Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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

If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for five days.

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Edit filter graph links broken

Hey all. This was raised at Wikipedia:Edit_filter_noticeboard#graph_links_broken, but it appears the edit filter graphs, seen at [1], are not currently working and display an internal error. Would anyone happen to have an idea what happened to it? One idea that was raised over at EFN was that the log table may have been messed up by protected variables being introduced, but I'm not sure if that's the case or it's something else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EggRoll97 (talk • contribs) 03:26, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@EggRoll97: I'm about to get on a flight, but a quick look at the tool's error logs shows:

Filters: 'raise errorclass(errno, errval): ProgrammingError: (1146, u"Table \'enwiki_p.abuse_filter_log\' doesn\'t exist")'

And a check of the replicas does indeed confirm enwiki_p.abuse_filter_log does not exist. Courtesy ping to the tool's maintainer Danilo.mac — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 04:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The abuse_filter_log table was deliberately removed from the wiki replicas in gerrit:1077360, pointing to two Phabricator tasks I don't have access to. It's likely to remain broken unless Danilo.mac puts in an amount of effort that's basically rewriting the tool from scratch. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:30, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmm oddly enough, the graphs for dewiki still work: https://ptwikis.toolforge.org/Filters:dewiki XXBlackburnXx (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

An update, dewiki no longer works either. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 04:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I can not do anything while the abuse_filter_log tables are inaccessible. They were removed from replicas databases because some data in those tables are restricted, se T375751. Danilo.mac (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Notices not working

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T378261

So when I click on Notices a little popup show up and tells my notifications. According to it I have 7 new notifications.

But if I press on it says I have no notifications. If I click on all notices it shows an error message: 7ab4ef4a-e38b-462a-ab56-edfdc2d62732] 2024-10-27 04:43:21: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException"

I am not sure what is going on, does anyone have any idea's? User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 04:55, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I've also noticed that the hexadecimal changes every time I reload the page, although I don't know if that means anything. Procyon117 (talk) 14:32, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

This has been fixed, but the fix may take some days to arrive here. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

it is working for me now. Thank you to whoever fixed it!!! User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 06:49, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

It worked once, now it is not showing them on the popup window.

They do show up when I click All notifications. User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 06:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Weird. I have this problem, but they don't work when I click "all notifications". (If you reply to this, ping me - I still get those, for some reason.) -- asilvering (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Same now for me too. Procyon117 (talk) 16:46, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Same problem for me the notifications icon shows I have alerts, but when I click on it I get the error message: [2b363018-cbbb-45da-8f73-056cf4cbd0de] 2024-10-31 12:53:02: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException". and the icon greys out. A temporary work around is to go to Commons and click on your notifications from other wikis. Then they can be read, but only on Commons once, then they disappear from Commons. Mysterious! Netherzone (talk) 12:56, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I've found that I can read them if they get over 30 notifs or so. So now I'm banking a truly stupid number of notifications so that I can at least tell what discussions the most recent ones are for. -- asilvering (talk) 14:43, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Don't let it get too high. If the counter reaches 99 and more notifs come in, the icon doesn't show 100, 101 etc. but 99+ and the only way to find out how many you really have is to delete some until it drops to 99 or lower. Unread notifs get automatically deleted after a while, I think that it's about 16 months. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mine are working for now. Hope that they will start working for you guys too! User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 20:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Wokrking now BombCraft8 ^{(talk) (contributions)} 23:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Working now for me too. Procyon117 (talk) 02:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

same happens with me but 4 notices BombCraft8 ^{(talk) (contributions)} 15:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Problem with my alerts bell

Hello, when I click on my alerts bell at the top, it says "There are no notifications", even thought I can see there are. When I then click on "all notifications", I get the following: "[5aff3dcb-50f3-4b16-9566-60ba693bfa63] 2024-10-27 21:50:42: Fatal exception of type "InvalidArgumentException". Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds just like my problem, just the other notification system.

I have been unable to test that one since I have no new Alerts. It does show my previous Alerts.

Hope that the fix gets released soon @Ammarpad.

User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 03:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Is there a technical page to report this?

I'm experiencing it as well. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 17:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Searching for pages by category and talk page content

Does anyone know how you would search for all of the pages in a certain category whose associated talk page contains a certain string in its source? So, for instance, what search would return all of the pages in Category:Princesses in Greek mythology which contain "WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome" in their talk page's source? – Michael Aurel (talk) 07:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Can be done in PetScan. Put that category name in "Categories", then go to "Templates&links" tab, put that template name there with " Use talk pages instead" checked. – SD0001 (talk) 08:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

It would be great to have this feature in MediaWiki itself. I created phab:T378868 to track it. – SD0001 (talk) 04:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Persistent snackbar

I'm on Firefox 131.0.3 on Android 14. I have User:SD0001/find-archived-section enabled in my gadgets (and also mw:Extension:DiscussionTools in my Beta features, which has no effect on mobile).

As of recently (probably last Thursday), the snackbar popup I get from an archived / missing section link has stopped unpopping-up until I navigate away from the page.

Can anyone replicate / report to phab? Folly Mox (talk) 11:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, my other snackbars (e.g. "Redirected from Wikipedia:vpt") pop away normally. It's just the archived section one that persists. Folly Mox (talk) 13:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

@Folly Mox: User:SD0001/find-archived-section makes a message starting with "Looks like the discussion". Your screenshot is from a newer MediaWiki feature which starts with "This topic". The box goes away when I tap it outside the link in iOS on an iPhone, e.g. at User talk:Citation bot#Bot does nothing. Are you saying the tap doesn't work for you, or did you expect the box to disappear by itself? I don't have an Android device for testing. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:53, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

That popup is generated by DiscussionTools, not the gadget. You can dismiss a popup on Minerva by tapping it (around a link if it includes one). Nardog (talk) 00:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

You can also accidentally dismiss it by clicking the space between the lines of a multi-line link, which I've managed to do multiple times :c. – 2804:F1...9E:DCD8 (talk) 00:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That's the DiscussionTools notification. It's supposed to stick around until you interact with it. Could you confirm whether it's dismissed if you directly tap on it? (If it is, it's working as-intended. If not, that's a bug we should fix.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay everyone; yesterday was exhausting. After constructing a test case, I can confirm that the snackbar disappears properly when tapped. I feel like the persistence is new behaviour(?) but understand why such a message would be intentionally left around until interacted with.

Perhaps removing the snackbar once e.g. the editing interface is opened might make more sense: it does look like a bug in the screenshots I posted (to me, anyway).

And apologies for throwing the find-archived-section gadget under the bus: I wasn't previously aware that Mediawiki had incorporated the same functionality until reviewing the documentation for my OP above.

I guess I was also wrong about DiscussionTools having no effect in Minerva: I don't see the "people in conversation" or "subscribe to thread", but upon reflection I suppose the linkable timestamps that point straight to a comment supplanting the prior requirement of diff hunting must be part of the extension as well. Folly Mox (talk) 12:58, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mobile editing and the reply tool don't reload the page when editing and then the popup remains. I don't know whether something could be done to make it disappear automatically on those actions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

mw:Help:SourceEditor is pretty uninformative on this point, but maybe one of the devs who frequent this venue knows which hook triggers the opening of the edit interface and can add a snackbar disappear function there? Folly Mox (talk) 17:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The reply tool check in the background for the arrival of new comments. In this part it may be possible to dismiss the snackbar. 176.4.242.5 (talk) 19:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Or at least hide it until it can be dismissed at cancelling or submission and the reload that is connected with either. 176.4.242.5 (talk) 19:30, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Adding article input to Template:Welcome cookie

Hello all,

When using Twinkle to welcome new users, I am unable to add an article input to the Welcome Cookie Template like I can for some of the other welcome templates (e.g., "I noticed your contributions to Article")- it would be great if I could do this so I don't have to leave a separate message. Let me know if I am making any sense.

Thank you!

JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 06:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That template is protected, however you may discuss improvements to it and propose edit request on its talk page here: Template talk:Welcome cookie. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Are articles moved from userspace to mainspace not indexed?

So, recently I created FoodPharmer in my userspace and later moved to the mainspace. I keep noticing that search engines (Google, Bing) do not show this if you search "FoodPharmer Wikipedia" or "Revant Himatsingka Wikipedia". But the DYK page on him created 4 days after moving the page and his picture uploaded 8 days after (yesterday) shows up in the search results. This makes me wonder, is the article not showing up because it was initially in userspace (not-indexed)? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@CX Zoom Newly created articles are not indexed in search engines for 90 days, or until they have been patrolled. See Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing#Indexing of articles ("mainspace") 86.23.109.101 (talk) 16:43, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah, makes sense now. Thank you very much! —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:57, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Overlapping IP range blocks?

How do overlapping range blocks work? For example, with these two:

51.191.128.0/17 blocked (block-evasion) on 2024-10-31T14:55:40Z by JBW until 2025-02-21T19:11:00Z. anononly: False, account creation blocked: False
51.191.0.0/16 blocked (block-evasion) on 2023-11-27T22:25:01Z by JBW until 2025-01-21T19:11:00Z. anononly: False, account creation blocked: False

An edit from 51.191.128.1 would (if I've done the math right) be in both ranges. In this particular case, both blocks have the same effect, but what if one was a hard block and the other a soft block? Which would apply? RoySmith (talk) 03:14, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The union of the blocks applies - you have to be able to edit through both blocks in order for the edit to be allowed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I have notifications but it shows that there are no notifications

Occasionally when I check my notifications, the popup that appears will display "There are no notifications." even when at least one notification is present. Here is a picture:

I'm using the latest version of Safari. I encounter this problem randomly whenever I check notifications. ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 03:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This issue has been fixed. See #Notices not working. Please check again. – Ammarpad (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It happened again ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 03:32, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a new issue (but same error message). A fix would be deployed next week. – Ammarpad (talk) 19:56, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Script for parameter change

is there a script to change parameter mane on every wiki article in a wiki project (si.wikipedia.org). The change i want to do is; replace "deadurl" or "dead-url" with "url-status" on all wiki articles using the cite web template. Or can someone fix the module so it happen automatically? si:Module:Citation/CS1 VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 05:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@VihirLak007 I would recommend running WP:AWB or WP:JWB.

For JWB, once you have it up and running, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ahecht/Scripts/Replace_dead-url.json&action=raw&ctype=application/json and save it as a .json file on your computer. In JWB, on the Setup tab, click "Import" and choose the file you saved. In the "Load" drop-down, choose "Replace dead-url". Then click on the Generate button, make sure Wiki Search is checked with insource:/dead\-?url *= */ in the search box, and hit the Generate button. When it's done, click outside the Generate box to close it. Then go to the "Edit" tab and click "Start" to start going through all the pages.

Once you're done, you can go to this page to see the remaining pages that need to be manually fixed. You may need to wait a few minutes first as there can be some lag between when you edit pages and when the search results catch up. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Ahecht Thanks! All went well. VihirLak007^hmu!/_duh. 19:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:HD § Red Links are All blue now

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:HD § Red Links are All blue now. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps someone who hangs out at VPT could take a look at this HD discussion. The OP seems to be experiencing the same issue described here, but it's not clear whether the problem is on the OP's side or Wikipedia's side. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to find out a list of articles and redirects for Climate change in .... ?

Hi all

I'd like to spend a significant amount of time writing and working with experts on creating Climate change in NAME OF COUNTRY / STATE etc articles. First I would like to understand which do and don't exist. I tried making a simple list of all the countries to see redlinks however it seems that one or more users created a significant number of redirects so this doesn't work. I've been using List of sovereign states to create a list, but I'm sure there are other options like islands, states within countries etc. Is it possible to do a query or is there another way to find:

1. A list of existing articles for Climate Change in ...
2. A list of redirects for Climate change in ...
3. A way to have a live list of missing Climate change in NAME OF COUNTRY articles since simple redlinks don't work because of the redirects that have been created (I guess I could make a table of redlinks with comments on which are redirects as a basic version)

Many thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

You may be interested in User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter thanks so much :) you always know the right answer! I can create a manual to update page from this now I think, if you or anyone else has any ideas about creating an automated page please let em know. Thanks again. John Cummings (talk) 12:57, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter, @John Cummings You can also use the CSS code at the bottom of User:Ahecht/Scripts/RedirectID to add a icon next to redirects (similar to the icon next to external links). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ahecht can I check something, does this redirect icon only appear for users who have installed this or does it appear for all users? John Cummings (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@John Cummings For both my CSS and BrandonXLF's CSS users would have to have it installed. You could use WP:TemplateStyles to apply User:Ahecht/Scripts/Redirect_icon.css or User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects.css to a page for everyone, even logged out editors, but using it to style an entire mainspace page seems contrary to the usage guidelines. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:17, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Redirects are in italics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AllPages?from=Climate+change+in&to=&namespace=0. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

{{Is redirect}} can test for redirects in wikitext. 500 calls are allowed in a page with no other expensive parser functions. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter thanks again, super helpful. One final question, do you know if there is a template I could use to tell if a page includes a specific word or phrase? I would love a way to tell if articles for countries mention climate change. I know this is probably a very niche use case but I'm wondering if there is template that might do this for another reason. John Cummings (talk) 19:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Graphs of categories

Is there a way to create a graph that shows how many pages are in a category (y-axis) over time (x-axis)? It would be particularly useful for error tracking categories. Failing that, a text-based way to monitor category population changes. -- GreenC 02:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, there's User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter — Qwerfjkltalk 13:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues" .. oh forgot about that. Maybe no graph option. Unless it was like an ascii bar graph:

Jan: ------|-------

Feb: ---|--

Mar: -------|----

Apr: -----|----

May: --|-

Jun: ----|---

Jul: --|-------------

Aug: ------------|---

Sep: ---|---

Oct: ---------|-

Nov: ------|--

▅▆▂▃▂▂▂▅▂▂▅▇▂▂▂▃▆▆▆▅▃▂▂▂▁▂▂▆▁▃

Source

-- GreenC 14:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

User:MusikBot/CategoryCounter might work in 1-3 months. The team behind Mw:Extension:Chart is pushing for an deployment soon, see phab:T372081. Template:Articles lacking sources chart/data has to move to the Data namespace on Wikimedia commons, and you also need a new page, again in the data namespace on commons, that decides how the graph looks. Snævar (talk) 14:54, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. -- GreenC 15:37, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

There's also User:SDZeroBot/Category counter which I just finished setting up. Raw counts only, no graphs for now. (I noticed that the MusikBot task, apart from being disabled, stores the counts on-wiki which seems like an unsuitable place for large-scale storage, and it also requires an admin to enable new categories for counting.) – SD0001 (talk) 18:10, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Stewards can now make global account blocks cause global autoblocks. This will assist stewards in preventing abuse from users who have been globally blocked. This includes preventing globally blocked temporary accounts from exiting their session or switching browsers to make subsequent edits for 24 hours. Previously, temporary accounts could exit their current session or switch browsers to continue editing. This is an anti-abuse tool improvement for the Temporary Accounts project. You can read more about the progress on key features for temporary accounts. [2]
• Wikis that have the CampaignEvents extension enabled can now use the Collaboration List feature. This list provides a new, easy way for contributors to learn about WikiProjects on their wikis. Thanks to the Campaign team for this work that is part of the 2024/25 annual plan. If you are interested in bringing the CampaignEvents extension to your wiki, you can follow these steps or you can reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for help.
• The text color for red links will be slightly changed later this week to improve their contrast in light mode. [3]
• View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, on multilingual wikis, users can now hide translations from the WhatLinksHere special page.

Updates for technical contributors

• XML data dumps have been temporarily paused whilst a bug is investigated. [4]

In depth

• Temporary Accounts have been deployed to six wikis; thanks to the Trust and Safety Product team for this work, you can read about the deployment plans. Beginning next week, Temporary Accounts will also be enabled on seven other projects. If you are active on these wikis and need help migrating your tools, please reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for assistance.
• The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New languages supported in translatewiki or in MediaWiki; New keyboard input methods for some languages; details about recent and upcoming meetings, and more.

Meetings and events

• MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference Fall 2024 is happening in Vienna, Austria and online from 4 to 6 November 2024. The conference will feature discussions around the usage of MediaWiki software by and within companies in different industries and will inspire and onboard new users.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

"Thank" link missing

Recently the "Thank" link is missing from page histories and diffs. Safari 18.1.--AntientNestor (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It works for me in Firefox. You have to be logged in. Are you sure your login is working when they are missing? Please post an example link. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter:You're right—working in Firefox, which would be a workaround. Still missing from Safari, though.--AntientNestor (talk) 15:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve search bar results

Would it be possible to have redirects show up at the same level of importance as they would if the article was at that title? This is a little weird to explain but basically from my level of understanding search bar results are currently sorted roughly by how likely a user is to need that article. For example when you type Apollo in looking for the Apollo missions the first relevant result is Apollo 11, then 13, then others. This makes a lot of sense to me but I want to know if it's possible to include redirects into this.

Right now redirects only show up in the search bar below all the possible exact match results until fully typed exactly. For example if you start typing "New York Times" into the search bar it puts a bunch of court cases involving the NYT before the newspaper right up until you type the final S, at which point the newspaper goes to the top like it should have been. This is not intuitive for readers and if "New York Times" showed up at the level of importance that "The New York Times" did, it would be better for navigation. Another example is the Edvard Munch painting The Scream. It's really iconic and notable but a reader could very easily forget the "the" and just type "scream", at which point they would have to remember exactly "Scream (painting)" before they get the one they want because there are a bunch of other less important articles that do start with exactly "scream". This is terrible for navigation, obviously. But if "Scream (painting)" showed up in the search results where it would if the article was called that, that would fix the issue.

I have no idea how this would be implemented or even if it's possible. Please let me know if this is even a feasible idea. Ladtrack (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Redirects vary greatly in relevance. Science Times also redirects to The New York Times but isn't mentioned there. The redirect currently has seven views in the last 30 days.[5] I don't think it should inherit the importance of the newspaper and rank high when you start typing "science". PrimeHunter (talk) 21:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)