RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive20

Embed tweets etc
Currently we can embed youtube videos. Would it be possible to embed tweets? Avida Dollarsher again 10:42, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It might be a matter of updating the site to a newer version of MediaWiki I`m afraid, but tbh that's only a guess. — Dr. Ox   quack specialist  11:03, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no easy way to embed tweets and we would need some new extension to do that as it's not a Mediawiki core feature. However, we could import wikipedia:Template:Tweet for a similar effect. 11:39, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That'd be ok. Avida Dollarsher again 12:31, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Alright, working on it. 13:02, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * , A problem with embedding tweets is that tweets are not as a rule automatically archived by archive.org. Unless the embedding software also pings archive.org to archive the tweet, it means we could get a lot more dead links without recourse to replacing them to archived links. I view direct links to tweets on mainspace pages to be very poor style because of this. Links to tweets on mainspace pages should always be to an archived version in my view. Bongolian (talk) 17:20, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Theoretically the template (not really an embed as such) could insist on an archive link and display an error message if one wasn't supplied. Thereby encouraging people to archive tweets when using them here. 18:19, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Good idea.  — Jeff G. ツ 16:31, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Server upgrade in progress
I'm doing this: RationalWiki:Server migration 2019. I made a mistake in a configuration file, and for a minute or so, images would have failed to load, giving a 403 error. This is fixed now. -- Tim Starling (talk) 23:17, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

The upload directory was read-only for an unexpectedly long period of time, I think about 30 minutes, due to me not realising that btrfs-receive had created a read-only snapshot. Creating a file in the directory in question using the shell actually worked, so at first I figured it was some other issue. It was only after I enabled the FSFileBackend log channel in MediaWiki and saw the "read-only file system" errors that I finally had a closer look at it. I still have no idea how that test worked while apache was seeing a read-only filesystem.

root@apache4:/mnt/images# echo test > test root@apache4:/mnt/images# ll total 8 drwxrwxr-x 1 root    root      126 Jul 13 10:47 ./ drwxr-xr-x 4 root    root     4096 Jul 13 06:08 ../ drwxr-xr-x 1 www-data root     156 Jun  9  2017 rationalwiki.org/ drwxr-xr-x 1 www-data www-data  56 Jun 30  2017 ru.rationalwiki.org/ drwxr-xr-x 1 www-data www-data  52 Jul 13 06:20 staging.rationalwiki.org/ -rw-rw-r-- 1 root    root        5 Jul 13 10:47 test

Mysterious. Anyway, we're now running from the new apache server. -- Tim Starling (talk) 11:27, 13 July 2019 (UTC)


 * You may be aware of this already, but the search function is not working. Bongolian (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Good stuff. Not sure if you are aware or not either, or if this will only be temporary, but infact both search, and the vandalbin log display on recent changes are giving error messages, see images to the right. 18:57, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * And more specifically about search, if one searches for a valid webpage everything works fine, but 1) autocomplete does not work and 2) searching for a page does not exist returns this error message, "An error has occurred while searching: We could not complete your search due to a temporary problem. Please try again later." Bongolian (talk) 19:02, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, should be fixed now. -- Tim Starling (talk) 23:19, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks good now, thanks! Bongolian (talk) 23:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Math extension
First time on tech support, I didn't see any other sections that are related. Anytime I set in my preferences my display style for LaTeX equations like $$\text{test}$$ to be anything other than "png" rasters, it crahses any page with math symbols on it. Zackarycw (talk) 10:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * In MW 1.31 it should be possible to use the remote Mathoid instance to support other rendering modes. 1.27 was a particularly bad time to be installing the Math extension, it was ostensibly Mathoid+RESTBase only, but there was very little documentation telling you how to install Mathoid and RESTBase, and the documentation that did exist was pretty horrifying. It was possible to configure it to use tevxc, but it was a fairly obscure mode and I'm not surprised it's buggy. For now, I suggest not setting your preferences to something other than PNG. -- Tim Starling (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

File size limit fixed
I went through the tech support archives yesterday, and found this complaint about not being able to upload files larger than 1MB. And today, I noticed this crude little GIF being used in a main page cover story. So I tracked down a larger version, fixed the nginx configuration which limited the request size to 1MB (now it's 60MB) and uploaded the new image. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:27, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's pretty cool. 11:33, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Goatless in AfD
The RationalWiki:Articles for deletion page currently shows 1 in favor of deletion and no other votes for the Planet of the Apes article, but when one goes to the specific AfD for this page (RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Planet of the Apes), it shows 1 in favor and 1 for goat. Bongolian (talk) 03:30, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * If there is a mismatch, purge the page. 11:31, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The job queue was not running. I fixed it, it's catching up now. -- Tim Starling (talk) 13:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

RW10
The other place has a 10-year-membership club - as RW has been around for 12 years could there be something similar? Anna Livia (talk) 16:45, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Please fix links on rationalmedia.org
The link to RationalBlogs on https://rationalweb.org/ needs to be fixed/removed. It redirects to scam sites. Also, foundation@rationalmedia.org doesn't work either. 46.234.80.229 (talk) 19:06, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That made me look up the whois registration details for rationalwiki.org to make sure that's not the email we use and I've come back a little concerned. We have as our official policy that we're a US-based organization and follow US laws, but the registration is in canada.  Trent is still the primary contact, in spite of the de jure management of the site belonging to the RW board.  Probably there's some low-level due diligence missing and I'd like to ask the board to discuss and deal with these issues in their next meeting.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:21, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't really want to be the rationalweb.org editor. I can give ikanreed or any other interested RW editor an account on rationalweb.org. -- Tim Starling (talk) 21:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not a member of the board and hold no special responsibilities here. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 23:38, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd be more than happy to clean up this site, but I'll defer to the board members to see if they approve. Cosmikdebris (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * So would I, for now the three most active board members on here are, , and . Let's see what they think first. — Oxyaena Harass  08:47, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I most definitely approve. Please, do what you can to clean things up. Spud (talk) 10:13, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Good to go? — Oxyaena Harass  10:43, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I sent login details by email. -- Tim Starling (talk) 12:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's fine. What can possibly go wrong? 18:29, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * yeah, basically the first qualification is "you wanna do the work? IT'S YOURS" - David Gerard (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

RationalBlogs
Could we make a section of the foundation website into a RationalBlogs 2.0? — Oxyaena Harass  04:26, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Of course we could, but at this time I'd strongly recommend against it because of many security, content and management concerns. Any kind of project like that requires a charter, plan, and a support strategy and plenty of discussion before we attempt something like this. Cosmikdebris (talk) 15:08, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * My analysis of RationalWiki's history is that a number of people, including Trent and Nx, got very excited by RationalWiki's potential, and put a lot of time into it, including writing MediaWiki extensions and founding a number of side-projects. But despite their efforts, it didn't really take off. They were disappointed, burnt out, and left the project.


 * I'm happy to pop in once every two years to upgrade MediaWiki and the servers, despite having no expectations for RationalWiki to grow. I have a lot of hobbies and tend to visit them in rotation. But I'm not offering to run a complex wordpress with a lot of users. I set up the new rationalweb.org behind WP2Static and HTTP authentication so that I can abandon it for two years without it being hacked.


 * You could make the RationalWiki main page be more like a blog. You could feature recent content, maybe have featured essays. -- Tim Starling (talk) 22:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

OOF
Just testing something out, that's all. :) — Oxyaena Harass  05:47, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

rationalweb.org update
I updated the main page on rationalweb.org just now. The icons and links to the defunct rationalblogs and evoviki projects are gone, I updated the rationalwiki links to use https instead of http, and I updated the facebook link which was broken. I haven't gone through the rest of the site yet but will give that a go as I get a little time to do it. Cheers, Cosmikdebris (talk) 15:08, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * If it helps, there are still two live links to the scam site on the Announcements page. I clicked one yesterday when I was trying to learn more about RMF to decide whether to donate. (The fact that RMF is linking to what appears to be a phishing site was a pretty huge checkmark in the "cons" column.) Although it might seem odd to edit announcements from 2013, I'd say you might want to kill the hyperlinks ASAP. Joiedevivre (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Bongolian (talk) 20:56, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I just thought I'd add that I tried to email someone about this issue using one of the email addresses from the Contacts page. It also appears not to work. Frankly, that entire site has very few pages, most of which are years out of date. I get that possibly no one wants to deal with it, but just leaving it out there unmaintained undermines your credibility. I kept wondering if this organization was actually defunct or had been taken over by scammers who were just keeping the domain, running a phishing site, and accepting donations. You might consider moving the small bit of information from that domain that is relevant to an RMF section on this domain and then just killing that one. Joiedevivre (talk) 21:11, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I updated the announcements page on the web site, removing all the old 2013/2014 announcements, and posts related to completed 2019 Trustees election. I also added a page for the current Board of Trustees members.
 * I have no idea if any of the @rationalmedia.org email addresses on the Contact Us page still work, but I'll investigate that further and make updates as needed.
 * Another opportunity for cleanup is the removal of the old trustees agendas and meetings. I do not want to delete these from the web site until I move them over here. I'll tackle that task shortly. --Cosmikdebris (talk) 21:50, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow thanks. Keep up the good work, I may tinker a bit as well. — Oxyaena Harass  22:08, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . The stuff in Publications | Financial looks to be in the same boat as the agendas and meetings. As a 501(c)(3), I can only assume RMF is fulfilling its reporting obligations to the IRS on financials, but having outdated financial information on the website is another thing that could lead people to think some legal shadiness is going on. (Sorry, as a complete newbie, I really, really hope I'm not coming across as a concern troll. If I didn't really like this site, I wouldn't bother to mention it.) Joiedevivre (talk) 22:15, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Noted, I will clean up the financial data on rationalweb.org as well. It looks like that data is regularly maintained here. --Cosmikdebris (talk) 22:18, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I got rid of the entire "Publications" tree and moved old content like financial reports from 2014 to the main wiki. I also promoted "General" to the top menu. "General" has the bylaws, COI statement, Guide for potential board nominees, RMF's role in RW, and Voter Information pages. The site is now up to date except for the contact page which I will address later. --Cosmikdebris (talk) 00:17, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

MW Prefix
typing "MW:Sitenotice" brings one here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:GoToInterwiki/mw:Sitenotice

could this be switched to operate as "RW:" currently does (eg, typing "RW:RMF" brings one to RationalWiki:RationalMediaFoundation)?

18:40, 22 July 2019 (UTC)


 * There's 80 pages that link to mediawiki.org using the mw: interwiki prefix. I don't think it's worth the effort to change them, just to save a few keystrokes. -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:48, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Trying to update an article
I'm trying to update the article Susan G. Komen to include information on the Planned Parenthood funding controversy, but my edits keep triggering the spam filter, apparently because of the many links included as citations. This is getting very frustrating. Splainer (talk) 09:45, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Recent slow server
LeftyGreenMario commented on this in the Saloon, attributing it to videos. I have also noticed the slowness, particularly with edits. Can the source of this apparent slowness be confirmed? Bongolian (talk) 20:04, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes it's the excessive number of video embeds. 14:12, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't put a single word on a page!
English for DeepL Translator: Incredible as it may seem, I can't put a single word (from Portuguese) on a page: "para" ("to" in English). Such a common word in that language... I had to use the informal language in the sentence where I was going to use that word for the meaning to remain the same. Português por mim mesmo: Por incrível que pareça, não consigo colocar uma única palavra (do português) numa página: "para". Uma palavra tão comum nessa língua... Tive que usar a linguagem informal na frase onde ia usar essa palavra para o sentido continuar o mesmo. JPLSilva (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
 * , you were autopatrolled by since then. This will probably fix the problem that you had. Bongolian (talk) 04:10, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It worked now. Thank you for your attention. - JPLSilva (talk) 21:31, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Making user page
I'm trying to make my own user page, but my edit's been disallowed with the notice that "This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. The abuse rule which your action matched is: wikia raiders filter". Help! AnswerMeNow1 (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * u can now EK (talk) 09:03, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Navigation Popups seems dead in the water
Topic. Hovering over links produces no previews. Can't look into this right this second. 14:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yup! just noticed that myself. I thought it was just me but ... Scream!! (talk) 14:20, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It's been like that for a while iirc. Let me ping everybody's favorite work horse to look into this. — Oxyaena  Harass  15:15, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit caught by spamfilter
I'm new here, and instead of diving head-first into editing articles, I considered it better to propose edits on some talk pages. The message I got was "This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. The abuse rule which your action matched is: Edit caught by spamfilter. If this is not spam, please go to RationalWiki:Technical support. If you believe your edit was constructive, please report this error at our technical support page."

I tried more than once, because the first time I hadn't confirmed my e-mail, and thought of doing so before trying again. The talk page I attempted to add a topic to was Talk:Speciesism. With a quick search on the Technical Support page and archive, I think this calls for a manual solution? Piranhatroll (talk) 05:53, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * So you've got "troll" in your user name and you immediately got caught by a spam filter. Hmmm. Bongolian (talk) 05:58, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * There were incidents a few years ago when certain place names with 'dubious hidden words in them' tripped the organisations therein based's own filters. Anna Livia (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Examples of non-animalia species
The header of the speciecism ends with the following: "For example, valuing the interests of dogs over the interests of pigs, or valuing the interests of chimpanzees over the interests of cows, or of cows over the interest of bedbugs". I believe representing only the animalia kingdom is not a good argument for either side in a speciesism-antispeciesism argument, and propose this change: "For example, valuing the interests of dogs over the interests of pigs, or valuing the interests of chimpanzees over the interests of shiitake, the interest of lady tulips over cows, or of cows over the interest of bedbugs". ~ per abuselog EK (talk) 15:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I've given you autopatrolled status. That should allow you to make the edit. Bongolian (talk) 16:25, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Oops! Solid point. Thanks for the immediate response. Piranhatroll (talk) 17:32, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Creative Commons 3 vs. 4
Is CC 3.0 (RW) compatible with importing text from a CC 4.0 document? It's not a huge amount of text, but it could shape how this import by is addressed: Criteria of Authenticity. Bongolian (talk) 18:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * version 4 cc-by-sa is not backwards compatible with version 3 EK (talk) 02:43, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, EK! Bongolian (talk) 02:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Given the current case: An adaptation of (CC BY 4.0) content—sans SA restriction.

Question: Is it permissible to license said adaptation under (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Per Creative Commons:

Creative Commmons licenses come with shorthand terminology to construct or refer to a license: There is no "Share-alike (SA)" restriction on the original content, therefore it is permissible to license the previously said adaptation under (CC BY-SA 3.0) as used by RationalWiki. --Dbz (talk) 12:07, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * CC - Creative Commons. Denotes that the license is Creative Commons, obviously.
 * BY - Literally "by". They user must attribute the work and say who it was made by. This restriction is present in all Creative Commons licenses except CC0.
 * NC - Non-commercial. Cannot be used for profit, although defining "non-commercial" is complicated, and is currently the focus of the development for the 4.0 license.
 * SA - Share-alike. All derivatives and reuse must be released under a similar CC license.
 * ND - No derivatives. No changes or alterations can be made to the work. E.g., you can't manipulate an image or take only samples of the text. Without this, the Creative Commons deed explicitly says you are allowed to "remix" the work.
 * BY to BY-SA ye, but v4 to v3 i cant be sure on. EK (talk) 05:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * BY, sans-SA, clearly is meant as—with attribution given—"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" —Aleister Crowley. IMO the version is not relevant, else it would be a noted issue on the CC website which only talks about issues where the orginal source is BY-SA. --Dbz (talk) 20:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:Harvp not working
Apparently Template:Harvp requires the footnote library? --Dbz (talk) 21:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * we dont have scribunto so thats a hard no EK (talk) 05:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a list for known errors/bugs
Is there a list for known errors/bugs like the following:

• [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_176#reflist_error:_using_a_named_group_with_multiple_nested_refn_%E2%88%92results_in_error_msg._using_%5Brefs=%5D_or_a_multiple_backlink_error_if_%5Brefs=%5D_is_omitted. Known error for Template:reflist with nested Template:refn]

--Dbz (talk) 19:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Not yet but we could create one. --ClickerClock💾 talk.txt 13:02, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

How to delete a suspicious or malicious Tag?
This Tag was added by a BoN, I believe maliciously. How does one delete it? CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you mean specifically in those edits? 15:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, though the tag itself is weird (means "Christmas Turkey" in Cornish) and I have only seen it used by that one account. CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 15:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It's an edit filter tag. Why it's named "Christmas Turkey" in Cornish, I have no idea. It usually pops up when the filter detects certain words or phrases. 15:56, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah OK, as long as it's legitimate. Case closed. CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 15:57, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The Turki Nadelik thing is something Dysk added. You'd have to ask him what it means. 16:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it seems it flagged the BoN's posts, while I thought they had added it themselves. All good. CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 17:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

tags are only ever added by the edit filter here. edits tagged with turki nadelik have tripped filter 59 which is the smith/mikemikev filter EK (talk) 13:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * And there was me thinking Turk Nadelik meant "Turkish nationalist". Me and nearly everybody else, I suppose. Spud (talk) 09:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That filter was created by both Dysk and myself, we used to collaborate a lot back in the day, I forget the original name of the filter but they renamed it from something. It used to also block edits it tagged but Dysk set it to "tag only" when we kept getting false positives. — Oxyaena Harass  07:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Many thanks! CogitoNotStirred (via telepathy) (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Help with donation button
help from france, the donation button don't work where is the contact clic please
 * RationalWiki:Site support and this link. EK (talk) 12:43, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Server issues
As mentioned here, it looks like the Wiki wasn't working last night. And I was unable to load anything on the Wiki for almost all of this morning/early afternoon. Any idea what's going on? --RWRW (talk) 15:30, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Steven Pinker was getting tired on the hamster wheel running the server; I fed him some more hamster nibbles and sent another crate of hair conditioner over by UPS. Fortunately this is the best of all possible worlds, so it worked out fine - David Gerard (talk) 16:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Expired Cert
My browser's warning me that RW is using a certificate that expired about half an hour ago. 147.147.211.59 (talk) 10:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Same here. 11:05, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * ... and here. Scream!! (talk) 12:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * has clearly forgotten to renew it EK (talk) 12:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Secure connection
RationalWiki's security certificate has either expired or been removed. I feel the Techs should look into this matter. 14:11, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That's 's job. — Oxyaena Harass  15:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * its all due to forgetting lol. When he returns to the mass pings and messages he will fix it. EK (talk) 16:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Thank you. 16:20, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * certbot renewed the cert just fine thank you! ... however, nginx didn't pick up the new version until I restarted it >_< - David Gerard (talk) 16:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * best laid plans rekt by technology as usual. EK (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikia Raiders Filter
While editing a subsection of the Armenian Genocide Denial article for grammatical errors, I was blocked from saving my changes, with the message that my edits had been automatically blocked by the Wikia Raiders Filter. I believe my edits are constructive, and I do not know what caused this issue. --Omicron (talk) 03:08, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * What's the exact edit you're trying to make? 03:09, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I try to make as many grammatical corrections as I can at once, so that I don't fill up the logs with changes of single commas, or similar things; my edit was to an entire subsection, collectively. I successfully edited the subsections "World War I and Aftermath" and "Recognition," but was blocked upon submitting my edits for "Red herrings in CUP genocide denialism."--Omicron (talk) 03:14, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Sometimes the filter false flags. I'll try giving you autopatrolled rights and we'll see if that works. 03:17, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I disabled the filter in question. It was throwing a lot of false positives. Cosmikdebris (talk) 03:21, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * This appears to have fixed the problem; Thank you!--Omicron (talk) 03:25, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
 * this specific filter was devised to prevent the page breaking vandalism used by the people from the new rightpedia, if they come back then turn it back on. EK (talk) 10:25, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Math extension isn't rendering maths
Trying to modify an existing equation or create a new one (e.g. $$y=x$$ just produces the following error:
 * Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex and dvipng (or dvips + gs + convert)): y=x

Making time
Evidently the time for upgrading MediaWiki was not approaching as rapidly as I anticipated. I haven't had much free time, so I was considering just taking annual leave. I spoke to my manager at WMF about this, and he said that upgrading MediaWiki at RationalWiki could be a 10% time project, i.e. he would support me doing it during work time. The project would start in early February after our all staff meeting, and I'd have about one day a week to work on it. -- Tim Starling (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds nice that you'll get paid for it! Bongolian (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * nice to hear EK (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Trying to create custom CSS getting caught by the "Blackhat SEO Spammer" filter
I tried adding custom CSS for myself at User:Sangv/common.css because the default MediaWiki theme and all the extra available themes give me headaches due to being black text on a white background. When I tried to submit the page, it was flagged with "Blackhat SEO Spammer". I guess part of the issue here might be that I literally just signed up and immediately went to go and create that page? Sangv (talk) 05:21, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm so sad no one helped you. All you needed was to keep posting a few times and get autopatrolled.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Drafts in search results
Just got a draft I was working on coming up at the top of a Google search results list. Do we want drafts to appear in Google, based on the fact that they may not be reliable? I know it's possible to exclude pages from search results but is it technically possible to do this automatically for all drafts? I'm not demanding you fix this, I just thought I'd flag it up. --Annanoon (talk) 13:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that that would be a good idea. Bongolian (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Just checked, and my drafts show up in Google too. This should definitely be disabled with the potential liabilities it poses. Debunky (talk) 08:58, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Someone with access to the backend would need to insert no-robots/no-indexing code into draft page code. I think that limits this to small number people who can do this. Am I right ? Bongolian (talk) 17:05, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Only or  can do this, sorry. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena  <font color="Magenta">Harass  19:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

You could simply put the noindex function in the draft template and add that template to every draft. EK (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, EK. Done. Bongolian (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

How will side by side work in mobile format?
Considering RW will eventually shift to a responsive mobile layout, how will side by side templates display? It almost seems like the format needs to change to a red box / green box approach, so that they will display on top of each other in clear form rather than shrinking to SBS on mobile. If they were just stacked without colour boxes it would be hard to see which is a response and which is a claim/original quote. Debunky (talk) 00:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

SEO spammer edit filter
User:Breeze got blocked by the SEO editfilter. Just reporting this here as I saw it on recent changes and they're blocked so of course they can't report it. We really should have something like Wikipedia's w:Template:Unblock. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have removed the block. There actually is an unblock command on RationalWiki (Special:Unblock).
 * Don't take this personally but I know my way around MediaWiki. Follow the link. That template is for placing on your talk page if you're blocked to ping admins for an unblock request. Every stock MediaWiki wiki has Special:Unblock because it's part of core. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * OK. Bongolian (talk) 07:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Redirection404
I'm not sure this is an issue but say somebody types out https://rationalwiki.org/blahblahblah instead of https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/blahblahblah it ends up sending the user to a blank 404 page rather than redirecting to a 404 page within the wiki? Is there anyway it could instead send it to a useful page that encourages them to search within RW? Maybe the home or search page? For example take a look at how Wikipedia handles it: https://en.wikipedia.org/blahblahblahblah they are encouraging the user to search in the wiki instead. --Debunky (talk) 08:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * this should be possible ye, I'll look into it. EK (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Quotebox issue
Maybe somebody could update the Quotebox template? It appears to always extend out under the navigation template on pages. For example take a look at Nick Fuentes and you can see the blue box is actually extended full width under the sidebar, however the text remains placed ok. --Debunky (talk) 16:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The behavior of the quotebox template can be controlled by using the  parameter. In the Nick Fuentes article, I updated the first two quote boxes to specify   so that these boxes do not extend under the navigation boxes. This isn't a perfect solution but it works without jacking around with the template itself. Cosmikdebris (talk) 14:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks cosmikdebris. Of course when things go mobile optimized this may not be ideal. Hopefully we can get some new standardized templates similar to Wikipedia's to ensure consistency. --Debunky (talk) 00:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

"Phantom of Liberty" filter
Several users have been blocked as false positives by this filter, I recommend disabling it until it can be fixed. 15:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I disabled this filter pending a review. Cosmikdebris (talk) 16:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * OK Bongolian (talk) 17:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed a 'not' (!). That should fix it. Have a look and reactivate if you think it's OK. Bongolian (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, I re-enabled it and will keep a watch. Cosmikdebris (talk) 19:58, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * i think it was just a little wide to include all contents rather than just added contents. EK (talk) 21:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

It got fixed.
Who woke up the Elder One ? — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  18:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * duce pinged me. I won't go into details, but someone was showing their deep appreciation for the site - David Gerard (talk) 10:06, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

How do I force the capturebot to screengrab CP?
That would be useful to know. 17:56, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There used to be a functioning capturebot that would do this sort of thing automatically. You're basically on your own, but we have instructions for the manual methods here: Help:Screenshots. Bongolian (talk) 20:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

SEO Spammer False Positive
Hello,

I'm trying to create a page in User:DamnYouDaria/sandbox/Gavin Seim as I want to work on a page about libertarian wing-nut Gavin Seim. I was creating a rough draft and got the error message


 * Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful and you will be blocked from editing you if you click submit.
 * Your action matched the edit filter: Blackhat SEO Spammer
 * Unconstructive edits such as spam are unwelcome, however there are occasional false positives, if this is a false positive, please report it at RationalWiki:Technical support. Do not try to make the edit again even if making minor changes, as you will be blocked and then unable to report the error.
 * If you believe this edit to be constructive, please contact an administrator. If you ignore this notice and get blocked, you should let us know on your talkpage."

However, since it doesn't say what admin I should contact or where I can contact an admin and since I was directed here, I wanted to post here about this error message.

--DamnYouDaria (talk) 04:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , I've autopatrolled you. That should solve the problem. Bongolian (talk) 07:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

So my IP is blocked.
I just tried to edit by IP by accident and found it was blocked. The last time I did an IP edit must have been years ago and with a different provider. I get "Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the DNSBL used by RationalWiki. 08:25, 1 June 2020 and will end at infinite. You may contact DNSBL"

I use a my mobile data plan in Spain So if that IP is blocked I'm sure it won't be the only one. It's in this range. But I guess that's a mistake unless someone can tell me what's up. It's not really a problem for me but it could be for others.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:38, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It's likely because someone using that IP before it was assigned to you had a virus infection, causing it to send spam (assuming your own device doesn't have a virus). 71.208.115.25 (talk) 17:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Can't open Talk:Terrorism
Subject. I get delightful PHP errors and I can't even open its editor to see what could be causing them. 12:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It works for me. Anyone else? Bongolian (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Dunno if it was causing the problem but I've removed some stuff from the first para. Is OK now? Scream!! (talk) 17:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

SEO Spammer false positive #2
I've been trying to create a page on DRM and Silicons valleys war on software ownership with the public denies, it has huge political implications if every device is spying on us (our phones, windows 10, etc). It's technology that is building a turnkey dictatorship before our eyes because we didn't get any property rights to own software. I got an error message below... mon333.


 * Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful and you will be blocked from editing you if you click submit.
 * Your action matched the edit filter: Blackhat SEO Spammer
 * Unconstructive edits such as spam are unwelcome, however there are occasional false positives, if this is a false positive, please report it at RationalWiki:Technical support. Do not try :to make the edit again even if making minor changes, as you will be blocked and then unable to report the error.
 * If you believe this edit to be constructive, please contact an administrator. If you ignore this notice and get blocked, you should let us know on your talkpage."

&mdash; Unsigned, by: Mon333 / talk / contribs


 * try again now. EK (talk) 16:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * You've been autopatrolled and should be able to create the page now. Bongolian (talk) 17:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Automated spam filter blocking page creation
I attempted to make a new page and the edit was blocked by the spam filter. From reading previous threads, I think that autopatrolling me should fix the issue. CausticAnalysis (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Having tried a couple of other edits, that's almost definitely the issue. Would an admin be able to autopatrol me? CausticAnalysis (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I added you to autopatrolled, although it's no solution to dealing with a bloated, incoherent, and likely broken edit filter. Nutty Roux (talk) 18:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Eh, this could be worked on I'm seeing a few avoidable false positives. 22:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

503 and database failure
Is there something going on with the database? I keep getting errors off and on when I try to use the site. 23:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a DDOS happening attacking the USA. Scream!! (talk) 23:49, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm curious, is it targeting us specifically?-Hastur! (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Apparently it's asia (all of it?) attacking the USA: Only report I can find at speed Scream!! (talk) 23:53, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The above report is probably unrelated, but the site was down for an hour just now due to "emergency maintenance" by Linode. db1 failed to come back up after Linode rebooted the host. After an hour, I initiated a reboot via the Linode dashboard, which worked. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * There is an ongoing issue which I'm trying to resolve. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Linode reports that there was a DoS attack against another instance on the same physical host. This is now resolved. I started a backup restoration, and it's only 23% done after almost 2 hours, so I was a long way from bringing the site up that way. I might do a test restore of an SQL dump, that's probably faster than using Linode's backup system.- -- Tim Starling (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * We also suffered a really obnoxious wiki crawler that was hammering the system (looks like an amateur), and a less obnoxious crawler that was still running at a few hits per second (PetalBot, run by Huawei) - both are blocked in Varnish now - David Gerard (talk) 11:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Law Enforcement Requests
I’m not going to get into specifics for obvious reasons, but since this site doesn’t have checkuser, if I suspect a specific user on this wiki is stalking me, would this wiki be able to cooperate with law enforcement in any way to identify the person beyond his anonymous wiki handle? 2607:FB90:930F:3E96:1D45:4829:C33B:EAC0 (talk) 03:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Have you read this? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Legal_FAQ 03:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * this wiki doesn't store identity information so no. Certain individual users probably could help but aren't obliged to do so. EK (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Update Toolbar
Hey, can someone update MediaWiki:Edittools to change the PiBot template to the one used by User:Inferno Bot? Just replace TalkPage/PiBot with User:InfernoBot/config. The result should look a bit like this (copy from inbetween the nowiki tags in source mode if you just want to copypaste, there are hidden newline characters that need to be copied into the Edittools page):

Asking since PiBot is dead. 15:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I could but that wouldn't update all the pages already using the pibot code and would make it inconsistent, the options would be to either usurp the pibot name and replace it with your bot, or to simply continue using it as is but recognising the pibot template, which is what kazitor always did I think. 20:51, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for name change due to off-wiki abuse
Can a user with tech rights please change my username to Johns. My username John66 is repeatedly spammed around multiple forums and websites by Abd Lomax with misinformation spread about my account, this same insane old man and someone associated with him (his friend mikemikev?) has also been spamming me with abusive emails a few times this week. I have not had a name change before, but I would only request it once. Thanks John66 (talk) 10:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You aren't the only one lol, tho I have personally found "Oliver D. Smith" to be more abusive to me personally than the others you mentioned they are all a big problem and you should consider setting up email filters because Mikemikev and Smith particularly are known to send death/rape threats etc for months using throwaway emails, at least that's what they did to me. I have renamed your account as you asked, there are edit filters here which prevent these people directly mentioning their favourite targets (such as you) to some extent, it should be fine. Generally DNFTT applies to the whole circus of them. 11:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the name change. Smith/Mikemikev/Abd Lomax all have legit email addresses on public record and Smith and Mikemikev have denied sending these emails. I have never spoken to Lomax but he seems to write a lot of bad things about RationalWiki users. The behavior is odd. In regard to these emails when you try and reply to some of them they have already been deleted, so these are are throwaway emails as you say that seem to be created and deleted in a single day. I started to think it might be Lomax trying to frame the other two, then I thought no, what if it is somebody else associated with Lomax or somebody who hates all them of them or vise versa? Nathan Larson is a new name I came across, he is associated with Lomax. I don't know if he is behind the rape emails but look that guy up he's been in prison for sending people threats. He may qualify for an article on this website. Do you know the history of the Lomax/Smith/Mikemikev feud? It seems to have been going on for more than 3 years. Why do all these guys hate each other so much and why do other people seem to get innocently sucked into it? Hopefully it will end soon. Johns (talk) 12:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean Oliver basically admitted it was him sending some of the ones I got by sending me weird DMs on twitter from his account afterwards, and Mikemikev is incredibly obvious and used to hangout on my Discord server and Stormfront and say the same things so I know he was personally involved too. Lomax has ironically always been fine to me but others are less than pleased with his verbose writings.
 * The Nathan Larson guy is new but he floated in because he's a pedophile and the other people might be or not but were certainly talking about it and that attracted his attention, Larson then proceeded to get involved on telegram and be a nuisance by posting child pornography and claiming this was somehow ok due to free speech, he has a Wikipedia page but nothing here yet.
 * The dispute itself goes way back to when Oliver and Mikemikev were both admins on Metapedia and had a dispute, which was followed by 7 years of drama across multiple websites, but mostly Kiwifarms (which Oliver temporarily shut down) Wikipedia (where both Oliver and Mikemikev are banned for massive sockpuppetry) RationalWikiWiki (Which Oliver got shut down) and RationalWiki (where both are banned) Abd somehow got involved in the affair when they were on Wikipedia and Oliver got him banned from there, after which he followed Oliver here and was banned too, and then this went off onto reddit and other places before having a stroke recently and becoming largely inactive.
 * RationalWiki is involved mainly because it's Olivers favorite place to write "hit peices" on people he doesn't like, most of whom are far right cranks but you got to watch out because he will target anyone, he's got no filter. Mikemikev is just insane and thinks we are all evil Jews, he has no angle except uncontrolled hatred. Lomax just writes thousands of pages of content about this stuff, literally book length write ups, its not clear why exactly but I think he just likes doing it.
 * If you get emails that in any way describe you as a Jewish cultural Marxist traitor to Western civilisation and the white race, that's probably Mikemikev, if it's more focused then it's probably Oliver, and if it's over 5000 words long then it's probably Abd. But really the distinction is pretty irrelevant at this point since they all probably hate your guts, Oliver has tried to dox you before, Mikemikev thinks you are Jewish, and Abd thinks you are a sock account of an evil mastermind soooo you are screwed with all of them. 13:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the history lesson on these 3 stooges. I will remove my email address and delete it, that's the best way I think, I don't need any off-site communication from now on with anyone. I am tired of these guys drama. I suggested a ban list for this website to name and shame banned users but it was not allowed. Its get boring reading these guys nonsense. Johns (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Template request
Hi, I wanted to check if anyone could copy the template from WP? It requires the from. 00:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Probably not a good idea because of the warning in the Template:Su documentation, "these templates use all kinds of hacky tricks…" Bongolian (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Images not working
does not work in here; it works in my wikipedia sandbox (same code). This applies to multiple images, too. This isn't an exception. Any resolution? 13:49, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * If I'm following, you want to interwiki embed an image from Wikipedia. You can interwiki link the image, but so far as I'm aware you can't interwiki embed and the software will only check Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia, for images if no such file name exists on this site. Nutty Roux (talk) 16:04, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh that makes sense. Thank you. 16:47, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Trump's Page
The image seems to be broken or something? Gunther1987 (talk) 14:23, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Sometimes you need to re-render the page to fix certain images. All I did was click "edit" and submit, not changing anything. 14:30, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You can also add ?action=purge to the end of a page, that makes MediaWiki re-render the page as well. 18:32, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Yankeestan
Worth adding to the edit filter? Or is it better dealing with this particular vandal the old-fashioned way?-Hastur! (talk) 01:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * This BoN seems to be figuring out lame ways to vandalize pages as it goes. I'm not opposed to adding "Yankeestan" to the edit filter, but it's not going to stop then from being a nuisance. With him either having a VPN or using proxies, I think the only way to deal with him is tire him down with protects and blocks. Coigreach (talk) 01:10, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * yeah we outnumber him-Hastur! (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Hammered server?
I've had repeated failure to load error messages & slow server response since last night. Are we getting hammered by a DDOS attack? Bongolian (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I've had this aswell since 2 days (just got an error when clicking the edit button). I first thought it was my internet connection, since I've had bad internet reception since we moved to this area. But then I noticed it only occured over here.
 * So, are the Kiwi's planning something? Gunther1987 (talk) 18:28, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I have also been having issues and will gladly blame New Zealand along with Gunther1987-Hastur! (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Me too, I assumed that it was my connection but ... Scream!! (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Same. 19:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Looking now. Apache server is under minimal load, if I hit edit it's not very fast ... - David Gerard (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * If it helps (probably not, but it can't hurt either), I get the following error:

20:25, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe the connection speeds have improved. I'll let you know if I get problems again. 20:40, 1 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Is this the error others are getting? I added the IP directly to /etc/hosts so it shouldn't have lookup errors now... - David Gerard (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds like the one that I got. Reloading the page right away has cleared the error in my experience. Bongolian (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Forgetting DNS for its own DB server? That's frickin bizarre. Still, nailing it into place works so far ... - David Gerard (talk) 22:13, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

503 and 500 errors
Got these messages
 * Error 503 Backend fetch failed


 * Backend fetch failed
 * Guru Meditation:


 * XID: 483328064

and also
 * 500 Internal Server Error

Wiki was pretty much inacessible for ten to 15 minutes-Hastur! (talk) 13:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I only got the 503 error a few hours ago. Gunther1987 (talk) 15:09, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

That wiki markup has some serious issues, I tried using an online latex editor and I still get errors. 14:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * the math extension has been mostly broken for a long time now. EK (talk) 14:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Any updates on this matter? 19:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Not unless the board sends Tim more cookies. 19:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * cringe. 10:35, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: I tested a little bit with the math function. I discovered that:

$$2B=B$$ $$3B=B$$

yields:

$$2B=B$$ $$3B=B$$

And my suspicion is that the server/database whatever knows how to render previously made latex png's (or saved these and just re-renders them whenever called) while it blocks any effort of making new PNG conversions. Not sure if this helps, but it surely can't be syntax related (if 2B=B works, why shouldn't 3B=B? silly). 14:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Rollback
Could we please have a little warning before we press the rollback button? Thanks. Fowler (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I frankly think this site shouldn’t have rollback in the first place, but it does function as intended: no warning. All I can say is be careful if you’re looking at Recent Changes on your phone. Better yet, don’t look at Recent Changes. Nutty Roux (talk) 18:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks ;-; Fowler (talk) 13:29, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The feature in question was made with the prerequisite that the users have discretion; I assume it was developed to quickly clean up the mess of BoN's/vandals without having to click twice. Usually a wiki should expel users who abuse that function, but eh. 14:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean its not that much to ask just to click rollback and then publish changes. Also, what do you mean by expel? Fowler (talk) 14:08, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * FWIW, WP has clear guidelines on how to use rollback, which would almost certainly lead to the removal of rollback rights for the vast majority of people who use rollback were those guidelines adopted here. I've misused it myself I'm sure. Just pointing out that the lack of guidelines here, as in so many instances, have led to a very permissive culture of abuse in my view. Nutty Roux (talk) 15:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Instead of whining about this issue, why don't you propose some guidelines for use to prevent a so-called "very permissive culture of abuse"? —cosmikdebris talk stalk 15:03, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I always 100% of the time review diffs and revert with an edit summary. I think that's the best way to do it, but it's stupid to expect everyone to do that, nutty.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * 100%? Are you sure? 15:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I admit it, there was one mass page blanking troll I didn't bother to check the actual content of. Heck, that may have happened twice.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I think rollback is useful. If you don't like it, use the 'undo' command instead. Bongolian (talk) 16:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Rollback to me has been useful more or less exactly once, when I had to clean up and restore edits of a LANCBing user who removed all their edits (and even then it's usefulness was a little bit limited since it only worked on pages that someone else had edited in the meantime). I wouldn't neccessarily mind seeing it changed, but from what I know it's a built-in feature that doesn't have much in the way of configuration (but seriously, at least having a prompt to enter a reason would be awesome, right now it produces the exact same response as pressing undo without entering a reason). 17:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Rollback is definitely overused. Good faith edits and even ambiguous edits shouldn't be reverted without a reason being provided.  It's convenient, definitely, but we need to curtail its abuse.  We ought to be welcoming and constructive, not repressive.-Hastur! (talk)  17:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Notification not working...
Pinging someone is supposed to notify them, right? Then why isn't it working for me?! pls fix The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk  stalk 09:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Why are BoN's allowed to create pages?
I am curious-Hastur! (talk) 03:55, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * BoN is not inherently bad. Some people just don't want to create an account. We have one quality Sysop who started as a BoN and decided to then create an account using their relatively permanent BoN as their user name. What's the guy's 'name', damned if I can remember. Bongolian (talk) 04:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Does this really fit in technical, anyway? 04:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * No. It goes either into the Bar on the Community Standards talkpage. 14:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm seems like it's not broken, better get to fixin. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:14, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I brought it here because the people who would be able to disable such a function follow this page. I question the wisdom of allowing unregistered users to create new pages but so be it-Hastur! (talk)  11:47, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There are various restrictions based on namespace, age of account, certain content, etc. Historically, public policy on this wiki has favored as few constraints on editing as possible. These restrictions are why you see very little ad spam or those weird SEO posts. Given how obsessively people refresh Recent Changes here, it seems to me that deleting nonsense that makes its way past the edit filters is trivially easy. But while you see very little spam, you also get no insight into the bigger problem that very few brand new good faith editors bother spending time following up on: the filters are too zealous and make serious editing using an IP or brand new account infuriating when you attempt certain things. Basically, the filters force a decision about balancing openness and protecting the site that only techs have ever been able to participate in. You're asking a good question. Nutty Roux (talk) 14:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Eh. I recall that nobody was really interested in deleting spam pages, BoNs never made legitimate pages, created a situation where I heavily curbed new page creation for anyone who has less than 1 edit logged. Or that was the plan, I was high. It may be broken and I never noticed. 23:53, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

How to a remove in image
Can someone explain how to remove an offensive image that does not have a vaporize option (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Koohanaru.jpg). Someone copied or transcluded it from Creative Commons. Bongolian (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Someone would need to have rights within Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Koohanaru.jpg) to delete it (I tried, but I don't have perms for that). 17:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Add __NSFW__ to the description for local files or local description for MediaWiki Commons files. Nutty Roux (talk) 17:13, 14 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The other way is to create a local image of the same name (e.g. a 1x1 transparent pixel PNG) - so the wiki pulls that instead of the Commons version - David Gerard (talk) 14:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Scream!! (talk) 16:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Image not updating
File:Icon_paganism.svg is not updating. What can I do?
 * Edit: It updated. Please ignore. 17:57, 19 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The general reason this happens, btw, is multiple layers of caching between the database and your browser, and especially in MediaWiki itself - not all of which seem to purge on command - David Gerard (talk) 14:23, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Uh, so, https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Germany-Statefl.svg says "(Invalid SVG file: Expected tag, got in NS )". I have no idea what that means. When you click on the image, it shows it perfectly fine. 19:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * So... SVG is a vector format. It describes a series of lines and polygons to make the drawing.  This is what lets it scale to any size.  It stores this information in a human readable xml format.  You can view the xml by going to the image url and clicking "view source".  is a standard root tag for the svg namespace.  I don't think your error message there is complete.  This is the file producing the error, line 132 specifically.  Note that the error should be "got [tag] in [namespace]" instead of "got [nothing] in [nothing]".
 * My best guess is it's choking on the "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>" at the top of your file which is maybe nonstandard according to mediawiki? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm... Do you know how to fix this? 20:08, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Best guess is to open it in notepad, delete the part I quoted and upload again. No idea what the consequences are.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 01:20, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

History merges disabled
See RationalWiki:Saloon_bar - David Gerard (talk) 23:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You might want to link to the revision of that post being made since once the Saloon bar gets archived, it'll be more difficult to access that section as time goes by. 23:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Firefox/Android phone
Formatting of RW by the latest version of Firefox on my Android phone is buggered up. It doesn't seem to handle multi-column well + other issues. Firefox claimed that they're working on upgrades already because of complaints. WP seems to format OK. Bongolian (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Add Inferno Bot to Echo blacklist
Could someone add User:Inferno Bot to the Echo blacklist on MediaWiki:Echo-blacklist. All that needs to be done is add a single line that's just "Inferno Bot" (no user link needed). It stops people from getting mentioned when a talkpage is archived, which could clog up the notifications list. 15:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. Nerd. Nutty Roux (talk) 19:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Came across it while messing with notifs in MW and testing how the system works. 19:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

WIGOE CSS
The other WIGOs (e.g. WIGOW) have more padding around the fancy title box. Specifically, the CSS rule is "padding: 0.2em 0.6em". Could someone with access to the site CSS make it so WIGOE has the same padding? —  python coder    (talk &#124; contribs) 19:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed. 22:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Site notice requested
Somebody is trying to change the community standards. The community ought to be made aware of it-Hastur! (talk) 21:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There should be a sitenotice, yes. 21:37, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Sidebar
I think we can probably get rid of the Telegram link on the sidebar. To my knowledge it was set up without the approval of the mob, and is now largely inactive. Also someone on Discord was saying they joined it and they saw homophobic videos and coronavirus conspiracy theories there (I joined it and saw the same). --RWRW (talk) 11:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * since I have admin on the telegram I just removed the insane german who posted it. and ye it could use some more mods if anyone is interested. Afaik all the social media was setup independently of the wiki itself but that doesn't mean it isn't useful in increasing ratwikis Internet profile. 11:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Personally I have no real interest in being a member there (Discord is more than enough for me frankly) but yeah, finding other people to keep an eye on it would be another potential solution. --RWRW (talk) 12:04, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed, this works vice-versa of course. Not everybody on Telegram uses Discord, or wishes to use it. 12:51, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The Saloon Bar is apparently indexed
Would anybody mind it if I added __NOINDEX__ ?-Hastur! (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't mind. 20:18, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Could I ask why the Bar being indexed is a problem? 19:59, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with that. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  20:07, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Less fears about BoNs spamming links, no unwanted scrutiny/embarassments-Hastur! (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the Saloon Bar often grows too large and without Index it will be hard to track sections.—Tuxer (talk) 22:04, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Tuxer are you thinking of NOTOC? If so that's a different function. 23:09, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Checkuser/IP checking
As discussed on the moderator noticeboard (RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation), it has been requested that someone with root access remove the capability of techs to have a workaround for checkuser. The elimination of this capability would remove some drama and suspicion, at least going forward. Bongolian (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Dysk has been repeatedly making claims like this across Reddit and other websites:

These are comments he posted on Reddit and there's dozens of similar posts he made. The allegation I use VPNs and have used VPNs from different countries is completely false and he's lying. I've never used a VPN here and I've even edited as my public IP on numerous occasions - so it makes no sense I would try to mask my real IP when I've publicly posted on my IP for years and never tried to conceal it. But Dysk was feeding lies I use VPNs to Emil Kirkegaard who shows up in that thread and that is who he was responding to.

Anyway, my complaint is Dysk has been claiming and even boasting he IP-checks people's data and passes this on to other people including Emil Kirkegaard - shouldn't he be Cooped? In my opinion he has broken multiple rules. Take also into account the fact I exposed all this a year ago which is one of the reasons why Dysk and Ze teamed up to ban me without any vote or correct procedure - since I had raised these concerns about IPs a long time ago. Flight (talk) 20:45, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * . --RWRW (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Common filename page protection
Unless anyone objects, I'll be protecting File:Unnamed.jpg to mod-only later today (thereby preventing anyone from uploading a file under that name). Doing this because "unnamed.jpg" is the filename some browsers use when copying image data to the clipboard and the name itself already gives away that the name isn't indicative of what's in the image. This hopefully will make sure that filenames are at least a bit more descriptive. any objections? (Asking you since you're an active mod and I technically can't protect pages to mod-only). 10:02, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable to me. Bongolian (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)