RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive24

Explanation of Sunday papers
In the article on The Guardian, I'm trying to add some more explanation about the British phenomenon of "Sunday papers". But when I try to save changes, I get this message: "This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. The abuse rule which your action matched is: Link Trolling. If you believe your edit was constructive, please report this error at our technical support page." This is odd, since I'm not adding or changing any links, I'm just adding some text to a note. I would appreciate if someone else makes the change I was trying to make. In the article's initial note, please change this:

Effectively - The Observer began as a separate Sunday newspaper in 1791 and predates the then Manchester Guardian by 30 years. Guardian Media Group acquired The Observer in 1993 as its Sunday organ.

... to this:

By tradition, British "daily newspapers" only run six days a week, Monday to Saturday, while there are weekly "Sunday newspapers". Historically these two types of papers were separate, but many dailies have since bought up or started their own Sunday paper, meaning that effectively they are the same paper with a different name on Sundays. The Observer began as a separate Sunday newspaper in 1791 and predates the then Manchester Guardian by 30 years. Guardian Media Group acquired The Observer in 1993 as its Sunday organ.

Thank you in advance. - 87.58.119.240 (talk) 21:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello, we had a persistent troll who was spamming links to alexa.com on the wiki several months ago. The paragraph you're editing has a link to alexa.com in it, and that triggered an edit filter set up to prevent the earlier abuse. I removed the offending part of the filter and you should be able to make edits to this paragraph now. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 22:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I'll go try it again. - 87.58.119.240 (talk) 23:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Personal draft?
I'd like to take the current version of an article and transfer the content into a personal, private draft, edit it, and then present and open it to the community later. Is there a better way to do this than just creating a public draft and copy-pasting the content into it? Friedman (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid there is not. Feel free to copy the article to your userspace, just don't forget to strip the categories. -- Techpriest (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Friedman (talk) 01:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Invalid or unnacceptable username
Oh dear me, my BT ip address will be displayed because the create account page wouldn't let me create my new account.

It thinks "Roxy the dog" Is an invalid username.

Regards Roxy the dog
 * Also I have a question - do you get many blocked users from the other place? RTD
 * I’ve edited the filter that was blocking you. If you try to create the account now, you shouldn’t have any problems; if you do, you could call your account something like “temporary username” and ask to have it changed at RationalWiki:Requests to change username. Christopher (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I've never changed a username on a wiki before, so didn't think of doing that, I just got all uppity that my username was improper!! -2A00:23C6:7514:AD00:F846:D566:D6CF:70A6 (talk) 12:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Tada. -Roxy the dog (talk) 12:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Tada. -Roxy the dog (talk) 12:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I can't add an image
I was having problems with uploading images, there is an error when I click "Upload" that prevents the image from saving in RW servers. SociableFish (talk) 00:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Filter request


Can a filter be added to perhaps disallow Wikimedia stewards to have their names used on RW? A lot of people are impersonating them. If there is an actual steward trying to get on they can request an account be made for them. The positives, in my view, outweigh the negatives. Andrew5 (talk) 14:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No. This is not a WMF project and their stewards have no special user rights here, so their being impersonated, if it's ever even happened, is of no greater moment than that of anyone else who has no special authority here. Nutty Roux (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Per Nutty. We can deal with impersonation if it happens. We are not a WMF project. Giving special pleading to the WMF is silly. -- Techpriest (talk) 16:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I knew that, my request was because these impersonators are also vandalizing and harassing RW. If someone signed up with User:Tegel and used it constructively, it would be fine. However, they were given multiple chances and still vandalized. Same for Wim b. While not a steward, Prixadacae was impersonated, twice and both accounts vandalized.I think in our newest vandalism spurt, we are having Wikipedia impersonators. Andrew5 (talk) 21:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * They are no different from any other vandal. Why should they be given any special preference? What if I sign up as Boris Johnson would that merit banning all impersonators of Her Majesty's Government? Stupid request! Scream!! (talk) 22:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't RW have a filter that prevents users who are globally banned on WP from editing here? Nutty Roux (talk) 23:08, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Nutty, is this yet another one of your subtle requests to get me banned? Andrew5 (talk) 23:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not very subtle. I think you should be banned. Nutty Roux (talk) 23:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Creating new article
I was trying to create a new article but a banner appeared on the top of the page with this message: "Your action matched the edit filter: Suspicious, massive change to article. If you believe this edit to be constructive, please visit RationalWiki:Technical support."

I tried to trim the text with lesser content but it keeps repeating the same message over and over. GenoV84 (talk) 10:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Nevermind, I resolved the issue. GenoV84 (talk) 10:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Error creating thumbnail:
There's something iffy going on with thumbnails in articles; at first I thought this was limited to just two specific files and, after some experimentation, managed to fix(?) the articles in which they appeared, but the problem is definitely much more widespread. Check any article with more than one image and chances are you'll find at least one error message. (Not all embedded images are broken however.) Many images don't show a thumbnail when you visit them directly either, although the original files are accessible. This started sometime in the last 12 hours. lurkjay (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm having the same issue 3 days later. Daemonspudguy (talk) 13:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I am also having the same issue for more than two days. 14:42, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Y’all really need a better proxy bot
I have noticed that since August, a user that commonly uses ips from tunnel bear and norton to edit all the articles they can find. But you guys didn’t. Meanwhile, wikipedia, and even your better competitor conservapedia blocks all of those ips. It is time to pick up the pace. 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BC (talk) 21:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "your better competitor conservapedia". This garbage is from an article promently linked on their front page. "Better" my Southern ass. 22:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * How is that garbage? That is showing that the media has corroborated with their perspectives multiple times. Not even addressing the main point that they have a better proxy bot. 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BC (talk) 22:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "How is that garbage? That is showing that the media has corroborated with their perspectives multiple times." Lol no. And of course I didn't, you're just here to whine and troll, why on earth would I take you seriously? 22:33, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep on rejecting, you sound sus, I wonder if you use a VPN? 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BC (talk) 22:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh boy! Are you going to make spurious accusations now? Maybe just passive-aggressively insinuate that I'm the person(s) using the VPN like you did just now? Lol. 22:38, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, that's not how an ad hom works. 22:38, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you going to fix the proxy problem or shall I continue it? 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BC (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Lol, how original, using a template from further up the page. As for the "problem" what, exactly, is it? RationalWiki doesn't use Checkuser, nor do we care about sockpuppetry outside of trolling and open ban evading. The solution to the linked edits is simple reverts and short term protections. 22:44, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Finally, you made my day. I fucking quit this shitty site. Off to gather materials for a big project. 2600:387:9:3:0:0:0:BC (talk) 22:45, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, bye random person. Go do whatever. 23:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Commons connection not working properly
The cf template appears to be freaking out. For an example, nl is supposed to place down the image File:Flag of the Netherlands.svg, which is a commons page but isn't connecting properly, causing the image to appear. Pretty much every commons image is affected. I have no clue what to do about this, but this is basically completely breaking large parts of the site. pinging root users who can investigate this better than I can. I'm going to haphazard a guess and blame it on our wiki software being too outdated to work with Commons, which is frankly getting more and more unacceptable. -- Techpriest (talk) 00:35, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not just the cf template. All the images on my articles are also kabutzing. Andrew5 (talk) 15:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It's stupidly embarrassing that even Conservapedia has a more recent version of MediaWiki than us knowing their tech illiteracy. (Correction, we run on MediaWiki 1.27.7 with PHP 7.2 while Conservapedia still runs on MediaWiki 1.24.2 with PHP 5.6) We seriously gotta get MediaWiki updated. 05:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, if Tim Starling can't get it done, he should say so. Otherwise, he should at least give a progress report. Bongolian (talk) 05:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Tim hasn't edited since June 1. I doubt it'll be him.Andrew5 (talk) 22:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Editing here does not correlate with doing tech work. David Gerard may have a better handle on what's going on with Tim's work. Bongolian (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The short answer is: there is nobody whose job this is. Sorry, but I'm not taking it on. I don't have the PHP-fu to try to update our stuff. And I have everything else to do of late. I only accepted root on the servers in 2012 because there was literally nobody else available to do so - David Gerard (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Can we ask around Wiki (for example) for someone able to help? Scream!! (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * That won't work, RW is not a WMF site, unlike something like Hungarian Wikibooks, so won't be able to help. We aren't even on their interwiki map. (This might also be useful.) In conclusion, no, Wikipedia will not be helping us. Andrew5 (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Fuck off, Andrew. I did not ask for WMF help but for someone who might be of help. Kindly refrain from trying to interact with me. Scream!! (talk) 17:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I sent a comment to the MediaWiki support desk. 15:01, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It looks like it's a commonly reported issue that relates to php 7.3 requiring explicit permission for curl to handle http1.0 requests. All the more proof that we need to upgrade php and MediaWiki. 17:33, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * This particular issue looks like it comes from a fairly recent WMF change, or rather live test of a new system, which gives problems even for fairly fresh MediaWiki and PHP versions, going by the discussions in what you linked to. I think it's likely they will make further changes, possibly reverting the new behavior, fairly soon, so as to avoid wrecking backward compatibility. In the meantime, it looks like only small changes is needed to fix it. Changing a few lines on our end so that curl uses HTTP 1.1 would solve the problem, if curl using HTTP 1.0 is what triggers it for us. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 23:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

It appears to be fixed now. Bongolian (talk) 06:01, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

503 errors
I'm getting frequent 503 errors (Service Unavailable). Bongolian (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The complete error text: "Error 503 Backend fetch failed Backend fetch failed Guru Meditation: XID: 2099542 Varnish cache server" Bongolian (talk) 19:06, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I've gotten those two. It especially happens on mobile when I use data. Andrew5 (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * RW is also very slow. It took nearly two minutes for that edit to upload. When I submitted this edit it was 19:30 UTC. Andrew5 (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Huh, that worked as normal. Andrew5 (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's looks better now. Bongolian (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Now I'm having problems loading diffs. Edit submitted at 19:55. Andrew5 (talk) 19:55, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's bad again. Maybe it's a DDOS attempt. Bongolian (talk) 21:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * 503 is continuing to happen today. Bongolian (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I've not had any errors but ordinary enough things have been unresponsive on occasion. Always seemed to be transient, though. Queexchthonic murmurings 01:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I am getting these errors for the entire past week now and holy fucking shit RationalWiki is more unresponsive than ever. If this goes on I might just quit editing RationalWiki; it's exceptionally annoying. 04:43, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

NewsGuard flagging RationalWiki as an unreliable source of information
Hey you guys might want to do something about the annoying thing popping up on my school's computer from NewsGuard saying this site is an unreliable source of information... 2001:67C:2628:647:12:0:0:1A7 (talk) 02:47, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Why? We're not a news organisation. We don't have fact-checkers. We do our best to be accurate but we primarily aggregate through our SPoV filter. I'd be more concerned if it didn't flag us, to be honest. Queexchthonic murmurings 03:21, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * NewsGuard has no review for RationalWiki that I can see on the Edge desktop extension. RW is probably too small. Wikipedia is flagged with a grey "platform" icon, with the description as "a platform that publishes content from its users that it may not vet. Information from this source may not be reliable." This is IMHO quite accurate for Wikipedia (Wikipedia themselves note that ) and also applies to here as well. It is a far cry from the red-icon message you will get at clear fake news sites (Infowars: "This website severely violates basic journalistic standards") but it's a good reminder that primary sources of information will generally not be Wikis. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 02:01, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Bongolian (talk) 06:35, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikis are primarily similar to news aggregate websites like Yahoo News or MSN, in that they primarily function as jumping off point for further study/investigation. 14:45, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Our Russian site
It looks like no one is policing our Russian site, which potentially opens the site up to spam, propaganda and other badness. Is it possible to lock the site up until someone will take responsibility for it? Bongolian (talk) 23:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Someone should give that man something huge. CanineSoil (talk) 23:50, 8 March 2022 (UTC) nvm, found out its machine translate
 * Before I contact relevant parties, I take it that the BoN isn't adding anything actually useful? -- Techpriest (talk) 14:35, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The rapid addition of long and new articles on March 1 of articles that have English-language RW counterparts was indicative of using autotranslate. Spud and I had previously discussed the use of autotranslate for articles (RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive335) and it being a bad idea due to 1) inaccuracy of machine translation 2) anyone can use Google translate and 3) possible copyright violation. Unpatrolled changes go back at least as far as February 8. Bongolian (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Understood, contacting relevant aprties ASAP. -- Techpriest (talk) 20:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * on it - David Gerard (talk) 22:26, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * ok, this is hard, because all wikis in our wiki farm must have the same user rights. I tried some funky trickery with detecting DB but haven't managed it. I'll keep trying - David Gerard (talk) 22:32, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * ok, think I've got it ... if there's anyone on ru, please test that logged in users can edit? - David Gerard (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Two people on the Russian site have now noticed this (one a BoN, and one a Sysop). I have informed them on the Sysop's talk page about why this happened. Bongolian (talk) 06:54, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Block bug
When I try to disable anon only for a IP that is already blocked, instead of showing an "changed block settings", it instead implements a new block. TranslationForAll (talk) 14:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Why did you disable anon only?
 * I tried to reenable it to see if this bug was a recurring issue, and ran into a bigger one; I couldn’t change the block settings at all (error 1062, duplicate entry). I then tried unblocking, but they were apparently still blocked. Unblocking a second time and then reblocking seemed to work fine.
 * https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3A37.120.236.211
 * Christopher (talk) 14:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Why have I been blocked from creating the article "2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine"
Haven't done anything wrong, tho. HotNogs (talk) 07:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Because it is an ongoing event where an article on it will generate significant interest from all manner of trolls and massive amounts of fake news while it remains ongoing. We don't require live blogging the war, and it will be a live blog ultimately, and with all the surrounding misinformation to filter out, it's better wait till the dust has settled, interest has calmed down, and people are more able to take a objective approachAMassiveGay (talk) 08:24, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It’s not because of that, although I agree the article is a bad idea.
 * Our spam filter is ridiculously bloated, with lots of random words blocked for reasons no one can remember. You’ve got a good chance of setting it off whenever you make a large change to an article. Christopher (talk) 10:46, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with above; an article should only be created when the war has ended. It also might be worth making an article on the Russo-Ukranian War as a whole, and only split off the invasion if it bloats the main article. Andrew5 (talk) 11:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The Ukraine war is on this Wiki in two places (1 2) right now. The opinions objecting to creating a centralized article are IMHO full of shit, and come from accounts whose mainspace contributions range from marginal to dogshit. There is no reason not to merge the two current articles into one, "trolls" seem like a dogshit reason (trolls tend to target other places), and "liveblog" seems like a dogshit reason (it's a possibility but presumptuous gatekeeping tut-tutting also is tiresome, if you can't help prevent an article from turning into a live blog, shut the fuck up). The Ukraine invasion is a lot more mission oriented than a lot of topics. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 13:52, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * i think you forgot any of your reasoning and only managed some assertions and twattery AMassiveGay (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * i had thought this had been discussed previously, but i guess i was wrong there, or no action came of it. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * We held off on the Tigray conflict on Ethiopia, noted on Ethiopia's talk page, citing that making an article for a big ongoing event in the past, Brexit, was a bad idea and we had to rework that. We should let the dust settle imo. Also mainspace contributions? 15:26, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * My sincere apologies . It's blocked because it contains the words "anti-armor and (blocked edits are logged on Special:AbuseFilter for anyone with perms), which matches a filter for a misspelling of the word moron, for reasons I'm assuming to do with a particularly illiterate spammer. -- Techpriest (talk) 21:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Testing the SPAM filter which seems unusually aggressive... &mdash; Unsigned, by: 136.226.50.197 / talk

There was a spammer a year or two ago that kept spamming the wiki with:

Are you going to stop concern trolling now, or do I have to enact a block? 15:18, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Nah, I was being blocked on a reply to a bad tankie take in the Salon bar, then on some comments on the revert war. No need to say anything now though. 72.184.174.199 (talk) 16:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Various problems with system delays
For the past few days, email notifications on watched pages have only been arriving once per day (late at night in the US). Previously, they arrived roughly in sync with the actual changes. Bongolian (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * There also seems to be a >12 hour delay for category additions being added on the category page. It might be related to this if it has something to do with execution of lower-priority tasks in a queue. As an example, the addition of " " on the Theocracy page has not yet shown up on the  page and the search for "Category:Theocracy" does not autocomplete in the search box. Bongolian (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * These seem to be unrelated because the category update has now taken > 48 hours, but the email notifications do arrive once a day generally. A third problem with system updates relates to the search box, which also does not update regularly. E.g., Draft:Modal Logics was moved to Modal Logics on April 12, but "Modal Logics" still does not populate in the search box as of April 16. Bongolian (talk) 03:01, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

File upload problem
I attempted to upload a small (0.5 Mb) png file and got this error message:

"[68ecb8a2f8f5ced0c0139a55] /wiki/Special:Upload UploadStashFileException from line 266 of /srv/rw_common/core/includes/upload/UploadStash.php: Error storing file in '/tmp/phpYuR0Dz': Could not store file '/tmp/phpYuR0Dz' at 'mwstore://local-backend/local-temp/6/64/20220328025345!phpYuR0Dz.png'.  Backtrace:  Bongolian (talk) 02:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) 0 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(945): UploadStash->stashFile(string, string)
 * 2) 1 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(958): UploadBase->stashFile
 * 3) 2 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/upload/UploadBase.php(967): UploadBase->stashFileGetKey
 * 4) 3 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(370): UploadBase->stashSession
 * 5) 4 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(494): SpecialUpload->showUploadWarning(array)
 * 6) 5 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specials/SpecialUpload.php(206): SpecialUpload->processUpload
 * 7) 6 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(522): SpecialUpload->execute(NULL)
 * 8) 7 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(577): SpecialPage->run(NULL)
 * 9) 8 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(282): SpecialPageFactory::executePath(Title, RequestContext)
 * 10) 9 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(735): MediaWiki->performRequest
 * 11) 10 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(509): MediaWiki->main
 * 12) 11 /srv/rw_common/core/index.php(43): MediaWiki->run
 * 13) 12 /srv/rw_common/config/wrapper.php(17): require(string)<BR>
 * 14) 13 {main}"
 * Yes I had this issue too trying to reupload an updated File:63 years of climate change by NASA.gif a while back and tried to notify but got no responses? 05:08, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * To my understanding, this problem occurs due to (again) our woefully outdated mediawiki installation. Basically, if you want it fixed, ask Tim Starling on how the site update process is coming along (or ask, I think he was working on something as well?). -- Techpriest (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * My progress for a mock wiki update has pretty much been hit with a roadblock. I have school work that I've been behind and I feel they are more important to resolve than a wiki. 22:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
 * We have an untenable situation here where board members do not report meeting minutes and Starling apparently does not report progress or request funds to complete the upgrade. Bongolian (talk) 06:43, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll talk to the other members. GeeJayK (talk) 21:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Trent here, I realize aspects of the project have languished for a while. There is some movement in the right direction, I am trying to coordinate getting pieces back together so we can establish proper fundraising channels and tech support again. I have just been letting the RW server bills hit my credit card since like September so we don't currently have the funds, as an organization, to pay for our infrastructure let alone pay for tech support. I don't know the degree of involvement Tim still even wants to have. The plan is to clean up the corporate structure, reboot it so it functions properly, do a proper fundraising campaign, and see what we can do about getting tech support for the wiki implemented. There is a bit of "momentum to do nothing" we are fighting against as we try and get things going again. I fully accept responsibility for the state of things, life just has a way of getting complicated. I am also very open to ideas and suggestions on how to get things humming again for everyone. I am not checking the wiki frequently enough but I can tell you I am on the RW discord sever now and available to chat there or DM there most the day. Also you can reach me at my gmail e-mail address username ttoulouse. I appreciate everyone's continued involvement with RW and truly believe it is an excellent resource and community its just a lot harder to manage now then when it was a computer sitting in my one bedroom let in Ontario when I was a grad student. 98.249.109.48 (talk) 21:25, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the update, Trent. I am glad to hear that there is movement towards getting things fixed. Bongolian (talk) 17:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Glitch on Bitchute
There is something weird on page BitChute in which Wikipedia diffs are being reflected there. Looks like someone tried to import these diffs but ending up glitching the contributing system for unknown IPs and impersonating accounts. 54.81.244.65 (talk) 23:44, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi! I was told that you might do me a favor... :-)
Hi Bongolian! I hope you're having a great day! I just registered my account here, and I noticed that the username "Oshwah" (Oshwah) was taken already, and that it was indefinitely blocked for doxxing and sock puppetry. This abuse was likely because someone beat me to registering here, and wanted to troll with my username.

Allow me to shake your hand and introduce myself: I'm Oshwah, and it's a pleasure to meet you! I'm actually known on the English Wikipedia as the user with that same username! To prove that I am not blowing smoke out my you-know-what, allow me to present this as verification. ;-)

I was advised to talk to you directly regarding my request. Would it be possible for me to usurp the Oshwah username here? Could I request that "Oshwah" be kindly yanked from that sock puppet troll account, and for my account to be renamed to "Oshwah"? I'd be extremely grateful if there was a way that this could happen. I understand that this wiki may have radically different policies than Wikipedia... I'm obviously very new here. However, I thought I'd just ask. Could this be done? :-) Oshwah (talk) 13:09, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Vouching for Oshwah here. I've been a long-time editor over at enwiki and has been friends with him since. His rep over at the other wiki should be more than enough proof that he's the real McCoy. ;) Blakegripling ph (talk) 13:25, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * done. 15:42, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I got the message on my talk page and I see that Rockford took care of it. Bongolian (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Rockford the Roe - Thank you. I appreciate it very much! :-)  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   16:27, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Bad Image List (like on Wikipedia)
Just this page on Wikipedia, but for RationalWiki. Like, any files in our would-be-version of the list cannot be added to pages by non-sysops (as in prevented entirely instead of warn). This should reduce the work of redirecting Commons files manually to this blank image. 07:58, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Uh maybe not. The links on that list go to live images of what is forbidden. I don't think we have a way to prevent specific edits like that. It would be better to create pages on RW with redirects to "File:Blocked commons image.jpg", if anyone wants to spend the time doing that. Bongolian (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe botting would do. I gotta learn Phyton first, though. 03:02, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Caught by spamfilter?
I can't seem to post in the bar. Why am I caught by the spamfilter? I've only created these topics and one that I can't find anymore (about if Putin was becoming as bad as Hitler, because of the Busha attack). Is it because of these posts here? Like I was just laughing with the stupidity from that site and joking towards this Comrade CG editor? If I offended him or something, then I'm sorry. Not my intention, I was just joking about the Easter thing. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 09:07, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The spamfilter is now bitching at me again too. I guess Jerry Falwell's ghost doesn't approve of my edits. 2A00:23C7:99A4:5000:7444:411F:96F:3B26 (talk) 02:38, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Can't edit the "To Do List"
I'm getting this warning. I was trying to move all the 150+ voted suggestions (7 in total) from the 2021 section to the "Most Wanted Articles" one. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 11:29, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * It's probably due to your not having any rights when you tried to make that change. I'll give you autopatrolled rights, which may fix that issue. Bongolian (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

2019 software upgrade (sticky)
Idea:
 * Modernize Rationalwiki with things invented since 2017 (MediaWiki 1.27).

Method:
 * Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.31. (not the latest version, but it is the latest LTS version).
 * Upgrade various existing extensions.
 * Install various extensions and skins bundled with the newer Mediawiki. (including the Timeless Skin, and exensions; CategoryTree, CodeEditor, MultimediaViewer, Replace Text, and OATHAuth.)
 * n.b. OATHAuth gives users the option of using two-factor authentication.

Other things to do at the same time:
 * Install Scribunto
 * Install MobileFrontend (and the Minerva Neue skin)
 * Install TemplateStyles
 * Install Thanks
 * Install WikiSEO

And
 * Setup a template to enable WikiSEO descriptors and an edit filter to avoid direct use.
 * Check that everything we already have won't break.

Rationale:
 * Wikis, specifically Wikipedia, have several new features that weren't around when the site was last upgraded. The notable upgrades include Scribunto, a Lua template engine which is supposedly faster and easier to use (it allows for some advanced templates to be copied from the wikipedians who know how it works anyway). MobileFrontend and it's skin, which switches the sites reading view on mobile devices to a "mobile compatible" mode (users can switch back), it does make pages significantly easier to read on mobile devices. TemplateStyles allows per-page or per-template css styles, it uses a sanitized set of css rules to avoid security issues, this can be used to enable @media queries for templates to display differently on different devices. 'Thanks' is the extension which gives you the option to ping people for an edit, it is kinda optional but practically all other wikis have it. And finally, WikiSeo allows for a template which invisibly controls how a page displays when shared on social media, you can specify a description and image which, using semantic meta markup will be used by facebook/google/etc instead of a pretty random looking link.

Comments, feedback, ideas and support/oppose of the proposed thingys welcome. 15:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Nerd's comments
I'm all for modernizing our infrastructure, as long as what we already have do not break. I really like the "Thanks" template. I first saw it on Wikipedia a couple years ago (when someone thanked me) and have used it occasionally ever since. The "Timeless Skin" looks like something the gods would approve. The Multimedia Viewer is something I almost always forget we don't have because it is so intuitive.

Sorry if this is implied, but most of it is too technical for me. Will this upgrade include the visual edit gadget? I have been using it on Wikipedia for a quite some time now, and I love it! Finding the appropriate templates, citing sources, editing equations, changing photographs or illustrations. Amazing!

While we are at it, does this proposed upgrade include the template that automatically converts units for you? It looks like this on Wikipedia. If you typed 1 mi, the output would be 1 mile (1.6 km). I find this template very convenient. Nerd (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The list I presented doesn't include Visual Editor. Although to be clear the main reason I left the Visual Editor thing out, is because it requires a very complicated additional setup so may be better suited as another task. However, the convert template would be made possible with Scribunto which I have listed up there, so that is included. 22:26, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I see. The visual editor can be a little resource-intensive. Thanks! When will this upgrade be implemented? Nerd (talk) 03:01, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I hope sometime this year, if everyone agrees and it gets organised properly. 14:22, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's only February, but there is no harm in getting started early. How to get organize ourselves for it? Nerd (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * We need to finalize a set of things we want, get general agreement for it, and ideally test it all works on a test wiki, before then asking for it to be deployed, bearing in mind that Tmtoulouse/David Gerard are the operations people. The main thing is not to break the wiki, and the other thing is not to add things that will be there by default that everyone hates. 16:37, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

How about setting up a sub-page, "2019 upgrade" for bullet point items, etc. for the implementation. – Dbz (talk) 00:30, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I hate the "visual edit gadget". —  Palaeonictis  Fossil beds  10:20, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Last time I check Trent Toulouse was a university professor. (David Gerard appears to be a programmer and book author.) This means we can potentially get this done before summer is out. Nerd (talk) 22:47, 26 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Why hasn't this been done yet? What exactly is the problem? Damn. 22:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * A combination of laziness and procrastination. Somebody needs to figure out if certain existing extensions would work nicely with the proposed new software. 23:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The visual editor is amazing for doing proper citations, which is a big problem on RW from what I can see (too many bare URLS). However I understand it is a large task. Debunky (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The time approaches
I did the last MW upgrade, and I expect I'll do the next one too, some time in the near future. MW 1.27 is EOL so it needs to be done so that we can continue to receive security upgrades. I'd be comfortable installing the WMF-deployed extensions Dysklyver proposed above, specifically CategoryTree, CodeEditor, MultimediaViewer, OATHAuth, Scribunto, MobileFrontend, TemplateStyles, Thanks and the skin Timeless. I think VisualEditor is a reasonable stretch goal, if you want that.

Instead of WikiSEO, which is unmaintained and not in Gerrit, I would suggest OpenGraphMeta, which is in Gerrit and is written by a well-known author, or PageImages, which is simple but WMF-deployed.

The servers also need to be upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04. I'm thinking about the order of operations. Traditionally you do the OS upgrade first, so that you're more likely to have the dependencies needed by the new MW version. Linode's volume feature is now out of beta and available in Newark, which opens up some new possibilities for the kind and number of instances.

If anyone wants to help, the number one thing that needs to be done is to test the RationalWiki-specific extensions against MW 1.31 and to update them as needed. They are all in RationalWiki's GitHub, but nobody has ever submitted a pull request against them despite their comically bad state. Note that I moved Wigo3 to Gerrit, so the GitHub version is outdated and non-canonical. Wigo3 is the best of RationalWiki's extensions. -- Tim Starling (talk) 11:22, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * This is great. I won't specifically comment on the OS and how the load balancing works since I don't deal with that here, but as far as the extensions are concerned;
 * The rationale for WikiSEO was to generate descriptions for Google Search, and to get our articles to display previews on social media and chat applications, as a Wikipedia article would do if linked. Now it seems to me that OpenGraphMeta will generate previews for Facebook and presumably most social media sites, however it occurs to me that we could benefit from also installing Description2 from the same author to get the Google Search descriptions which are currently rather lacklustre.
 * I am not personally bothered about VisualEditor either way, since from a technical viewpoint it needs that additional Parsoid service I think it would be an optional thing to do if you think that isn't too hard to setup and maintain. I don't know how the mob would consider it, I believe it is still generally a good extension but older editors hate using it, heh. :)
 * Otherwise, all good. :) 12:49, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Just think about how you want to spend my time, in priority order, and I'll think about how far down the list I want to go. What do you want more: VisualEditor or, say, analytics? Apparently Robert Lazar is the most popular article on this wiki. Is that something you want to know? Does that make you want to improve it? -- Tim Starling (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Most important things on this list would be MobileFrontend and it's associated skin. And in my personal opinion analytics is better than the Visual Editor. The rest is good to have but also easy-ish to install so not a huge concern I suppose. 20:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Hell no to Visual Editor. — Oxyaena   Harass  22:46, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm with Oxyaena on that.  — Jeff G. ツ 12:19, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the main thing we can be said to need is something that works on mobile without looking like a web page for ants. I realise this is not a tiny thing of course - David Gerard (talk) 14:37, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm going to second Dysklyver and David Gerard on prioritizing MobileFrontend. The main reason I created an account here (which I just now finally got around to doing) is to request a proper mobile view. I'm not picky. I just want *something*! (I don't particularly care either way about any of the other MediaWiki extensions under discussion.) ThisIsMyRealName (talk) 11:59, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Visual Editor
Please enable Visual Editor. It is such a better experience than source code editing, especially for adding references. Hmmph (talk) 19:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I disagree. People who edit using visual editor when knowing wikitext are monsters, but it does help bringing new good faith edits from new users. In my opinion, it is certainly something that should come. 03:37, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Then I am a monster. Hmmph (talk) 17:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Visual Editor comes with 1.35, whenever we get around to that - a proper PHP version it seems, functional, well-integrated and with seven years' development - David Gerard (talk) 20:23, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The PHP version is a reimplementation of "Parsoid" in PHP. Parsoid is a wikitext parsing service that VisualEditor highly relies on. I wouldn't necessarily say it says much about the stability of VE. 20:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

In general I would advocate hewing to Wikipedia's general look and feel as much as possible in terms of standard MediaWiki extensions. Most of the more controversial ones can be disabled in one's user preferences, and maintaining some degree of consistency makes it easier for Wikipedia editors to get up and running on RationalWiki. — ThisIsMyRealName (talk) 22:31, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Running a Beta Subdomain?
The MediaWiki update thread has been largely dormant in terms of actually progressing with the updates. It seems like the sticking point is that the various custom extensions in use have to be tested against the new version to make sure that the new version doesn't break any of them. However, it seems like it wouldn't be possible to test the extensions against the new version of MediaWiki without actually installing it first, which creates a kind of chicken-and-egg problem.

My suggestion, then, is... would it be possible to install a separate MediaWiki instance, located at, for example, beta.rationalwiki.org, that would run off the same backend database? That way, the primary frontend would remain the outdated version of MediaWiki that is known to (more or less) work properly, while intrepid users could choose to run the beta frontend, with a specific eye towards identifying any broken extensions.

You could probably also implement some sort of cookie-based redirect for users to be able to opt in to automatically using the beta frontend whenever they visit the site (e.g. from a DuckDuckGo search result), but I don't know what would be involved in doing that.

You would probably also want to set up some sort of "beta portal" explaining the purpose and scope of the beta frontend and including places where beta users can report bugs.

you seem like the person who would be in a position to do something like this. Is there any specific way I could help move this process along? – ThisIsMyRealName (talk) 22:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * This already exists https://test35.rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page, although evidently it wasn’t well advertised. Christopher (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

late post-hoc archive note; this thread was pinned to push the site update to the forefront more. it is now archived for the upgrade has been done. -- Techpriest (talk) 19:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Email notifications etc.
Email notifications and updates are now taking 3+ days to happen. Bongolian (talk) 06:43, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Email notifications, new page additions to the search engine, and updates to category pages are still not happening, so I would assume whatever process(es) that does them is broken. Bongolian (talk) 03:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * David Gerard seems to have fixed these problems by "running runJobs.php by hand" (User talk:David Gerard. Bongolian (talk) 17:34, 14 May 2022 (UTC)


 * yeah, I have no idea why these weren't running. I'm currently unwell so only paying desultory attention to the tech details, but at least the job queue is clearing.
 * Images remain a bigger problem. We basically filled the disk, and the answer is more disk. But I'm in no condition to think coherently about it at present - 18:53, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, David. Take good care of your health! Bongolian (talk) 19:16, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems that Andrew Wommack and Diamond are the two pages that still are not entirely working. Plutocow (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Glitch attempting to upload a file.
I removed a picture of a Baphomet statuette I had uploaded to replace with the same taken at night. Got this error after that failed and tried to upload the file as a new one:

Could not store file "/tmp/phpcB1uZc" at "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/c/c9/Solve_Coagula.jpg"

Other times I got an error message similar to the one noted above, at the "File upload problem" post. EDIT. Get a similar error attempting to restore the deleted file. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:51, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I've been dealing with similar issues in the past couple of weeks. Plutocow (talk) 07:59, 28 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I've dusted off my old Wikipedia account and uploaded the picture to Commons until it's fixed. Never mind for now. Panzerfaust (talk) 08:56, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I am also getting that problem. The last successful file upload was April 19 according to the upload log. Bongolian (talk) 17:02, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The disk filled. I cleared some space, and you can upload again for the moment, but the fundamental problem is we need more space on the image disk - David Gerard (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The image problem seems to still be there. I got the same type of error message ("Could not store file "/tmp/phpc12cNQ" at "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/b/bd/Cointelpro1.jpg") when trying to upload a 567 Kb file. Bongolian (talk) 19:24, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * yep, the 400 MB I cleared just got used! (Probably auto-created thumbnails.) I'll see if there are any more images that can clearly be deleted, though I don't like my chances - David Gerard (talk) 22:37, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, clearing images doesn't seem to do anything. I hope a solution is found soon. Plutocow (talk) 06:15, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

This should be fixed now. All the problems relating to disk space should be fixed. -- Tim Starling (talk) 04:51, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks good. Bongolian (talk) 07:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! 19:25, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Vandal catcher
Could someone with tech rights patrol the currently unpatrolledable edits in the vandal catcher? I'd do it but The quirks of Mediawiki won't let me. 17:52, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
 * If you can describe how to do it, I can take care of it. I think I read the procedure once but never tried it. Bongolian (talk) 04:57, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Supposedly you can just restore and patrol, but since the pages have been deleted and recreated so many times, that seems to have an issue. 11:36, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, this crop of unpatrolled pages appear to be unlike others insofar as they cannot be restored for patrolling. Bongolian (talk) 15:22, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, hence my tech support request. 15:32, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of RW redirect talkpages
Can someone delete Talk:RW:LOVE, Talk:RW:HELP, and Talk:RW:WIGO? These pages are literally broken, to the point that they can't be linked to properly, but exist in the search bar and. Plutocow (talk) 07:21, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * These are inaccessible like the pages mentioned above that show up in the vandal catcher . It might be a related problem to other system failures that have not been fixed . Bongolian (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * These may be possible to fix with the namespaceDupes.php maintenance script. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Request
Can we get a bot run to clear the categories from Category:Authoritarian moonbattery, Category:Libertarian moonbattery, Category:Liberal moonbattery, Category:Authoritarian wingnuttery, Category:Conservative wingnuttery,Category:Libertarian wingnuttery and Category:Nationalist wingnuttery? Consensus to delete was reached over a month ago but were not deleted because there are too many to remove by hand and we need a bot run for it to be closed. Andrew5 (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Andrew5 (talk) 01:03, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm removing the articles now. -- Techpriest (talk) 19:51, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Latex busted
I was looking at the page for Gaussian distribution and noticed that there is an error in a place where Latex had been used to display a formula. I know that this formula displayed properly in the past. If I check the revision history, it is broken on the past revisions as well, so it wasn't an edit to the article itself that broke it. Vomitorium (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's been broken for a while. About a year ago, I tried editing the article on 0.999... to convert some of the text to LaTeX, but it didn't work, so I gave up. I even tested in my sandbox and it didn't work. A fix would be appreciated. LongStylus (talk) 17:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I swear it worked on the Gaussian distribution page only a month ago. Vomitorium (talk) 17:54, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I noticed a year ago that old LaTeX code would still work, but newer ones wouldn't, such as the ones I wanted to make to 0.999... I should've brought this up to tech support at the time, but I was lazy. Sorry about that! LongStylus (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It’s probably because the image disk is full, see RationalWiki_talk:Technical_support. Christopher (talk) 19:44, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I see that LaTeX is working again on some pages, such as Probability, but it still does not seem to work on Gaussian distribution. Where the formula should appear, it just says '"`UNIQ--postMath-00000001-QINU`"' However, if I edit the section where the formula is supposed to be displayed and press the show preview button, it will display properly in the preview. Vomitorium (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

How do you rename users?
Isn't there an additional tool one needs to do that (tech toolset perhaps?)? How do I get that? The reason I ask is I see some stupid usernames that need renamed. 71.208.x.x (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes it's a tech and mod tool. If you link me the usernames I can hide them if you want. 02:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd rather not feed the troll, but there's a few of them if you look at https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Log/block. It doesn't offend me, but it's my understanding that we usually rename that kind of stupidity. 71.208.x.x (talk) 02:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Some users do, I don't think to highly of the practice myself, since trolls can just reuse names. It's much simpler to hide them on an as needed basis. Or just ignore them, I do both as needed. 02:33, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Entries on the RationalWiki:To do list should be sortable by number of votes.
Am I the only one who thinks this? I'm no MediaWiki guru however, so I'm not sure of how to impelement this. --Spafky (talk) 10:14, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Could you give me a line of code that would do this easily? 19:32, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is easily accomplished since the voting information is transcluded from each reference to the vote template. I.e., voting information is not actually located on the To do list page. See for example this test of tabularizing the votes; the sort button at the top of the table does not function as one might expect.


 * Bongolian (talk) 19:50, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Equal spacing between WIGO buttons
I made a French version of the WIGO navigation template. The problem I have is that the spacing between the « Élections » and « Le Bar » button is slightly shorter than the spacing between the other buttons. This happens because of the larger spacing necessary for the « discussion » text between those other buttons, which is not necessary between « discussion » and « hic ». LongStylus (talk) 02:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Bronze brainstar
The Bronze brainstar image has been failing these past couple of days. The template has been unchanged as has the image itself (File:Copperbrain.png). The latter file page loads the image just fine. Bongolian (talk) 18:09, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Seems like another consequence of the image disk being full. Techpriest mentioned getting Inferno Bot to delete some images and free up space. Christopher (talk) 19:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I deleted all the zero-size thumbnails, which fixed that thumbnail and lots of other ones. There's not much you could have done to free up space, aside from emailing me. The root cause was a failure of the backup system, combined with an Instant Commons bug which causes images to be constantly re-downloaded and written to disk. Local originals are only 418MB -- the other 69.5 GB was mostly commons cache files. -- Tim Starling (talk) 09:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Adding an s
I wanted to say that Studenten in German means male students, not male student, but the filter blocked my edition. Locdo (talk) 12:43, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * LongStylus made the change that you wanted on the gender-inclusive language page. Bongolian (talk) 17:59, 7 June 2022 (UTC)