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).

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Issues with font color used on mobile for clicked links

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T356928

I'm not sure if this is the way that it has always been or if this changed recently, but I just noticed a bit of an accessibility issue when it comes to links using the mobile version of Wikipedia: Clickable links to other articles, after they've been clicked on once, changed to a color that is the same color as the rest of the text on the page. In other words, after clicking on the link once, since the link is indistinguishable from the rest of the text on the page, it is unclear that it is still a link. I know on most of the desktop skins, a clicked link goes from blue to purple in color, whereas a link on mobile goes from blue to black in color. Steel1943 (talk) 22:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm seeing it too. It definitely wasn't like that before. Looks like it's WP: THURSDAY? --rchard2scout (talk) 22:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it's been a while since a WP:THURSDAY broke something. Wonder how many weeks that was. Steel1943 (talk) 22:44, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

"0.5" is the answer. Or "two", if you want to be pedantic. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah-ha! That proves that ... I'm not on here regularly enough! 😂 Steel1943 (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Same thing happening on my end, i noticed it immediately. Wasn’t like that this morning! Elvisisalive95 (talk) 23:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm having the same issue on mobile. It doesn't seem to be isolated to just English Wikipedia either. RajanD100 (talk) 00:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thanks for knowing about and posting the phab. Steel1943 (talk) 00:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed this too. Glad to see I'm not the only one! Loytra (talk) 01:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It's awful. Please fix! Masterhatch (talk) 03:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Links is blacked

Hello, why is Wikipedia like this? Why are the read links in the text of the article no longer purple? They are the color (Black) of the problem in the article and no different than the unlinked text in the article. By doing this, the users get extremely confused and cannot understand which part of the text of the article is a link, because when they click once on a link that is blue, the second time, that part is no longer purple, and the color of the text of the article is the same, it is black. Click on the black to find out (If you click on the black that has a link and then return to the this page, you will no longer notice that the black is linked). Ahilcaspian (talk) 22:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

This is an issue on your end. Amaury • 22:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Amaury: Per my section above, I don't think so. @Ahilcaspian: Looks like you are using mobile, so I will bundle this section with mine since it's the same problem. Steel1943 (talk) 22:37, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Amaury No, it's not about me, the same problem happened in the discussion above. Even when I log out of my Wikipedia account, the links are still the same color (black). Ahilcaspian (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

No, it's happening to me too, as of tonight. There's a reddit post about it too. Zanahary (talk) 01:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I've also had this happen. CSS will always be Wikimedias mortal enemy. WiinterU (talk) 13:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It only happens in the mobile vesion. For a fix, add the below to Special:MyPage/minerva.css.

.mw-body-content a:visited { color: #0B0080; } /* visited links */

PrimeHunter (talk) 03:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this, I couldn't stand having the links black ;-;

P.S. for those who use the Vector 2022 skin and think the colour looks off, replace "#0B0080" with "#795CB2" Loytra (talk) 07:16, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Vector 2022 doesn't have the bug. I suggested to place the code in Special:MyPage/minerva.css which is only used in the mobile version. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not too well-versed in the technical intricacies of Wikipedia, but in that case the colour you suggested in the code was the wrong one. Mobile Wikipedia uses the Vector 2022 link colours. Loytra (talk) 10:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I based it on Help:Link color#Standard colors which doesn't mention mobile but shows Vector 2022 as a special case. Visited links are currently black in mobile so I didn't know which color they were supposed to have. It may be #795CB2 as you say. When the right color is returned, I may update Help:Link color. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:16, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The new CSS variable used is --color-link--visited and the old one is likely --color-visited, which is defined as #6b4ba1. Is there a chance that this was the color used before? It looks right to me. Kkuhlau (talk) 16:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! My colours are back to normal. Masterhatch (talk) 14:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Workaround added

I've added the manual css workaround site-wide via MediaWiki:Minerva.css; once deployed or if issues any int-admin should revert. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The backport was deployed this morning, so I went ahead and reverted the local hotfix. This whole thread can be marked as

Resolved

I think –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification bell icon changed color on mobile

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T356540

Another Mobile/Minerva skin issue that might or might not be related to the above. For logged-in users in the top right corner, there are two icons:

• "User menu" icon, which I can simply link. From SVG code, one can see that color #54595d is used
• and a notification bell icon to the left, which I can't link, because it's a data URI scheme file hardcoded in CSS. The SVG code uses fill="var(--color-subtle)". This CSS variable is supposed to be #54595d, but the icon shows up as #000 (black) both in Firefox and in Chrome.

The notification bell icon seems to be the only outlier. As an example, the settings icon is a regular SVG file with the correct color. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

For reference, found a place in code related to the bell icon CSS. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Git blame suggests that this code was recently refactored in commit 59fd0cd (Convert all color related Less variables to CSS custom properties, 2024-02-01). I don't know how Less works, so I can't comment on the change itself, but the recency is conspicuous. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Jon (WMF), could you please take a look at the bug report in this subsection? —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

JDrewniak (WMF), could you please also take a look? —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:49, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

This is being tracked in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T356540. Jdlrobson (talk) 21:50, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Page stats tool effects unclear

I installed the following editing tool in my common.js page and when I open VE or source editing I don't see any difference. It says it adds more links to the toolbox. What toolbox does it mean? Qwerty284651 (talk) 06:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Qwerty284651 Replicating the mw.util.addPortletLink(..) function call, it seems it adds them to the end of the "Tools" dropdown menu to the right of "View history" at the top right of the page. – 143.208.236.146 (talk) 07:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Qwerty284651 (talk) 03:46, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

It's also debatable if ten year old scripts still function well. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 09:07, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Of the four links that that tool adds, only one currently works. http://stats.grok.se/ should probably be changed to WikiShark, and the other two are down until Dispenser ports them to Kubernetes (which is somewhat unlikely as they had a number of spats with the wikitech team and haven't been active for years). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Anomie, as it's their script. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I haven't used it myself since 2017, after I noticed that my ad blocker had been blocking it (probably because of "stats" in the name) for some time and I hadn't missed it. 🤷 Anomie⚔ 17:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

😢 Qwerty284651 (talk) 17:57, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Link behaving badly?

Pls see the infobox at Dave Sharma, specifically the link at Member of Parliament for Wentworth.

It should go to Division of Wentworth, an electorate in Sydney, Australia. Instead it links to Wentworth (UK Parliament constituency).

It seems to have worked correctly until the edit of 07:39, 30 November 2023 Special:Diff/1187603022. A change was made in that edit to the link's field but not to link itself which remained [[Division of Wentworth|Wentworth]]. Even mouseover at that stage starts showing "Wentworth (UK Parliament constituency)".

The links to Division of Wentworth in first para of lede and in navbox at foot of Sharma's article work properly. Likewise, in the iboxes of his predecessor Kerryn Phelps and his successor Allegra Spender, both link to Australia's Wentworth as they should.

Other editors have tried to fix to no avail. One tried by adding an (Australia) dab ie [[Division of Wentworth (Australia)|Wentworth]] but that didn't help - that page has apparently never existed? Sorry if it's something simple I'm missing. Any enlightenment gladly received. JennyOz (talk) 10:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

JennyOz, replacing | constituency_MP1 = with | constituency_MP = seems to fix it in preview. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Fixed now.

Yeah, it's the infobox transclusion that's the problem, not the link per se. However it would be nice to know how it managed pluck "Wentworth" from the rest of the article. Martin Kealey (talk) 12:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Martin Kealey, Wikidata perhaps. — Qwerfjkltalk 12:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks both! The "why" will remain a mystery but very relieved it now links correctly. JennyOz (talk) 01:02, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Could we please get some feedback from Wikimedia boffins on how `|constituent_MP=Wentworth` was synthesized when neither label nor value was supplied? Martin Kealey (talk) 04:31, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Wentworth was always supplied in the infobox. When it linked the wrong target, the infobox said | constituency_MP1 = [[Division of Wentworth|Wentworth]] | parliament = Australian. To match constituency and parliament parameters correctly, it should have said either | constituency_MP = ... | parliament = ... or | constituency_MP1 = ... | parliament1 = .... The wrong combination | constituency_MP1 = ... | parliament = ... meant that no parliament was associated with constituency_MP1. {{Infobox officeholder/office}} has UK as default. For UK it delinks constituency_MP1 to get "Wentworth" and then automatically links Wentworth (UK Parliament constituency) when that page exists. Maybe it should test whether the parameter is already linked and accept that instead of delinking and trying to add its own link, but it would require more code. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, thanks.

That explains how, at least partly.

I've started a discussion on the Template's talk page. Martin Kealey (talk) 07:59, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Weirdness with citation formatting

I'm doing some work on the Pitchfork (website) article and encountering some weirdness with citation formatting.

• When using the visual editor, all the mentions of "Pitchfork" in the citations (under work=) are bolded. I can't figure out why this is happening or if it matters, as it only seems to display like this when editing.
• I'm having trouble turning those mentions of "Pitchfork", in the citations, into wikilinks.

Does anyone know what's going on? Popcornfud (talk) 12:20, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Edit: I'm being a moron. It's because I'm trying to link the Wikipedia page to itself and didn't even realise I was doing that. However, I'll leave this post here as it seems to me like the displaying in bold might be a Visual Editor bug, so it might be of interest to someone.

Links in a page to itself are displayed in bold by MediaWiki, so VisualEditor is accurately depicting the resulting appearance. isaacl (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Interesting — why does it do that? If the purpose is to indicate a circular link, well, it didn't help me there, heh... Popcornfud (talk) 01:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if this is why it is the way it is, but this is useful in navboxes: you can have the same list of links on each page but the one which would normally link to the page you're viewing is both not circular and is easy to distinguish. LittlePuppers (talk) 01:37, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

mw:Help:Self link#Utility gives navboxes as an example. I also find it very useful there. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:42, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Creating a theme

I run Linux with a custom tiling window manager setup with the Catppuccin Mocha theme. The colors list is available at https://catppuccin.ryanccn.dev/palette; Mocha is the last one, so you'll have to scroll to the very bottom.

I've been theming the websites I use the most, and for most of them I have to install an extension. Wikipedia is nice and has theming functionality built in, but I'm struggling with the CSS classes it uses.

Ideally, my theme should work with both Vector 2010 and 2022.

Any guidance? Thanks in advance! —charmquark ^she/_they talk contribs 20:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

You may be able to use MediaWiki:Gadget-dark-mode.css as a template, that is most of what we style for the "dark mode" community gadget. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! :) —charmquark ^she/_they talk contribs 19:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

There are specific pages for this, namely mw:Manual:How to make a MediaWiki skin and mw:Manual:Installing MediaWiki. Follow-up questions should go to mw:Project:Support desk. Snævar (talk) 20:23, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Charmquark we are currently transitioning to CSS variables for Vector 2022 and Minerva (and aim to be done with that by the end of March). You may find it worthwhile for waiting for that to happen - as implementing a theme will then simply be a case of re-defining the CSS variables.

If you use developer tools and inspect the HTML/CSS of Minerva you will already see some of these colors. The same variables will soon be used in Vector 2022. Jdlrobson (talk) 21:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Keyboard shortcut for my sandbox subpage

I would like to create a keyboard shortcut for my sandbox subpage with Alt + Shift + A. The letter A is one of a few letters of the keyboard shortcuts available for using the Alt+Shift + letter combination listed in WP:K). Any help would be much appreciated. Qwerty284651 (talk) 00:51, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Add to your common.js:

$(function () {
	$('#pt-sandbox > a').attr('accesskey', 'a');
});

Nardog (talk) 04:15, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Qwerty284651 (talk) 20:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Α3IA

The correct title of this article is α3IA, and it is forced to upper case for technical reasons. Can someone tell me whether the first character is a capital Alpha or a capital A? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:17, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon I pasted the title (copied from the url) into https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit.html, it said the first character is "U+0391 : GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA", while the last character is "Latin capital letter A". – 143.208.236.146 (talk) 10:36, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

The title can also be pasted to the magic word {{lc:Α3IA}} (lc means lowercase) which produces α3ia. Somebody has added {{lowercase title}} which also works for Greek letters so the article displays α3IA now. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

A reverse twl2c

Need a param for {{twl2c}} that reverses the display for W/L followed by % without having to create a sister template with a swapped code? Qwerty284651 (talk) 20:55, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl:, sorry for the edit conflict. Got the message and piped the tenplate instead. Qwerty284651 (talk) 21:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-07

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

Recent changes

• The WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. [1][2][3] Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service. [4][5]

Problems

• There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar). [6][7]
• As work continues on the grid engine deprecation,[8] tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped. [9]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Module edit needed, again

Category:Equestrian at the Summer Olympics was recently renamed to Category:Equestrian events at the Summer Olympics, but five subcategories for individual Olympic Games were left behind in the old category because they were artificially transcluding it via a template instead of directly declaring it in text form. The implicated template is {{Sportname at the YYYY Summer Olympics category}}, but once again that template isn't actually generating the category itself, and instead it's just a pass-through from another module or template I can't identify.

For the moment, I've recreated the old category name as a redirect to the new one so that it isn't sitting red — but could somebody who knows a lot more about where the category generation is coming from update that to "equestrian events"? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I've listed the categories for speedy renaming, which will fix this when it's processed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:29, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Bearcat, the problematic wikicode is

{{#ifexist:Category:Olympic {{lcfirst:{{{fooing}}}}} tournaments|[[:Category:Olympic {{lcfirst:{{{fooing}}}}} tournaments|{{{year}}}]]|[[:Category:{{ucfirst:{{{fooing}}}}} at the Summer Olympics|{{{year}}}]]}}

in Template:Sportname at the YYYY Summer Olympics category/core.
This resolves to [[Category:Equestrian at the Summer Olympics|1900]]
The solution is probably to wrap a further ifexist in there.

How I found it:
It's obviously caused by {{Sportname at the YYYY Summer Olympics category}} on the page, which itself just calls the /core template Using Special:ExpandTemplates with "Category:Equestrian at the 1900 Summer Olympics" as the title and {{Sportname at the YYYY Summer Olympics category}} as the wikitext, and "Remove comments" off, a Ctrl+F for the category gives

[[:Category:Equestrian at the Summer Olympics|1900]]
[[:Category:1900 Summer Olympics events|Equestrian]] <!--

 # Next bit is a kludge to cope with any sport in which any of the title words is capitalised in running text

which matches up in the source template with the wikicode above. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:33, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Correcting or changing a repeated word

How can I change a specific word, for example a name that appears many times in the same article? Is there a Gadget to help? Or do I have to do it manually? Anyway please kindly let me know as soon as possible so I can move forward with my project. Arbabi second (talk) 08:25, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Probably the easiest way is to use VisualEditor's search and replace feature. Nardog (talk) 08:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

The desktop source editor also has search and replace. Click "Advanced" in the toolbar and then the magnifying glass icon at the far right. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

But that doesn't allow you to replace only the occurrences visible in the output. Nardog (talk) 07:11, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

On the basis of the more the merrier, most browsers have plugins that will enable such a function (if not natively available). Neils51 (talk) 23:27, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I have to imagine Arbabi second is looking for a feature that allows them to replace a word for everyone reading the article, not just for themself. Nardog (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely, I have a Firefox plugin that does that (well, once you have clicked on 'Publish Changes'). It's great to have options. Neils51 (talk) 07:52, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Huh? What is the plugin? You mean there's a plugin that allows you to replace occurrences of a string only in the parts of wikitext that get rendered as entered in the parsed output? Nardog (talk) 08:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I use it for global replace in the page or section being edited. Rare to have to do this though. I use substitution lists for say 'accessdate', etc. https://github.com/Woundorf/foxreplace. Neils51 (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

REST API returning HTML that doesn't exist in standard page

I'm unable to upload screenshots of the HTML, so I'll do my best to explain. In the table for https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/html/List_of_Chainsaw_Man_chapters, the second row is an empty table row element; . But on the normal page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chainsaw_Man_chapters, this empty table row element does not exist. I looked at the source code for the table template, but I don't have much experience there, so I didn't see anything obvious that would explain it. Why does the REST API have this empty table row element? Tyephlosion (talk) 13:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

The output of the REST API is generated by a new wikitext parser called Parsoid, which will eventually also be used for normal page views. You can see the Parsoid output in the context of a normal page view like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Chainsaw_Man_chapters&useparsoid=1 (there's also a preference to enable it: Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-developertools).

So the question now is, why is Parsoid output different from the old wikitext parser? I'm not sure, but we can make some guesses. You can paste the {{Graphic novel …}} templates into Special:ExpandTemplates to reveal the wikitext that is fed to both of the parsers, and there's a fragment that looks like this:

…
!width=24%|English release date
|-


<tr style="text-align: center;"><th scope="row" id="vol1" style="text-align: center; font-weight: normal; background-color: transparent;">1</th>…

I would guess that the |- markup preceding the <tr> generates the extra empty table row. I have no idea why that doesn't happen in the old parser. The |- doesn't seem necessary anyhow, and if you track down which template it comes from, you could probably remove it. Matma Rex talk 17:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

The template generating the |- is

{{Graphic novel list/header
|Language = Japanese
|SecondLanguage = English
|WithTitle = yes
|Width = 100%
}}

{|class="wikitable" width=100% style=""
|-style="border-bottom: 3px solid #CCF"
!width=4%|<abbr title="Number">No.</abbr>
!width=48%|Title
!width=24%|Original release date
!width=24%|English release date
|-

But I don't see anything to change in the template. Is is the Parser that is adding it and there is nothing to change here? Tyephlosion (talk) 14:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Like I said, just remove the |- [10]. I tried it out, found and fixed another minor issue, and made an edit request for the template: Template talk:Graphic novel list#Edit request: remove extra table row. Matma Rex talk 16:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech tip: how to figure out which script did something

I have way too many scripts in my common.js and I often forget what they all do. TIL a trick to help with that. In Chrome (and I suspect most modern browsers), you can search all of your loaded scripts in a single operation. In my case, I was wondering what had added a blue or green background to various bits of text. In the element browser, I saw that the text in question had style="background-color: lightskyblue" So I searched all my loaded js for "lightskyblue" and out popped the script that added that style. RoySmith (talk) 16:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Random timelines no longer appearing on pages after any edit

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T357268
Resolved

I think there's an issue with EasyTimeline but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

If you try to change anything whatsoever on a timeline (a person's date, color of an instrument, anything at all), such as here or here, it will display as if there's no image. There's no error message or anything.

However, on timelines such as here or here, it's perfectly fine and displays as normal when something is changed. But the latter two were created in the same way as the former two.

I have absolutely no idea why this is affecting some timelines but not others. I cannot find any major differences between the first two and second two examples, and I've even tried copying the attributes (timeline size, colors, etc.) of a working timeline into a broken one, and it still doesn't work. It's random and I don't know the cause of it. Xanarki (talk) 17:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Default url-status fails

Hi, here's a reference that by default shows the archived URL, when it should show the live URL (if I'm correct that it defaults to "live"):

<ref name=Wilner>{{cite news |last1=Weaver |first1=Jay |last2=Wilner |first2=Michael |title=Trump-appointed judge at center of ex-president's FBI fight. Who is Aileen Cannon? |url=https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article265558746.html |access-date=December 11, 2022 |work=[[Miami Herald]] |date=September 12, 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220912222835/https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article265558746.html |archive-date=September 12, 2022}}</ref>

I've solved this by inserting and forcing "url-status=live", though I also note that I've seen editors (and a bot?) removing this parameter as redundant if live.

Am I missing something. Thanks, Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 20:15, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Or maybe I'm just having a "senior moment"? Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 20:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Nope. Default is dead. Module:Citation/CS1 (and the wikitext {{citation/core}} that preceded it) assume that the value in |url= is dead when |archive-url= has a value. To link |title= with |url= when the template has |archive-url= you must set |url-status=live.

When a template has |url= and |archive-url=, |url-status=dead is superfluous; when a template has |url= but does not have |archive-url=, |url-status=<any value> is also superfluous. In both cases, |url-status= should be removed because unnecessary clutter.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 20:39, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thanks a lot. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 21:20, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Basic reproduction number page errors

Can't work out what's gone wrong here: My display, using Safari or Chrome, is unreadable, peppered with errors like Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "http://localhost:6011/en.wikipedia.org/v1/":): {\displaystyle R_0}. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 22:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

That article works for me. Possibly a temporary server glitch. If it's still happening for you, try a null edit or a purge of the page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I saw such an error message a single time after "The underlying matching differential equation is". It was this formula:

$${\frac {dn_{E}(t)}{dt}}=n_{E}(t){\frac {\ln(R_{0})}{\tau }}.$$

It worked after a purge and it works here. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk page font size

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T357724

On mobile edition, the first post in a talk page section (or anywhere else that uses the same tool for topics, including this page) has a larger font size than normal. This does not apply to the title, subsequent posts in the section, or desktop edition. Is this supposed to happen? QuicoleJR (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

It also applies to Meta-Wiki, so it seems to be a MediaWiki thing. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:47, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, upon looking at mainspace, it seems like talk page replies and section titles are some of the only things not affected. Can someone with a bit more technical knowledge please explain why the font size went up? Thanks, QuicoleJR (talk) 19:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

This is probably related to phab:T349303, by Jon (WMF). You should be able to change the font size at Special:MobileOptions. It seems like indentation size has increased drastically on mobile too. Sdrqaz (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Weird, seems like setting it to small and then back to the default it was on fixed the problem. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:18, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, that only fixed it for this specific page, and not any of the others. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The indentation issue is now tracked in a separate ticket

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T357742

. Jdlrobson (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Really hope this isn’t the intended design 70.23.34.176 (talk) 20:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm noticing the font size is drastically differing between articles in the mainspace on mobile. It is quite disorienting. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 21:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Came here to ask about it too. Not happy with the change at all. Would appreciate any help in how to revert it back if possible. Thriley (talk) 21:40, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Quite literally made an account about this. Looks awful and is just way too big of a font. Not everyone that uses wikipedia is my 97 year old grandmother. Also would like a way to revert this. Someguyfromminnesota (talk) 23:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Click the hamburger button at the top, "Settings", and then "Small". Nardog (talk) 23:41, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

There are two issues here. For logged in users as Nardog suggests change your font size to small. It is mislabelled but this is meant to be default.

For anonymous users we have an issue with cache. It should fix itself over the next 24 hours. Jdlrobson (talk) 00:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Jon, is the line spacing supposed to remain close together or as it was before? Victor Grigas (talk) 02:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

According to phab:T356339#9510249, this is an intentional change. — The Earwig (talk) 02:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It shouldn't be. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I’d echo the complaints about the font size/line spacing change, as it’s actually creating an accessibility issue for me- I have vision issues that make it difficult to follow lines of closely-vertically spaced text, and it is genuinely difficult to read the mobile wiki right now. Setting it to “regular” helps but it makes everything look stupidly large (because it is). I’d also advocate for a revert. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 01:13, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks awful. Left alignment instead of justified? Are they insane? --2800:AC:4010:C67:1:0:28ED:3368 (talk) 13:44, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Mobile font line spacing

This update in my opinion is hard to read, it’s harder to tap hyperlinks, I looked at the New York Times app and for every 10 lines on New York Times now Wikipedia has 11. Victor Grigas (talk) 02:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

A comment was posted about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility; I've copied it below. Graham87 (talk) 07:37, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I can't use Vector Wikipedia due to migraines, and redirect to Mobile Wikipedia.

I also switch fonts and increase font sizes due to eye strain. Now Mobile Wikipedia limits many lines to 24 px to 27 px. Which can be awfully cramped. I think Mobile Wikipedia should either revert the change or use a multiple of the users' specified font size. 173.66.17.86 (talk) 02:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

New text size / format issue

Is there a way I can revert back to the old mobile version? I really don’t like the new format. Hurts my eyes. Thriley (talk) 06:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Spent the last hour trying to track this. It’s also on WikiMedia too. The rendering of inline styles is affected too with content bleeding over each other. I can’t believe this was by design, feels more like a gaff/malicious event hopefully to be changed soon. 109.151.12.170 (talk) 07:17, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Mobile line spacing

This new mobile spacing, which I see was an intentional change, is just unreadable for me. Everything is hard to read and cluttered. Is there any way to revert it on my end? And I think it should be reverted altogether; this is awful. Zanahary (talk) 11:13, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I found this custom CSS that works:

.mw-body p,
	.content p { line-height: 26.4px !important;}

` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zanahary (talk • contribs) 11:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

If you already increase font sizes, that may still be too cramped. 173.66.17.86 (talk) 17:17, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Category tree bullet color change

If you visit a category page that has subcategories to at least two levels (e.g. Category:Wikipedia help forums), each subcat name is preceded by a right-pointing triangle. If this triangle is clicked, the next level of subcats are listed and the triangle changes to point downwards. This triangle, being a clickable hotspot, counts as a link, and in the past it was clearly indicated as a link by being shown in the blue link color. As of today, it's now the black text color. This seems to be the following rule:

.CategoryTreeBullet a,
.CategoryTreeBullet a:link,
.CategoryTreeBullet a:active,
.CategoryTreeBullet a:visited {
  text-decoration: none;
  color: inherit;
  speak: none;
}

Specifically, it's the color: inherit; declaration, since if this is suppressed, the triangles take on the blue color that they previously had. I think that the change to inheriting the black text color is detrimental, as itt goes against MOS:COLOR, second bullet Links should clearly be identifiable as a link to our readers. Is there a phab task related to this? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be an unintentional effect of change https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/CategoryTree/+/992275 by @Nardog. This CSS for .CategoryTreeBullet a has already existed in the extension, but it didn't apply to anything (as far as I can tell – don't know how that happened). The recent change replaced some <span> tags with <a>, accidentally causing it to take effect. Matma Rex talk 22:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the report and apologies for the oversight. Patch submitted. Nardog (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Re-using source on VisualEditor does not work

Hiya, while trying to re-use a source using VisualEditor via adding a citation on User:Tails Wx/1965 Colorado floods, it apparently would not let me click on the source that I intend to re-use. As I'm editing on desktop, it does show a list of sources that I could re-use, but I can't seem to click on a source that I'd like to re-use. Automatically and manually adding a source does work, however. Thanks! ~ Tails Wx (🐾, me!) 02:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. You're right, and it seems to be because of a change made in T336417. I've made 1003837 to revert that change, so once I get that approved I'll try to get it backported so this will work again. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 03:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm also having this problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It'll be happening to absolutely everyone, unfortunately. (Though fortunately I think it's only citation reuse that's affected. But I didn't go hunting for other side-effects.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

This wound up being put in phabricator as T357745, and the fix was put out to all the wikis about 3 hours ago. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Sortable table is not sorting numbers correctly

For some reason, at List of people with absolute pitch, if you try to sort by year of birth, most of the entries will show up in proper ascending or descending order, but some will be strangely at the end. E.g. click to sort that column for either "sort initial" or "sort descending" and Brian Wilson (1942), Stevie Wonder (1950), and Yo-Yo Ma (1955) are always at the end. ...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Fixed Indagate (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Wow, someone was accidentally throwing in an empty table caption in the middle. Thanks, I. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:54, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:54, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Xtools

Many wikis allow users to opt-in to showing some of the more private information on XTools. En-WP, on the other hand, seems to have done a project-wide opt-in by default. How do I opt out of that? 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 14:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

You can't, as per local consensus. I found Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 111#Edit Counter Optin but I seem to recall at least one other local RfC. At any rate, it's been quite a while since this was last discussed. If anyone feels compelled, they should feel free to start a new RfC. — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

{{Deceased Wikipedian}} and {{nobots}}

Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines § On the talk page says that the template {{Deceased Wikipedian}} includes {{Nobots}}; however, this isn't mentioned in the template documentation. I therefore just wanted to check whether or not this is correct (and therefore, whether talk pages that contain {{Deceased Wikipedian}} should also contain {{nobots}}). (Pinging Pigsonthewing, who WikiBlame tells me added this in 2015.)

All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Template talk:Deceased Wikipedian#Nobots. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, and apologies that I didn't think to check that talk page :) Based on the final comment in the linked section, I'll remove the part of the guidelines that says the former template includes the latter. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Sandbox page in categories

A user sandbox page, User:Blenge Hackett/sandbox/L-Z, is sitting in Category:Proposed constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by virtue of the transclusion of dozens of "next election" results templates from pages in articlespace. User sandbox pages can't be in articlespace categories as if they were already finished articles, so it has to be removed from the category, but I'm struggling to figure out how to do that — trying to manually wrap each individual template in the {{suppress categories}} wrapper one-by-one would be a long and tedious task, trying to do it in AWB didn't work because I couldn't make AWB replace }} with }}}} at the end of each line (it's presumably programmed to consider that a likely error and thus refuse to do it), and trying to embed the whole mass of templates in a single invocation of suppress categories just breaks the whole page with a "Post-expand include size is too large" error.

So is there another way that I'm missing and/or a bot that can be programmed to whip it out, or am I just going to have to sit here for an hour manually wrapping each individual template on the page myself? Bearcat (talk) 18:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, I figured out how to get it done in AWB, I needed to turn off "Apply general fixes" so that it wasn't simultaneously fixing }}}} back down to }} at the same time as I was trying to expand it the other way. Bearcat (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Disregard my nevermind, that also broke all the templates, so I do still need help getting the page out of the category some other way. (Though I am thanking my lucky stars I tried that before wasting an hour doing it all manually...) Bearcat (talk) 19:04, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I think Pppery fixed it for you with this edit. I was working on copying the whole page into Special:ExpandTemplates, which would have revealed which page was causing the problem. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your AWB attempt didn't work because it produced {{suppress categories|#section-h:Lagan Valley (UK Parliament constituency)|Elections in the 2020s}}}}, whereas the syntax you wanted was {{suppress categories|{{#section-h:Lagan Valley (UK Parliament constituency)|Elections in the 2020s}}}}, but that probably also would have PEIS-ed out. This is moot now, since I've fixed the categorization via an edit to Weald of Kent (UK Parliament constituency) and filed phab:T357813 for the underlying issue I was working around. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

If only __NOCATEGORY__ was ever created.... (Set the WABAC machine to 2008 Mr. Peabody). — xaosflux ^Talk 19:06, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

or deploy mw:Extension:NoCat. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Couldn't you just place no wiki tags around the entire contents of the page? You could then remove them and edit the page, only using preview instead of actually publishing your edits. When you have it looking the way you want, you would simply readd the no wiki tags before saving. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Template:Colored box 2

Hi,

Could anyone assist me in completing the page for this template?

Regards Riad Salih (talk) 21:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like you copied this template from French Wikipedia. If you want it to work here, I recommend changing the parameter names to English and then documenting them in the /doc subpage. Before doing that, though, why is a new template needed here? Is there an existing template that can do what you need? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I've translated the parameter names roughly into English. Cremastra (JWB) (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Free Image Search Tool broken?

As seen on {{Photo requested}}, the Toolforge Free Image Search Tool has been broken for quite some time. Every time I go to https://fist.toolforge.org/fist/fist.php I get a 500 or 404 error. Is there a replacement or workaround for this? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)