this problem, at least for me. So far other articles I've tried are uneffected. Gwernol 15:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's being looked into. No explanation yet. Rob Church (talk) 15:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My guess (and this is just a guess): There are probably a few DB servers down. Due to the PHP errors which I have gotten (stating that the databases are not found or "undefined"), and the fact that this happened very suddenly, I'm guessing its a power failure (similar to the one in April, but this one isn't a complete blackout). Either that or it is a crash or network failure. Again, this is only my guess. I just wrote this so people have more of a clue of what the heck is goin on. WIKIPEEDIO 15:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have received the same issue with my page, Green Hope High School - errors 10.0.0.102 and 10.0.0.233 as well as a few MediaWiki PHP stack-traces. Strangely, my co-editor who is located in a geographically different area did not receive these errors - I guess load-balancing is done regionally or something. Does anyone know if this is a temporary issue? 152.14.80.122 16:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I got above mentioned errors trying to access CSI:_Crime_Scene_Investigation --82.181.131.33 16:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RCU is down, as are a few diffs [3]. I think there may also be a problem with block logs, as at least one user has been able to evade a block.--Nema Fakei 16:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like both the article and user namespaces are down, and the wikipedia namespace is up...--digital_me(Talk)(Contribs) 16:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm merely speculating curiously, and I have no technical information to base this on - but is it possible this is a DDoS or some other attack by a blocked user? Nimur 16:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've run into this with Domestic AC power plugs and sockets, and got an error message of "(Can't contact the database server: Unknown database 'enwiki' (10.0.0.102))"Squigish 16:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Internal IP address

I just got the message (Can't contact the database server: Unknown database 'enwiki' (10.0.0.233)). Shouldn't internal IP addresses be hidden from the outside world for security reasons? Piet 15:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

mixed timezones

On my watchlist, there are two timezones displayed:

  • the watched entries last edit time which use the local timezone as set in my preferences
  • UTC for the as of displayed at the top

Why are different timezones used? It complicates relating the last refreshed time to the entries displayed. Why not display the as of using the preferences local time zone? How come it displays the as of as it does instead of my preferenced setting? 

Below are the last 2 changes in the last 1 hours, as of 15:29 May 24 (UTC).

As long as I'm at it, why not display the timestamp before the article name to make them line up nicely (as it does on the contributions display):

  • (diff) (hist) . . 08:25:54 Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) . . Pietdesomere (Talk | contribs) (Internal IP address)
  • (diff) (hist) . . 08:20:44 Talk:United Airlines Flight 232 . . 68.255.30.189 (Talk) (Sioux City Memorial (Picture Anybody?))

instead of

  • (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Village pump (technical); 08:25:54 . . Pietdesomere (Talk | contribs) (Internal IP address)
  • (diff) (hist) . . Talk:United Airlines Flight 232; 08:20:44 . . 68.255.30.189 (Talk) (Sioux City Memorial (Picture Anybody?))

Thanks in advance for any clues. EncMstr 15:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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