Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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

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Frequently asked questions (see also: Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical)

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This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See task 3864. There is an `accesskey` property on it (default to `accesskey="f"` in English). Logged-in users can enable the "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page" gadget in their preferences.

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Display of contributions and "Current" label

When displaying contributions, a bold "Current" tag is added to the end of the edit when it is the latest edit to that article, talk page, etc. Is there a method or gadget to move it to a point where it is in a uniform column? I do a lot of wp:RCP and editor will often repeat their edits without correcting the problem. I will view the "Current" tag in my list of contributions to see if the article has been changed. Trying to determine if articles have been edited or not is rather cumbersome with just the list as the "current" tag is not in a uniform vertical column. I could add it to my watch list with a short expiration. I usually do a text search on my contributions page for "current" which highlights it. Highlighting makes it easier, but I'm looking for a better method. Example of listing in my contributions:

19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (current) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo)

What I would like to see:

19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (C) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo) --OR--
(C) 19:08, 6 March 2025 (diff hist) (−6) Iran men's national basketball team (Undid revision 1279103344 by 217.218.49.102 (talk) unexplained change of header) (rollback: 1 edit) (Tag: Undo)

Thank you, Adakiko (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Adakiko: "Search for contributions" on a contributions page has the option "Only show edits that are latest revisions". User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib can do the opposite. Does that work for your purpose? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:35, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Adakiko: Here are two CSS rules:

/* For current rev in contribs, add "(C)" before the size change */
li.mw-contributions-current span.mw-changeslist-links+span.mw-changeslist-separator:after {
  content: "(C)";
  font-weight: bold;
}
/* For current rev in contribs, suppress the "(current)" marker */
li.mw-contributions-current span.mw-uctop {
  display: none;
}

The second rule is optional. They go in Special:MyPage/common.css, since it works in all skins. But personally I use a rule that I wrote some months ago:

/* highlight current edit in contribs */
li.mw-contributions-current {
  background-color: #eeffcc;
}

I created it at somebody's request, don't recall who for. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: Thank you. added it to my CSS and it works great! Now all I have to do is to look for the "C" on the left. I go into shock each time I look at my contributions page and don't see "current". Cheers Adakiko (talk) 19:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Adakiko: As I mentioned, the second rule is optional - you can have both "(C)" and "(current)" displayed, by just using the first five lines, down to (and including) the first closing brace }. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:03, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: I prefer the lack of "Current". I need to retrain myself. Can I train an old dog a new trick? Thanks again! 20:05, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I go into shock each time ...

There is an option Only show edits that are latest revisions. It would be really good if there was also the reverse option Only show edits that are not the latest revision — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 09:03, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have a script that does this: User:JPxG/current-switcher.js (it's even a toggleable switch on the contribs page so you don't have to reload it). jp×g 🗯️ 11:21, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have also added Redrose64's rule. Thanks for that. I did, however, adjust the colour. The lime green gave me indigestion — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 09:03, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Search text box on Timeless doesn't format correctly

So on timeless the search bar doesn't format correctly, when on the search bar specifically:

Vector works correctly however, and the search bar is correct when typing in top, only on while on a search page does the bug occurs. Des Vallee (talk) 07:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was 95% this has a task but it seems not to. Izno (talk) 05:26, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this going to be fixed? I deal with it constantly and it can make it hard to see the text I typed. It also seems like a pretty easy fix. Des Vallee (talk) 09:57, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno: Des Vallee (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You may file a task for it, see WP:Bug reports. Izno (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ParserFunction errors

I'm just terrible at tracking down the cause of ParserFunction errors. Can anyone fix whatever's causing the problem in Template:Data world#Derived data? Whatever it is, its causing similar errors in the same place in other template pages of the form "Template:Data [country]". The error message says that it's an error in Template:Nts; but that template hasn't been edited in nearly five years, and these errors have popped up only recently. Deor (talk) 00:53, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Use "Related changes" for stuff like this. I reverted a recent edit at Template:Order of magnitude with a grumpy edit summary. Johnuniq (talk) 08:54, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As a template editor with almost 20 years' experience, I don't appreciate the grumpy revert summary. The issue here (as Snævar explained) wasn't with my edit to {{Order of magnitude}}, but with other templates attempting to pass it non-numeric input, which may be buried deeply in template call stacks (see User talk:Pppery#Template:Order of magnitude). {{Order of magnitude}} has over 200 thousand transclusions, as its documentation states, and these breakages cannot be reasonably tested for (if you disagree, feel free to add example testcases to the testcases page - for the record, my change passed all current testcases without issue). 「ディノ奴千？！」^{☎ Dinoguy1000} 17:58, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with Dinoguy1000 here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

land area is text, not a variable
Template:Data world returns three curly brackets on each side, which can not be used for calculation
You are doing an calculation with the total area and land area numbers, so you need mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##expr. It does not calculate without you asking it to.

So once that data world no longer gives curly brackets, you end up with this: {{ppm|{{sigfig|{{#expr:({{{total area}}}/{{data world|pst2|{{{land area}}}}})}}|3}}}}. Snævar (talk) 09:07, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have installed User:Anomie/previewtemplatelastmod. After installation, the technique is to go to the problem page, click the "Edit" tab for the whole page, and scroll down to the part after the edit box, publish/preview/etc. buttons, below which there is a line reading "Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page" - if this is preceded by a right-pointing triangle, click that to expand the list. The topmost entry (or entries) should be the most likely candidate for the problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have a forked version of that script at User:Ahecht/Scripts/previewtemplatelastmod.js, which keeps the default sort order (which can be useful since it's sorted by namespace) unless you click the "sort" link. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

LinkSearch across multiple projects

Is there a tool that works like Special:LinkSearch, but across all the Wikipedias and sibling projects? Or do I need to post a request for someone to search the database dumps for me? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://spamcheck.toolforge.org/ and https://global-search.toolforge.org/ – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stopped receiving email notifications of changes to an article on my watchlist

In late 2024, I expanded someone else’s Start-class article called Bombardment of Greytown, which after some extensive changes was declared a B Level article by Hawkeye7. In the course of the run-up to that B level bestowment, I had received, thanks to my watchlist, no less than 13 email notifications alerting me to changes made, ending on 7 December 2024.

Having received the B Level imprimatur and having ceased to receive any more email alerts as to further activity, I assumed no more changes were being made. But, recently, I glanced at the article, and I noticed substantial additions have been made to it in 2025 by Historyguy1138 and a warning template added to the top by Grutness that, “This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. etc.” (I am now in contact with both these Wikipedians.)

My watchlist never alerted me that any of this was happening. I checked my watchlist settings recently and it said: “Your watchlist has 11 pages (and their talk pages). Email notification is enabled.” My watchlist list included the Bombardment of Greytown page.

Why do you suppose I stopped receiving email notifications after 7 December 2024 when changes continue to be made after that date? Will-DubDub (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because you failed to visit the page after receiving the 7 December 2024 email notification. Watchlist email notifications only get sent if you visit the page after each email. Graham87 (talk) 21:54, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for telling me this! I asked Grutness this question and he had no idea and referred me to Village Pump. And he’s one of the longest serving administrators on Wikipedia. Can you refer me to where this is written? Thanks! Will-DubDub (talk) 22:50, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The mail should be based on MediaWiki:Enotif body which says: "There will be no other notifications in case of further activity unless you visit this page while logged in." PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went to the link above, MediaWiki:Enotif body, and at the top it says: “This page does not exist. The deletion, protection, and move log for the page are provided below for reference.” But below that seems to be some solid information.

I went to my preferences and changed my watchlist and notifications. I said: Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed. And increased the “Days to show in watchlist” from 3 to 30.

Bottom line: Once I missed that email notification on 7 December 2024 did that mean I can now never get another email notification again about changes to that article? It seems there should be a workaround to restart those email notifications after a single lapse. Will-DubDub (talk) 00:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Special:Preferences do you have your language (in the Internationalization section) set to anything other than 'en - English'? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:32, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that isn't a good idea, as you'll miss custom messages like that. There's also relevant information at Help:Email notification; as it says there, watchlist email notifications weren't enabled here until April 2012, by which time most experienced editors (including Grutness and I) had gotten used to checking our watchlist manually. I think most experienced English Wikipedia editors only use the email notification system for non-English wikis or places like Wikimedia Commons. Graham87 (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore the red box at MediaWiki:Enotif body. Do you not see the text I quoted below the box and in the mail? After visiting Bombardment of Greytown while logged in, you get an email about the next edit. It doesn't matter whether you made earlier visits. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you PrimeHunter and Graham87!.

I’m still confused, but less so than before.

I find this statement by Graham87:

“Watchlist email notifications only get sent if you visit the page after each email.”

To be in conflict with this statement by PrimeHunter:

“After visiting Bombardment of Greytown while logged in, you get an email about the next edit. It doesn't matter whether you made earlier visits.”

Hewing to PrimeHunter's for now, I believe I did visit the article periodically (and while logged in) during the period those changes were being made! Could it be I missed them because my “Days to show in watchlist” was only set for 3 days (the default, I'm guessing) and the vagaries of my visits and the change notifications never synched up helpfully because that three-day window was too short? (I’ve now set “Days to show” to 30 days.) Will-DubDub (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think PrimeHunter's explanation is more technically correct. But the number of days setting has nothing to do with the watchlist email ffeature; it's related to vieweing your watchlist on Wikipedia using Special:Watchlist. Graham87 (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Graham. I hope you can see where that ”Days setting” looked logically promising. Thanks for setting me straight. I’ve set up a bookmark to my Special:Watchlist, so I can check it regularly. (And thanks PrimeHunter!) Will-DubDub (talk) 19:36, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to rename a page without moving it

Hello, sorry if this isn't the right place, but after hours of searching, I can't find anywhere else to ask this. I want to change the name of the Infigen Energy page to Iberdrola Australia, because Infigen Energy was acquired by Iberdrola Australia and the company now operates under this brand.

The page is updated and is 100% about Iberdrola Australia, but the name is Infigen Energy. I don't want to move it to a new page, just rename it, but all the codes I can find are for moving and renaming at the same time.

Is there a place where I can request this action, or can someone help me do this rename correctly? Thank you very much. LaboniyAngel (talk) 09:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A rename is accomplished via a page move. You can request a move at Requested Moves. I would suggest that you see WP:COMMONNAME, though. We don't necessarily use official or legal names as titles- but the most commonly used name(and it certainly could be that the official name is the most common, just be aware). 331dot (talk) 09:20, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redlink in Special:Preferences

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T388880

At the bottom of the User Profile menu of Preferences, there is a link to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Extension:CampaignEvents/Invitation_lists, which reads as 'invitation lists" in plain text. This appears to be a redlink on MediaWiki, with the correct link being https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns/Foundation_Product_Team/Invitation_list. I don't have global IPBE, so I have no idea if this is just en-wiki or others. JarJarInks_{٩(◕_◕)۶}^{Tones essay} 13:02, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

phab:T388880 is open on this now. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:14, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Someone just closed it as duplicate of "Write documentation for Invitation lists", but we have the correct link. It's not documentation, but it has information about what the extension is, which is all you need for this specific link. Could probably be solved with a redirect if someone is willing (I've got a global IP block, so I can't). JarJarInks_{٩(◕_◕)۶}^{Tones essay} 14:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have created MediaWiki:Campaignevents-invitationlist-preference to change our link from invitation lists to invitation lists. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:18, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to work! Thanks! JarJarInks_{٩(◕_◕)۶}^{Tones essay} 16:57, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected talk pages crash

Whenever I press Add topic on a semi-protected talk page(the talk page itself is protected, not the origin page) the browser crashes with error code Aw Snap SIGSEGV. This implies that the page was trying to edit a part of restricted memory. This does not happen on non-protected pages. I am using a Chromebook model name CR1104CGA updated to the latest version, and with browser version 126.0.6478.265 It seems that the computer that you are doing this on matters a lot as other computers, and even other Chromebooks do not give the same outcome. Caleb's World11 (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Start with the instructions at Google Support and report back. Izno (talk) 21:56, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Caleb's World11 I'm having the exact same issue, except it's happening pretty much everywhere, including creating pages and protected non-talk pages. Gaismagorm (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

it looks like it doesn't always crash when creating pages, but it does always crash when editing protected articles Gaismagorm (talk) 13:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with editing any protected pages on Chromebook.

Hello, I have been having issues with editing any protected articles on my Barla chromebook. Whenever I attempt to edit it, it gives the "oh snap" error screen, with the "SIGSEGV" error code. I have tried shutting off my Chromebook, changing Wi-Fi, signing in and then out, clearing my cache/cookies, making sure my Chromebook version is up to date, and switching from visual to source editor. None of it worked. Some options are unavailable as this chromebook is run by an administration, so some features are not available.

P.S. Yes, I know that @Caleb's World11 posted on this forum with the same issue. It appears that discussion kind of went stale, so I'm relisting this. Gaismagorm (talk) 12:50, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried freeing up space? And a hardware reset? Polygnotus (talk) 17:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried freeing up space, didn't work. I'm gonna procrastinate on the second one since it will be a major hassle to deal with getting everything back to order once I reset the Chromebook, since, like I said, it is administration ran. Gaismagorm (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Polygnotus @Caleb's World11 I found a solution. If you switch from desktop to mobile view, editing works. Gaismagorm (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tofu boxes even with fonts installed?

Per various talk page complaints, some users seem to be having trouble viewing special characters on Anatolian hieroglyphs, even when they have the requisite fonts installed. It’s not clear to me that this is a Wikipedia-specific problem, but is there perhaps a Wikipedia-specific workaround?

At least for me, the symbols appear correctly in Chrome but appear as tofu boxes in Firefox and Safari. This is so both in the normal page view and in the editing interface, though the characters appear correctly in reader view, even in Safari. When I copy-paste the tofu boxes from Wikipedia into a text document, they appear correctly as Anatolian hieroglyphs. Other special characters and ancient scripts are working fine. Botterweg (talk) 19:45, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chrome probably works because of the 'Noto Sans Anatolian Hieroglyphs' font, which Google did make. Apple Symbols, Rashi script and Alphabetum fonts also claim to work. Alan Wood goes over what fonts work with which script, and he has no font listed for Anatolian. If you add an compatible font to your operating system fonts then they should work with all browsers. Snævar (talk) 23:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, thanks, I wondered if Chrome and the Noto fonts both being from Google was somehow relevant. However, that can't be the whole story since I do have Noto Sans Anatolian Hieroglyphs installed, and it works just fine in other programs like Microsoft Word. Botterweg (talk) 02:34, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I need help with my Ip address

Hi Despite being logged into my account, my IP address is appearing in the edit history instead of my username. This occurred during an edit reverted by ClueBot NG on the 'Michael Dormer (artist)' page. I have confirmed I am logged in, and this issue persists. I have confirmed that I am logged in, by seeing my username in the upper right hand corner of the screen. I would like to know why this is happening and how to prevent it. Nitra78877 (talk) 21:30, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for how to set Infobox mapframe maps and Location map maps in infoboxes to viewer's thumb size

I haven't had any luck at the templates' talk pages, so I'm posting links here in case there are any technical folks who might be able to tell me how to set Infobox mapframe maps and Location map images in infoboxes to the viewer's thumb size (per MOS, as Module:InfoboxImage can do) instead of using fixed pixel sizing.

Please respond at the original threads, not here. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You were answered approximately 30 minutes ago at infobox mapframe. Izno (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An answer saying "it looks like you can't do it" is only marginally helpful. As a template editor, my favorite answer to "how do I do this" questions at a template's talk page is "you can't do it yet, but I have tweaked the sandbox to make it possible; does that meet your needs?" I'm hoping someone will find a way to help these templates comply with the guidelines at MOS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

His answer was correct, however. You cannot do what you want to do. Izno (talk) 17:43, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Talk template formatting help

I made Template:MEDRS evaluation. But it's hard to use on a talk page, because it doesn't line up properly inside the :::indented comments. How do I fix that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, {{block indent}}? — Qwerfjkl talk 12:11, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The colon is indenting only the first line. You need to force that indenting to continue through the template. I put one possible way in the sandbox and tested it on the page where it is transcluded. It indents and does not cause Linter errors. It should be tested further to make sure that all of the parameters work properly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Use Template:Bulleted list instead. Izno (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wide equations no longer scrollable on mobile site

Until recently, equations that extend beyond the width of the page in the mobile browser version of Wikipedia were horizontally scrollable. However, a recent update has removed this functionality, making such equations partially unreadable unless users switch to desktop mode. This affects articles with large LaTeX-rendered formulas, breaking accessibility for mobile users.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a Wikipedia article with wide equations (e.g., physics/math pages) in a mobile browser (Chrome, Safari, etc.).

2. Observe that the equation does not scroll and is cut off instead.

3. Switch to desktop mode, where the full equation becomes visible.

Expected behavior: Equations should be horizontally scrollable as they were before.

Could this be reverted or fixed to restore readability for mobile users? 204.144.182.17 (talk) 22:27, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember the past behaviour but I can confirm visiting Navier–Stokes_equations#General_continuum_equations displays cut-off equations that I can't scroll on mobile. The long ones half way down that section. Commander Keane (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Auto format dates in non-CS1 templates

The Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates will automatically format dates on a page that invokes {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}}. This works for all of the most common citation templates, but there are {{cite xxx}} templates that are not related and do nothing to dates, like {{cite patent}}, {{cite court}}, {{cite comic}}, and so on.

Would it be a good idea and would there be interest in working out a standard way to auto-format dates for those unrelated wikitext citation templates? There is an example in {{cite comic/sandbox}} that is calling {{date}}. You can see it in action at User:Rjjiii/sandbox8.^{(permanent link)} This is slightly slower. Kraven the Hunter which calls {{cite comic}} 70 times will go from "Post‐expand include size: 373992/2097152 bytes" to "Post‐expand include size: 385280/2097152 bytes". {{Date}} is less strict than the CS1 dates. If it cannot parse a date, it will just display the input as written. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we should create more modules that read and parse the whole page every time a particular template is encountered. Perhaps I shouldn't worry about performance but the idea seems fragile and hard to maintain. I would prefer a technical solution such as a shared Lua table that can be set when the current editing section or page is rendered, and read by other modules. That might never happen but some planning might be useful. Johnuniq (talk) 03:13, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it likely that articles using the templates you mention also employ at least one cs1|2 template? That being the case, why not have your module fetch the format from Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration? The code that loads the page source, searches for a {{use xxx dates}} template, and determines which format to use will execute only once for all cs1|2 templates and your modified other templates in the article.

Taking that thought a bit farther, I hacked an example: Module:Sandbox/Trappist the monk/df. That example fetches the global_df variable from ~/CS1/Configuration and then reformats and returns the date, minding the value of |cs1-dates= in the {{use xxx dates}} template. There are two functions exported by ~/df; one for publication dates and the other for access / archive dates. Examples can be seen at my sandbox (permalink).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I imagine pretty much any article using a niche citation template will use at least one of the main four CS1 citation templates or {{citation}}. I went with a really basic solution from things that already exist, but don't let my lack of knowledge or skill here get in the way if you have a better plan. I tested out the sandbox module above and it seems to work well, even with weird dates. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:07, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving a source that verifies human before opening

There is schism between the governing bodies in the sport of kabaddi, and this article: https://www.dhakatribune.com/sport/other-sports/371289/a-kabaddi-world-cup-sans-bangladesh does a good job at explaining it. Thus, it's been used at multiple kabaddi-related articles and is vital to understanding the schism. Unfortunately, it does a human-check before you're able to access it, which means that no archiving website is able to make an archive out of it. I previously tried to find a solution at Help desk but it didn't help. So, is there any trick to go around the website's restrictions? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:47, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You could just download it yourself, passing the human verification and then upload it to the text portion of archive.org. Snævar (talk) 19:20, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how that works. @Snævar: Could you help? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 09:44, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can’t sign on my pc

So I type my password it’s says that I didn’t do the letter thing and when I copy and paste my real password and do the letter thing it says that I don’t have the right password so I do that 5 times and then it’s says that I have to wait 5 minutes like what? Therealbubble (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean that you cannot sign on your PC? ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 23:02, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They probably mean sign-in, log-in, enter their account... for that matter 'the letter thing' sounds like a CAPTCHA.

The page Special:Captcha says a CATPCHA may show if you try to login soon after typing your password incorrectly, so it certainly seems like you (Therealbubble) might be typing your password incorrectly - but I don't have an account, so cannot confirm that there isn't always a CAPTCHA when logging in. – 2804:F1...95:6EBB (::/32) (talk) 01:37, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They logged in using their mobile, their edit tag says so, but they have a problem logging in on pc. Snævar (talk) 10:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, the login system was changed, see mw:MediaWiki Platform Team/SUL3

Check if you are allowing cookies from auth.wikimedia.org, logins go through there now. Check your password manager, if you have one, and set the password to auth.wikimedia.org. Also open up your browser console and paste the contents from there. Snævar (talk) 10:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On mobile view, Infobox shows ahead of first paragraph for this particular article

On mobile view with a narrow width (like on my Android phone), the Infobox shows ahead of the first paragraph for the article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil. All other articles I can find work properly.

I see a 2017 archived version of the Village Pump (Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 155#Infobox location) which says there was a server side technical issue that was resolved, but not all pages were fixed, such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_dollar. But now the Eisenhower_dollar article also seems to be fixed.

I have tried to look for hidden characters, but there don't appear to be any (I could be wrong). What could be the problem with the Detention_of_Mahmoud_Khalil article? ReferenceMan (talk) 02:09, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's caused by {{pp-extended|small=yes}}. On that article it includes

<p class='PIA-flag' style='display:none; visibility:hidden;'>This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>

. The text is hidden but mobile still interprets it as a lead and displays the infobox right after it. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now reported at Module talk:Protection banner#Mobile places infobox incorrectly for WP:PIA notice. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:37, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can no longer edit articles

Hi,

I’m having trouble editing existing Wikipedia pages. When I try to edit, I only see the "Edit source" option and not the regular "Edit" button. This issue affects all pages I’ve tried, and I can’t make any changes to existing articles.

I have 29 edits on my account, and I haven’t edited for about 7 months, but I was previously able to edit normally

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Vickylizholmes (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Vickylizholmes Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and set "Editing mode" to "Show me both editor tabs". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:29, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template calling to Wikidata with several parameters

Hi,

I have created this template and am trying to improve it (by changing the structure), but I am not quite getting the structure for several parameters, despite checking the relevant help pages.

Basically, I would like the template to be called as follows {{SeatsEUPPs|EC|EPP}} to get the number of seats of the EPP in the European Commission, which would be {{wikidata|property|Q208242|P1410|P208=Q8880}}, where Q208242 is for the EPP and P208=Q8880 is for the European Commission.

The exact expressions won't always be the same, as sometimes I want to replace the name of the party with special terms, such as "allparties", "noparties" or something similar, and then provide a calculated expression. For instance;

{{SeatsEUPPs|EC}} would just give the number of seats in the European Commission, which is {{wikidata|property|Q8880|P1342}},
{{SeatsEUPPs|EC|allparties}} would give the sum of seats for all parties in the European Commission, which is {{#expr: {{wikidata|property|Q208242|P1410|P208=Q8880}} + seats of all other parties}}, and
{{SeatsEUPPs|EC|noparties}} would give the number of seats not assigned to a European party, which is {{#expr: {{wikidata|property|Q8880|P1342}}-the sum of seats for all parties}}.

I think I have to hard-code the formula/expression for every possibility and that is fine. However, I am not really fine how to use "switch" in this case to basically:

  IF param1=EC 
  THEN 
     IF param2=EPP 
     THEN formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EC
     ELSIF param2=PES
     THEN formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EC
     ...
  ELSEIF param1=EP
     IF param2=EPP 
     THEN formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EP
     ELSIF param2=PES
     THEN formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EP
     ...

I am sure it is rather simple, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Thanks! Julius Schwarz (talk) 11:41, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Julius Schwarz Complex logic like this is often better handled in WP:Lua, but as a standard template it would be something like

{{#switch: {{{param2|}}
 | EPP
 | AlternativeNameForEPP = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EC|formula-for-seats-of-EPP-in-EP}}
 | PES
 | AlternativeNameForPES = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EC|formula-for-seats-of-PES-in-EP}}
 | ...
 | #default = {{#ifeq:{{{param1|}}}|EC|formula-for-total-seats-in-EC|formula-for-total-seats-in-EP}}
}}

--Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply and pointer to Lua. I will ask for support on that too! Julius Schwarz (talk) 19:33, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Email address change error

I'm trying to change my email address and get an error that says, Unknown error in PHP's mail() function. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks! Danaphile (talk) 14:49, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Could possibly be related to the ongoing PHP 8.1 upgrade, tracked in phab:T383845. Just a guess tho. NightWolf1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 15:04, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you try again? I just tried and didn't fail, got "A confirmation email has been sent to the specified email address. Before any other email is sent to the account, you will have to follow the instructions in the email, to confirm that the account is actually yours.". — xaosflux ^Talk 15:30, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! It went through. Danaphile (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gadget proposal: Citation Watchlist

I would like to propose adding the Citation Watchlist script as a new gadget. The purpose of Citation Watchlist is to add visual indicators in recent changes feeds, watchlists, page histories, and user contributions pages when links to certain domain names are added. These domain names are often considered unreliable sources or otherwise require closer examination; this script makes it easier to identify when and where such links are added. New lists can be added to Wikipedia:Citation Watchlist/Lists and existing lists can be updated there. If you can edit a wiki page, you can create and update a domain list.

Citation Watchlist is under active development by the nonprofit Hacks/Hackers, with support from Wikimedia Switzerland. New versions are initially tested on test.wikipedia.org, then staged on English Wikipedia for additional tests before being released, to ensure that the script does not randomly break. To run through the requirements for gadgets:

Gadgets must work if just included with no further configuration. They can be configurable via personal common.js, but must work unconfigured.
Citation Watchlist works out of the box with no further configuration required.
Gadgets must be compatible with all major browsers, i.e., they must not terminate with errors.
Citation Watchlist has been tested and confirmed to work on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.
Gadgets should be functional in most major browsers (cross-browser compatibility). Exceptions must be clearly stated.
As stated above, Citation Watchlist works in all major browsers. Note that on mobile devices, you can't hover over indicators to get additional information, as mobile devices lack a hover action.
Duplication of gadgets should only be made if it is reasonable.
Citation Watchlist provides functionality not available in other gadgets. While there are other gadgets that deal with references and source reliability, they do not operate in the same parts of the interface as Citation Watchlist, which focuses on revision log pages: page histories, watchlists, recent changes, and user contributions.
Collections of scripts should be split if they have disparate functions.
Citation Watchlist is not a collection of disparate scripts.
Gadgets requiring permissions must be marked and must fail gracefully if the permissions aren't present.
Citation Watchlist requires no special permissions.
Gadgets only working in some skins must be marked as such if that data is available.
Citation Watchlist has been tested and confirmed to work in Vector 2022, Vector 2010, Monobook, Minerva, and Timeless.

I am happy to answer any questions you have. If you would like to make changes to the code, I recommend doing so on Test Wikipedia so changes can be properly tested before altering the experience for existing users. Harej (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gadgets usually require a large usage; this one is used by only about 50 people. Izno (talk) 20:28, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Meh seems fine to me. More wondering why the url is hardcoded, when we have wgScriptPath and wgArticlePath config variables available. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:18, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with Section Edit Link Not Appearing for SHORTDESC Template

Hello, I am working on implementing the SHORTDESC template in Persian Wikipedia, based on the English Wikipedia version. The template itself is functional, but there is an issue: the section edit link (blue "[edit]" button) does not appear next to the short description. What we have done so far: The SHORTDESC template correctly displays the short description. It uses a <span> or <div> to store the text, which is likely why the edit button does not appear. On English Wikipedia, the section edit link appears correctly next to the short description, but in Persian Wikipedia, it does not. Questions: How does English Wikipedia ensure that the edit link appears next to the short description? Is there a CSS or JavaScript function that enables this? Would wrapping the short description in a specific tag (like h2 or another container) help, or is there a more elegant solution? Any guidance on fixing this issue in Persian Wikipedia would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have enabled Wikipedia:Shortdesc helper. Izno (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno

Thanks for your response! It seems that English Wikipedia uses the Shortdesc Helper tool, but Persian Wikipedia does not have it enabled. We would like to ensure that the edit link appears next to the short description without relying on this tool.

Currently, our code is:

However, the edit button does not appear next to it.

Is there a way to modify this template so the section edit link appears naturally?
Should we wrap the text in a different tag like h2 or div?
If the edit link is added via JavaScript or CSS in English Wikipedia, how can we replicate that?

Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks again! 😊

---- Arbabi second (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can Shortdesc Helper be enabled on Persian Wikipedia

Question:

We are working on implementing the SHORTDESC template on Persian Wikipedia. One of the main differences we noticed is that English Wikipedia has Shortdesc Helper, which makes it easier to edit short descriptions.

Is this tool available globally, or is it specific to English Wikipedia?
If it can be enabled on Persian Wikipedia, what steps should we take to request its activation?
If enabling it is not possible, is there an alternative method to achieve the same functionality?

Thanks for any guidance! 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 21:38, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@اربابی دوم: The edit links you see at short descriptions are added by Shortdesc helper. Its code is at the English Wikipedia but can be called from other wikis. See Wikipedia:Shortdesc helper#Installation on another wiki. It requires an interface administrator (list)PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter

Thank you very much for your detailed response. I have filed a request to install the tool, on

Persian Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.😊 Arbabi second (talk) 00:23, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-12

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

Weekly highlight

Twice a year, around the equinoxes, the Wikimedia Foundation's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team performs a datacenter server switchover, redirecting all traffic from one primary server to its backup. This provides reliability in case of a crisis, as we can always fall back on the other datacenter. Thanks to the Listen to Wikipedia tool, you can hear the switchover take place: Before it begins, you'll hear the steady stream of edits; Then, as the system enters a brief read-only phase, the sound stops for a couple of minutes, before resuming after the switchover. You can read more about the background and details of this process on the Diff blog. If you want to keep an ear out for the next server switchover, listen to the wikis on March 19 at 14:00 UTC.

Updates for editors

The improved Content Translation tool dashboard is now available in 10 Wikipedias and will be available for all Wikipedias soon. With the unified dashboard, desktop users can now: Translate new sections of an article; Discover and access topic-based article suggestion filters (initially available only for mobile device users); Discover and access the Community-defined lists filter, also known as "Collections", from wiki-projects and campaigns.
On Wikimedia Commons, a new system to select the appropriate file categories has been introduced: if a category has one or more subcategories, users will be able to click on an arrow that will open the subcategories directly within the form, and choose the correct one. The parent category name will always be shown on top, and it will always be possible to come back to it. This should decrease the amount of work for volunteers in fixing/creating new categories. The change is also available on mobile. These changes are part of planned improvements to the UploadWizard.
The Community Tech team is seeking wikis to join a pilot for the Multiblocks feature and a refreshed Special:Block page in late March. Multiblocks enables administrators to impose multiple different types of blocks on the same user at the same time. If you are an admin or steward and would like us to discuss joining the pilot with your community, please leave a message on the project talk page.
Starting March 25, the Editing team will test a new feature for Edit Check at 12 Wikipedias: Multi-Check. Half of the newcomers on these wikis will see all Reference Checks during their edit session, while the other half will continue seeing only one. The goal of this test is to see if users are confused or discouraged when shown multiple Reference Checks (when relevant) within a single editing session. At these wikis, the tags used on edits that show References Check will be simplified, as multiple tags could be shown within a single edit. Changes to the tags are documented on Phabricator. [1]
The Global reminder bot, which is a service for notifying users that their temporary user-rights are about to expire, now supports using the localized name of the user-rights group in the message heading. Translators can see the listing of existing translations and documentation to check if their language needs updating or creation.
The GlobalPreferences gender setting, which is used for how the software should refer to you in interface messages, now works as expected by overriding the local defaults. [2]
View all 26 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Wikipedia App for Android had a bug fixed for when a user is browsing and searching in multiple languages. [3]

Updates for technical contributors

Later this week, the way that Codex styles are loaded will be changing. There is a small risk that this may result in unstyled interface message boxes on certain pages. User generated content (e.g. templates) is not impacted. Gadgets may be impacted. If you see any issues please report them. See the linked task for details, screenshots, and documentation on how to fix any affected gadgets.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Toolhub spam

https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/tools/seourltool

Why is the toolhub being spammed? Is there something that can be done? Polygnotus (talk) 02:09, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BDavis (WMF) can definitely help with this. – DreamRimmer (talk) 03:14, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks DreamRimmer! @Bryan can we get a rel=nofollow for those fields? Polygnotus (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine any of the administrators listed at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/members?groups_id=1 (such as JJMC89) should be able to help. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:14, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

JJMC89 has been inactive for about a month and a half, so they're probably not the best person to talk to. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:25, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From the spam page, I particularly like "Fuck writing SEO content manually—this AI powerhouse mass-produces high-ranking, viral, and clickbait-infused content at scale." I suspect Wikipedia will be seeing more of that in due course. I just indeffed RickAndMortyOnNewsbreak (talk · contribs) who has two reverted edits here plus a deleted spam user page. If anyone is in the mood, can you work out what newsbreak.com is (the spammer apparently has a webpage there) and why there are 241 links to newsbreak.com here. Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(I took care of a few sleepers now also.) Izno (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This search is probably a good one to sort out. It apparently hits a few more spammy looking names too. Izno (talk) 04:12, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The current "templates for discussion"-warnings make some reference sections close to unreadable

The template:Unbulleted list citebundle is currently for discussion. As a result, there is a warning for every single reference where it or a related template is used, making some reference sections close to unreadable. For example, Philosophy#Citations looks something like the following to me:

1.
‹ The template below (Unbulleted list citebundle) is being considered for merging with Multiref2. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. ›
Pratt 2023, p. 169
Morujão, Dimas & Relvas 2021, p. 105
Mitias 2022, p. 3
2.
‹ The template below (Unbulleted list citebundle) is being considered for merging with Multiref2. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. ›
Hoad 1993, p. 350
Simpson 2002, Philosophy
Jacobs 2022, p. 23
3.
‹ The template below (Unbulleted list citebundle) is being considered for merging with Multiref2. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. ›
...

Is that the intended behavior? As far as I can tell, this affects many high-traffic articles. If there is an automatic warning message, it would make sense to have it only for one instance per page, not for every single instance. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:33, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've added |type=tiny to both templates, so it looks a whole lot better than before. --rchard2scout (talk) 13:03, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rchard2scout: Thanks, that's much better. However, I think it's still far from ideal. Some articles have 100 or more references. Do we really need to inform all readers 100 times per page about this discussion?

I'm not even sure that we should inform readers on article pages at all. Especially in the case of this discussion, which is a rather technical matter not of interest to most general readers. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:10, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and disabled the warning function by setting |type=disabled, which seems to have solved the problem. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:04, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was the warning which alerted me to the discussion, which I then joined in. Without the warning, I would never have known. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 16:08, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If hundreds of warning messages appear on high-traffic articles, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of readers see them within a very short time and have no idea what they are supposed to mean. This type of issue concerns a specific group of editors, so there is no need to warn all readers repeatedly. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:25, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reason these tags display is because editors want them to display. We can remove that from Template:Tfd, but the price is that people may not know a template is about to be deleted. It is not about "a specific group of editors", it is about any editor who thinks they may have a reason to support or oppose that template's deletion. Izno (talk) 17:37, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not opposed to warning editors. I'm just opposed to presenting hundreds of warnings to a high volume of readers who are not affected and don't understand them. What about posting a message on the talk page of each affected article instead? Phlsph7 (talk) 17:52, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you read every article's talk page before you edit it? I don't. I'd be very surprised if more than a mere handful of editors (if any) actually do.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

... and which would lead to thousands to millions worth of messages.... that mostly go unread. Izno (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little surprised that I'm the only one concerned about presenting hundreds of warnings per article page to a high volume of readers who don't understand them. Is there no better alternative? Phlsph7 (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hundreds of messages may not be optimum, but neither is potentially deleting a popular template because no one was notified in advance. At least the message won't be displayed any longer than the discussion that is taking place (usually not more than a week). And how many readers do you think actually scroll through reference sections. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 19:51, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some high-volume articles with this template have around 100000 views per month. That makes about 25000 views for one week, and this is just for one of those articles. For each of those visits, over 100 warning messages are displayed. According to https://linkcount.toolforge.org/ , the templates Multiref, Multiref2, and Unbulleted list citebundle are directly transcluded to 816, 1292, and 507 articles, respectively. Not all of them are as high-volume, but you still get a feeling for how many readers you would reach with those warning messages–they are easily in the hundreds of thousands. And we do this only to reach a handful of editors who will participate in the template discussion. I think we do a lot more damage than good here. Having about 2500 talk page messages would be the lesser evil. Phlsph7 (talk) 20:37, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Problem using on Persian Wikipedia

I am encountering an issue using the magic word on the Persian Wikipedia (fa.wikipedia.org). I am trying to transclude the section titled "پانویس‌ها: گروه‌های پیش‌تعریف‌شده" (which translates to something like "Footnotes: Predefined Groups") from the page "راهنما:پانویس‌ها" (which translates to "Help:Footnotes") into my user sandbox page: "کاربر:اربابی دوم/تمرین۳". I have confirmed that the section title is copied correctly from the source page. However, nothing is displayed in my sandbox page. Could there be a specific configuration or known issue with the extension on the Persian Wikipedia that might be causing this? Any insights or suggestions for troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Arbabi second (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]