RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive19

Manual archiving

I tried to manually archive the last Coop case (RationalWiki:Chicken_coop/Archive70) but has not appeared in the archive list yet (RationalWiki:Chicken_coop/Archive_list). Is this just a delay or did I do something wrong? Bongolian (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC) @Kazitor? Bongolian (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Bongolian Archive70 is there, it has been more than four hours after all. Next time try purging the list if it doesn't appear immediately. Now the next matter is that of why pinging is so flaky... —Kazitor 00:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks, @Kazitor! Bongolian (talk) 00:06, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Adjust spam filter

I noticed that a lot of spammers are using monospaced characters such as "ｅ". Should the filter look for these characters in a person's first edit that's on their userpage?

@CheeseburgerFace Probably not too hard, but that filter is a bit of a mess. I'd appreciate some examples too, if you don't mind :) —Kazitor 00:30, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

@CheeseburgerFace, @Kazitor Here's an example of a deleted page that had monospaced type: [1]. Bongolian (talk) 00:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

So it's only random single characters. Hmm. I suppose there could be a blacklist on just every single one from a to z. And if it only targets user bios it shouldn't be too bad. I'll try going with just "ｅ" for now since I saw that in two examples. —Kazitor 00:48, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

@CheeseburgerFace and Bongolian so was that enough, or should I add some more letters? —Kazitor 10:37, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@Kazitor I don't know. I only spotted a couple before the filter went into place. A separate issue is last night there were a rash of spam pages put up that all had US toll-free phone numbers in the titles (888-XXX-XXXX). Bongolian (talk) 15:48, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

More spam

Can somebody block all mention of "lortab"? --Gospatric (talk) 10:11, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Now getting vicodin spam. --Gospatric (talk) 10:15, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

_✓Done and done. @Gospatric —Kazitor 10:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

SEVERE problem with spam filter

For some reason, I am being blocked from making an edit on the article for Reddit where I discuss problems with the way some users on r/askhistorians handle issues relating to sexual assault and Christianity. What the balks is going on? Reddit skeptic (talk) 05:13, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@Reddit skeptic I wish I could tell you. The spam filter was not written by me, and seems to trigger a lot of false positives. Thus I have added you to the "autopatrolled" group so it doesn't bug you. —Kazitor 05:45, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@Kazitor See this log for why: the text mentions "homework help", which is in the spamtextnoccnorm section. [also, you added it: "19Apr18-Kaz: homework help" ;)]

if possible, the edit filter should ONLY filter text ADDED rather than the PARAGRAPH in which text was added --> this is the #1 cause of false positives Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 13:16, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

this might solve it Herr FuzzyKatzenPotato (talk/stalk) 13:18, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

seems to have fixed it FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 13:45, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@FuzzyCatPotato huge thanks for that then :) And now that you point it out, I can see the "homework help" part; wasn't paying attention to the previous text despite being aware it affected things. —Kazitor 05:59, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Resolved

Gadget and Gadget definition

Presumably these namespaces exist for gadgets, but those are all stored under MediaWiki:Gadget-*. Gadget, Gadget talk, Gadget definition and Gadget definition talk all have a grand total of 0 pages. Is there a way to move the relevant pages to those namespaces without breaking them? —Kazitor 07:30, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Your setup is correctly defined for the original gadget specification. The Gadget namespace is part of Gadgets 2.0, which is a redesign of sorts to make gadget maintenance easier. The main differences are that 2.0 uses these new namespaces and also uses Special:Gadgets as the main interface instead of MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. Now I don't actually know if you have the code for this 2.0 implementation installed on this wiki, but since Special:Gadgets exists, maybe? However the manual just says: "To migrate your existing gadgets, run the update.php script. This will move your existing gadget JS and CSS pages into the Gadget namespace and will create new gadget definitions in the Gadget_definition namespace." Which doesn't indicate to me that they are supposed to be moved manually... — Dysk (contribs) 09:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Chinese language spam

So the FirstnameLastname random fake accounts have adapted to the spam filter by spamming chinese language userpages. None of that overlaps are currently English-focused anti-spam filters. So now they're just one CAPTCHA away from needing manual work to clean up. Should I look at creating a new filter rule? ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

But aren't they also adapting through other ways? It's not just the Chinese language spam, it's other kinds of spam. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 21:17, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

This is why I asked. What else are they doing? ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 22:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

This isn't unicodepedia. Simply block all the indic and oriental scripts for new users. And maybe phone numbers. That should cover it. — Dysk (contribs) 01:41, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Harder to achieve with the available toolset than you might think. To my knowledge we have no way to ID which code region a character in a change comes from. Also you'd ban my poor bleat at me goat with such wide targets. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 05:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

We should seriously look into a different/better CAPTCHA rather than implementing every spam rule that comes to mind. —Kazitor 05:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

No captcha is fullproof. In fact, mechnical-turk resolution of captchas is a real thing that goes on. Ugh, imagine being paid $1 and hour to just constantly answer captchas. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 21:41, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

There is a saying - nothing can be made foolproof, as fools are so ingenious. (This is also why the basilisk and the singularity will never succeed). Anna Livia (talk) 16:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Blocking reason suggestion

Can something - perhaps an equivalent of this from here for those entries which need 'splatting' but which are not spam/harassment etc. Anna Livia (talk) 16:29, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

'General annoying/being maliciously offensive' - and also, perhaps, 'not operating in the spirit of RW and wikis in general.' Anna Livia (talk) 09:49, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Resolved: @Anna Livia, enjoy your new block reason. —ClickerClock_{💾 talk.txt} 02:22, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Just deleted another IP-nonsense. Anna Livia (talk) 08:37, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Pinging

I was meaning to bring this up a while ago but forgot, and I was reminded yesterday during a discussion at the Bar. For some reason when users 'ping' me I almost never get a notification for it. Any idea what could be causing this? and has anyone else been experiencing this? Cheers --RWRW (talk) 12:36, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Likewise. Anna Livia (talk) 23:05, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

See the Wikipedia article on Help:Fixing failed pings. —ClickerClock_{💾 talk.txt} 02:15, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Resolved: @RWRW not rw-tech specific issue FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 15:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Auto-refresh button for recent changes

Should we add an auto-refresh button to the recent changes log? @Psl361 has created an excellent piece of code to enable us to do it. Seeking mob consent for whether we should ultimately add it or not. — Palaeonictis ^{Fossil beds} 16:33, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Not unless you also update the site to version 1.30 or newer if you don't mind. — Dysk (contribs) 23:45, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: Not happening at this time. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

dark mode

Various people have been asking to implement a "dark mode" for Rationalwiki, you can:

• Edit your own css in preferences using the code given at mediawikiwiki:Skin:Vector-DarkCSS
• Wait for someone to add Mediawikiwiki:Skin:Darkvector to the installed skins.

— Dysk (contribs) 15:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: Not happening at this time. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

503

I'm getting 503 errors like crazy. What in the name of all that is perverse is going on? Is there a site update that I'm unaware of? Is some script-kiddy impotent again? What? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:50, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

There's something wrong with the varnish cache. It seems to be intermittent, but if it persists then go poke @David Gerard so he can poke the servers. — Dysk (contribs) 18:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Example error for reference:

Error 503 Backend fetch failed
Backend fetch failed

Guru Meditation:
XID: 88849978

Varnish cache server

that's when apache3 overloads. I need to restart it at some point, so it gets a free Linode upgrade - David Gerard (talk) 13:37, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

actually I should probably schedule that sooner rather than later, we're doing something that hammers the shit out of our CPU - David Gerard (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Don't think I didn't notice the sly insult, @GrammarCommie. :p — Palaeonictis ^{Fossil beds} 15:08, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was fixed by David. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

I fucking hate certbot

and I have ONE DAY to make our certs renew or everything breaks! No pressure ...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lSAyV6G4CWVoOJadouvC5guleNccLeqD2UEZ1BsSvk/edit

I'm thinking Varnish is actually being dumb for some reason. But I don't see how, because the port 80 call is handled only by nginx and HOW THE HELL CAN IT PASS REQUESTS TO A BACKEND IT'S LITERALLY NOT CONFIGURED FOR and wtf - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

According to dig there is an rationalwiki.org. 299 IN AAAA 2600:3c03::f03c:91ff:fe7a:f3c3 although this doesn't say why it is happening. — Dysk (contribs) 13:53, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

yeah, I just hit it over the head and forced a correct DNS entry. Certs renewed! Let's see how it goes - David Gerard (talk) 17:03, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Congratulations. xD — Dysk (contribs) 18:56, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

sysadmin haiku:

It's not DNS

There's no way it's DNS

It was DNS

- David Gerard (talk) 00:18, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was fixed by David. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Section link fail

It may be that this is not fixable, but when one uses a section link to a section that follows a lengthy collapsed segment, the link takes one to the end of the page rather than to the appropriate section. An example is: QAnon#Inciting violence. Bongolian (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Works fine for me. :shrug: (Chrome on Linux) — Dysk (contribs) 20:26, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Browser specific behavior. The onload->javascript collapse->locate and scroll to anchor pattern versus the onload->locate and scroll to anchor->javascript collapse pattern. There's no technical solution possible that you could reasonably expect to implement server-side. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I went and removed the collapse templates. Of course this could still be a problem on talk pages. — Dysk (contribs) 20:35, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

(ECx2 BONGOLOIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN)Piles of trash that people might want to see, but also sit between the article section and reference material like external links is something of a special case. I'd say that this particular situation maybe warrants a subpage? Or... a transclusion? We're different from wikipedia in that we sometimes collect piles of garbage that cranks produce. Presumably there, all included information is relevant and prosaic. Having it uncollapsed is kinda ugly. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:43, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

A subpage would probably be wise. I doubt a transclusion would do anything much. I suppose technically it could be a sub-article, maybe. — Dysk (contribs) 20:46, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The advantage of keeping it on the page rather than on a subpage is for search indexing if nothing else. Perhaps move it to a footnote? Bongolian (talk) 20:49, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like a good compromise. — Dysk (contribs) 20:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was eventually resolved by discussion elsewhere. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

How do you rename an account?

Someone made an account with an asinine name, how can I rename it? Public School Girl (talk) 03:42, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

You need to be a tech or a mod to do that, sorry. We could assign naming rights to sysops, but to do that would require a vote, and this isn't the place to do that. — Palaeonictis ^{Fossil beds} 04:25, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

If you need to rename an account, you can always ask one of the mods or techs. RoninMacbeth (talk) 04:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Renaming trolls to joke names is the one thing I miss about being a mod. Avida Dollars^{her again} 10:39, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This is answered. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Blacklisting links

Is there anyway to blacklist links that will keep an edit from happening? That weird bot keeps spamming the same thing, seems like it would be better to just not allow what it keeps pushing rather then keep cleaning up after it (since its just SEO juicing) Revolverman (talk) 23:43, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

I can, and do, blacklist link patterns where appropriate. However the links being spammed do change on an ongoing basis, and we don't have the manpower to maintain a blacklist of every undesired link or domain. A few pages out of every hundred get through, but this is because filters are not perfect. — Dysk (contribs) 23:57, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Ahh, gotcha. Well, gotta go back to deleting Swedish porno, or whatever the fuck those spam links are. Revolverman (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: Link blacklists are unfeasible on this wiki. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Downtime for upgrade, probably Saturday

RationalWiki:Saloon_bar#RW_Server_Upgrades_-_will_involve_1-2hrs_downtime - any comments there plz - David Gerard (talk) 20:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe we'll get lucky and this evil site will never come back up, and creationism will finally win. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:40, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Good news, you're just imagining this! - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was completed successfully by David. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

WIGO CZ CSS

Could someone please change the styles for WIGO CZ to point to the new page title (NIGO CZ)? Thanks — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 21:24, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pythoncoder I assume this is what you were looking to be done? — Dysk (contribs) 14:28, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 23:02, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was done. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Upload Excel file

I wanted to upload the datafile for this, since right now it's hosted on the personal website of the author (and may disappear next year), but I can't upload xlsx files:

".xlsx" is not a permitted file type. Permitted file types are png, gif, jpg, jpeg, webp, svg, xcf, mp3, pdf, djvu, ttf, eot, woff, flac, mkv, mov, mp4, oga, ogg, ogv, wav, webm.

Could xlsx be added to that list? And perhaps some other common document formats as well? Thanks! Martin (talk) 23:10, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Basically probably no, because allowing most filetypes is a security nightmare. You would be better off saving it as a pdf and uploading that instead. — Dysk (contribs) 14:34, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

And in particular xlsx is a known security risk. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:08, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't convert to PDF very well because of the column sizes. I can export to CSV I guess, but .csv or .txt aren't in the whitelist either. Martin (talk) 08:02, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay so maybe if you strip the formatting or something. But essentially you have to work in our existing filetypes, or use a third party archiving service. — Dysk (contribs) 14:16, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This won't be done for security reasons as above. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion (spam-stopping idea no.391)

Would a 'make one edit on an article (not being your own user page) within (10 minutes)' filter-bot reduce the amount of time people have to spend dealing with the shoals of spam-accounts? Anna Livia (talk) 17:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

A slightly more advanced and multi-tiered set of spam filters was implemented by me several months ago with a not dissimilar idea in mind, building on the ones we had before created by FCP and others. It's blocked something like 2000 spambot instances by now (see Special:AbuseLog) but of course spammers do get through, since the filter lacks actual intelligence and is thus limited. There is a balance between perhaps affecting real users with it and blocking more spam, I am fairly happy with it's performance so far but would probably not want to make it's rules much tighter. — Dysk (contribs) 19:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

This would be more having the usernames do something within a reasonable time (ie slightly more useful than a Captcha box-ticking) - and might include 'inappropriate word checker' for identify 'look-at-me(being banned from RW)s.' It might also pick up the occasional 'scrambled name' (followed by intended name creation).

(The worst I get up to are occasional weak puns, and 'dislocating a table with a misplaced or mis-moved character.') Anna Livia (talk) 14:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh I see, I don't think that is possible, technically speaking. — Dysk (contribs) 15:09, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

'Category of things which are useful but not practical' :) Anna Livia (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This won't be done at this time. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Problem with To do list

Something happened to screw up the display of the RationalWiki:To do list recently. The list no longer expands and contracts with the window size, but instead has very long lines that are unchanging in length. Bongolian (talk) 05:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I suspect a style parameter it relies on got deprecated or something, it's not immediately clear why but the fact it is transcluding the <vote> poll seems to break the layout. I will see what I can do. — Dysk (contribs) 10:51, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, D! Bongolian (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Well the solution seemed to be to stop using {{EmbedBox}} and the table. Let me know if there are any issues, but note that the page no longer features the pointless poll and some elements have been moved around. — Dysk (contribs) 11:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, looks good now. Bongolian (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

@D Except something is now suppressing the section headers from being separately editable within the main To Do List (New articles, Most wanted articles, Recent). Bongolian (talk) 17:22, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. — Dysk (contribs) 19:03, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was fixed. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Please create an "Annotation:" or "Commentary:" namespace for complete rational annotations

There are countless irrational works we need to annotate, some of which are now public domain. I've been doing a bit of that myself in my userspace, but I want to move it elsewhere so it gets more attention. I have more religious or bigoted books/videos that I want to annotate here. Putting every annotated work in the "RationalWiki:" namespace seems like it would fill that namespace with annotations, and "Annotated Why Being Gay is Wrong" (example) will just sound bad with some books. Please make a namespace for this so we can annotate more works and make them more public and editable (since the rules state that you can't edit another user's userspace). W.F. Tucker (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@W.F. Tucker RationalWiki convention has historically been to just start articles for annotated works in the draft namespace and move them over to the main space when they are sufficiently mature. There's an entire category full of such pages already. I don't think we should consider adding a new namespace for this. Cosmikdebris (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This won't be done at this time. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Turki Nadelik

Currently this filter is locking out a new user every time they attempt to reply to a comment this talkpage. There is currently no indication that this user wishes to exhibit harmful or destructive behavior, thus I request that tech look into this post haste. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 12:07, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I just turned it off for now, I may rejig it and renable it later but minus the offending triggers. — Dysk (contribs) 12:50, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Resolved: This was fixed by me changing the filter. — Dysk (contribs) 12:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)