RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive2

Intercom (trivial)
Would it be posssible for different groups to have different background colours? 16:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. I can add another class to the intercom group that's an html escaped string of the group, the rest can then be done in Common.css. --  Nx / talk 16:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Here is how to style it, the format is intercom-groupname, groupname is sanitized so spaces are replaced with _ etc. If in doubt, send a test message, and check the html source. --  Nx / talk 16:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

underline button (trivial)
Is it possible to put a link or button somewhere for underline in the article editing page? Thank you for your attention. Thieh 02:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I just did it. It's in the box below, on the row titled "wiki markup", to the right of #REDIRECT and  .  03:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, please don't use it in articles - italics are the proper way to make emphasis when they are available, which they are, of course. On a "typewriter" the underline is used to that effect, of course.  03:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

user creation
Can anything be done to stop new users creating other new users? This was missed by our diligent garda this morning:

''05:42 . . There once was a man from Nantucket whose cock was so long he could suck it. He said with a grin, wiping cum from his chin, If my ear was a cunt I could Fuck it! (Talk | contribs | block) created new account User:What\'s the difference between a magician and a bunch of naked blonde bitches? One has a cunning array of stunts, the other has a stunning array of cunts.''

07:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I can disable user creation for non sysops, but that won't stop anons from creating users. I could also install a username blacklist extension, but that's not really going to stop a determined vandal. --  Nx / talk 08:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * do your best; Fd's up to his tricks again. 08:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Installed. Documentation is here. For reference, Wikipedia's blacklist is here --  Nx / talk 08:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hee! If I understood it, it'd be great. If we just copy the WP blacklist with some exceptions that don't apply here? (I'll have to lean Regex.)  08:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why are we "cracking down"? What is this now, a police state?  We have like three people on the entire internet who hate us, and we need software to protect us from them?  Please, don't let it be so.  I hate left wing fascists as much as I do right wing fascists.  And believe me, we have some of the former here - Not you, Toast, or Nx, but I see it here from time to time.  09:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It was the naughtyuser1 creating naughtyuser2 thing I wanted to stop; It can sneak through quite easily.  09:06, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Man, I tried to head off FD activites this morning but my laptop wasnt playing ball. Useless Dell piece of shit. Ace McWickedDisco Jesus 09:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC) Then I misunderstood the problem. I agree with Human and the blacklist isn't very effective anyway (not until we install Extension:Skynet that is), just see my fight with the same vandal on RWW. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can disable user account creation for non sysops, while still allowing it for IPs. --  Nx / talk 09:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Our long term experience here has been, "if you don't fight them, they go away". Paradoxical it seems, but the troll's fun is igniting response.  If you just accept them, they have no game to play.  Seriously.  That's why we make everyone a sysop.  If they can get a site to alter their rules to deal with one idiot, they "win", and keep pushing.  Ignore them, and there's no fun, they go away.  Hence my pissiness at left-wing fascists like CUR, and probably all of us at times.  I learned a lot from Trent about this "laid back" thing and how it actually works, and I've watched it work on this wiki.  09:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Fall down claims it isn't him, you know. And since Fall down reverted a lot of vandalism by this person, I'm inclined to believe him (naive, I know).  19:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the first trick I'd have used. User:Mei
 * True. So why did you advocate sysopping him? -- 20:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow you think in black and white. Not pretty. User:Mei

I'm with Human on this. We don't have a rule against sockpuppetry; in fact it's pretty much part of the whole RationalWiki experience. 20:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree, but the problem with RWW was that there weren't enough users with powers to stop vandalism, no matter how many I promoted. --  Nx / talk 11:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * While in principle it's great to just say "hey, let's not let them win by changing the site rules" and the idealist in me agrees wholeheartedly, the pragmatic side of me recognises that it gets so damn annoying the tenth time someone tries this troll/fake account stuff that you really do want some software to just do it for you. So long as whatever is done doesn't impact regular users on a noticeable scale (and you probably can't tell until you try it), I think it'd be fine with everyone. 11:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Problem is, like I said, it doesn't work. Let's say a vandal creates an account with your name in it, so we blacklist Armondikov. Then he'll just create an account with the name Arm0ndikov in it. We have enough sysops and bureaucrats around to deal with this kind of stuff on RW anyway. But the extension is still enabled and unless the mob wants me to disable it, I won't. --  Nx / talk 11:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Vaporise ---> nuke
I would really like to change my edit tab so the "vaporise" one reads "nuke". How would I go about doing this without imposing that change on the entire wiki? 21:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:NxBot/monobook.js&diff=next&oldid=339069 --  Nx / talk 21:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I... ah... um... don't get it... Huh? O_o 21:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In that diff I added a piece of javascript to change the delete button to stuff --  Nx / talk 21:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To use it, you put it in your User:Javascap/monobook.js file &mdash; Unsigned, by: Human / talk / contribs

Hidden categories
Just noticed this: [Show hidden categories] in preferences→misc. What's a hidden cat & how do you hide 'em? 18:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Short answer: __HIDDENCAT__ . Long answer: --  Nx / talk  18:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanx, Nx.

Special pages
I was just checking Special:Long pages to see what might need pruning and it only shows mainspace articles in the list. Is there a way round this? Totnesmartin 22:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is wild guess, but maybe adding "&namespace=nnn" after them? nnn=100 for CP, for instance.  Compare to how other special pages specify the namespace?  22:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It uses $wgContentNamespaces. This setting also affects statistics (how many actual articles we have) and Special:Random. I can run an sql query manually if needed. --  Nx / talk 08:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This will list every article over 20000 bytes in a namespace
 * http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/api.php?action=query&generator=allpages&gaplimit=500&gapfrom=T&prop=info&gapminsize=20000&gapnamespace=100


 * just change the namespace at the end to check different ones, and the 20000 to check different sizes : i.e.


 * http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/api.php?action=query&generator=allpages&gaplimit=500&gapfrom=T&prop=info&gapminsize=20000&gapnamespace=2


 * Worm (t  13:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Oi!
Why are Sysops called "Administrators" now? It's not as if they do any administration. 08:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Their names changed when the software upgraded, I think they have had that name by default for a few versions now. I changed them back to janitors. 08:12, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Personally, I prefer "sysop", but the mob shall decide. 08:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki defaults to Administrator now (it's still called sysop internally). Human changed it to Sysop so you must've been using the en-rw or en-mw language. I've fixed en-rw so it's janitor there too, but en-mw will show the default. --  Nx / talk 08:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Nx this might seem like a stupid question, but the default language is English, isn't it? Only Pibot won't archive threads that aren't dated May. 08:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually I have found it. We switched from EST to UTC. 09:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC) It's English, but you can select any of the languages provided by MediaWiki, as well as two others, en-mw and en-rw. The first one is mostly the default MediaWiki (i.e. history instead of fossil record, delete instead of vaporise, etc.), and you can go crazy with the second one. --  Nx / talk 09:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Please let's not be Janitors. This was already discussed here. Keep it as Sysops unless there is general agreement to change it to something else. 11:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, please let's not. Everywhere except in banter, we refer to them as "sysops".  If we change to "janitor" we'll have an awful lot of work to do to get everything else "formal" to conform to it.  I have a hell of a time figuring out what the admin levels and abilities are on RWW due to the silly names - I wouldn't know who to look for if something needed to be done that I couldn't do.  21:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Reverted. --  Nx / talk 22:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, there is one (MW or custom?) place where they are still referred to as "janitors", and that is the user rights management page. Do we think that 'crats will be savvy enough not to worry about that use there?  Or should we change it for clarity?  22:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * User rights management should show sysop unless your language is set to en-rw, where it is janitor. --  Nx / talk 22:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok. Thanks!  22:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandal brake
I have some trouble getting to the vandal brake extension- could you add a link in the toolbox? I don't know how to do it. Thx. 16:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No. The vandal brake is for sysops only, so it shouldn't be there. The easies way to get to it is to go to Special:Contributions for a user, then click "vandal bin" in the user links section directly below the page title. --  Nx / talk 16:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to point out that the vandal log doesn't appear as 'vandal log' but as a string of letters and numbers. -- 17:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Already fixed. An error on my part, which I didn't notice since it only appeared for non-sysops (sysops get two links, and the code that inserts the first one loaded the text for the second one) --  Nx / talk 17:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

HotCat
The words "<a href" is blacklisted, can you change it? -- 00:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What do you mean they are blacklisted? 00:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I mean that it is impossible to type them without using comment tags. -- 00:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you know html CUR? 00:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * CUR is proficient in all of the programming languages.  00:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site.

The following text is what triggered our spam filter: <a href "

Why on earth would you need an anchor tag, Arthur? Just like <img tags, they aren't needed on a wiki. 00:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am forking a script called HotCat from WP. -- 00:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Link please? (Using the wikimarkup, none of your sophisticated hyper-referral stuff). 00:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * wp:WP:HOTCAT -- 00:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cute. DO you want me to move it to your user space? 01:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

1. I've already copied hotcat as a gadget a few days ago. 2. The trick for a href (in javascript) is "a " + "href" --  Nx / talk 03:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1. Sorry didn't see it. Also how do you set them up? 2. I used  as a work around. 03:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Special:Preferences, Gadgets tab. If you mean adding new gadgets, edit the definitions page and add a new line, then go to Special:Gadgets and click the redlinks. There seems to be a bug in the extension, it's supposed to purge the gadget cache when you save the definitions page, but that doesn't work, so I've modified it to purge the gadget cache when you purge the definitions page. If the new gadget is not showing up, keep purging the definitions page. --  Nx / talk 10:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The "page" drop down gizmo
"Page analysis" looks for wp page. 20:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed that and the rest of the wp specific stuff, thanks. --  Nx / talk 23:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea regarding poll support
It would be cool if a page with a poll system on it could display the "next poll number to use", in cases where the new entries might not be in chronological order. How easy? 22:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Go to Special:Preferences, Gadgets tab (last one), and click "Add a toolbar button that inserts a vote tag with the poll id automatically calculated." --  Nx / talk 23:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I mean one anyone could use. I'm thinking of making a file that could use voting, but new entries would be scattered through sections, so having, say, the code for the next vote (or at least the number) for people to copy would be critical.  Also, does that thing you told me to try add a new (javascript) button above the edit box?  Because I disabled that ages ago, got sick of the stray clicks on it mucking up pages I was editing.  23:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a toolbar button yes, but I could probably hack it into the edittools and it modifies the link in the edit tools box with the correct pollid. It should work fine with multiple sections and when polls are not ordered by poll id. --  Nx / talk 11:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, ok. I guess what I was hoping for was a bit of code (of any type) that would generate at least the next poll number and display it however I want when the page is loaded.  Since, obviously, generating the number is "possible", can you suggest a way to access it during pageload for display (I know, that was a Kendoll style repetition, sorry).  19:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean, not only while editing the page? Also, this script works on the current WIGOs only, and has to be extended with a few lines of code (name of the page and name of the poll) for other pages. --  Nx / talk 19:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Only while editing would be ok, but remember, some of us turned off the javascript toolbar. I wouldn't mind if the thing required to do it in the wikistuff at the top of the page required a bunch of parameters, but is there any way at all to do what I want, or is it too complex? If you're not sure what I mean I can make a quickie mockup of what I'd want it to look like somewhere.  20:13, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't need the toolbar any more, it also modifies the vote tag in the edit tools box (in the wiki markup group) and inserts the correct poll id instead of the default "wigo". --  Nx / talk 20:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, ok, you mean the stuff below the edit box. I noticed the wigo poll one once, just tried it at wigo cp and wigo ask, it doesn't do any numbers... Look, what I want to be able to do is put in an article text that looks like this: Use this code to add new entries: Your text here, where the "37" is dynamically generated to be the correct next poll number, or this: The next poll number to use is 37, likewise on the 37.  I don't want to be sending people off chasing some special place to click that I can't even find myself (yet).  23:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's there: [[Image:AutoWIGO_edittools.png|100px]]. I just realized that it doesn't work while section editing (since it only checks the text loaded into the text area), but I can fix that. --  Nx / talk 06:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks for the image, and the help! I'll check back to see when you've got it nailed. 08:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. However if two people edit different sections at the same time, they'll both insert the same number. There's not much I can do about that, unfortunately. I'm planning to make a more advanced, form-based WIGO script that would replace the normal edit page and eliminate conflicts, but I didn't have the time. --  Nx / talk 08:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

edit button
Here is an example of how I would want to use it. Some polls would be gone (maybe even the most recent) from the page, and they'll end up out of order, so I'd want an easy way to make sure people added the next item with the correct poll number. 01:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added your sandbox page to the script so you can try it out there. I think it does what you wanted, except for the edit conflict thing. --  Nx / talk 23:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, so to make it work, an editor still has to check off that gadget box?  00:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note, this question has been resolved with the "nextpoll" or whatever it's called extension Nx wrote. Hopefully Nx will "document" it here soon so I can remember the syntax...  19:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It's: vote nextpoll=pollname in < > brackets, followed by the content, followed by a closing /vote tag and it works very nicely. 19:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * On WIGO:CP, use votecp and /votecp instead of vote and /vote for Capturebot2. To prevent the nextpoll from being replaced on saving, add a nowiki tag directly before it:   or use &amp;lt; and &amp;gt; : &lt;vote nextpoll=pollname&gt; (the latter will not be recognized as a tag by mediawiki, but it's useful for instructions) --  Nx / talk  19:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Capturebot
I have no idea where or how capturebot works, but it'd be handy to have a button on WIGOCP to hit to make it run. Or is it on Pi's machine? God, I'm ignorant. 17:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem is that Capturebot needs internet explorer to run. If you ask Pi he can give it to you and help you set it up, but you'll need Windows. I've found a python program that uses Qt and WebKit (the rendering engine behind Safari and Google Chrome) and can run on Linux, but it has two problems: Qt can't handle images that are bigger than 32766 pixels in either direction (a bug that was supposed to be fixed in Qt 4.4, and I'm using 4.5), and it doesn't give me access to the Document Object Model yet (another thing that was promised for Qt 4.5), so I can't extract the diff table like Capturebot does. The result is that it creates huge images for everything (megabytes compared to a hundred kilobytes for only the diff part), and cuts off the end for some. Now I can either wait for Qt 4.6 hoping they fix these two issues or start from scratch using another rendering engine (i.e. Gecko from Firefox), or just WebKit alone. --  Nx / talk 08:19, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, I've discovered diffonly, which not only reduces bandwidth/memory/processing requirements but also solves the second problem. I'm currently doing a test run on my home wiki, and it's looking good. --  Nx / talk 22:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

BorkBot the second
Is also borked. Any pointers on fixing him? -- 22:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with BorkBot? Why aren't you using that account? --  Nx / talk 22:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I forgot the password. -- 22:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I'll reset it for you. --  Nx / talk 22:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That isn't what I'm asking for. This account will do very nicely. -- 22:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's done anyway, you'll get a confirmation email, then you can use email new password from the login page. As for the pointers, I've provided plenty already. --  Nx / talk 22:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I inserted the code. I looked over it and attempted to find out where it would need changing. It doesn't work. -- 23:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That code is Python. The code you can put into monobook.js is Javascript. Javascript is not equal Python. Monobook.js is executed by your browser. Your browser does not understand Python. To execute Python code, you need a Python interpreter, for example this one --  Nx / talk 23:07, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I see. Which of the thousand subpages do I go to? -- 23:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted/ (Already gave you that link a month ago) --  Nx / talk 23:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * CUR do you have a python complier? 09:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Intercom in IE
Since the upgrade, Intercom messages aren't working properly for me in Internet Explorer. Clicking on "Next", "Previous" or "Mark as Read" just makes "Error on page" appear in the bar at the bottom of the browser. I need to refresh the page or go to another one to make the message disappear or the next one appear. 09:03, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Which version of IE? --  Nx / talk 09:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Never mind, it's not working in IE8 --  Nx / talk 09:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed. --  Nx / talk 10:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

A lot of service interruptz lately?
Over the past few days I've noticed some terribly slow response times from RW, but no complete failures. Returning five minutes later I usually find everything's fine again. What's up? DogP Marmite Patrol 02:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See: Saloon bar. Some homeopathy thing got digged or liveblogged or some such.  Billion and billions of hits.  03:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...don't see that mention, Human.  Not to worry.   DogP Marmite Patrol 04:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, here 04:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Embedding
How do I embed this? Can I? Is it possible to make it possible? -- 15:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You can't, no, and yes but we aren't going to. -- 20:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why, Nx has mentioned being able to imbed Java, why. -- 21:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Because being able to embed arbitrary objects from the interwebs would enable me to take over your computer and plant acres of furry porn, then send email to your parents with some of them attached. And you know how I itch to do that. -- 21:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I see. Any way around it? -- 21:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You could kill your parents and learn to love furry porn. -- 21:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I mean a way to get around... actually, I have a spam blocker. That would help. Anyway, could there be a way to imbed Javascript, but make it say, have to get a 'safety' approval from a 'crat? Or something to keep out spam? -- 21:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You have noticed that everyone on this wiki except you is a bureaucrat, right? Hell, I'm one and I just take the piss out of PJR, Kendoll and Ray Comfort. -- 22:01, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

@Arthur: I think it might be possible with javascript; that was Trent; Javascript IS NOT Java. You can "imbed" javascript into your monobook.js. There's a safety approval for javascript that affects other users: it's automatically locked so that only sysops can edit it. --  Nx / talk 23:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So how do I embed it?I'm aware of the ability to embed Javascript into the monobook.js but that copying the code won't actually do anything- it's for a gadget of a virtual pet and sticking it in the monobook won't do a damn thing. -- 01:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously, since monobook.js is for javascript and this thing is flash. The code you get when you click embed is raw html to embed the flash object (which still remains hosted on their site), but thankfully mediawiki does not allow such html. You can inject the html using a simple script however. --  Nx / talk 06:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Such as? -- 15:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Such as the one that injects the viewing user's name into . Search for spans with a specific class and change their innerHTML to the embed code. --  Nx / talk  16:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Dear gods and godlings, don't tell him. He might actually figure it out. -- 16:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So what? He's not a sysop, he can't touch common.js --  Nx / talk 16:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For now, you mean. -- 01:20, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * True, but keep in mind you managed to "restart your countdown" again yesterday. F'ing twerp, you were doing so well, too.  01:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Border
I noticed that there are different border styles. Besides groove, what other styles are there? -- 21:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Google is your friend. -- 21:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thankyouthankyouthankyou. -- 21:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocking others whilst blocked oneself
I want it back! 11:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Complain here --  Nx / talk 12:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So you can't do magic to the wiki? 12:16, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Have we reached the edge of the Nxiverse? Totnesmartin 12:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can, but I'm not convinced that it's worth the trouble of patching mediawiki and maintaining the patch in future versions. --  Nx / talk 12:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But don't you see? This means that block wars are now nigh-impossible, because they will be far too boring to continue for any length of time. 12:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless we stick to 3-second blocks. Totnesmartin 12:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But then poof goes the fun of not being able to edit while a block war is in progress. 12:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why don't we test this by having a block war now? 12:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Upload images
The link to the "four points" regarding fair use is broken. I think it should link here which is .pdf rather than .html. I'd change it myself but my wiki-fu is showing it's limitations here. 15:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thanks --  Nx / talk 15:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there a list of these media wiki pages or is it best if they're left difficult or impossible to find? 12:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There is, it's Special:Allmessages (it's called "System messages" on Special:SpecialPages) --  Nx / talk 12:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The four points are borken from the beginning because they apply to a different country to the one the server is in. Totnesmartin 11:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

AotW on recent changes
Is there any way to get "edits" (voting perhaps, comments added definitely) to the AotW to show up on RC? Not being on RC tends to orphanize it - no one knows any activity is happening there, so I think it often gets ignored. 21:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See my todo list on my talk page. It will be done once I rewrite the extension (it has some other problems with caching, previews etc.), but that's a lot of work and I don't have the time to do it right now. -- Nx  / talk 21:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK... I just bring it up every month or so hoping it might magically happen... 22:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Live Data Charts on RW
In furtherance of my obsession hobby of late of tracking progress towards 100 million CP pageviews, I would like to make a graph, updated hourly, of the pageview status. How should I go about generating and uploading a graph every hour without making a clutter of the images system? Or should I forge ahead without worrying? Fedhaji 07:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * How about a daily update on your obsession? 08:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

HotCat on Recent Changes list
The link to hotcat should be wp:wp:HOTCAT, but in the Recent Changeslist it uses wp:HotCat. if it is within the license to modify this I would suggest it to be fixed. Thanks. 15:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You'll have to fix the link in here 89.134.223.11 21:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Pictures From WIGO to other articles
Is it possible to specify the capture tag for the picture name so that I can use the picture captured in WIGO? Currently if I am trying to use the Capture tag the picture name is different. Thanks. 20:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, just copy the link exactly as it is in the wigo:cp source and surround it with the capture tag. When you click show preview you should see the img link and it should already be blue (since the image was uploaded for wigo) 89.134.223.11 21:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Embedding mp3s?
I am hoping this will be possible. I'm chopping up the Andy on the Radio thing into segments, to aid in gradually providing transcripts, etc. So I'll need to upload the eventual mp3 files, and embed them in their little articles. Is this even possible? 20:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlashMP3 ?


 * All ready installed, hence how mp3s get played at Saloon Bar or the cricket noises, etc. 216.221.87.112 20:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 24.218.214.82 22:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC) <-- that was me editing from Carworks (human)
 * Hmmm, ok, so is it possible to upload them? I tried and got pwnzored by the file extension.  Don't really want to host these myself...  23:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have allowed mp3s to be uploaded. tmtoulouse 01:30, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 01:41, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Buggies... one, I see the play box on preview but it's not on the file (as I see it). Also, the extension makes wiki code following break (no paragraphs generated by double returns).  Halp!  02:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I am working on trying to track down whats causing the wiki code to break. So parts of the extension will come and go randomly while I debug. tmtoulouse 02:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. I won't make more of the subpages until you're done, since I don't want to re-edit them all again.  02:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed. tmtoulouse 02:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Very nice, thanks. All loaded up and structured, now all we need is an army of volunteer transcribers.  Do we want to continue to allow mp3 uploads?  19:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I see no reason why not, I prefer to increase the things people can do and only restrict them when it has been shown that it is causing problems. So unless it gets abused, it is nice to have. I have also included pdfs to upload as well. tmtoulouse 20:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Cool. I guess I was only concerned and storage and bandwidth, but you've got that monitored anyway.  20:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Capturebot is eating up more storage and bandwidth than a few mp3s will. Sure if someone uploads their 2000 favorite song collecting to the server..it is a problem...but a few here and there pale in comparison to our other projects. Not to mention that one of the reasons for moving to our own server was massive space expansion for storage and bandwidth. tmtoulouse 21:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not use ogg (mediawikiwiki:Extension:OggHandler), it has better support in mediawiki and it supports html5 native audio/video (finally flash can die - I hate flash), you'll need to install ffmpeg though 89.134.223.11 21:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there a mediawiki viewer for the PDFs or is it client side as usual? Oh, and fuck ogg. 21:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really no, I know there are sites with embedded pdf viewing, I don't know what software is used to render it. Might be possible to create such an extension if it is deemed worth while enough. As for the ogg extension, if you could elaborate about its specific benefits to RW since I don't see a lot of need for that specific format. tmtoulouse 21:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * mediawikiwiki:Extension:PdfHandler, in use: . As for ogg, Extension:OggHandler allows you to use ogg files the same way as images (i.e wikilinks), allows you to play the file on the file's wiki page (e.g.) and has several players, not just flash. 89.134.223.11 21:30, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What software is there for converting and editing oggs? MP3s are pretty universal and there are plenty of tools for them. 21:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There's oggconvert for linux (there's a windows version too, but it's a bit difficult to install), a bunch of shareware apps trying to sell you something that's free for windows, plus there are a few tools here. Nx 14:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

username blacklist
I can't find it. Would like to get rid of the drug spammers, as I think they're automated and hitting lots of wikis. 21:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would prefer to handle the spammers in other ways that are less restrictive. I am reviewing information about them now based on logs at RWW and here and might be able to do something about it that won't require anything as wide spread as blacklisting words in user names. tmtoulouse 21:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * captcha for registrations? Totnesmartin 21:41, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought we already had that? 22:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC)What about this one? And yeah, I really think a blacklist is a bad idea, they're just not very good at all and probably stop more genuine users taking the name they want than spam accounts that they stop. Ever tried to have Christopher as your first real name on Conservapedia? 22:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have blacklisted a string specific enough to deal with the current spammer. 13:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

History of vandalism box thingie
Can anyone point me to useful reference of how to add that box? There may be some pages that recently may benefit from this. Thanks. 22:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Where did you see it? 23:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The cyan-coloured one on the top right as seen in Talk:Main Page and Talk:Phyllis_Schlafly, If possible I would like one on RationalWiki talk:Sandbox.  01:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks like a function of, which is also invoked by pibot.  It probably only turns up if there is a subpage called /vandalism. I hope that answers your question.  More detail: back in the day, I thought it would be funny (I was mostly wrong) to "archive" amusing vandalism in subpages, and apparently talkpage and pibot are written to respect the existence of such pages.  I don't think the sandbox really qualifies - mostly because anyone can blank it and kill the template.  But if you want to preserve something, copy it to RationalWiki talk:Sandbox/vandalism and add the "talkpage" template to talk:sandbox.  03:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks.   05:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Glad I could help. 05:46, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * PS, nice work. It was funny and worth preserving in a meta- sort of way.  05:47, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Searching filespace for EXIF data
I want to see what kind of cameras people are using for their shots because I'm a camera snob. I can't figure out how to search for EXIF data that I know is there - it's displayed for example for this image File:Arugula.jpg. How do I do this? 01:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Very few of our original images sport that data, so maybe the best thing would be to start a camera snob thread at the Bar? Nikon coolpix 990 and some Pentax SLRs with dead batteries, btw.  02:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

"Best of" WIGO script issue (maybe)
"Sarah Palin" is missing from one of these WIGO Entries when transcribing to "Best of" (The entry is not yet archived, so it is more of a script issue rather than the error in archiving). Reason it may be a problem is it may happen to similar items on other WIGO as well. 01:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * He's right, you know... 04:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems to be any internal wiki link. 01:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's weird. So the "quick fix" would be to just delink her name?  02:17, 31 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I have fixed this issue. A side effect is that interwiki links (or anything that results in a link to conservapedia in the outputted html) will generate img links. Nx (talk) 15:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Size
How do you control the font size in  tags? 20:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * With a percentage? Or is that only in spans? Or you could try  which seems to work. 21:15, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Uncommon things in common.css
Our common.css seems to be becoming very quickly clogged by personal tweaks wanted by just one person for their sigs and user pages rather than beneficial to the site as a whole. Fortunately, I have my browser configured so I don't have to see people's stupid custom font choices, but there are other things that are going on that I can't so easily avoid. I can quickly see a tragedy of the commons scenario developing here.

I move that the common CSS and Javascript should not be dumping grounds for personal tweaks, but rather for things of importance to the actual wiki. If people want to pimp out their own stuff, then they can use their own CSS and Javascript spaces for that. Support? Barrage of rotten fruit? -- 21:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I added 9 FREAKING LINES. 9. If it's possible to keep it elsewhere, I'm only too happy. 21:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. User:Phantom Hoover/monobook.css, or whatever theme you're using. It's your personal stuff, keep it in your personal domain. It has nothing to do with rationalwiki. -- 21:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason for putting it here instead of his own monobook.css is to make it visible for every user. Nx (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Why should one user's preference be inflicted on everyone? -- 21:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * For the same reason when I open your user page I have to listen to that song.

If there's anything to be said of RW, it's that we like our bells and whistles.
 * Nx (talk) 21:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, and they're hardly preferences. It's really not that different to using an image as your sig. 21:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But you don't have to go to my user page. As I say, that's my personal shit, and if I want to make it in to myspace, then so be it. On the other hand, if I were to start including autoplaying music in my sig, I'd be rightly bitchslapped. You can do what you like with customising your personal pages, CSS and Javascript. I just want things held in common to be about rationalwiki, not about personal preference. If rationalwiki needs an uncommon font face, then fine.


 * Anything on non-personal pages also needs to respect web standards, including the HTML degrading gracefully. You should be able to reasonably browse RW without flash, javascript or any CSS support whatsoever. -- 21:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And the widespread use of the flashmp3 tag for music players? 22:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And most of our pages using CSS for boxes and such? 22:02, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * CSS fonts degrade gracefully (i.e. you get text in the default font). In PH's case, his sig degrades gracefully from gibberish to gibberish. Nx (talk) 22:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The gibberish makes perfect sense in the correct font; you just need to have read Appendix E of TLotR. 22:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Also Pi's customizations to make his page titles display in Times New Roman have to go too. Nx (talk) 22:11, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The object tag has provisions for graceful decay, in that whatever is between the open and close tag is displayed instead of the object in the event that tag or media type isn't supported, which is fine no matter how ancient the browser. The flash mp3 extension really ought to use that space to link the media, but doesn't. A shortcoming of the extension, not HTML.


 * CSS support also gracefully decays, so things like our community chalkboard become inline sections, which is fine. The same is true for browsers which support CSS, but reformat for narrow screens, like mobile phones.


 * Also, I don't give a monkies if you're a Tolkein fanboy. -- 22:12, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Nor do I ask you to. 22:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes you are. What the hell am I supposed to call you now? El et? You're asking everyone browsing on a portable device, or using an older browser, or like me with custom fonts turned off to click on your name just to find out who you really are. You're going to end up confusing the fuck out of half the newbies, because they'll have no idea who is being referred to in a discussion thread. It was bad enough with CUR's constant name changes. -- 22:29, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And Toast's old sig, about which no one complained? You know, the one that was a . with a long bit of text to her talkpage? And Pi's current sig, which only a mathematician would realise meant Pi? And Ghengis', which you can't understand unless you know Cyrillic? Stop singling me out for this. 22:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * We should really use ogg files though, since they have better support in mediawiki and several alternative players Nx (talk) 22:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC) With Jeeves on this (Phantom's sig is just a random string of letters to me) . Just out of curiosity is that why RW takes longer, much longer, than other wikis to load on my handheld (phone)? Oh & I don't mind if my sig gets returned to English. 22:36, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If we're going to talk about performance, then the first thing that has to go is random signatures, the second thing is template signatures. Nx (talk) 22:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * :Well, as someone who browses fairly often via 3G with images off to save money, I can attest that Toast's sig degrades nicely to the word "Toast." Can't say I've really noticed any others, though I'd scarcely complain about someone who wanted their signature in their native alphabet, as long as they're glyphs we can all enjoy, and if necessary copy and paste. -- 22:38, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (EC!) Phantom: someone did complain about my dot sig: that's why I stopped. 22:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well then, what about the other two, and all other sigs which do not make clear whose they are? 22:48, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Pi's sig is just the letter Pi, same as the username. In any case, as long as the glyphs they're using are actually some attempt at rendering proper unicode, then whatever they want. If I don't understand their name, I can just copy and paste it and what I end up writing will be exactly the name in their sig, sans formatting. This isn't the same in your case, where copying and pasting yields gibberish. -- 22:55, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Pi's sig is a random signature of several different mathematical formulas, unless you are using his script that replaces it with the letter pi. Anyway, the problem with Phantom Hoover's new sig is not the font and the css stuff, it's that the text is gibberish. He could use this for example, and it would degrade nicely (it's better than the image, which does have the alt tag, but is not searchable and copyable):  Phantom Hoover  Nx (talk) 22:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Phantom, not getting at your sig in particular: Nutty's comes out blank on the phone while yours at least shows some characters. 23:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

(UI)Someone shoudl tell nutty to add an alt thing to his image, then? I volunteer, I think. 23:21, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Think I noticed Nx doing that. 23:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I fixed it and amended the instructions in Help:Wikisig Nx (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't, please, get me wrong, I love all the stuff that adds to our wiki the votes, the weird sigs, everything BUT I don't want us becoming a "nerds only" site, where anyone not computer literate might feel intimidated. My other half is a total non-tech when it comes to computers and occasionally is baffled by things on here and won't even attempt to do anything. Did I start this those many years ago with DPL? - sorry if I did. 23:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, I get it. I'll stop it then. Nx (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Nx: PLEASE don't stop adding useful things, you're probably the best technical person we've ever had, but think of the dweebs when you do. 00:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Except when I add something I think is useful or nice to have, it turns into this. Therefore, I won't do that any more. If you have any ideas for what you'd like me to do, I'll do it, then point people to you when they start flaming me. Nx (talk) 07:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The DPL stuff is all sorts of awesome, without which we'd be greatly impoverished. I love all your random selection of articles from category templates, although they probably suck CPU cycles like they're going out of style. -- 23:55, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Look, let's get back to the original issue
I.e. is it justified to add to Common.css for personal effects? 22:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I was going to say, you guys got sidetracked above. I'd say "no", ditto the site monobook.  For two reasons - one, it's a site-wide file, not a sandbox, and two, it could be a horrible slippery slope if dozens, hundreds of bits of cruft get in there, making it a mess to edit for things that matter.  23:01, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you can always use @import to keep the font definitions elsewhere, to avoid clutter. 23:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * So it becomes just one line, with all the silly stuff in a sub-file, say?  23:11, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

And continue the sig issue here
Happy now, Jeeves? 23:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I like that, PH.

Potential issues we have mostly ignored as far as "policy"...
 * Sigs that don't convey who the user is (K/T is the classic, Pi is just math lessons, IMO, but that carries no weight).
 * Random sigs that chew up server time?
 * Templated sigs, ditto?

Mostly we just bitch as a mob when people make over-large sigs, or ones like Toast's ".", in general. But we seem to allow, and enjoy, a very wide leeway, cause that's the way we roll... this might belong at community standards... 23:05, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The image was fine, btw. It had your user name as alt text, so a) It degraded fine when I browsed without images, and b) You could copy and paste it to a text field and get your name as text. -- 23:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The image was, as Nx pointed out, an ugly solution; plaintext is better. BTW, what mobile browser are you using that allows copying and pasting of images? Because if you're using one of the normal browsers, mousing over a link normally displays the URL. Oh, and this sig still uses the CSS trick that you originally took offence at, so you are changing your stance. A cynic might assert that your problem was just with the appearance of my sig. 23:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, exactly. I don't know what CSS "tricks" you're using, and I don't care. All I see is your user name in my default font. That's the way HTML is supposed to work. We may not be using the same hardware, operating system, browser or font face but we both read the same text. -- 23:31, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Performance
Using Safari's profiler with clear cache, extremely non-scientific:
 * common.css: 826ms latency (while the server is processing stuff) + 8ms actual download
 * other, almost empty css file (one line): 618ms latency + 1ms download
 * Toast's image: 769ms latency + 4ms download
 * Minichuck.gif: 1.18s latency + 0ms download
 * The font: 780ms latency + 810ms download (the font is a larger file, but it is cached like the images)

Because of the latency (i.e. mediawiki having to go to the database to fetch the page), it would be less efficient to move things out into a separate file. Nx (talk) 23:34, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, if we're going on about performance, my sig is the least of the problems. 09:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I haven't been able to access for an hour or more, what was up? 09:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Backups most likely, although that shouldn't be an hour. Also it seems we got a lot of traffic from somewhere, but that should only make the site slow, not inaccessible. Trent should be able to tell you more. Nx (talk) 10:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Fake Categories
Is there a way I can get a page to show fake categories? Essentially I want to show a random category (yes, randomly generated) at the bottom but I don't want the page to be included in the Category DPL. 03:10, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Please don't. Unless you have a reason you can convince the rest of us of, where it would be a brilliant idea? Then, still don't. 04:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ed Poor Stub Generator? Basically blank article with noun/verb as displaytitle and then random cat. but then it won't be useful to include in the DPL.  Or perhaps a box that has the content of an articles as fake screenshots or something (That requires me to know the specs of the page template of CP.  Anyone mind sharing the knowledge of how best to extract that and put here?).   05:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Too CP. No one cares anymore about them save a few obsessors. Certainly not worth breaking our category "structure" and messing with noobs' heads. Anyway, no, bad idea.  05:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You could just knock together a box that looks like the category box in monobook. There is a thing called usermessage

Which makes fake messages that look like this.
 * Try playing around to make a catbox, especially look at the source code for an already catted article and look for a class in a div environment with a name like categorybox or something. 06:30, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Catlinks

Makes fake category bars like this.
 * Easy. 06:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No fake screen shots please. TK is already promulgating that and we don't want to give him even partial substantiation. 07:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I tried a fake diff table once; didn't work well, but with a few tweaks I could do it I reckon. If people would let me, I could tweak one page to appear to look like the CP common.css, we could have our own sound stage for creating fake screenshots live on the wiki. Oh that is what you don't want right? 07:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want to "fake" screenshots you don't even need to do something that complex. Just go to Conservapedia, make the article and screenshot it. Though as your article would actually be on CP, it stretches the definition of "fake" somewhat. Incidentally, do most CP admins/sysops have equiverlent accounts here? Set up by either parodists or people who want to stop parodists creating them? I know we have one for Conservative that's supposedly open should the fella want to stop his childish "gentlemen" crap. 09:12, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * But you don't get the names and stuff. Only if we faked them we wouldn't have all that broken html floating around. 09:31, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be the drawback, all you could say doing it on their site would be "lookee what CP haz!!11" rather than "look what one of their genuinine editors said". But, regardless, I think we can all agree that faking screenshots of Conservapedia would be far more hassel than it's worth because they provide us with so much undeniably real material to work with. 11:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

We need a Firefox search plugin for RationalWiki
Real bad. Seems like it would be pretty easy to crib from any of the other search plugins. I'd write it if I could. Sorry to beg. 04:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is an option to search to the left. What more do you want? 04:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * To be able to search the mainspace from the browser bar. It'll draw readership, dude. Natch. 04:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I would definitely use it. At the very least it's a step up in convenience.-- 04:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay does anybody have the code for one? 04:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You can make your own. 04:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This is very helpful. Thank you. 04:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks Pi. -- 04:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki is compatible with Firefox's search bar in the upper right corner. When you are on RationalWiki, the icon will be blue, click it and click add RationalWiki (en). If you want to search Rationalwiki from the address bar instead of Google, navigate to about:config, click the warning, search for keyword.URL, and change it to this: (you can always set it back to Google by right clicking and selecting reset):

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=
 * Now when you type anything that isn't a valid address into the address bar, you will go to the RationalWiki article or get RationalWiki's search results if the article doesn't exist. Nx (talk) 05:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Shit that's snazzy. Thanks! 06:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you've got teh google toolbar there's a "search this site" option. Handy wherever you are. 06:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A mudkip themed theme would be super cool too. Web (talk) 23:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

permalink and sbs template
There should be 2 permalinks to cp in the template above yet and  shows up instead. would someone mind taking a look? 18:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Something to do with the "=" character, it looks like. Though substituting "%3D" does not produce valid URLs. 18:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is why I changed the documentation. Nx (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * wp:Help:Template Nx (talk) 18:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Page Protection
I've noticed that on RWW, you can protect pages so that only bureaucrats can edit them. However, we lack that option here. It would strike me that here, where pretty much everyone is a sysop, that this would come in far more useful. Thoughts?
 * They are sysops because we trust them, so no. 22:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Kinda makes it pointless having the open sysop policy if you simply protect pages that are considered 'special' Worm (t  23:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * wat. Web (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, Emp., why did you protect two templates that feed the main page? Please answer at talk:Main Page.  01:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The default mediawiki setup is to only have three levels of protection: None, autoconfirmed, sysop. It would be trivial to add bureaucrat protection, but it goes against our openness policy, and is a move that should be discussed at Community standards or something like that -- Nx  / talk 08:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Redirects and DPL
Question regarding these 2: More detailed idea Here  06:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) If I add Category to Redirects, does it allow such redirect to be used in a DPL (DPL'ing a bunch of redirects within that category)?
 * 2) Does DPL ensure non-repeating random entries?
 * If I understand you correctly you want to cat redirects. Why? And without testing it my suspicion is DPL will treat it the same as any other page, it is fairly unforgiving.  06:37, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Most likely it won't work, dpl will just list the redirect page. But go ahead and try it, that's why you have sandboxes. -- Nx  / talk 06:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like bad idea to me. Cat the article, not the seventeen redirects to it.  06:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The listing (Here) works almost perfectly (I'll work on the number of entries and randomizing later; is ordermethod=none available in DPL 1.7.8? I can only get alph list atm) except I have no idea how to put it in a table of 5x5 with "Free Space" in the middle.  @ Human:  perhaps you may want to take a look at the source of that to see why I need category in redirects. 03:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see, I think. You're just making a game we can play, right?  Not doing weird things to the mainspace...  03:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. The redirects are catted so the DPL can list them, and the mainspace articles aren't ending up with an extra weird category.   03:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Update
A couple of questions: 16:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there a way for me to pass a pipe character in the #ifeq: function template? (like "|-align=centre" for a new row, currently I am having extra pipe characters or having less columns than it should be)
 * 2) Currently I found DPL lists things in alphabetical order. are there ways to shuffle the list?
 * Try Template:!. -- Nx  / talk 17:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Using it doesn't seem to work (new row of tables based on count?) 21:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I think I fixed it ( |- doesn't work, so the pipe has to be added at the end )  21:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Now is simply the shuffle/random ordering problem left. Any comments?   01:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ask Toast? She went hardcore into DPL a while back and might know. 02:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Did you look at this when building it? 03:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ur... Π, DPL matrix displays boolean values?  04:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Does it? I thought that was only because they had set it to display X, I didn't read it that much. 04:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think ArrayExtension solves the problem (Use DPL to print the stuff onto the array,, then use a table to put individual elements; tried on the DPL manual wiki site as well). However I am reluctant to ask people to get this unless someone imaginative can think of other uses for it.   05:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It might help Larron out with his Active User stuff. I say lets install it, see what it is capable of doing and then we can find things to do with it. 05:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me know (here) when it's ready. Thanks.   21:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there any "risk" to the install procedure? Remember, we are about to lose physical access to the server for a couple of weeks. I'd hate to have to get a life...  22:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not comfortable with installing extensions that are marked as beta. I'll have to take a look at it, but do you really need it? -- Nx  / talk 08:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Blocked text borken


Why? 19:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I kind of like the borken backreferences. &mdash; Signed, by: Neveruse513 / Talk / Block 19:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Because you're using the en-rw language which was a failed idea of mine. Don't bother changing it, I'll change it to english for all the 5 people who are using it. -- Nx  / talk 19:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Can I update the en-gb language to have the RW tags. 19:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't care, but you'll have to ask Human first. -- Nx  / talk 19:26, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Why? 19:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want different tabs, use javascript. Languages are a more elegant solution, but they require maintenance, and noone cares enough to do that. -- Nx  / talk 19:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What does it entail? 02:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that although en-rw falls back to en, it falls back to the mediawiki default, not the en messages we customized, such as the block text. You'd have to make sure things like that are updated in the en-rw version too, which is a overkill if all you want to do is change a few tabs. -- Nx  / talk 06:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I could write a script that created all the ones we have. 06:39, 9 September 2009 (UTC)