RationalWiki:Technical support

Archives for this page

__NEWSECTIONLINK__ Herein goeth anything regarding the technicalities of the wiki
 * Problems with accessing/editing the wiki
 * Problems with MediaWiki/HTML/CSS/Javascript/etc.
 * Questions about RW's configuration/extensions/servers/etc.
 * In short, anything tech-y goes here

External links
 * Semi-frequent updates about RW's technical status are available at RationalWiki's blogspot.
 * To view or suggest changes to configuration files and MediaWiki extensions, see RationalWiki's GitHub.

Users
 * Users with Tech rights: see Special:ListUsers/tech
 * Users with root on the servers: (dgerard@gmail.com),  and.

If your IP is blocked from editing as an open proxy
 * You need to go to your provider about it. The lists we use are xbl.spamhaus.org, dnsbl.tornevall.org, all.s5h.net. If your IP is on one of these lists, then your provider has a serious problem they need to resolve. We cannot get your ISP out of the blacklist.

Content dumps (sticky)
All of the internal links to backups on RationalWiki:Content dumps fail. Also, what is the status of 's archive.org port? Bongolian (talk) 02:15, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * yeah, they're all old. No, haven't pushed that forward at all, sorry - David Gerard (talk) 12:27, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * reminder to do this -- might be convenient to do on same day you take elections live

I made some dumps and uploaded them to archive.org. -- Tim Starling (talk) 12:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you, ! Bongolian (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

sometimes not working
See eg infinity or relativity. The categories that are meant to catalogue this sort of error (Category:Pages with math render errors and Category:pages with math errors) don’t seem to be up to date, probably caching issues. Christopher (talk) 14:34, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * See also The Equation of Creation. This page renders dozens of big red math errors, throws a "503 Service Unavailable" error, or a 500 error. Clearly, something about the math extension is making the software very ill. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 15:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Would this be something only capable of being fixed by the sysadmins and not by the techs then? Vee (talk) 16:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is almost certainly a server-side issue so the system admins are the only ones that can address it. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 16:25, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Good to know I'm not the only one having this problem. My latest edits were supposed to have some equations. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 01:07, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This appears to be what's breaking one of our gold pages (see "page still won't load") below. Maybe relevant: https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Topic:Uo3kkmmop1jj9vhw&topic_showPostId=v2pfwaghxx0fmu0c, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Tqkr5mdviskc8fmk Christopher (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem here is from what I can tell that the Math extension (which gives us these tags) just offloads all rendering functionality to a service named Mathoid. By default its apparently meant to call a Mathoid service deployed by the Wikimedia Foundation, but this doesn't appear to be working properly. This has been broken for a while actually (2 years or so), just not in any way most people would notice; if you had your Math rendering settings set to PNG with SVG fallback you'd be able to get it rendered without using Mathoid. In Mediawiki 1.32, Mathoid became required even for the PNG renderer (...few words begin to describe how much disdain I have for the WMF to offload this sorta thing to services they control but that's neither here or there). As for how to fix it; barring deploying our own Mathoid + RESTbase instance, I have absolutely no idea. We could set the upstream URL to a different RESTbase instance? -- Techpriest (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Some people in the linked thread were saying that switching from wikimedia (the default) to wikipedia resolved their issue. You'd add the following line to RWsettings:

$wgMathFullRestbaseURL = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/';
 * Christopher (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Bots and sysopship
This is more a suggestion for the users who have root access to the server: please give bots the user right to edit sysop-protected pages. It is the only sysop right that most bots besides the edit filter would need, and granting them that right would mean that we don't have to make most bots sysop which could be a potential security issue. Speaking of which, there are a bunch of long inactive bots that still have sysop, while they're unlikely to cause an issue should we desysop them to be safe? Plutocow (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Fusion of accounts
I would like to fusion my current account with my two previous ones: Student and Tneduts. I know it's technically possible because I've seen it done on other wikis. However, I don't know if I'm entitled to it since I lost all access to them (as their long passwords were stored on my old defective HDD), so I can't prove that they are mine besides the fact that they are inactive. And no, I will not lose this third account because I have its password well backed up now. - Dropix (talk) 18:44, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful.
Got this while trying to clean up the Stalin article. The edit filter gave the reason "Suspicious, massive change to article". Making multiple smaller edits in sections works but I'd rather avoid the warning altogether. JohnDo (talk) 22:16, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I've added you to the autopatrolled user group, which should prevent that edit filter from triggering. Cheers. 22:49, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! JohnDo (talk) 22:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Modern science in the Bible
The article "Modern Science in the Bible" (Modern Science in the Bible) does not open. The page never loads, and at best will give a 503 error (tested with two different browsers). Panzerfaust (talk) 08:19, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Legit news site freezes RW
In editing the Ron DeSantis page and cross-checking citations therein, I've noticed that opening some Florida news websites (e.g., https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsborough-county/warren-says-florida-anti-riot-bill-tears-a-couple-corners-off-the-constitution/) has the effect of freezing the page that I'm editing. It doesn't unfreeze until I'm either able to close the Florida website or force-quit the browser. I'm running Firefox 113.0.2 on Mac OS 12.6.5. Opening the Florida webpage in a different browser than the RW page seems to fix the problem). Bongolian (talk) 20:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)


 * My first guess would be a Firefox bug rather than a problem at RW's end. Maybe the Javascript on the news websites is doing something weird and it glitches out the browser in combination with some things. Does the same thing happens in another browser too, with both pages there? In any case, I can't check it -- wfla.com says, "This content is not available in your country/region." --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 07:37, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I lost access to my account
Can the name of this account be changed to Carthage? Carthage2 (talk) 12:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 15:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Carthage (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Joke block options
Not a big deal, but did we get rid of them? GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 19:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I deleted all the really silly ones back in February. The giant drop down list was making it a pain when using a phone, and I hadn't seen anyone using them in quite some time. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 20:37, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was the right thing to do. I was just curious to know what happened to them. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 21:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Fine
If you want to allow egregious vandalism to happen to the Alt-right glossary and ban anyone who tries to revert said vandalism, go for it. But it makes you look really shitty.
 * Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about? Carthage (talk) 03:46, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Said IP was not banned, but the filter kept him from reverting some vandalism before a registered member did some minutes later. That's the same filter that prevents some types of big bad edits to articles, unfortunately it's impossible to have the filter be "smarter" in this regard. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 11:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Renames and their re-usability
I've often wondered about renaming vandals etc: when an idiot name e.g. "The Pederastic Penis" is renamed to "The Petulant Poot" does the old name "The Pederastic Penis" become reusable? if so is there any way to autoblock it? Scream!! (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * They're all reusable, unless I edit the filter to specifically prevent accounts with that particular string from being reused. Plutocow (talk) 20:30, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ...And a problem with such blocking is that vandals can make a new, similar but not identical name anyway, unless the blocking pattern is more general/restrictive, in which case it may cramp the style of non-vandals. Still, on some wikis -- both Uncyclopedia and Illogicopedia (where I'm admin) -- we block patterns in all of names, page titles, and content additions for a very few, remarkably repetitive, highly predictable, and super-stubborn vandals. (RW's vandals are usually more flexible than those.) --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course, it doesn't matter how many times "The Pederastic Penis" recreates an account with that name, as they will be blocked swiftly every time; nevertheless, I have added "penis" to the username filter to block that particular rereg. This problem is more annoying when dealing with good-faith users changing names, but there are no rules against sockpuppetry here (as long as it's not being used to evade a ban) and so they can create an account with their old name if they wish to prevent trolls from using it. Plutocow (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Notifications not working
It seems like the process that sends email notifications for followed pages is no longer working. Bongolian (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * , this probably calls for taking a look at the server. Remember the trouble prior to the last upgrade? May not be the same issue (Tim apparently later fixed a problem in a software extension that had resulted in a disk partition being filled), but could possibly be something that gets messier over time. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:29, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Allow Tor (for some)
If I remember correctly, Tor here is blocked via a DNSBL. Could it be possible to change to the TorBlock extension instead so that at least some users (autopatrolled? sysops only?) can have permission to edit through Tor? Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's inconsistent. Some Tor nodes are indeed blocked, but others are allowed for some reason. DNSBL must not be caught up to all of them. Plutocow (talk) 17:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)