RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive18

Special:ProtectedPages is broken (sticky)
When I try and use this page this message (or something similar) comes up:

Internal error

[34f7892f1a5a4dcc619cf39f] 2017-07-21 15:28:42: Fatal exception of type "MWException"

Christopher (talk) 15:29, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 18:07, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Still not working! Christopher (talk) 13:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Just a guess, but Google turns up this page, which claims to "implement[ ]Special:Protectedpages". I figure it's worth a shot but don't know how to implement it. Thoughts? 02:52, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Pssst! (also incase ping failed) 16:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've decided I'm not doing any sysadmin on RW that isn't the site literally being broken, for my own peace of mind and continued digestion. I did literally quit, you know. Trent took on the job last time I actually quit, perhaps ask - David Gerard (talk) 12:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Note to self: https://github.com/tuirgin/tributaries-wiki/tree/master/includes/specials https://github.com/tuirgin/tributaries-wiki/tree/master/includes/specialpage 12:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you forgot. ClickerClock (talk) 13:27, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Frankly I'm not sure how to implement special pages like this. Do you have any reference material to point to?  20:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:41, 16 November 2017 (UTC) —ClickerClock (talk) 05:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Page Steve Bannon edits blocked as vandalism
My edits to page Steve Bannon has been blocked due to a pattern of vandalism on that particular page by other users. My edits are as follows:

Stopped clock
Being a self-proclaimed populist with anti-establishment views, Bannon DID try and push for a 44% marginal tax cut on the highest earners in the country, presumably in a roundabout attempt to try and bankrupt his old colleagues in the EEEVEL Liberal media. He also broke rank by openly opposing possible military action in North Korea, but his resignation leaves the future of the Land of the Morning Calm uncertain.

Please clear up this situation at the earliest convenience. Lord Zedd (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)User:LordZedd 2:42 PM (UTC) 16 October 2017
 * I gave autopatrolled status; it will enable edits on the page. Bongolian (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I am not a robot
If I edit without logging in I have to click "I am not a robot", fair enough so far, but if I log in I have to click on endless photos of cars and street signs to prove I'm legit, every time. Is this the right way round? 79.68.233.97 (talk) 19:08, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * What browser and what version are you using? 19:16, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * After a day and 10 edits all CAPTCHAs go away. Christopher (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * (Ec ^ or that.)Unfortunately, such mundane questions are not going to help with determining why recaptcha has decided to extra-verify this user.
 * Their exact algorithms for when to ask for more information(like street-sign object recognition) are secret, but experts in the field have decided that it has a lot to do with how many google services you use and whether your pattern of using them in the past 2-3 months looks "human". The "best" advice I can give you is to log into a gmail account from the IP address you edit from.
 * And if using a large corporation's products to prove you're human sounds Orwellian and awful, welcome to two thousand and fucking seventeen. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:24, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I could do that, but you've described it in such a bleak and dystopian way that I've lost the will. 79.68.233.97 (talk) 19:29, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Another honeypot for spambots
Let's just add another honeypot. —ClickerClock (talk) 12:56, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Modern recaptcha of checking a box that does some weird javascript shit is more effective than a "dumb" checkbox where randomizing the form gives even odds of beating it.
 * Irrelevant aside: you're misusing "honeypot" as a term of art. It refers to showing something that looks valuable but isn't, like say root login on a useless isolated VM or a database table of users/passwords that all just decrypt to say "sucker".    ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:41, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I mean it would be easy to defeat but I don't think most spambots would bother. Actually maybe they would bother to crack it, as we are a wiki with a bigger following than most wikis. I wonder if it'll work on a tiny blog? All fun and games. —ClickerClock (talk) 02:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Not that important but "delete" is no longer vaporize
Should we change it back and, if so, how? Christopher (talk) 21:31, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It still is for me? 21:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well it's definitely delete for me, "relocate" is now just "move" as well. Additionally, I definitely didn't get that ping. ? Christopher (talk) 06:38, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you send pics? 15:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * File:Vaporize gone.jpeg Christopher (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not for me. 16:08, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * If it's just me then there's not much point having this thread, archive? Christopher (talk) 16:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * A bug is a bug. Try echo Grep -R Delete . >> dump.txt or something like that to find where the text is. 16:19, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It's "vaporize" again, I changed my language from en-GB to en. Christopher (talk) 16:35, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We have both MediaWiki:Delete/en-GB and MediaWiki:Delete/en-gb set to "vaporise" but it's still "delete", why? Christopher (talk) 16:58, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * There might be something else. I only recently made "View history" into "Fossil record" for en-GB because it was hidden under some Vector-specific name. —Kazitor, pending 22:53, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, changed MediaWiki:Vector-action-delete/en-gb to "Vaporise" and MediaWiki:Vector-action-move/en-gb to "Relocate". I wonder why Vector gets its own special items? —Kazitor, pending 22:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And ping seems to work when it's from you, ? Christopher (talk) 10:52, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I got that ping just fine. —Kazitor, pending 10:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Weird, I haven't gotten any from recently and he's definitely pinged me. Christopher (talk) 12:11, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * So pings are working fine, but not from FCP? Huh. —Kazitor, pending 04:22, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

LOLcow wiki as Spam?
Trying to add some detail about KiwiFarms in the Talk Page suggesting that it should also include details on Lolcow WIki, but got marked as spam. Melonhead (talk) 04:29, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we have it marked as such because it's a popular source for drive-by doxxers, and not useful for a whole lot else. Is this case an exception?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:52, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It was an exception, I've added Melon's comment in. Christopher (talk) 20:30, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

efn template failure
The "efn" template fails when there is an equal sign within the template argument. For example,  produces: Cite error: Invalid tag; refs with no name must have content

Bongolian (talk) 06:05, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * We have this: =. It's was born to fix your issue. —ClickerClock (talk) 05:19, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That seems a bit obtuse. Using nowiki around the "=" also fixes the problem, but if one uses efn around a long piece of text with an equals sign, it's not particularly obvious to the casual user why there's a problem. Bongolian (talk) 07:42, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There's an issue because = is now we assign variables in templates. —ClickerClock (talk) 08:16, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I would assume the problem would also be resolved by . I'm of the opinion that MediaWiki should be able to handle these equal signs a bit better. —Kazitor, pending 22:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Can't add anything to the talk page for Yogic Flying as it was flagged as spam
Specifically:

++++++ The first public demo of Yogic Flying was more than 30 years ago, before 10,000 people at the INdira Ghandi Indoor Sports Stadium at the First public Yogic Flying demo (1986)

Periodically, demos are given to the press, such as this demo for National Geographic and this Fox News "Shot of the Day."

More recently, Roman Catholic Priest, Father Gabriel Mejia, has been using TM and Yogic Flying (Meditacion Transcendental and MT Sidhis) as PTSD therapy for the orphans in his care, with full knowledge and bemused approval of the Roman Catholic Church, which gives him awards for his good work with orphans.

Father Mejia's own website has a link to the best short Yogic Flying video I have seen: "Como es Vuelo Yoguico." His youtube channel also has a link to a scouting jamboree where all the scouts do TM and many of the older scouts do Yogic Flying (Vuelo Yoguico).

The Roman Catholic Church is so impressed with the success rate of Father Mejia's drug rehabilitation program for children and adults (76.9%) that many Church-run schools in South America, especially in Peru, are starting to offer TM instruction. A few even offer Yogic Flying instruction ("sidhis"). Meanwhile, in the USA, the Jesuit-run Stritch School of Medicine offers TM instruction to all faculty and staff (though not Yogic Flying -yet).

In Mexico, at least one 4-year college (not TM-affiliated) offers TM and Yogic Flying (Vuelo Yoguico) instruction to students and other colleges and universities are following suit throughout South America. La Fundación David Lynch de América Latina is building meditation/levitation halls throughout Latin America, teaching all the students TM and Yogic Flying, and inviting the relevant state and national governments to monitor the results. In Oaxaca, Mexico, where the David Lynch Foundation built the first such Yogic Flying hall (to great fanfare from the governor's office), the DLF taught 50,000 students TM with 20,000 of hte older students learning Yogic Flying. After the government monitored the results in 44 public schools, the government now requires TM and Yogic Flying instruction for all older kids in 350 public schools in that Mexican state (see video at 2:26:50 — you may need a special plugin, sorry)

This doesn't prove anything about the floating stage of Yogic Flying, but it should suggest that there may be evidence that, as a meditaiton practice, it has value. +++++

Kinda lame, IMHOSaijanai (talk) 03:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There are... a lot of links in there. Should some of them be refs? It also definitely doesn't help that you haven't made any other edits. I think the appropriate course of action here is to make you autopatrolled, but I'm not sure so I won't, sorry. —Kazitor, pending 04:15, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

My writing style is to provide documentation inline. As they are mostly (probably all) merley links to news articles or relevant websites that say explicitly what I say they're saying (e.g. webpage of Father Mejia's orphanages that explains why he is teaching TM and Yogic Flying), it doesnt' seem useful to make them formal references.

More to the point, your reaction is to assume that I'm what, makign something up?

Not rational, merely a different kind of religion. Saijanai (talk) 05:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Eh what? I'm not saying you're making anything up. One of the criteria for something to be marked as spam is that it contains a lot of links. What you're trying to add does indeed contain a lot of links. Additionally, users without previous edits are treated with more suspicion by the automatic abuse filters. —Kazitor, pending 06:13, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This is the first wiki I've been on where the talk page was monitored for abuse.Saijanai (talk) 07:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * , it's an automatic filter, it's always going to have some false positives. You should be able to add your comment in now. Christopher (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Very odd invisible link
On the Bob Sorensen page, the linked word "Twitter" is invisible:

If you go to edit the page, you can see the wikicode for it is clearly present:

This bug appears on both Firefox and Chrome. It's also tied to certain revisions: here is the word perfectly visible on 2013-01-29, and here it is now invisible in a revision (and all subsequent revisions) 13 minutes later. Yes, I have purged the page's cache, both on my own browsers and via the wiki's purge action. Oddly enough, it shows up fine in Internet Explorer. 12:06, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Removing the linking brackets around Twitter makes the word visible, but editing them back in makes it invisible again. 12:09, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's perfectly visible for me on chrome (a tablet if that makes any difference). Christopher (talk) 15:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Do you have any extensions? Wondering if Twitter is somehow marked as an ad (if using adblock) or smth. 17:22, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Good call, Fuzzy, it was my adblocker. Absolutely bizarre.  Thank you!   22:14, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

The favicon
I recall a vote/poll/collection of opinions and discussion over a new favicon. As far as I know, the outcome was to change it and a good alternative was suggested. What happened to all that? —Kazitor, pending 08:54, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I missed that. What r you talking bout? —ClickerClock (talk) 09:50, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive277. Looking at that discussion, are we still waiting on David Gerard? —Kazitor, pending 09:54, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep. Pull request sitting there since August. —ClickerClock (talk) 10:07, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * emailed dg 18:24, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * buhh - David Gerard (talk) 19:05, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This takes me back. —Goat-Emperor Bigs (Words of Wisdom/Achievements) 00:03, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I see it was done three days ago. I went to https://rationalwiki.org/favicon.ico and refreshed, but the old one's still cached for the browser tabs. Any idea how to fix that? —Kazitor, pending 03:05, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems to have fixed itself. Nevermind then. —Kazitor, pending 06:22, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Dynamic poll counter broken
The dynamic poll counter seems to be broken, not sure how to fix it. Can anyone help? Philam (talk) 10:22, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * They tend to get broken a fair bit, it would seem. —Kazitor, pending 10:49, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Patrolling
The AJAX patrolling gadget thing doesn't work. I have to right click->open in new tab on the link to patrol anything. —Kazitor, pending 08:00, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * it still work for me --can you provide browser information + any ad-ons or extensions that might affect this? 16:54, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It fixed itself, as these sort of things tend to do. —Kazitor, pending 04:15, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Why is the Thanksgiving holydaze still up?
- 04:50, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
 * What are u talking about? —ClickerClock (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I said that last week, when it was up longer than usual for a holydaze.- 00:40, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * - 00:40, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Issue regarding vte
Please see Template talk:Vte. —Kazitor, pending 00:59, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Best of WIGO
The WIGO's aren't showing on RationalWiki:Best of the clogosphere and RationalWiki:Best of the blogosphere. I can't see anything in the source code to explain it. World is OK. I'm on Windows 10, Chrome, erm, whatever chrome was at last July. Boredatwork (talk) 11:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow, that was quick, thanks! Boredatwork (talk) 12:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow, that was quick, thanks! Boredatwork (talk) 12:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

My recent contributions are only visible when I am logged in to RationalWiki
I just updated ... https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mum%27s_Not_Having_Chemo. However my most recent contributions are only visible when I am logged in. I've tried reloading the page ("Ctrl"+"F5"), and clearing the browser-cache, and even using a different browser. No joy :¬( Guvax (talk) 16:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * When logged out, click the "Edit" tab and then preview that edit. You should see your contributions. The reason why your contribution won't show is probably because of a server caching issue. 18:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Guvax (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Another inter-language link problem
The inter-language link that looks like this " Заглавная страница " does not work. It appears that Trent was working on this problem in 2012, but nothing happened. It would be useful on the Category:Babel page at least since Russian is missing on this page despite being the number two language on RW. Bongolian (talk) 03:16, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It works now. Заглавная страница . Just add a   before  . —ClickerClock (talk) 22:04, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Can access a certain article only when NOT logged in
This is very weird: I can read the article Falsifiability only when NOT logged in. Otherwise I get an error message:

[df5938aef588855d4baf5c48] 2017-11-02 14:18:20: Fatal exception of type MWException

Also there is the redirect page Science stopper which leads me to Falsifiability if not logged in. But if I log in and again try to access Science stopper I get the following error:

MediaWiki internal error. Exception caught inside exception handler. Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information.

I have reproduced this with 52.4.0 ESR (32-bit), Opera 46 and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 64bit (Internet Explorer just gives "Error 500: Internal Server Error" on both pages).

Is there something odd with my account, this page, or both? --Mad physicist (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Go here Special:Preferences and under "Math" change it to "PNG images" than save. —ClickerClock (talk) 08:26, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that fixed it. I had the "MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools)" option active. I don't remember if I had chosen that setting on purpose or if it was already set. --Mad physicist (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

🇵🇷 is dead
I finally killed it.

What now? Just delete it? —Kazitor, pending 04:35, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure! —ClickerClock (talk) 09:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Automatically taking my edit as "harmful" on Encyclopedia Dramatica's page
I tried to add the sidebar navigation template for alt-right, as well as an entry to the "downs" section, and that is it, but the edit filter takes it as harmful. What is wrong? Is it just a bug in the edit filter or something? I have been into RW for a while, long before I had an account, but I am still not familiar with how the editing mechanism works compared to some other wikis that I know. Also, I always click the CAPTCHA checkbox before clicking submit. UserHtw00z2 (talk) 01:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)Htw00z2
 * On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. 01:18, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why that edit is being blocked, might be because someitmes the filter can look at more than just the parts you changed. I can't disclose details of the filter to explain it further, but I've made you autopatrolled; so it should work now. —Kazitor, pending 04:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you! UserHtw00z2 (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

—ClickerClock (talk) 09:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

One of the template seems broken but I can't tell which one



 * Article is Question_Evolution!_-_CMI%27s_Rebuttals_to_Responses_to_Questions_4_through_8
 * Browser is chromium 65.0.3325.146 x64 on Arch

User:K61824User_talk:K61824 23:29, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It was a wiki formatting issue. I fixed it. :) 03:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Meta tags for description and image
Any chance you could add description and image metatags to RationalWiki? Currently google search results or link expansions in apps like Discord look bad, very conservatively. A rational stance would be to maximize the exposure and nice-of-use for other people thus adding metatags. My humble suggestion would be for the image take the first image in the article (if any) for description take the first paragraph, ignoring the quote if it's there as the first paragraph. If it's at all possible, now I feel bad whenever I try to spam my friends with links to Rational Wiki because they look so dull. NoJohYouAreTheDemons (talk) 09:20, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We have a couple of options. We can go the Semantic Mediawiki route with: mw:Extension:Semantic Meta Tags, and Summary Cards or just leg it with mw:Extension:WikiSEO. —ClickerClock (talk) 11:14, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * As part of trying to get an active techbase: Please suggest edits to the RationalWiki github accordingly. 05:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Email is broken
It's not emailing copies of emails I sent to other users. ClickerClock (talk) 06:10, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Never mind, its just in the spam folder but...

From: Mail Delivery System  Subject:Undeliverable: RationalWiki email from user "ClickerClock" To: retracted email

This is the mail system at host apache3.rationalwiki.org. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The mail system retracted email: host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[2607:f8b0:400d:c0b::1a] said: 550-5.7.1 [2600:3c03::f03c:91ff:fe7a:f3c3] Our system has detected that this 550-5.7.1 message does not meet IPv6 sending guidelines regarding PTR records 550-5.7.1 and authentication. Please review 550-5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=IPv6AuthError for more information 550 5.7.1 . q50si2670357qtf.477 - gsmtp (in reply to end of DATA command)}}

^ the error message.

ClickerClock (talk) 09:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The email is actually on fire, judging by this. Tech help pls! 05:23, 16 October 2017 (UTC)


 * just seen this (I didn't ahahaha get an emailed ping), will look this evening - David Gerard (talk) 12:06, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Bump. 01:32, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

ok, it wants SPF, DKIM and/or DMARC. Currently trying SPF, that's pretty easy to set up ... DKIM requires signing every message, I'm not setting that up. DMARC, maybe. The actual problem is GMail is increasingly fussy - David Gerard (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
 * we had an spf record, it didn't include that IPv6 address. I've added that, should take effect in an hour or so - David Gerard (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * actually, even better: I just told Postfix to use IPv4 only. How's the email now? Please send me a test email - David Gerard (talk) 19:31, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It doesn't work. —ClickerClock (talk) 10:23, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Ping is broken again
Two pings (both tech support) have not been received. Christopher (talk) 15:48, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems that all pings in non talk namespaces aren't being received, I definitely didn't get a ping from Fuzzy in the saloon. Christopher (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually all pings full stop. Christopher (talk) 21:02, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now it appears to be only pings in non-talk namespaces again. Christopher (talk) 22:05, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * test —Kazitor, pending 22:09, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I got that one fine. Christopher (talk) 22:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * and I received that. Maybe you're accidentally viewing the page before noticing the alert? —Kazitor, pending 22:13, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * There have definitely been instances of people pinging me and me not getting anything but maybe that's made me assume the problem is still there. Christopher (talk) 22:17, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I have been inconsistently receiving pings. For example, I recently received this ping but not this one. CowHouse (talk) 04:43, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Orphan templates
Ideally, every template should be listed on this page: Help:Template list, but alas I know that many are not because I sometimes find them by chance (e.g.,, which I added to the page a while ago, and  , which I just saw). I don't know an easy way to find out what is missing. 1) Is there a way to find this out? 2) Can we fix this? 3) Can we encourage template authors to add their new templates to this page? Bongolian (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure, but I did find this. —Kazitor, pending 04:15, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That's a different issue: templates that people made but no one uses. The issue I'm referring to is templates that are actually used but are basically undocumented. No one knows about these unless they run across one while editing. Bongolian (talk) 04:26, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know, but that's a list that could bear clearing. —Kazitor, pending 09:20, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If it has to be done manually, it's a lot of work for not much benefit. Bongolian (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Pages by popularity no longer exists
The page "RationalWiki:Pages by popularity" only has dead links because the site that is linked to no longer is alive (http://rwdocs.org). Also, the popularity of our pages was last updated in 2015. Bongolian (talk) 18:00, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Similarly, http://rationalmedia.org/ shouldn't link to evowiki, and rationalblogs.org doesn't exist either. The by-laws page refers to the foundation as the RationalWiki Foundation, and there also haven't been any new announcements since 2014. In fact, pretty much nothing has been updated since then. —Kazitor, pending 23:05, 17. November 2017 (UTC)
 * Years ago, I brought up just hosting all RMF stuff directly on RationalWiki, so important shit would actually be seen, updated, and foster better relations with the community. That never happened, and here we still are, maintaining a separate, dedicated website that nobody looks at or updates. 23:31, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * What's the concern? There's no such legal entity as RationalMedia Foundation, Inc., so, while these bumbling morons conduct illegal fundraising under a false name, at least a wiki page nobody but you rest is correct.
 * wot  08:13, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Legal trolls: the highest race of troll. 18:26, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I also pushed for hosting on RationalWiki.org proper. I think the opposition was mostly for legal-optic reasons: having a separate website might make the RMF appear more independent. I don't really agree, but. 18:26, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned pages
The Special:LonelyPages page has a lot of fork pages listed. Can these be automatically excluded since the fork pages explicitly say to avoid linking to them? Bongolian (talk) 08:25, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I brought this up at the saloon on one of my first days here, the answer appeared to be no. Christopher (talk) 10:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In theory, we could potentially have a single page whose sole purpose is to link to every fork. It wouldn't be automatic (unless some bot could look for transclusions of the relevant template) and would certainly be a hack, but it could work. —Kazitor, pending 10:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That would work, I did the same with all the category redirects once. I'll make a page in my userspace when I have the time. Christopher (talk) 21:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Weird indentation
These two lines of text have the same number of colons but are indented differently, something to do with one starting with a link? permalink. Christopher (talk) 17:42, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The indentation looks the same on my browser (Firefox). Bongolian (talk) 22:39, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Same here, looks fine for me. Looks correct with IE too, which I only ever use to test things out of Firefox. —Kazitor, pending 04:24, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It consistently looks weird on chrome (no extensions, not even an adblocker). Christopher (talk) 17:05, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, since you're the only one experiencing this, I guess you'll have to find out what it is. Does Chrome have some sort of developer tools to see what styles and markup are being applied there. As far as I can tell, both items get a  of 1.6em. —Kazitor, pending 21:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * RationalWiki
 * These lines are a test. —Kazitor, pending 21:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a chrome-specific issue, will look into it more. More importantly, I can only see Kazitor's post here when logged in (chrome and Firefox). It appears in the edit history and appears if I click the diff but doesn't appear on https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Technical_support when I'm not logged in. Christopher (talk) 21:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Active users list
This page does not seem to be functional (Special:ActiveUsers), no users are displayed. Bongolian (talk) 20:22, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Request Ping substitution
I've been working on making the Resquest Ping template require it to either be substituted or have the name explicitly given. Working version here. The problem is that when substituted, it places the whole conditional statement and error message in the page source (see here). Since it's actually transcluded on hardly any pages (only 1 page that's not related to the template right now), would it just be easier to necessitate substitution, remove the option for the first parameter (moving second param to its place) and cleaning up the few transclusions? —Kazitor, pending 06:57, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Automatically vandal binned BoNs (binned when an account that's been binned uses them)
I'm guessing they stay there forever? Is there a way to change that? Christopher (talk) 20:00, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The vandal brake page has the option "Automatically block the last IP address used by this user, and any subsequent IP addresses they try to edit from", so it looks like they get banned rather than binned. In that case it's probably just like a normal automatic block and presumably doesn't last long. —Kazitor, pending 21:32, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking at the vandal bin (scroll down a bit), it seems that they are put in the vandal bin, maybe whoever made the vandal bin extension didn't make a different message for it. Christopher (talk) 21:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I had no errors from paroling one that had been automatically binned about four months ago. So, I guess they are all still in there. Although, what is the edit rate of IPs anyway? —Kazitor, pending 21:45, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * They can edit once every ten seconds or something like that. Christopher (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I've decided it's best to parole them. Should the extension be altered to disallow any binning (manual and automatic) of IPs? —Kazitor, pending 23:21, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 * They're all free now. And that only took about 46 minutes. —Kazitor, pending 00:08, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Aww damn, getting IPs all over town binned (including schools and big corporate places) was a fun game, I didn't want you to fix this. 71.215.85.103 (talk) 13:20, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Some stuff about uploading files

 * 1) The upload limit says that 10 MB is the maximum limit. However, I have troubles uploading a file that's over one MB, giving me a server error complaining that the file is too big, to the point where I had to heavily compress this image and shrink it down so it's only half a MB big to even get it working in the first place. Therefore, I think the limit saying that 10 MB is misleading when I feel that it works only with less than 1 MB.
 * 2) The automatically generated licensing header always creates a blank space regardless if you fill in the licensing drop-down menu or not, forcing me to manually input the licensing template in the appropriate section every time I upload a file.

Can any of these be addressed? 17:56, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I got a 413 when uploading a 1 MB file (1051128 bytes). My guess is that php.ini might its configuration altered. Or something. —Kazitor, pending 07:09, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's pretty much the same error I got. Is it fixable? 22:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Nothing I can do about it. It's probably a configuration error somewhere (in php.ini is what I suspect), so you'd need someone who can alter that (php.ini would require root access to the server, but there's no guarantee that's the problem). —Kazitor, pending 23:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

AfD problem
The AfD link for the Whitley Strieber page is here: RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Whitley Strieber, but it does not show up on the main AfD page for some reason. Bongolian (talk) 05:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * If articles are up for deletion, an entry should be added to the log page. My mistake for forgetting. 06:59, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks! Bongolian (talk) 07:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This problem actually does not seem to be fixed. This subpage was just created by me RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Eleonóra Dubiczki but it does not appear on the main AfD page. I created the first page using the preload debate link that generates. Bongolian (talk) 08:01, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I can see it. Did you purge the page? Sometimes transclusions etc. can take a while to propagate otherwise. —Kazitor, pending 08:27, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see it now too. It looks like it was a slow propagation issue as you said. Bongolian (talk) 18:09, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Did we fix spectre and meltdown?
Either way, I recommend not answering this question publicly. This is more of a reminder if we have not already: fix spectre and meltdown. It's a major security flaw that affects millions of hardware by Intel. Intel has generously provided firmware updates that patch up the issue for very modern hardware. The bugs can allow attackers to steal private keys, passwords, etc.; these are critical bugs. 05:03, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Licensing dropdown bug
For the license dropdown when uploading a file, the dropdown has two "None selected" options. The second one adds a no license warning while the first one does not. 16:30, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I only see one option when I go there. —Kazitor, pending 21:59, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

SSL errors
Your server isn't configured correctly. It cannot serve devices using IPv6 addresses, at least, over a secure connection. The issue may extend to IPv4 but under different circumstances I haven't probed.. Apple devices attempting a secure connection over IPv6 on this domain will throw an error. It is possible to work around this problem by attempting an insecure connection (deleting the s in https), which only sporadically works. Oddly, not all attempts to make insecure connections get redirected to ssl and it's not immediately apparent why. I suspect your server admin also failed to correctly configure whatever redirect or rewrite rules in apache or nginx. There are simple step by step guides covering this basic stuff. This shouldn't happen.
 * fix it! —Kazitor, pending 21:47, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * My ISP doesn't actually do IPv6 at all, so I have no way to directly check whether anything I've done works, but I can give it a go ... where are these guides? - David Gerard (talk) 17:40, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

System emails not TLS encrypted
I'm concerned to see that the system emails generated by this wiki are not sent TLS encrypted nor DKIM signed, which means that email confirmation links could be intercepted or tampered with because they are currently sent in the clear. Please implement TLS encryption in outgoing mail connections from the server. (David, if you need help on this, hit me up on FB messenger.) Yours, Tristessa de St Ange (talk) 20:55, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * —ClickerClock (talk) 09:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Issue with recursion
Have a look at my sandbox:

What I'm trying to do is make it keep looking through its parameters until it runs out, due to the number of templates that just go if 1: blah, if 2: blah, and stop after about 6 levels.

I feel like it might work (although my test with using parameters a few levels deep didn't seem to work), but as far as I can tell MediaWiki throws an error as soon as it encounters a template transcluding itself without seeing if the loop actually resolves itself (in this case done by the "num" parameter).

Would it be possible to modify some part of the software to change that? Or is this too much effort and work, especially considering the aforementioned thing about not actually being able to access parameters more than one level deep? —Kazitor, pending 10:48, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not always so obvious whether a recursion is finite, so maybe it's not a good idea to change this. Bongolian (talk) 07:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Honestly, a lot of MediaWiki is quite bad (talk pages come to mind). I was mostly just disappointed that my awesome idea was defeated. But with regards to the obviousness of a finite recursion: most languages will have a recursion limit, i.e. they just keep on going until they hit about 100 levels deep or so. Otherwise you'd have to solve the —Kazitor, pending 09:10, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Being an old-school programmer, we didn't have such niceties as built-in recursion limits in the olden days and had to rely on a manual control-C in UNIX. I'm not the arbiter of whether your idea is defeated, BTW. Bongolian (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

WIGO poll numbers
Clicking on the "vote nextpoll" link on WIGO:World adds the poll number "178198" instead of the next number in the sequence (see User talk:KingWill473 and these examples from other users). CowHouse (talk) 16:32, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's because, a long time ago, somebody accidentally inserted an extra digit when writing a WIGO, and the machinery simply searches for the highest number it can find. If so, then the solution would be to go through all the WIGO archives and edit the number. Wilder Bicycle 09:55, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You were mostly right. The poll number was up to 178197 in February and then someone accidentally left out a digit and the next number added was 17898. CowHouse (talk) 04:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Capturebots
None of User:Capturebot, User:Capturebot2, User:CaptureBot4 etc. have been working for the past few years.t 13:32, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit filters
Due to the high rise of spam and harassment, I suggest we add filters to block edits that contain "  " and " coldfusioncommunity.net ". These are quite common phrases in articles that contribute nothing to the mission. 02:02, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Blocking line breaks? Um, no. —Kazitor, pending 04:48, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Almost every spammer uses    on their user page. Could we at least have a filter block     in a user's first edit? 03:24, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Still seems iffy to me. Blocking spammers isn't hard, it's better to clean up their mess than disallow a legitimate contributor. —Kazitor, pending 04:11, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. :) 20:38, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * By the way, yesterday or whenever I made some significant enhancements to the spam filter. I haven't seen any slip through since, but please notify me if you do. —Kazitor, pending 07:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, requests such as this should generally go on the RationalWiki:Technical_support page. Bongolian (talk) 19:34, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Secure connection to site
I noticed that whenever I just type in "rationalwiki.org" into the address bar, it brings me to http://rationalwiki.org, which is not a secure connection, instead of to https://rationalwiki.org, which is a secure connection. Is this intentional, and if not, can it be fixed so that http://rationalwiki.org redirects to https://rationalwiki.org?

Thanks, DraconicDark (talk) 18:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I noticed an SSL issue too. Sometimes when I try to login, I get a connection error. 20:46, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been redirected just fine for months now. Seems the SSL setup has been less than ideal. —Kazitor, pending 03:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Filter 24
Do we need filter 24? all its hits are also caught by 48, and I haven't seen anyone create a page in someone else's userspace. —Kazitor, pending 07:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Archivist is still broken
What’s the issue with it? Christopher (talk) 17:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * —Kazitor, pending 21:48, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * it's on my dead laptop and i've been too lazy to fix it  23:08, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there anything I could do to help? And wasn't the intention to get it running on the RW server or am I mistaken? —Kazitor, pending 23:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
 * on the first: if you wanted to install python, pywikibot, and modify the files according to what's on User:Archivist, you could run it yourself; otherwise, i'm gonna try to figure out aws sometime this month. on the second: no idea. 05:26, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd be willing to do that. I already have python installed, and if those few lines are all that are changed, I can definitely handle that. Would you object to sending me Archivist user details (privately, naturally), or should I register another account for that? —Kazitor, pending 05:48, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * it would be better to register a new account -- makes it clearer who's operating it. if you're willing, that would be wonderful. sorry for delay. 04:47, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I shall do that once I have time. —Kazitor, pending 04:55, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I can handle archiving from here on. Maybe I can even archive the WIGOs properly, the possibilities are endless! —Kazitor, pending 13:23, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * * clap clap* 14:03, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Football is (not) really fantastic
Please could the edit filter people filter "football" and "soccer"? Wilder Bicycle 19:21, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Star Wars
As conservative figures have spoken out against Star Wars recently and there have been many allegations of the newest entry promoting a pro-SJW agenda, I thought it might be constructive to add a paragraph about this to the Star Wars page as an example of the RationalWiki angle. My edit, however, will not go through because it was deemed spam. The paragraph I wrote is as follows:


 * With a more diverse cast and a female protagonist to boot, the sequel trilogy has faced complaints of pushing a feminist/social justice warrior agenda by people who are also quick to deny that their objections are not rooted in misogyny and/or other prejudices. Of particular contention is a subplot in The Last Jedi where the female Vice Admiral Holdo is shown to be more competent than the male Poe Dameron, which has faced allegations of promoting feminism,&lt;ref>From a "reviewer" who refers to the female characters as "Asian bitch", "fat Asian bitch", and "purple-haired cunt". despite no focus being made on either characters' gender. This has prompted the likes of Ben Shapiro&lt;ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-t4bU3-lHA, Sargon of Akkad&lt;ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPsRp7uUXUk , Alex Jones,&lt;ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bET74_BkiRU and Milo Yiannopoulos&lt;ref>MILO: 'Women Have Ruined Star Wars'... to post rants of their own against the film. Milo's rant is particularly noteworthy because despite claiming women "ruined" Star Wars, he previously said the franchise was already horrible to begin with.&lt;ref>...but if Star Wars is already garbage, how could it be ruined?

If this edit is not seen as constructive to the page, I understand and I will not persist in trying to have it added. HereComesMurphy (talk) 07:44, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * looks alright to me; I've added it. —Kazitor, pending 10:53, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you! HereComesMurphy (talk) 15:21, 15 April 2018 (UTC)