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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If something looks wrong, purge the server's cache, then bypass your browser's cache.
This tends to solve most issues, including improper display of images, user-preferences not loading, and old versions of pages being shown.

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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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Reply working erratically

Sometimes clicking on it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Doug Weller talk 19:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it consistent how it fails? That is, does it always fail on certain comments or certain pages, or does it randomly go either way? DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistently. Sohom (talk) 21:12, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Always works for me. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:24, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I've never seen it happen either. Makes me suspect it's a userscript or non-default gadget that's (unpredictably) adjusting the markup in the page that DiscussionTools uses to hook things up. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 01:22, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have zero scripts loaded at the moment and I still see it happening on a regular basis. Sohom (talk) 01:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so I did some debugging and there are scenarios where mw.dt.init function just doesn't get called with #mw-content-text Sohom (talk) 02:07, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting -- mw.dt.init is on a wikipage.content hook. Could you check whether that hook has fired at all when this happens to you? (And, I suppose, whether mw.dt.init actually exists? I'd think the DT modules failing to load is more likely than wikipage.content not firing, given how many things expect it to work.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just encountered this on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Romanian Commodities Exchange and opened up Edge's console to check the log. Any use...?

Romanian_Commodities_Exchange:655 [Intervention] Images loaded lazily and replaced with placeholders. Load events are deferred. See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2048113
startup.js:1319  This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui".
Please use Codex instead.
eval @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery.textSelection&skin=vector-2022&version=1s8ie:1
startup.js:1319  This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "mediawiki.ui.button".
[1.41] Please use Codex. See migration guidelines: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Codex/Migrating_from_MediaWiki_UI
modules=jquery.textSelection&skin=vector-2022&version=1s8ie:1
startup.js:1319  This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "moment".
[1.44] Use mediawiki.DateFormatter or native Intl function instead. See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T146798
eval @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery.textSelection&skin=vector-2022&version=1s8ie:1
startup.js:1319  This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "mediawiki.ui".
[1.41] Please use Codex. See migration guidelines: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Codex/Migrating_from_MediaWiki_UI
eval @ load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.formWizard-core&skin=vector-2022&version=16e6i:1
eval @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery.textSelection&skin=vector-2022&version=1s8ie:1
index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:67 Reflinks: Loading messages from API
index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:185 Promoting reFill 2
index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:67 Reflinks: Loading messages from API
jquery.js:10016   GET https://refill.toolforge.org//api.php?action=i18n&callback=jQuery37109915773898646144_1753709518788&_=1753709518789 net::ERR_ABORTED 500 (Internal Server Error)
getJSON @ jquery.js:9658
ReflinksGadget.loadMessages @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:121
ReflinksGadget.init @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:181
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:202
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:201
jquery.js:10016   GET https://refill.toolforge.org//api.php?action=i18n&callback=jQuery37109915773898646144_1753709518790&_=1753709518791 net::ERR_ABORTED 500 
ReflinksGadget.loadMessages @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:121
ReflinksGadget.msg @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:97
ReflinksGadget.init @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:187
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:202
(anonymous) @ index.php?title=User:Zhaofeng_Li/Reflinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:201

qcne (talk) 13:39, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably unrelated, sorry. That said, check out further down this topic where we've figured out at least one thing that could be causing this. If you have the XTools gadget enabled, this should have been fixed for you already. If you don't, a more generic fix is going to make its way out soon. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This happens to me too. I have found it correlates with the "New section" button also not working. CMD (talk) 13:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense -- it's the same initializer that sets them both up, and they use most of the same code. When you see this happen, do you find any errors in your browser's console?

(It would be much simpler if I could ever experience this myself. It happening to me once would be all I need to get a huge amount of debugging done. 😛) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I have the "new section" problem also. Doug Weller talk 07:08, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have been having this issue as well for past 3 weeks-ish and it is to the point I cannot participate in discussions without logging out then back in to make a comment. I am also experiencing this with adding new topics. My browser is Firefox. S0091 (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I use Chrome. Doug Weller talk 20:15, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow! It is letting me comment. Usually it only gives me one, especially on the same page. I thought it was something with me and I have tried removing scripts, fussing with browser settings, etc. so it is a relief others are experiencing the same but whatever this issue is, it desperately needs to be fixed. Pinging @DLynch (WMF). S0091 (talk) 20:22, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, trying different browsers out hasn't helped me reproduce the issue. E.g. In Firefox right now I just reloaded this page ~20 times and didn't once experience broken reply buttons. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DLynch (WMF) you have to try to use the reply tool on multiple pages. So right now I can reply but I just experienced issues replying at WP:AFCHD so logged out and back in. S0091 (talk) 19:36, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so at the time I posted the note above, I could reply at WP:AFCHD but I just refreshed the page and now I can't but it is letting me reply here. S0091 (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just refreshed this page and it is letting me reply both here and at AFCHD but normally refreshing does not work. I have to log out/in. S0091 (talk) 19:44, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just refreshed AFCHD again. It will not let me reply nor at User talk:TVresource. S0091 (talk) 19:45, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Refreshed AFCHD again, it lets me reply. I also refreshed User talk:TVresource but it does not let me reply. 19:48, 27 July 2025 (UTC) S0091 (talk) 19:48, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just now, I started a new topic at WT:AFC about the reply tool and someone responded but I cannot respond. S0091 (talk) 21:01, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@S0091: Are you unable to use the traditional method (click the "edit" link, position the cursor, type something followed by four tildes, click "Publish changes")? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:19, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 I can reply using the traditional method so all the above it regarding the Reply tool (i.e. clicking Reply). S0091 (talk) S0091 (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having this issue as well, where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When I'm having the error, clicking reply does nothing. Clicking "Add topic" on a talk page loads the page with "&section=new&veaction=editsource" appended to the url but doesn't do anything else. The subscribe button also doesn't do anything when this is happening. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:44, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've had an issue over the last few weeks where sometimes clicking on reply just scrolls the page to the top. I did find if I open dev tools (F12), which has caching disabled, it then works. On FireFox, maybe 10-15% of the time. I've been meaning to look into it but it's always happened when I'm too busy to dig as I did think it was probably a user-script. If enough people report similar maybe a review of scripts will find the culprit. KylieTastic (talk) 21:44, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am also having this issue, for the last three weeks or so. It seems fairly random when it occurs. Often restarting the browser doesn't fix it, and I just have to wait and keep refreshing it. qcne (talk) 08:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I use Microsoft Edge. qcne (talk) 08:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Same problem here, been going on for a couple of months now.

I queried this at mw:Talk:Talk_pages_project#Problems_in_Vivaldi_browser, but it was suggested this might be because of my browser (Vivaldi) not being supported. Looks like there might be more to it, then.

As already noted above, whatever the problem is, it also affects other 'Talk pages project' functionality, esp. 'add topic', occasionally also 'subscribe'. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:27, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone, please check if you have the XTools gadget enabled in your preferences. This issue is (somewhat) reproducible when all gadgets are off, and only XTools is running. Reported as T400613. Ponor (talk) 13:38, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I sometimes have problems with replying and I have XTools enabled. —Kusma (talk) 13:48, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I had it enabled but now disabled it to see if that makes a difference. S0091 (talk) 15:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nicely spotted, and looking at the code, that seems like a plausible problem: the gadget was updated recently [1] to add a call to mw.hook('wikipage.content').fire(…), and DiscussionTools uses that hook too. Maybe things break if they run in exactly the right (or the wrong) order. (cc @MusikAnimal) Matma Rex talk 17:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Quiddity has found that MusikAnimal already made the same change to the mediawiki.org version of the gadget (see MediaWiki talk:Gadget-XTools-ArticleInfo.js#c-Quiddity (WMF)-20250728172800-Reply error), so I applied it here as well: [2]. That should solve the problem. Matma Rex talk 19:42, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As well as the gadget fix that Matma Rex mentioned, we've got another more general fix to DiscussionTools itself going out that should stop this specific issue of mw.dt.init not getting called from being able to happen. It's a bit of a hack for now, but there's discussion in T360592 about working out a non-hacky way to cope with this and make a system that early gadget initialization can't derail. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:31, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for figuring this out! @Ponor, @DLynch (WMF), @MusikAnimal, @Matma Rex. S0091 (talk) 18:11, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many thanks from me, too. I don't think I've had a single instance of this in the last day or two. (Hope I haven't just jinxed it!) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:14, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do I now see all redirects are green?

Can someone explain what technical changes have been made so that redirects are now green, and why has this been done? I don't see how it's advantageous to have this setting, because for me it would seem to imply that there is something improper about having redirects and that they ought to be made into direct links, which after all defeats the original objective of putting redirects in place. Ohc ^{revolution of our times} 14:48, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Have you installed something like User:Anomie/linkclassifier? CMD (talk) 14:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, looks like you're importing Schwede66's common.js into your vector.js, and that page in turn includes Anomie's linkclassifier script. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:00, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I use that tool, it's very useful, but in the mode where it's only enabled if I select it from the Tools menu. Wouldn't want it on all the time :) — Amakuru (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

mystery solved, thanks to all for your responses! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ohconfucius (talk • contribs) 13:53, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gadget setting

I am not sure if this is the correct place, but is it possible to change the default color of the gadget "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" to yellow or something? The orange is difficult to distinguish from a red link. Thanks. Metallurgist (talk) 03:33, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Metallurgist: The code is in MediaWiki:Gadget-DisambiguationLinks.css. You can disable the gadget and make your own version with another color in your CSS. Screens and vision vary but the current orange color is very easy to distinguish from a red link like this for me and probably most others. Yellow text is difficult to read on a white background so I oppose changing the default in the gadget. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I just realized this is because I use dark mode. In white background, they are more distinguishable, so this is an issue with dark mode, altho I am sure there must be a more distinct color that would work well on both. I also just color blind tested it with this and it does seem to be an issue with dark mode and they still look distinct enough on light mode. So I guess this is a dark mode issue. Thanks for at least getting me in that direction haha! Metallurgist (talk) 19:53, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a color flip to the gadget. Izno (talk) 22:19, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great thanks! How do I activate that? Metallurgist (talk) 04:41, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing. Izno (talk) 19:04, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is still showing in the orange in dark mode for me. What did you change? Thanks Metallurgist (talk) 19:07, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is still orange. It is now a brighter orange. This is the light mode color which is the old dark mode color, this is a red link, and this is a the new color for redirects in dark mode. I honestly don't agree with your opinion that either orange is difficult to distinguish from a red link in dark mode, but I was willing to entertain improving the color that is present (I increased the luminance of the dark version -- made it brighter by about 15%-absolute) on faith because the prior orange is obviously made for light mode. Your can review the gadget CSS page to see the change made just to prove it was made. If you do not see the latter orange in your browser for whatever reason, you will need to clear your cache.

If you do see the latter orange and simply Don't Like It, you will need gather consensus about what orange should be the best orange and if it should be orange at all. Izno (talk) 19:29, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Particularly, you should consider whether it's appropriate to go all the way to yellow as this may make it particularly difficult to distinguish from the light grey text of dark mode. Izno (talk) 19:34, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, it may have been a cache issue. I looked at it again in comparison now: test test, and it is more distinguishable than before. It just wasnt immediately apparent to me. So again, thanks for that change. I was able to verify that you did something from the diffs, but could not tell what it was exactly. I think this is fine for now and I will see if it causes any issues for me. Yellow was just an out of hand proposal, not necessarily what I wanted.

If I were to propose an alternative color to attain consensus, where would be the appropriate place for that. Metallurgist (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd probably suggest on the gadget's talk page, with advertisement at some set of WT:Gadget, WP:VPT, and MediaWiki talk:Common.css. Izno (talk) 19:46, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You will probably want to run whatever orange through some contrast checker with the color of the text to ensure there's at least a 3.0 WCAG difference. The color of normal text in dark mode is #eaecf0, which is a contrast of 1.80 between the current orange as I modified it and the surrounding text (i.e. not very good). A separate direction for a contrast check that direction would be to use the new APCA, but I can't trivially point to a calculator for that at this time. Izno (talk) 19:49, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Captioning issue

Users have reported an issue with the caption of a picture overlapping with the picture itself when viewing on mobile. See discussion at Talk:September_11_attacks#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_23_July_2025. Anyone know how to fix? meamemg (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist 'Saved filters' drop down box moving right to left then back again.

As the title really, a couple of weeks ago my saved filters box moved from the right side of the page to the left. I wasn't sure what had happened just knew that something had changed. Today the box moved from the left back to its original position on the right, I'm fairly sure that I have made no preference settings changes to cause it. Does anyone know why this is happening? It would be great to find it in the same place every day. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:43, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like that was a layout-bug for a couple of weeks: phab:T398374. It has now been fixed. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this can be archived assuming it doesn't move again! Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 08:59, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Changes not being saved

Are edits to certain articles "throttled"? I made four edits to a BLP article and now I can't make any more. Is there a cooldown to editing or is it a technical issue? TurboSuperA+_(talk) 06:00, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can change the prose, fix refs, etc. but for some reason I can't do the pipe trick on the links in the article (Clara Mateo) for some reason. In an edit where I change both the prose and add the pipe trick, the prose changes are saved but the links are all reverted to their previous form. I can't even change [[France women's national football team|France women's national football team]] to [[France women's national football team|]]. Is this expected behaviour? TurboSuperA+_(talk) 06:11, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But I can change it to [[France women's national football team]]. Looks like the pipe trick doesn't work because Paris FC is an existing article and the system doesn't want to create a pipe link if the resulting link will be a WP:EASTEREGG. I think I figured out what I've been doing wrong. TurboSuperA+_(talk) 06:13, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@TurboSuperA+: It doesn't matter whether the article exists. It sounds like you have just misunderstood what the pipe trick does. [[Foo|]] makes a piped link for any value of Foo, and it saves it as [[Foo|Something]] where "Something" may be a shortened version of "Foo". For example, [[Foo (disambiguation)|]] saves as [[Foo (disambiguation)|Foo]] which renders as Foo. If there is nothing to "pipe away" like a disambiguation in parentheses then it just saves as [[Foo|Foo]]. In your example it already said that so there was no change. If an edit makes no change to the saved text then it becomes a null edit which is not registered in the page history. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:09, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh ok, thanks for the answer.

If an edit makes no change to the saved text then it becomes a null edit which is not registered in the page history.

Even when I changed other things, the piped link didn't change. So I changed prose and the links, the prose changes got saved while the link ones didn't. When I was doing the link changes only, then the edits were being nullified (and that was confusing me), so thank you for clearing it up. TurboSuperA+_(talk) 10:13, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have created phab:T400539: "Pipe trick should remove pipe if there is no change". PrimeHunter (talk) 11:08, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Horizontal scrolling

I would appreciate help with Template:Family tree. I have a problem when I add too many people in the same generation. The names become squeezed into multiple lines, and so the tree as a whole becomes taller. See User:Surtsicna/Genealogy for an example. How can I make the tree scrollable left to right instead? Surtsicna (talk) 15:45, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A "normal" way would be to create two rows of children so that they alternate high and low. See one I did a couple of months age: Donnchad Donn#Family_tree — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 12:47, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's a workaround. It looks dreadful when you try to have more generations. It becomes impossible to tell cousins apart from grandaunts. I am certain that I have seen content encased in these scrollable frames, but I do not know where. Surtsicna (talk) 14:15, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{wide image}} adds a scrollbar below an image, if that image would protrude off the right margin. It uses <div style="overflow:auto;">...</div>. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly what I had in mind, @Redrose64! And it absolutely does not work. Oh well. I will just have to trim the tree. Thank you, all! Surtsicna (talk) 21:43, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

uw-brd template functionality

Can anyone who's versed in template editing take a look at the malfunctioning {{uw-brd}} and this related discussion on its talk page? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 17:28, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be fixed now? FaviFake (talk) 16:10, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors question

AFGE v. Trump appears in the above Category. I think I figured out why...the sfn cites all link to nothing. Because a Template:Sfn whitelist was invoked and that template is basically stepping into the error notification process and stopping the notifications from happening. At least I think that's what it is... - Shearonink (talk) 03:44, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The problem was that the last citation id was missing from the whitelist. The short citations link just fine. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As with many custom templates if {{Bluebook website}} was named "Cite Bluebook Website" it wouldn't have to be whitelisted. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:38, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jonesey95 - Thanks for that fix. It does appear to me that the sfn cites do not link directly to their particular target refs. The target refs don't come up in the same fashion as when a whitelist isn't invoked (or whatever it is that is going on here with the Bluebook/whitelist stuff. I am not a coder, so forgive my ignorance.) When I click on any of the numbered refs, the resulting action only moves down the page to a (generic) all References result. The action does not take me directly to the singular numbered ref. Am I missing something here? - Shearonink (talk) 15:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I click on [1] after "hire candidates", it takes me to the References section and highlights "Schleifer & Ngo 2025." If I click on "Schleifer & Ngo 2025.", it scrolls the page down and highlights "Theodore Schleifer & Madeleine Ngo, Trump Orders Plans for 'Large Scale' Work Force Cuts and Expands Musk's Power, The New York Times (February 11, 2025)." The highlighting, for me, is a very light blue that barely contrasts with the white background. The linking is working correctly for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-31

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

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The Community Tech team will be focusing on wishes related to Watchlists and Recent Changes pages, over the next few months. They are looking for feedback. Please read the latest update, and if you have ideas, please submit a wish on the topic.

Updates for editors

The Wikimedia Commons community has decided to block cross-wiki uploads to Wikimedia Commons, for all users without autoconfirmed rights on that wiki, starting on August 16. This is because of widespread problems related to files that are uploaded by newcomers. Users who are affected by this will get an error message with a link to the less restrictive UploadWizard on Commons. Please help translating the message or give feedback on the message text. Please also update your local help pages to explain this restriction. [3]
On wikis with temporary accounts enabled and Meta-Wiki, administrators may now set up a footer for the Special:Contributions pages of temporary accounts, similar to those which can be shown on IP and user-account pages. They may do it by creating the page named MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-temp. [4]
View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

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Wikimania 2025 will run from August 6–9. The program is available for you to plan which sessions you want to attend. Most sessions will be live-streamed, with exceptions for those that show the "no camera" icon. If you are joining online to watch live-streams and use the interactive features, please register for a free virtual ticket. For example, you may be interested in technical sessions such as:
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MediaWiki message delivery 00:22, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As to the second bullet, I believe our File Upload Wizard already directs used to the Commons UploadWizard for freely-licensed files. Is there anywhere where we're directing editors to do cross-wiki uploads? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:39, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-wiki uploads are uploads made with the insert image dialogue in the source editor or VisualEditor. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:52, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Citing Project Muse books

While you can swiftly cite any other URL from muse.jhu.edu, automatic citation for Project Muse books in particular doesn't work, I already requested this on User:Citation bot over here. In other words how are we able to cite Muse dois but not books? Xpander (talk) 10:46, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Xpander1: I think it's the "MUSE blocks bots" part of the answer there. Whenever Citoid or Web2Cit are too fast to return an error, it's usually because our servers are blocked by the provider. Someone should talk to muse.jhu.edu. Ponor (talk) 11:55, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Search bar not showing file previews

Hello, the title says it all. Normally when I search for a file, I can see a preview of it so I know whether it is or is not what I am looking for, but as of today, I get a blank image for all files when searching. Is this a new bug (or worse, a feature)? Or is this only a problem on my end? I typically use the mobile site in Safari on iOS, if that helps. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to fix it, because most of my contributions to the site are very narrowly focused, and this would otherwise slow it down significantly. Thank you! Hotdog with ketchup (talk) 17:06, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I go to my search box at the top of the page in Vector 2022 right now and type "File:The sh", I get eight suggestions. Five of them have thumbnails and three do not. I suspect that a database needs to be rebuilt somewhere. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:32, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why are the options in the Move dialog not in alphabetical order?

Image. TurboSuperA+_(talk) 05:38, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Namespaces are numbered, that list seems to be in the numerical order. See the sidebar on WP:NS for what number matches which namespace. --rchard2scout (talk) 07:48, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there are namespace selectors on many special pages and I think all of them are in numerical order. MediaWiki has hundreds of interface languages. I like the current system. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:58, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This. Also in some languages the related namespaces (e.g. "Wikipedia" / "Wikipedia Talk") would not be next to each other if sorted alphabetically (e.g. frwiki has "Wikipédia" / "Discussion Wikipédia" not "Wikipédia Discussion") — xaosflux ^Talk 13:04, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rchard2scout, PrimeHunter, and Xaosflux: Thank you for your answers. It makes sense that they'd be in numerical order on account of the various interface languages. That didn't occur to me. TurboSuperA+_(talk) 13:20, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also just now realised that I should have posted this to the Teahouse. TurboSuperA+_(talk) 13:22, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was a fine place to ask! Teahouse is a great resource for general questions - especially about how to contribute content, but for questions of a more technical nature such as this, VPT is a good forum. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the matter of languages, they're in numeric order so that all users experience the same order regardless of interface language setting. Even for wikis that are nominally in English, there is variation, particularly in namespaces 4/5 - here we have Wikipedia:/Wikipedia talk:, but that is a local customisation - in an uncustomised fresh installation of MediaWiki, the default names for namespaces 4/5 are Project:/Project talk:. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Population progress table for Slovak places

I wanna add the population progress table to Slovak places. Example is on simple:Prešov#Population. It is a part of my project "SK". Data are from commons, because the license of source data is CC BY.

None problem to change a frontend or visual. But i prefer primary a table before a graph. Ideal maybe would be for all as a tool with switch way between graph and table in one box (real exist someone?). Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 06:19, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Dušan Kreheľ You can display the data as a table using {{#invoke:Tabular data|wikitable}}. If you want to be able to switch between the table and the chart, you could wrap them in {{switcher}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:43, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ahecht: Thx. Tabula data ± unpractical for me, but switcher is good practical typ (ex. to update the forend with graph, if someone wanna have the graph). Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 13:57, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Broken banner shell

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T400958

Sorry if this is the wrong place. The page St Julians railway bridge has a banner shell on its talk page with the following code:

{{WikiProject banner shell|class=Stub|1= {{WikiProject Bridges and Tunnels|importance=low}} {{WikiProject Trains|importance=low|UK=yes|UK-importance=low}} {{WikiProject Wales|importance=low}} }}

However, none of it registers as the categorisation of the page for some reason. This is not the same on other similar pages, and I cannot fix it. At Special:PageAssessments, its entry registers the projects but not the quality/importance rating. Any solutions?

Thanks for your time, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 21:26, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Due to a system glitch, sometimes dummy edits are necessary on talk pages after a move is made. I just did one in this case - did it resolve the problem for you? Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:30, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@StefenTower: Adding a space shouldn't have been necessary - did a WP:NULLEDIT not work? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:24, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been doing dummy edits because they reliably fix the problem. I vaguely recall trying a plain edit/save on these, but I will try again next time to make sure it does or doesn't work. It would be nice if this glitch was fixed so this wouldn't be required at all. I haven't yet checked Phabricator to see if a bug has been filed. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 17:19, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked Phab to see if a bug is there. I couldn't find it, but then, my Phab search skills aren't very good. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page move was logged a second after the article move but the talk page was probably rendered at a time where it couldn't detect the associated article yet. The WikiProject templates add NA (not applicable/available) categories like Category:NA-Class Bridge and Tunnel pages if the article doesn't exist. JacobTheRox was not specifc but I guess he saw a bunch of NA categories instead of Stub-Class and Low-importance categories. Pages are cached for performance reasons and the talk page had not been edited since the move. A null edit should fix it with no need for a dummy edit. A purge does not fix it. It would change which categories are displayed on the talk page but a purge does not update category pages and link tables. I would call it a limitation and not a bug that moved talk pages may be rendered before they can see the associated non-talk page. Software is full of limitations. Users may call some of them bugs but I expect a Phab report would be declined or ignored. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:30, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I shall try a null edit on the next occasion. Thank you for explaining the nuts/bolts of this matter. I really only care about this limitation as WikiProject WP 1.0 logs show these incomplete moves (temporarily inaccurate project categorizations) and sometimes other reports/processes will have inaccurate data until the moves are made complete. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:42, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have created phab:T400958 about the issue but I'm not optimistic. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:52, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I have added a comment to it. At the very least, we will have documentation of the issue in the right place. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 02:33, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You learn something new every day! Thanks so much, JacobTheRox^{(talk | contributions)} 20:35, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for tablet viewing and elections

Could we implement a system where for elections and other relevant pages, because infoboxes (especially wide ones) can squash the lead, that for tablet viewing an automatic Template:Clear system is implement where the lead starts after/below the infobox on tablet viewing, rather than squashed next to it? For example, when trying to view the 2025 Japanese House of Councillors election on tablet the lead appears very squashed with only a couple of words per line, but looks fine on mobile and PC. Therefore, starting the lead on tablet viewing after the infobox, rather than squashed next to it, would look a lot better. Helper201 (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That page looks fine on my window (Vector 2022, logged out, on a 13-inch laptop). When I make the window even narrower, the sidebars disappear, and it still looks fine. Very narrow screens are what the mobile view is for. Or maybe I misunderstand. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:40, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please tell us what skin you are using. It doesn't help a ton, but it would be marginally useful.

Moving on from that request, presently the template has this block in it:

| bodystyle = {{#if:<!--
 -->{{{map_image|}}}{{{map|}}}{{{map2_image|}}}{{{map2|}}}{{{map3_image|}}}{{{map3|}}}{{{map4_image|}}}{{{map4|}}}<!--
 -->|width:{{#invoke:Math|min
| 1=300
| 2={{#invoke:Math|max
| 1 = {{#if:{{{map_image|}}}{{{map|}}}|{{#invoke:string|replace|{{#invoke:if empty|main|{{{map_size|}}}|300}}|px%s*$||plain=false}}}}
| 2 = {{#if:{{{map2_image|}}}{{{map2|}}}|{{#invoke:string|replace|{{#invoke:if empty|main|{{{map2_size|}}}|300}}|px%s*$||plain=false}}}}
| 3 = {{#if:{{{map3_image|}}}{{{map3|}}}|{{#invoke:string|replace|{{#invoke:if empty|main|{{{map3_size|}}}|300}}|px%s*$||plain=false}}}}
| 4 = {{#if:{{{map4_image|}}}{{{map4|}}}|{{#invoke:string|replace|{{#invoke:if empty|main|{{{map4_size|}}}|300}}|px%s*$||plain=false}}}}
}}}}px}}

This block allows the user to pick arbitrary widths for the infobox. That makes it functionally impossible to do anything to potentially alleviate the problem you're experiencing at the end of the day. You will probably need to get consensus on what to do about that fact. Izno (talk) 23:52, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jonesey95, thanks for the reply and information. I was using a family members iPad when logged out a few days ago. I don't know the model or size, so I'm not sure I could give much more information than that. I think being a tablet it would use mobile or some other type of view than a laptop, wouldn't it? The lead was definetly very squashed. Helper201 (talk) 02:57, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It may have been in Desktop view. You can force Mobile view by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page and clicking "Mobile view". – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can reproduce on mobile view quite easily. The infobox is very wide and because of that, squeezes the text in tablet view, because infobox only clears its surroundings when you get closer to a mobile phone width. The infobox is just too wide. There's not really a way to make this conditional to all content in the world, so if people want to do this, they maybe should add a 'wide-infobox' class or something that clears the lead on tablet and smaller desktop sizes. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:11, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This template already has TemplateStyles, so someone could do Something. That said, on that specific page it's 450+px wide, which is clearly not going to work with just about anything at the end of the day with the number of skins we need to support. (I await the day we support container queries in TemplateStyles.) Izno (talk) 19:27, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the primary problem here is trying to summarize an entire election in an infobox... Some of these contents clearly should be in prose. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:07, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist issue

A WT page I just edited, and have on my watchlist, isn't displayed on my watchlist. It was there until I edited it myself. HandsomeFella (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the "Changes by others" filter checked? If so, that is why you won't see your own edits. Stefen 𝕋ower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:35, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I checked if I had accidentally checked (or unchecked) any boxes, but I hadn't.

Anyway, I made another edit, and now it showed up. Strange.

In between, I also removed 9 items from my watchlist. I still have 1300+ articles there. Is there an upper limit? HandsomeFella (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Software-enforced, no. Performance breaks your watchlist, yes, around 10-20k articles or so depending on how the server feels. Izno (talk) 20:03, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template-generated redlinked category

The latest run of Special:WantedCategories features a strange Category:WIKIPEDIA PAGE WITH OBSCURE SUBDIVISION that I can't figure out how to fix: it isn't directly declared on the page it's appearing on (History of England), but I tried to do a Special:ExpandTemplates on it and failed to find that category name anywhere in the page's expanded text either — and even if this were a desired category (which I suspect it isn't), it's incorrectly named (we would never want a category name to be in ALL-CAPS, for example, and it would need to be pluralized as "pages") and could never be created at that form. So could somebody with more expertise figure out where it's coming from and make it go away? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 23:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking into it, it seems to have been only added in the latest edit, which added {{Infobox UK country}}. Testing the code separately in Template:Infobox UK country/sandbox doesn't seem to reproduce it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:53, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be generated by Module:ISO 3166, which won't add the category unless it's in namespace 0. It's not immediately obvious why Category:Wikipedia page with obscure subdivision gets upcased here; probably one of the templates {{Infobox UK country}} shuffles the article name through in an effort to figure it out on its own. Setting |iso3166code=GB-ENG explicitly fixed it. —Cryptic 00:12, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Either way, given the name issues that Bearcat pointed above, I'm wondering if it would be worth it to move that category to something more consistent with other tracking categories. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:16, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Got it! {{ISO 3166 code|UK|{{PAGENAME}}}} alone doesn't produce the erroneous category, as it works correctly, but {{Infobox country | iso3166code = {{ISO 3166 code|UK|{{PAGENAME}}}}}} produces it.

That is because of {{uc:{{{iso3166code}}}}} (in data127), which uppercases the whole output of the function, including the generated categories. Whoopsie! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:23, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearcat: Special:ExpandTemplates has a "Context title" field. I saw the category when entering "History of England" (or probably any mainspace title). User:PrimeHunter/ExpandTemplates.js automatically fills out the field. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:27, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]