RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive21

This is an archive page, last updated 16 May 2021. Please do not make edits to this page.

Archives for this talk page:

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Orphaned fork pages

Something should be done about fork pages appearing in the list of orphaned pages. Tulpa001 (talk) 03:59, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

It just means those fork pages would have to DIE — 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 03:38, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.35 released

A relevant gander. This is an LTS release. Notably, this provides a PHP implementation of Parsoid, which means we can use VisualEditor by upgrading to this version (although additional changes to configuration files may be needed?). Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 20:27, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Why doesn’t someone upgrade it? Can a mod do that? Or a member of the foundation must be contacted? — 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 03:40, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Small YouTube embed not working on Saloon Bar

For some reason, this doesn't render at all in the saloon bar. Rockford the Roe (talk) 06:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

You sure? It renders fine for me in the saloon. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:06, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Turning RW to dark mode

I'd like to ask if it's possible to turn RW to dark mode through sandbox or something. That is to say, if invert black and white colors. I know there's a browser extention to make it a default, but I'd prefer a local solution, since I fear an app might fuck things up for some other site and I prefer the white backround and black font on some other sites. I quite often go to sleep with my computer on and forget to switch from RW to my naturally dark desktop (usually because I'm way too drunk by then). And it the light from the monitor reduces my ability to sleep. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 18:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Assuming you use the default theme (Vector) or Monobook check Preferences -> Gadgets -> User interface tweaks -> Dark theme. I tried it once but personally wasn't a fan, maybe you'll have better success. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:26, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm using Monobook, so that worked. Thanks! I'll see if I can get used to it. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 19:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Sigs look like shit, but I guess win some lose some. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 19:35, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, doesn't work like I wish it would. Nowhere close. Guess I have to try and learn to collapse to desktop before I go to bed. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 23:02, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Racist and/or any other kind of bigotted trolling

why is there not a block reason for this? AMassiveGay (talk) 12:19, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Excellent question. I had to click on "Other reason" and then type in "Racist troll" several times in the past week when blocking a racist troll who kept coming back under new user names. Blocking racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic trolls should be quicker and easier to do. Spud (talk) 12:57, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Can someone (on phone rn, so I can't do it) move this to RW:TECHSUPPORT. The reasons are handled through an interface page, so I can add the reason when I get home. It's a tech issue. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 14:05, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Because some "muh free speech" and "BUT THIS IS RATIONALWIKI" trolls think that bigotry and harassment and general toxicity should be allowed on this site because of what some long gone users who edited this site before the culture wars of the 10s thought would be a good idea. Look at RW then, and look at it now. These people want to drag this site back to the hellhole it was in the 2000s. — Oxyaena ^Harass 14:37, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Spud and AMassiveGay I have added the following new block reasons:

• Excessively offensive edits.
• Long-term trolling.
• Harassment of other editors. (renamed from serious harassment for more clarity)

I also splitted out the unacceptable username block reason into it's own category, given how often this happens:

• Unacceptable username (disruptive)
• Unacceptable username (offensive)
• Unacceptable username (impersonating existing editor)

I also added a new joke block reason:

• Throwing beer around in the bar

I hope this helps a bit. Offensive edits is on 3.14 months, long-term trolling and harassment are infinite block reasons. Unacceptable has infinite block suggested.

I also protected the interface page in question to moderators/techs only. This comment is also a notice of that. Any mod who disagrees on that is free to change the protection. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Also, Oxy uh... no. We revamped our blocking policy earlier this year to make it both more in-line with our dropdown list and our stated goals as a project/community standards. The latter has led to a few cases where our existing blocking reasons just weren't really complete enough. Block reasons are free to edit, they can be updated at any point without needing superuser intervention. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 20:04, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sirius Excellent! Thanks a lot. Spud (talk) 01:48, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Spam

All of my edits are being marked as spam. Atlantid (talk) 14:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sirius Would you mind altering the filters so as to allow this person to post? If there's a problem we can always just change them back or whatever. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:24, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

The filters are getting this guy because he is mentioning Smith. Atlantid is Smith's username and this is a another impersonation sock-puppet by Mikemikev impersonating Smith. I havn't been on this website in a while but I see loads and loads of socks from these guys in the block log. Its tiring! Johns (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd recommend giving autopatrolled in this case, but it seems Johns already blocked them for being a... Mike sock, which isn't too unreasonable. That said I think it's likely to be a Smith sock instead, but it doesn't matter, both aren't welcome here. For reference, Atlantid was apparently Smiths username on metapedia. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 12:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Renamed Board talkpage to RMF noticeboard in the sidebar

Notifying it here. I don't think it'd cause too much drama, and this brings it in line with the similarly purposed Mod noticeboard. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 12:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

"Your user account data was compromised on RationalWiki.org"

I hope I'm posting this in the right place, and that this question isn't too dumb (I'm sorry, my wiki-fu isn't very strong :/ ) - if not, please feel free to delete!

I got an email with the same subject line as this section's title in July 2017. I figured I wouldn't be able to use my account anymore, so I didn't try to log in since then (I think). I've never really stopped following RationalWiki, though, and today I randomly decided to try and log back in. I also didn't remember my password, so I did a reset using the temporary one I was sent by email, and then changing it again.

Am I good to go? Or should I delete this account and use another email to create a new one?

UninspiringNickname (talk) 23:33, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

@UninspiringNickname, It sounds like you should be fine: reset password (followed by changing the password). Bongolian (talk) 02:23, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Great! Many thanks, @Bongolian :-)

UninspiringNickname (talk) 12:37, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Thread pages

Currently I am unable to patrol Threads. Would the techs either patrol the Threads or inform me how to do so? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:53, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out that, too. I'll investigate later when it's not Friday night and I have a few less beers downed. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 02:44, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

It's a bug with the interface. I'll temporarily demote Inferno Bot to sysop to fix this up. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:15, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

It is manually possible, only by URL hackery. Judge Dredd (talk) 11:17, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

I've done it with Inferno Bot. It's a lot quicker for me to do it that way. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:21, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sirius Thank you. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:18, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Request for mobile edition

I know this request was made before but I'll make it again. As someone who's stuck on mobile for the time being, I'd very much appreciate it if a mobile edition of the wiki is finally made. — Oxyaena ^Harass 22:29, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh, Oxy, I'm sorry none of the techs have responded. I hope they do eventually help you with your plight, though. I wish ya lots of luck. Twodots (talk) 07:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

To properly do this, we need the MobileFrontend extension and the Minerva skin installed. That said, merely updating RW itself should add more "responsible" themes (the most notable being Timeless which is a very different look for a wiki that I really like personally and that one should work great on mobile!) so this one is mostly tied to upgrading MediaWiki + installation of those two extensions. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:16, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

The vandal bin...

Appears to have some holes in it. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

How so my friend? Ace^Moderator 04:28, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I threw some random troll/vandal in there and they were able to edit outside of the 30 minute cooldown. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmmmm we need a tech I think. Outside my mod abilities. Ace^Moderator 05:48, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I see only one edit from ConservapediaRULES, who I assume is your 'friend'. CoryUsar (talk) 06:34, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The two subsequent edits were after ConservapediaRULES got renamed. That could be confusing the vandalbin code. The renamed account was subsequently banned. Bongolian (talk) 06:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposed changes

To combat spam, I think the following rules should be added, somehow...

1. Nonregistered, or perhaps non-autopatrolled users may not create new pages other than their own talk pages
2. "blanking" a page, or perhaps reducing a page by more than 75% of its original length for pages of length greater than 200 bytes, should be auto-prevented and the user placed in the vandal bin (it's possible they weren't a vandal, but probably not)

Not sure what else. CoryUsar (talk) 18:45, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

For the second rule, that should apply unless the user is a sysop. Electros^Pardon? 01:06, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

How can they be implemented? — 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 03:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

The second rule already exists with slightly tweaked values. The first rule I would say is excessive and beyond the purview of implementing by techs (aka take that to CS). Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Request: Navigation Popups/Page Previews gadget

Navigation popups are a beautiful feature of Wikipedia, they allow for quick previews of external wiki links without having to open a new tab. There is an existing gadget to enable it on rational wiki, but it does not seem to work, at least for me. I think that this feature would be welcome by most.Thanks,

Redactedentity (talk) 06:15, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Tied to needing to upgrade MediaWiki. For onlookers, the Gadget isn't broken, our MediaWiki installation is simply too old to properly load it at the moment (it's directly loaded from Wikipedia). Can't do anything about this one as a tech. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

The "Community standards are under review" message box is still up there

Since the voting on the policy change it was put up for has now closed, I think it's time to take it down. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 01:57, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Not any more. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 02:16, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Good show. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 02:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, serious flaw

So... I should probably know this, but how is it that when I'm a tech but blocked I don't have access to the user rights page? I feel like that's a serious issue. CoryUsar (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Fuck off and crawl back to your hole. — Oxyaena ^Harass 17:03, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I cannot reproduce this. Even so, you're a tech. You can just y'know... unblock yourself. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Vandal Catcher

I just got sysoped and the vandal catcher seems to have quit working. It used to show a crop of stuff every day; now for days it has reported no edits. Please advise. Dave Wise (talk) 16:45, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

It works fine. You're not the only one keeping track of unpatrolled edits. Chances are someone else cleaned out the queue before you did. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 23:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

And so it does - this morning there are some hits. Others must have swept it before I looked, the other times. More improbable things happen. Thanks. Dave Wise (talk) 16:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Security Risk - Avoid exposing .git on the webserver

RationalWiki's webserver exposes a .git directory on the public web, meaning that the source code is exposed and can be downloaded freely. The exposed directory might contain configuration files with sensitive information such as database passwords, which in the case of php software is commonly stored in sourcecode scripts to be read at runtime.

https://rationalwiki.org/.git/config

While the accessible repository does not appear to contain any sensitive information, exposing a .git directory should generally be avoided. Rather than simply hiding access to the directory in the webserver config, the directory shouldn't exist in the first place. Delete the directory and add a step to remove it in your deployment scripts. ^{— Unsigned, by: 2a02:8071:1a3:5600:b5b9:7204:87b1:19dd / talk / contribs}

@Tim Starling @David Gerard See above. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 20:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Pinning this to prevent archiving until it's fixed. That said, a quick examination of the public remote suggests that the only notable things are the robots.txt file and that we have redirection stuff set up for the rest of the wiki, so this is mostly harmless, but probably not a good look. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:41, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

owwwwww. so yeah, this is likely not a disaster, but i'll block it anyway. (not instantly, slightly hampered by my laptop going bad, currently on severely underpowered netbook) - David Gerard (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

ok, I just did <Location /.git> Require all denied </Location> so let me know if that breaks stuff - David Gerard (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed, see no reason why it'd break stuff. Unpinning topic so that the archiving bot can pick it up. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Mail server failure

I haven't received any email notifications from RationalWIki since December 18. According to the recent changes (showing which pages I follow), I should have received a bunch. Is there a failure with the mail server? Bongolian (talk) 21:51, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard Could you take a look at this? Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 23:15, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm... it seemed to work fine for me. Are you sure you've linked up the right email address and made it so email notifications don't go to junk, and that it isn't a problem with your account? --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 01:56, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

works for me - David Gerard (talk) 20:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, they were going to spam. I didn't notice because the emails were going through a secondary account before forwarding to my main account. Bongolian (talk) 20:42, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

A modest proposal

So you all know the Pooty McPootface who keeps spamming the unicode N accounts. Next time he shows up, could you maybe not rename them? I know that what the N stands for is offensive enough, but as long as the accounts are banned and user- and talkpages protected, I think we could live with handful of them. And then he couldn't recreate those particular accounts and would have find more imaginative ways to stink up the place next time he's feeling flatulent. This particular fart is getting a bit old. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 09:49, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Alright. I only renamed his "SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIT" ones because they're distracting, way too long, and clog up recent changes. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 21:44, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

No complaint about renaming those. I mean I guess Mikeypoot figured a new annoyingly idiotic way to circumvent the existing blocked N profiles. Oh well, c'est la vie. New day and Mikes still a moronic sheeeit for brains. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 23:09, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh by the way, he keeps altering the numbers of "e's" in the sheeeit accounts and edits slightly, but would there be a way to address this through edit filter somehow? Like adding the more common variations of those in there or just anything that starts with "SHEEE". I wouldn't know, since I know jack shit about coding or how the edit filter functions, but it's not like any good faith faith editor is going to write that. And I doubt there are any legit words in any known languages that have words with 3 or more subsequent E's in them. Hell, could make it 4 or more "E's" to avoid accidental blocks by edit filter for someone making a typo when writing "Sheep" or "Sheet". Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 23:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I was just about to suggest that! What do the techs think? --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 07:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Should be getting caught now. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

RfATIM: Renaming pillocks

Can someone check if renaming someone allows the original name to be used again. I ask this because I think that the name (((Scream))) has been reused after being changed.Scream!! (talk) 00:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I can't check, but I don't need to. It can definitely be reused. That's why I asked recently in Technical support for techs to stop renaming the unicode "N" accounts by Mike, since they kept showing up again like a bad habit. (((Scream))) could possibly be added to edit filter, if it's a often enough recurring account name. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 00:16, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm moving this thread to RW:Technical support, since it's a request for the techs. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 00:18, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

It does allow it; thus, I was once, about a year ago, able to create an account that uses this one's old name as a pre-emptive strike to prevent impersonation if and when I would later become a target for trolls- which I knew I eventually would. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 00:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I asked this on the Mod page because I was under the impression that only Mods could rename: No? Scream!! (talk) 15:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Mods and Techs can rename accounts. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 17:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. That's why like, 2/3rds of all renames these days are done by either Cosmikdebris or Duce (neither of whom are currently mods), with the other 1/3rd being done by moi. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 19:50, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I just got flagged as being the “fake biography spammer”

Perhaps one of the techs could look into this? 71.208.x.x (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Something in the phrase you added "...edited from at least two different IPs in the 71.208.x.x range..." triggered the filter. A common pattern that the fake biography spammers use is to include a phrase such as "I am Samantha Pootler from Mexico City" or something similar. I'd suggest that you use different phraseology on your user page and you should be ok. I wonder why you seem to want to go out of your way to identify your IP address range on a public page on the internet. That seems kind of ill-advised to me. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 20:09, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Spam filter

I got this message: “Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful and you will be blocked from editing you if you click submit.” while trying to create /global.js. I think my edit was filtered as spam because I was trying to load the script (using mw.loader.load) from external link, but as you see it's not a spam. How can I surpass the filter?--SADIQUI (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Trouble with previewing and transcluding a webp image

Hi techs,

I have recently been trying to upload another picture of a monolith. It is in the webp format, which seems to be failing, despite the fact that when you go to the file's page and click on the "original file" link, it shows the full-sized version of the image just fine. When I tried transcluding it into Draft:2020 monolith sculptures, it returned the following error code where the image should have been:

Error creating thumbnail: convert: delegate failed `'dwebp' -pam '%i' -o '%o @ error/delegate.c/InvokeDelegate/1919. convert: unable to open file `/tmp/magick-29594G7MB0FgAaKIt': No such file or directory @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/544. convert: no images defined `/tmp/transform_e17374ef8707.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3258.

Error code: 1

I don't know if this is because MediaWiki doesn't like webp files, or if it's a problem with the file... --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 07:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I also had trouble uploading a webp file recently. As a workaround, I just converted the webp file to jpg, then uploaded the jpg file. I used Preview on a Mac, but you can also use free online converters (e.g. https://ezgif.com/webp-to-jpg). Bongolian (talk) 07:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I have GIMP on my linux machine (as evidenced by how some of my screenshots have the invisible "Edited using GIMP" watermark in the little collapse thing at the bottom of the page), but I'm 'bout to go to bed now. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 07:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

It's tied to general server upgrades (as with so many support issues we're currently having). While MediaWiki can handle webp just fine, ImageMagick (which is what it uses for thumbnailing) isn't compiled with webp from what I can see here? It should probably be fixed by just upgrading our servers, but yknow, that's an on-going matter. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 12:08, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

The instructions on the upload file page (Special:Upload) should probably be updated to not include webp (and whatever else) unless there's some definite plan to make that file type(s) work again. Bongolian (talk) 17:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

That would require a server tweak from one of the users with server access but is possible. @David Gerard could you look into this? Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:40, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Can't create user page

A new user here, I tried to create a user page with some userboxes and a navbox. Apparently I tripped a Blackhat SEO Spammer edit filter, but have no idea why. I'm familiar with Wikipedia, and this is weird. Thanks for any help and all the best, Miniapolis (talk) 01:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Miniapolis One of the user boxes contained a word that triggered an edit filter. Leave out the line containing {{User Universal Healthcare Caduceus}} and try again. After you make a few good good faith contributions here, you'll be promoted to autopatrolled status and you'll be able to add that line to your user page. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 01:57, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Cosmikdebris; I used an alternate healthcare ubx and it worked fine. Stay well and all the best, Miniapolis (talk) 02:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Is there some timer for undoing edits?

Often times I don't have time to finish my edit summary when undoing someones edit, before it automatically finishes the revert. This is a bit problematic if trying to explain revert instead of just using rollback. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 16:27, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Request to make Inferno Bot automatically update talkpage templates

Hi,

Recently I've noticed that many talkpages with archivebot templates still have yet to have their template for "@Archiver" replaced with Inferno's template. Would it be possible to use a bot to automatically replace all of these outdated archiver templates? (I know I'm a ninja, but I lack the technical expertise to do such a thing myself.) --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:41, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Technically, yes. Practically, I'm not doing this. A lot of the archives we have have received vigilant sysops manually archiving the talkpages sometimes, incrementing the total archive counter without keeping track of the total bytes of a page. If I were to randomly update the templates like that, the page being archived to would stop matching the current archive counter. Furthermore, from experience, a borked template causes Inferno to screw up from running the rest, which means that I have to go around and fix that up if someone broke the template during the period of inactivity (this happened before). If Inferno isn't archiving, it usually means that I have to manually run the thing to see what page it borks on and fix it myself. I can't reasonably do that if I update every template immediately. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 21:27, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Something's wrong with user permissions

Someone without any user permissions at all was able to move a shitload of pages:[1] Bongolian (talk) 05:44, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah... What the fuck just happened? Was that a sock of the guy who trolled my talk page? Sievert 81 (talk) 05:51, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think so. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 05:54, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh FUCK. all the pages I moved back created redirects with vulgar names. Could you delete those? Sorry about that... Sievert 81 (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Done. Bongolian (talk) 06:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Is it possible to make a button that reverts all a user's moves in 1 click? Sievert 81 (talk) 06:01, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sievert 81, Wikipedia has a "mass rollback" feature, but I'm not sure it would be possible to port that. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 14:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm no MediaWiki expert, but I think maybe DG and Trent could do that. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 06:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, can someone protect this for 12 hours? It keeps getting vandalized Sievert 81 (talk) 06:12, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Done. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 06:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh shoot, I just realized, I can now! Sievert 81 (talk) 06:23, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@David Gerard Could you look into why this was able to happen? Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I investigated this further. Regular annd autoconfirmed users have for some reason the permission to move pages. BoNs cannot. I strongly urge this right to be restricted to sysops only. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 14:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@David Gerard I second Sirius's recommendation. DMorris/Ken had the Saloon bar and several userpages of major editors redirected to vulgar names I will not repeat here for a good twenty minutes a couple of days ago. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:48, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘@David Gerard That pattern of vandalism (moving pages by a user without permissions) was repeated again today. Bongolian (talk) 17:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Someone pinged me and i switched off page moves for non-sysops - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

RecentChanges broke for me

[a2f7cd0b19461e3d85063f93] /wiki/Special:RecentChanges MWException from line 1124 of /srv/rw_common/core/languages/Language.php: Language::sprintfDate: The timestamp 100000101005900 should have 14 characters

Backtrace:

#0 /srv/rw_common/core/languages/Language.php(2379): Language->sprintfDate(string, string)
#1 /srv/rw_common/core/languages/Language.php(2448): Language->internalUserTimeAndDate(string, string, User, array)
#2 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/logging/ProtectLogFormatter.php(207): Language->userTimeAndDate(string, User)
#3 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/logging/ProtectLogFormatter.php(172): ProtectLogFormatter->formatExpiry(string)
#4 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/logging/ProtectLogFormatter.php(58): ProtectLogFormatter->createProtectDescription(array)
#5 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/logging/LogFormatter.php(430): ProtectLogFormatter->getMessageParameters()
#6 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/logging/LogFormatter.php(405): LogFormatter->getActionMessage()
#7 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/changes/ChangesList.php(497): LogFormatter->getActionText()
#8 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/changes/EnhancedChangesList.php(426): ChangesList->insertLogEntry(RCCacheEntry)
#9 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/changes/EnhancedChangesList.php(261): EnhancedChangesList->getLineData(array, RCCacheEntry, array)
#10 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/changes/EnhancedChangesList.php(738): EnhancedChangesList->recentChangesBlockGroup(array)
#11 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/changes/EnhancedChangesList.php(751): EnhancedChangesList->recentChangesBlock()
#12 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specials/SpecialRecentchanges.php(371): EnhancedChangesList->endRecentChangesList()
#13 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/ChangesListSpecialPage.php(358): SpecialRecentChanges->outputChangesList(ResultWrapper, FormOptions)
#14 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/ChangesListSpecialPage.php(77): ChangesListSpecialPage->webOutput(ResultWrapper, FormOptions)
#15 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specials/SpecialRecentchanges.php(64): ChangesListSpecialPage->execute(NULL)
#16 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(522): SpecialRecentChanges->execute(NULL)
#17 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(577): SpecialPage->run(NULL)
#18 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(282): SpecialPageFactory::executePath(Title, RequestContext)
#19 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(735): MediaWiki->performRequest()
#20 /srv/rw_common/core/includes/MediaWiki.php(509): MediaWiki->main()
#21 /srv/rw_common/core/index.php(43): MediaWiki->run()
#22 /srv/rw_common/config/wrapper.php(17): require(string)
#23 {main}

The site appears to be in severe need of someone examining it, with this and the vandalism. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:27, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I get this too. Seems like pretty urgent issue to me. @David Gerard @Tmtoulouse Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 09:36, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

This happens as I'm trying to access logs as well. Makes it damn near impossible to spot vandals and trolls. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 09:49, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Affirmative as well on trying to access Special:Log. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:52, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The cause is Sievert 81s own userpage. It's protected with a value that has a MediaWiki timestamp so large that it ended up saving itself to the database with an extra character. (Try going to protect, it causes a similar issue). I'm willing to assume good faith and go on the notion that Sievert 81 didn't intent to break RC or his own page. Fixing it requires some DB editing for the relevant timestamps (in the logs table specifically), which I can't do, only David or Trent can. Furthermore, this only illustrates that we really need to update our software. I can't say for sure if it's fixed in a newer MW release, but I can say for sure that we can't currently report this as a bug on the MW bug tracker because we are running a version that is no longer supported. I'll push for it on the RMF noticeboard. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 14:24, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

You can deliberately trigger the above error still by visiting Sievert 81s protection page if it helps any. Also, let me stress that NOBODY should ban or block Sievert over this. It doesn't seem to be a deliberate fuckup or an attempt to mess with the site. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 14:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Has this been fixed? I’m not seeing the bug on my end, using an iPhone. 71.208.x.x (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Sortof, in that it has been shoved off of the current RecentChanges page. The bug in question is still present. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 15:06, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm still getting Special:RecentChanges and Special:Log bugged. Should I do something at my end to make them work again? Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 16:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘OK, weird observation. I seem to be able to check both recent changes and Special:Log if I'm not logged in. As soon as I log in bugs occur. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 16:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm getting the same thing. If I'm not logged in it works - if I am logged in it's broken.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:33, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I can see the log whether I'm logged in or not. Bongolian (talk) 19:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I have changed the protection to be indefinite, and that appears to have fixed something. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 19:51, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Still missing in action for me.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Recent changes started to work for me even when logged in. Special:logs is still borked, though I can see individual logs (ie."Block log", "User creation log" and so on). Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 18:21, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Well the recent changes broke again for me. This is pretty insufferable. I hope something could be done about it before the next board meeting in March. Or that the board would hold an extra emergency meeting ASAP. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 20:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

It works for me when logged in. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 21:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

It seems to work for me too now. Special:Log as well. They broke at some point, but since I logged out and re-logged in it's been working. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 16:03, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

How hard is it to create a new user group?

I came here to ask: how does a human create a new user group on RationalWiki? JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 19:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's up to the bureaucrats which is very unlikely that they'd make a new group. Rockford the Roe (talk) 20:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rockford the Roe I don't think you mean bureaucrats. The group "bureaucrats" is itself a fossil relic that nobody ever gets made a member of anymore. We recently discussed getting rid of it but decided that it wasn't worth the bother. @JJPMaster I assume you're talking about user groups like rollbackers and pending changes reviewers, people with some additional rights but not full sysop rights. I really don't think that's necessary. This is not Wikipedia. This is a much smaller operation and, bureaucracy wise, it's a very different beast. Spud (talk) 06:38, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Why do all users have the "suppressionlog" permission?

Basically, why are even non-sysops allowed to read the suppression log? JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 20:42, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Do you mean the deletion log (which includes oversighting by sysops), or the suppression log that only techs and mods are supposed to see? If it's the latter, you should ask this at RW:Technical support. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:45, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@CircularReasoning, I mean the private suppression log for content hidden from sysops. I have also moved this discussion to tech support if you haven't noticed. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 20:48, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh dear, that's bad then. I think I should go and suppress all log entries in there that might contain sensitive information right now. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:50, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I checked and I can see the log when not registered unlike when I am registered. Though I can't see the contents of the suppressed edits. Also, some specific edits are struck through, though that might relate to suppressed usernames or something. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 21:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I just struck some that forgot to omit "content was" descriptions that consisted of legal threats or personal information, as well as one that gave a user's full real name and another that gave a telephone number. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 21:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

The title blacklist

I noticed that MediaWiki:Titleblacklist exists, and I wanted to ask: is this title blacklist ever going to be used for anything of value? JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 18:01, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It's a default interface page. The function it offers is already taken care of by our Abuse Filters (which have the advantage of not being visible to everyone so they're harder to avoid). Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:10, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Question about Ninja rights

As I understand it, when some "Ninja" makes themselves a bot, the changes they make as a bot don't show in Special:RecentChanges. Do they still show in that users own Special:Contributions? I'm worried because the ninja rights seem to have been granted willy nilly recently, to users with questionable editing history. If there's a way to check the edits from specific Ninjas' personal contributions it's not a problem. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 09:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes they should, here is Inferno's contribution log for example. You can still see ninja users in RecentChanges too. Click "Show bots" to unveal those tricky ninjas. They also still show up on page histories, where their edits will be marked with a small "b" (bot). Everything is still logged and trackable. The granting of bot rights is also logged and shows up if you watch their regular userpage. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 10:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Ok thanks. No worries then. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 10:27, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed Rule

So... I'm thinking that the captcha is insufficient. And new users can be obnoxious. I suggest that BON's and non-autopatrolled users automatically be in some mini-vandal bin. Basically, no more than 1 edit a minute. Just to slow them down, until they get autopatrolled. Anyone disagree? Agree? CoryUsar (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I would agree, but the troll could just earn your trust and then get auto-patrolled. This vandal used an account that was already autoconfirmed, so he could bypass captchas and semi-protection. 2A02:418:6017:0:0:0:0:148 (talk) 18:00, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

All trolls would need to spend the time though... CoryUsar (talk) 18:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

No. This is a bad idea. Firtly, BoNs are too dynamic for this to work. That means a BoN might one day be a troll and the next and prospective editor. Secondly, it applies a "guilty by default" dynamic which would discourage new users. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I understand, the BoN's are already in a sort of micro-vandalbin where they can edit only once in 30 seconds. Registered but not autoconfirmed users have that restriction at 15 seconds. Wouldn't be hard to move those numbers up I think. Knight Commander^{In Service}_{To Her}^Goatness 20:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The existing system is already something like that, and making it stricter just to mildly inconvenience one griefer would discourage people from joining, like how CP's absurd ban on account creation has caused the further implosion of their project. --Goatspeed. _{Fossil evidence of my evolution}CircularRasoning^{Steal my ideas} 20:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Page move exploit

Has there been any progress on fixing this problem? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:15, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

It's tied to RationalWiki:Autoconfirmed status. That permission needs to be moved to sysops. I'm gonna bugger David. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 21:59, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I have pagelocked the sandbox for 3 weeks in addition to this. Our annoying-ass editor has been using it to fill up his edit count to get autoconfirmed. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I see, I'll leave you all to it then. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

It has been moved to a sysop right thanks to David. This should be fixed now. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, thank you, David! Bongolian (talk) 01:49, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Request to inconvenience the "hmmmmm" link spammer

Hi, Someone who keeps abusing multiple BoNs is clogging up recent changes with their easily reverted porn/malware link spamming. Maybe we should add an edit filter rule that blocks you if you try to add more than one redirect into a page or make an edit larger than 40K bytes? --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:19, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps just adding the text relevant redirect text to the edit filter would do the trick? Bongolian (talk) 20:48, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

What even is that link they keep spamming? Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:49, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

It appeared to redirect but didn't load up anything visible. Bongolian (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

To see it, I'd recommend viewing the now-oversighted diffs on the pages they tried to wandalize. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 20:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

It's an IP grabber, probably. DON'T click it. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 20:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Strongly second this. Automatically blocking edits exceeding +-15k would really help us to take out this vandal who apparently has far too much time on his hands. IveBeenFrank (talk) 12:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I decided to create a quick regex that I think will do the job, here it is: https://testwiki.wiki/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/64. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 01:26, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Editnotices

I came here to ask: is it possible to create editnotices on here? JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 17:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. What page do you need a specific edit notice for? Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sirius, no specific page, it's just, how are you supposed to create them? Do you do it like how WP does it; subpages of Template:Editnotices? JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 13:11, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. For example, Template:Editnotices/page/Gamergate sets the edit notice for Gamergate. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 14:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

False positive for username filter

Hi,

It's come to my attention that this BoN was just blocked because the edit filter thought they were creating a bad-faith username for some reason. Strange. Could someone please fix this false positive? --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 01:51, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I saw that false positive too, and I fixed the offending filter to prevent it from happening again. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 01:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Good show. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See what I'm planning} 20:31, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I can't make any edits to the mainspace

It seems that the RW spamfilter is preventing me from making any edits at all (aside from this one I was actually able to publish). Can someone fix this problem? UShistoryanalyzer (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@UShistoryanalyzer What about now? I’m pretty certain I’ve fixed the issue. Christopher (talk) 22:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Editing works now. Thank you very much! UShistoryanalyzer (talk) 22:04, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Special:Deletedcontributions isn’t working

If you visit Special:Deletedcontributions, the username field automatically contains the letter “u” (hardly a major issue, but worth mentioning). More importantly, the “search” button doesn’t work; clicking it just takes you to the main page. If you click on a link to a specific user’s deleted contributions (for instance, Special:DeletedContributions/Christopher), neither problem occurs. There’s no need to click the “search” button, and the username field has the correct name. This has occurred on multiple devices/browsers, although I’ve obviously been unable to test it whilst signed out.

Not a major issue as you can just type in /[User] manually if you know about the problem and it’s not a commonly used page, but an issue nonetheless. Christopher (talk) 14:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem persists when I disable all my gadgets, hard to see how it could’ve been related but it was worth a shot. Christopher (talk) 14:20, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Can replicate. This seems like a webserver configuration issue with possibly an underlying problem in MW. One of the server users should be able to fix it I think. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 15:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Pings are acting up again

It’s hardly worth mentioning at this point, I remember they never worked well for me before. My extensive and thorough experimentation concluded that anyone with a template signature can’t send pings, to me at least. I imagine this problem will fix itself at some point, but it’s worth mentioning in case it doesn’t. Christopher (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That's deliberate. Count this as a wontfix one, technically we shouldn't even be letting users use signatures wrt site optimization reasons, but people like their fancy signatures with random stuff. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:50, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Request

I was trying to translate this article about David Kilcullen but it says it's a spam. Could you assist me, please? ^{— Unsigned, by: *Nate* / talk / contribs}

@*Nate* No idea what triggered the filter. I’ve made you autopatrolled which will prevent it from happening again. The article you tried to create exists at Draft:David Kilcullen (Português). Christopher (talk) 13:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Three special pages aren’t working

Special:Activeusers and Special:Gadgetusage both give 503 errors and have done for a couple of days now. Special:Mathstatus produces an error message I’ve copied below

The 503 errors have both been going on for a day or two now, Mathstatus could’ve been broken on for years and I doubt anyone would have noticed. Christopher (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Won't let me create new article

Can someone autopatrol me so I can create a new article? It incorrectly blocks me for spam.Ope (talk) 20:33, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

@Ope The filter did exactly what it's supposed to, that is, prevent new users from adding content containing URLs into the wiki. Regardless of that, your proposed article seems on topic and not spam, so I've given you auto-patrolled status so you can add it.

One thing I ask is that you start the article out in draft space, that is, give it the title Draft:American Third Position. Thanks. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 20:43, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Can't create a new talk page

Trying to create a talk page for The Nation, with hyperlinks. Could you please give me permission? ^{— Unsigned, by: 70.124.150.176 / talk}

I have created the talk page (blank). You should be able to edit it now. Bongolian (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Wigo and general code broken

I can't add the <vote poll= code in the WIGOs. Also the code below covering usernames, wiki markups and talkpages etc are not working either when I click them. Can someone help, please? Tuxer (talk) 17:55, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Works fine for me. Try switching stuff up like the browser you’re using, what gadgets you have enabled, etc and see what works. Christopher (talk) 18:32, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

It was a mouse problem. Sorry. Tuxer (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Template:Cite book parameter

Per RW Template:Cite book |YearNote = {{{origyear|}}}

• WP Citation Style documentation

orig-date: Original publication date or year; displays in square brackets after the date (or year). Alias: orig-year, origyear

What's new or changed recently

orig-date=

added canonical form for alias orig-year=

October 2020

Should the RW template be updated to use orig-date and match WP? --Dbz (talk) 11:18, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

If you can do it without breaking the existing template, go ahead. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 13:50, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Please

create MediaWiki:Tag-huggle with the text "Huggle". Don't ask why. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 22:50, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure it’s necessary? If you look at Special:tags or Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki:Tag you’ll see no other tag has needed a page. Christopher (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

It was because I called the tag "huggle" instead of "Huggle". But I'm not sure if linking the project page is necessary still. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 23:02, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

No need to create weird workarounds, just delete the old tag and make a new one with the right capitalisation. I checked and you don’t need tech rights to delete tags, surprised that was never abused back when they were actually used. Christopher (talk) 23:07, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Notice for techs

Please reference RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation. A case has been opened there that may warrant your attention. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:14, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible to rename and/or delete these impersonation and spoof accounts by Michael Coombs?

2620:7:6001:0:0:FFFF:C759:E651 (talk) 13:35, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Mikey and drive-by BoN in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}CircularRasoning^{See my experiments} 00:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Search engine indexing

Certain individual pages and namespaces don’t show up in search engines. Currently the namespaces are user and user talk, and the pages are everything in Category:Noindexed pages.

If you look at that category you’ll see a lot of drafts, as a result of a magic word in the {{draft}} template. It would make a lot more sense for drafts to be noindexed on the basis of namespace along with draft talk pages, and I’ve proposed that change on github.

What other pages should be noindexed? Should drafts even be noindexed? I think essays and debates (as well as their respective talk spaces) are potential candidates.

This isn’t urgent and requires root access to implement, so I imagine it will take some time. Christopher (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Recent vandals

Is there a way for the edit filter to catch users who try to create pages that are just the same thing over and over again? Plutocow (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Autoblock/prevent account creation not working

Also, for that person who keeps spamming us with accounts, they're clearly using the same IP (as evidenced by the fact that there is only one autoblock on the block list) yet they are still creating accounts up the wazoo despite the fact that they shouldn't be able to do that. Is there a way to fix this? Plutocow (talk) 21:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

That’s weird, worked fine when I blocked myself. Christopher (talk) 21:59, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Can someone rename this asshole?

I can't even say their name, but it is apparently doxxing another user. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:43, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, a tech should supress the visibility of the user rename log. GeeJayK (talk) 23:48, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Archive links not working for any page with an apostrophe in the title

I first noticed this problem on Talk:Roko's basilisk; the {{talkpage}} template I briefly added at the top of the page and {{Archivelinks dpl}} at Talk:Roko's basilisk/Archive List both display no archives, despite there being five. It’s definitely the apostrophe causing the issue, see User talk:Pinto's5150, Talk:Men's rights movement, Talk:Noah's Ark, etc. Christopher (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Note: {{talkpage}} does recognise that an archive exists, as it says “archives for this page:”, it just doesn’t display them. Christopher (talk) 18:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

This might be causing the problem:

-

type=fulltext

prefix=Talk:Roko&#3​9;s basilisk

break=yes

-

If this was my template and this was my wiki, I would immediately test it out on a sandbox to see if it gets corrected by changing the html encoding with a real apostrophe. I think the culprit is this html garbage that's breaking the template. While this shows up correctly as "Talk:Roko's basilisk" when you load the page, Mediawiki likely interprets that as "Talk:Roko&#​39;s basilisk" and due to that, it prevents the template from functioning correctly. PS: Before you ask me the obvious question, I inserted a zero-widthspace to break the html encoding, so it shows up as normal text instead of encoded text. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I tried &#3​9; and '. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Christopher (talk) 19:47, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I’m a moron. That’s the searchbar, not the archive list. It could very well be something like that, {{PAGENAME}} and similar variables (which {{archivelinks dpl}} is built with) give you &#​39; when substituted. Christopher (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Protection

Would it be possible to put a blanket protection on the entire wiki for a limited period of time. I ask because there is a BON jumping numbers deleting random articles at the moment. Something that mods only could do and with a firm duration. Scream!! (talk) 15:43, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

IDK, they don't seem that prolific. All of their vandalism has been reverted pretty quickly-Hastur! (talk) 15:51, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

They will get bored eventually, so nothing of that sort should be done. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 15:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

To answer your question (I did already say this in the collapsed section), yes it is possible, but I really don’t think it’s needed. Christopher (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Abuse Filter

Add my name and my abbreviation "MS77" in it, someone really want to see me and Grammar Commie banned while creating new accounts. It clutters the recent changes tab. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:37, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Done. For future reference, this is the wrong place to ask as mods can’t edit abuse filters. Christopher (talk) 18:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Mooved.CorruptUser 18:46, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

[EC] Also discussing private abuse filters is a bad idea. If it became a pattern someone would’ve added it without being asked, but now it’s less likely to work. Christopher (talk) 18:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Renaming

Moved from another section

This incessant renaming doesn't solve problems. It creates them by leaving the old name available again, making it difficult to track things in the logs, and likely antagonizing bored people with limitless IP addresses and boundless energy. Can this practice be discussed further before it becomes the assumption that every username troll gets renamed something cringe and unfunny? Nutty Roux (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree, it also clutters recent changes more. Even if the rationale is removing offensive usernames, they still show up in the rename logs. Unfortunately it seems like it’s already the assumption. Christopher (talk) 21:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

It's pointless. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you want to start getting rid of unwanted accounts instead of renaming them, there's the UserMerge wiki software extension. Using that, you can name a target account X, move everything done by another named account into X so it appears done by X, and delete the other account. That also allows reducing (unforking) sock accounts. But some policy would be needed for its use, because once done it cannot be undone, so it would only be suitable for truly permanently unwanted accounts. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:59, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Seems unnecessary. The latest version of MediaWiki lets you hide an account’s name from all logs automatically when you block them, it’s not given to admins by default and would need to be a tech/mod only power, as it also prevents the block itself from showing up in recent changes, but it’ll save a lot of renaming. Christopher (talk) 19:10, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

That sounds better. It also avoids a problem I didn't think of at first. The old solution I mentioned is, I'm guessing, the kind of thing many wikis find suitable but which may have been considered and rejected earlier for RW, because for a larger and less predictable group of admins (and mods, techs, ...), the safe solution is to only rely on un-doable actions. (I'm guessing that's an old design philosophy here, based on what's not done.) --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Autoblock failing to prevent someone from signing up more than once.

An issue raised several times and most recently by Plutocow is that the IP autoblock feature doesn't work. Now I have a theory of what that is, but that's where I'll need your help. My theory is that when someone signs up for RationalWiki, but then log-off immediately, their IP address is ignored when handing out an autoblock. Meaning they can create as many accounts as they want without switching IP addresses (Which should take some time, it never happens immediately. Even when I use ExpressVPN, it takes me 30 seconds to switch my IP).

To confirm whether that is indeed true I or someone else should create a new account called something like "LocalTrollToBlock", log-off immediately, then depending on the outcome, there will either be another account called "AutoblockEvasion" if my theory is correct, or there should be an update about it if the autoblock does function correctly from that standpoint. Or if you have any better idea to handle this, I am all ears, but something should be done to avoid spams of explicit new accounts on-site. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I had the same thought when the problem was first raised, but looking at the blocklist it didn’t make much sense. I created the account, got blocked by Plutocow, and autoblock did its job. Seems like it’s not as simple as that. Christopher (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I see, welp. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Add suggestion in To-Do List?

Hi all, I don't understand how to add a new suggestion in RW's to-do list? Any help is much appreciated, thx! Earl wilmore (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Go here: https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=RationalWiki:To_do_list/Suggestions&action=edit&section=3, write a brief description of the article you think needs creating including a link (similar to all the others) at the top of the page, highlight the description and click the thing it tells you to click. Christopher (talk) 21:32, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Can someone clean up the double redirects list

Specifically by deleting User:Don Juan/sig, User:CornKing/sig, User:Palaeonictis/sig, and User:Ubermensch/sig? They all only serve to clog the double redirects list whenever Oxy is renamed, with zero hits on What links here (aside from this page once I finish this edit) yet require mod or tech powers to edit or delete. Plutocow (talk) 05:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Poof. Gone. Thanks for notifying. Don Juan was used in a few places though, but it's in a saloon archive and on a random userpage. You can restore it if you think it's needed. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 08:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Username "daemonspudguy" is invalid

The username I tried to register with is invalid, apparently. I use the name "daemonspudguy" pretty much everywhere, and this site is the only one to say it's invalid. Why is that? 98.102.237.146 (talk) 20:39, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

A while back a spammer made accounts that incorporated the names of prominent users, including a moderator with the account name Spud, and smeone got a bit carried away trying to stop them. If you try to create the account now it should work (I’ve edited the relevant filter), sorry for the inconvenience. Christopher (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Nope, still says invalid username. 98.102.237.146 (talk) 20:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Create an account called "Rename me", then ask someone to rename you to the username you want. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The problem has now been solved, I’m a fucking idiot. Christopher (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

You're gonna have to rename this account, as creating two accounts with the same email isn't possible.Hughmanatee (talk) 21:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I’ve renamed you, you may have been logged out as the username saved by your browser no longer matches your actual username. Christopher (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

For anyone interested, here’s an explanation. I was partially merging two filters (the general spam filter 11 and username filter 61). Both filters contain lists of banned phrases separated by pipes (|), if you insert two pipes in a row (||) the filter takes this to mean “” (ie nothing) is a banned phrase, meaning it blocks all edits (or all account creation attempts). I believe I introduced double pipes to both filters. This took a while to identify as the username “daemonspudguy” would’ve been blocked anyway, for reasons already stated. The perfect storm of stupidity, most of it my own. Christopher (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Did some troll DDoS RW?

What's up with all the 503 errors? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

This might be on your end; I am experiencing no 503 errors. Serene (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

5XX errors are always server-side, so you are wrong on all accounts. If I started receiving 4XX errors, that would be client-side and the issue could then come from me. In special:RecentChanges nobody did anything for one hour. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

[EC]Could’ve been that, could’ve been something else. @David Gerard, Tim Starling, and Tmtoulouse would have the answers, anything else is just speculation. Christopher (talk) 22:06, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It was definitely server side, the site was down for about an hour, but it seems to be fine now. Christopher (talk) 22:06, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It's been resolved since. I'd imagine an external caching service died or something? Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

User page creation blocked as spam.

Here is the source code in a Pastebin. https://pastebin.com/XePi4D5s Daemonspudguy (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

The issue was the email address, but I think you’ve already worked that out. I’ve made you autopatrolled, which will prevent any more filter trouble. Christopher (talk) 12:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I am in your servers tweaking your bits

The cache server is scheduled for migration on April 11, which would mean 10 minutes of downtime unless I do something. So I made a new cache server and I'm going to switch over to it. There should be no user impact, fingers crossed. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:33, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

You can tweak my bits any time you want, sweetcheeks-Hastur! (talk) 01:35, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Hastur. In that case I think I will try upgrading to MediaWiki 1.34 on Sunday night US time. -- Tim Starling (talk) 04:15, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I didn't get through the whole upgrade, there's still a fair bit of work to do. I'm now aiming for MediaWiki 1.35. I set up a public test server, but it's still too broken for beta testing. -- Tim Starling (talk) 08:04, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Sorry if you saw a DB error just now complaining about lack of temporary space. There was a problem on the MW 1.35 test wiki, which probably affected this wiki too due to the fact that they share the DB server. -- Tim Starling (talk) 13:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

A link to the test wiki, as no one’s posted one here yet. Christopher (talk) 20:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

patrolling changes

When one considers a change is not suitable - but has already been 'fixed' by another editor, should I mark the original change as patrolled?

For context, I am looking at an unpatrolled edit by a user that removed Category:Racists but has already been re-added by another editor. Kauri0.o (talk) 00:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

@Kauri0.o For future reference, yes. The edit has been dealt with, and doesn’t need attention. Christopher (talk) 13:13, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Neutral vote on WIGO

I'm colorblind, and I can't see the difference between a up vote and a neutral vote on WIGO. In fact, I only realize that there are two different colors when voted neutral for a WIGO today and I saw that another, tiny bar that looked like a down vote to me. Kind of a very personal, maybe even selfish request. but is it possible to change the color of the neutral vote so it can be a bit more inclusive to colorblind people like me? GeeJayK (talk) 21:50, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

It’s not a selfish request at all. You’re not the only colourblind person, and colourblind accessibility is something that would need to be better implemented if we want other people to use these extensions (@Tim Starling mentioned it would be a good idea to encourage other wikis to use our custom extensions as it helps with maintenance). I’ve mentioned it on the test wiki, as the extension doesn’t function there and will need to be rewritten it’s the perfect time for something as small as a colour change.

I can’t imagine a gadget changing the colour would be hard to write, if the default colour isn’t changed.

You’re not missing out on much, the neutral button is only really there for if you accidentally upvote or downvote. There’s even a gadget just for hiding it. Christopher (talk) 22:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

GJK can you give me three hex colors you can see well that are sufficiently different? I can write a Gadget for you that should do be able to do this. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:05, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually I did some custom research and found this tool. Used the Tol pallete to swap the colors using some simple jQuery. Please test it and let me know if the colors are giving you trouble. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The results bar should match the button colour, so I would need a proposed bar colour and also a neutral button icon in that colour. But ideally the results display would be redesigned, since it's a WCAG Level A requirement that elements should not be distinguished merely by colour. -- Tim Starling (talk) 07:50, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Russian RationalWiki uses the English logo

See for yourself. Shouldn’t it be using File:RussianWiki.png? I doubt it’s been using the English logo all these years and I’m the first to notice, could @Tim Starling upgrading the server have something to do with it? Christopher (talk) 19:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. It's probably been broken since 2017. At that time I merged the config files, which were mostly duplicated, but I missed the customised $wgLogo. -- Tim Starling (talk)

CSS

Quick, question, is there no CSS on this website? I'm a little versed in the wiki-style pages,so I wanted to change the color of my userpage. I tried using the following:

{{#css: div#content {

 background-color: #D3D3D3;
text-color: black;

} }}

It didn't work, though! Am I messing it up, or is there just no CSS on here? (Other Mods, feel free to respond) It's Farmhand, BTW! (talk) 17:48, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Best you’ll get is adding <div style=background:#D3D3D3> (without the nowiki tags) to the top of your userpage. No need to specify text color, it’s already black. You can’t impose css on the whole webpage if that’s what you were going for.

Not strictly relevant to your question, but you can customise your own css by creating this page, See the Wikipedia article on Help:User style. (some things may work differently but it’s close enough).

If you made that edit just to add the page to your watchlist, you could’ve just clicked the star icon next to “fossil record” instead. Christopher (talk) 18:22, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Trouble uploading files

Yesterday and today, I've gotten an error message when trying to upload an image file (jpg or png): "Could not store file "/tmp/phpUVHvF4" at "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/2/23/L.…" I reuploaded the file yesterday and it worked after I waited a while. Bongolian (talk) 06:15, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Something else I cannot find any help for. When I try to upload an image, it says there is an error in 'storing the image to the stash.' The image in question is edited and falls under fair use. Is this normal, and how do I bypass it? Or get the image to upload. It fails to upload both in the page and on the upload page. TheJakeHolmesVersion (talk) 13:33, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

(This comment was moved from the saloon) Christopher (talk) 15:01, 13 May 2021 (UTC)