RationalWiki:Technical support/Archive4

This is an archive page, last updated 4 January 2012. Please do not make edits to this page.

Archives for this talk page:

<1>, <2>, <3>, <5>, <6>, <7>, <8>, <9>, <10>, <11>, <12>, <13>, <14>, <15>, <16>, <17>, <18>, <19>, < List>, <20>, <21>, <22>, <23>, <24>, <25>, <26>, <27>

, (new)(back)

Should these subpages link work like that?

Andrew_Layton_Schlafly/Anagrams and Andrew_Layton_Schlafly/bustarhyme exists, but something broke the method of linking in this section (They used to work before I believe). We can fix the links, but I am not sure where else do we have this style of linking. (I believe it's something related to making the & thing in the page name possible) [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 01:11, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Those are not subpages. Subpages in mainspace are disabled. -- Nx / talk 01:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Better question: Is there a good way to find where we have these type of links to fix? [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 01:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Good question. Special:WantedPages maybe? Or Special:AllPages, since you shouldn't have anything like that in mainspace -- Nx / talk 01:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

When did we disable subpages? that may provide better ideas (pages made after that can be excluded; perhaps find pages that stopped changing after that date first) [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 01:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It was disabled first, then I enabled it, then I realized that was a bad idea so I disabled it again. -- Nx / talk 01:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Help, please.

I have tried to change my email address via "my prefernces" but managed to misspell it. So I didn't get a confirmatory email, and now am stuck. Can some gifted, techie person help me out, please? RagTop^{Gone sailing} 11:54, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

You should be able to just change it again from preferences. The point of confirmation emails is that if they aren't responded to, the software just assumes the email address isn't valid. Unless you've also forgotten your password and trying to get it reset via email. ^{d hominem} 12:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, tried that, but didn't seem to work. I have put more details on my talk page, so maybe any thoughts & suggestions could go there? Thanks, RagTop^{Gone sailing} 22:56, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Logo

Is it possible to change the logo on your userpage without having to hack up the Mediawiki:Common.css file? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 15:05, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I think so. Try placing a "fixed position" image in its exact place. Like this:

<span style="position:absolute;top:-39px;left:-95px;">[[image:Troll01.png|32px]]</span>

And tweak the details. ħuman 15:54, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Which file do I edit? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 15:56, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh you mean in the actual file itself and not the css files? I'll give it a go. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 15:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah fook. Can't get it to line up over the top. I'll try later. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 16:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

See the edit I just made to my talk page for the right numbers to use. One glitch: the new image is behind the RW logo instead of over it. ħuman 16:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

<span style="position:absolute;top:-25px;left:-152px;">[[image:Human.gif|140px]]</span>

Meh, I don't think I'll get it to work with my image. Looks like I need to be able to replace the file rather than overlay it. Thanks anyway. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 17:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

RSS extension

(I had this in the saloon bar, but I see this is the correct spot....)

Say, can we get the RSS extension (or something like it)? It'd be cool to use something like Yahoo! pipes to make a combined RSS feed from the sites listed on RationalWiki:Blogroll and then have the last 5-10 blog entries (abbreviated) from the combined feed somewhere on that page. We could also put the RSS feed from the Rationalwiki blogspot site here such that when Trent updates it, you know here. Just a thought. Šţěŗĭļė walkie-talkie 02:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(& ScienceBlogs) 02:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

PS I have the Yahoo! pipes RSS feed of the blogroll ready, but I'm making sure there isn't anything that is overrepresented. That is, if you put in Huffington Post or Freakonomics, that's all you get. Šţěŗĭļė walkie-talkie 02:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

InstantCommons glitch

I created chromotherapy with two images that were PD, but turned out were only on en:wp and not on Commons. I put the images on Commons under the same names ... but RW still thinks they don't exist. I tried "?action=purge" on both the article page and the image pages to no avail. Is there any way to tell RW "the images are on Commons, go look again"? Will it fix itself with time? I've moved the pictures to Color therapy, but still no dice - David Gerard (talk) 12:30, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

And there they are. Never mind me! - David Gerard (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I think maybe it takes a little time sometimes for RW to "find" them and remember the location? There was one the other day that was broken for me, but on the 3rd or so load it worked. ħuman 22:07, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

They are cached locally for a time (one of the other reasons InstantCommons is so nice, i.e. it's less load on the file repository than hotlinking - not that Wikipedia has load worries from bandwidth, its load worries come from its own editors), and failures are cached too. Apparently the default is about an hour; this checked again within 15 minutes, just long enough for me to do a solo headless chicken dance - David Gerard (talk) 23:03, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Sounds about right. ħuman 02:26, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

WIGO World numbering

Some brain dead idiots have entered numbers 19441-2-3-4 for WIGO World. Can anything be done to fix this so we don't get surpised in five years time? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 14:42, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I see the numbers have just been changed. I didn't like to do that myself as there were quite a few votes clocked up. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 14:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Was able to transfer most of them around. A few got lost in translation. tmtoulouse 15:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone ever noticed?

I'm not sure where to put this, this might be the wrong place, but has anyone ever noticed that vandal bin autoblocks never expire? Take this for example:

1. 23:53, 8 November 2009, Gooniepunk2010 (Talk | contribs | block) moved #328 to vandal bin (account creation disabled) (Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "MetroKop". The reason given for MetroKop's block is: "Unfunny vandalism: A little late, but...." ) (parole)

I checked the contribs for that vandal and it had a horrible two edits, clearly intent on overloading the server! --Onion^talk/edits 17:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have, but noone cares. It's more important to pretend that we don't block people, never mind that the bin is arguably worse than sane blocking. -- Nx / talk 19:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

If nobody objects I'm going to go ahead and clean up the vandal bin of autoblocks and IPs. --Onion^talk/edits 18:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Have fun. --emc ^[TALK] 18:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

You should give people more time to object. Have fun with the HCM. -- Nx / talk 19:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Thanks, Onion. If HCM hits I'll be right behind you - Three miles distant sitting in a hole. CR 62.40.36.14 (talk) 19:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the RC spam, can I have the bot status back? I think i should have asked for that beforehand! --Onion^talk/edits 19:21, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Create a separate account for meatbotting. -- Nx / talk 19:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Onion^talk/edits 19:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, meatbot. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 19:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT!

Why is the recipe space gone? Who broke Human's Wiki and got rid of the recipe space?! Lord Goonie ^{Hooray! I'm helping!} 06:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Slow as molasses!

What is wrong with the server today? Why is it so painfully SLOW? I can't even load pages at all on my normal web browser, and this ancient one shows that the speed of pageloads is ~500-100 bytes/sec, if it loads at all. 71.29.172.145 (talk) 17:28, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

same here. incidentally, Molasses can move pretty fast when it wants to. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

And here. 17:41, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Could I get confirmed as a non-vandal?

In the course of normal editing, I've been forced to wait to for a rate limit intended to prevent vandalism. I'm a 'newly created account', so that's probably why.

But I'm not doing any vandalism, so is there's a way to get autoconfirmed (or whatever) so that doesn't happen? :) --CreedShandor (talk) 19:16, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Message is: "You are unable to edit because of the edit rate limit. In order to make vandalism less fun anonymous and newly registered users can only make one edit every 30 and 15 seconds respectively. You will be able to edit again in 2 seconds."

It's an automatic thing. It will go away by itself in a couple of days.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 19:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

No actually it's tied to sysop rights. I should probably transfer it to autoconfirmed. -- Nx / talk 19:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Really? Learned something there then.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 19:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Look for noratelimit on Special:ListGroupRights. I just gave it to autoconfirmed users. -- Nx / talk 19:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Template:Navigationbox is slightly broken

I suppose the v-t-e at the bottom of the Template:Navigationbox is for viewing, talkpage and edit of the (whatever finished box it is) itself. Then take a look at the mathnav at the end of the complex numbers article. They are pointing to the article and not the box instead. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 23:21, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I will look into it, since I added the v-t-e to navbox. ħuman 05:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

What is the borken template actually called, please? ħuman 05:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The example I have pointed out is Template:Mathnav, which uses Template:Navigationbox. on their individual pages they function properly, but when some other pages (A) include Template:Mathnav, the v-t-e is referencing (A) instead. [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 06:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no such page as "Template:Navigationbox". Is it camel-capped? I suspect that the mathnav template may have unclosed parameters... it is what's borken, not navbox. ħuman 07:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

No, the problem is that {{PAGENAME}} always refers to the current page, i.e. the article the nav template is on. That's why you have to insert vte as {{vte|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} on a nav template. You can't put it on a nav metatemplate like {{NavigationBox}}, unless the template that uses NavigationBox supplies it's own name to NavigationBox as a parameter so that it can supply vte with the correct name. -- Nx / talk 07:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Spam blacklist?

Is there any reason this MW extension is not installed? It will help with some persistent, IP-switching spammers, such as the last one that adds links to "natoli.ru". --ZooGuard (talk) 09:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's listed as experimental on mediawiki.org, it can cause a large performance hit on page saves, and I don't have time to test it now. -- Nx / talk 10:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I've added natoli.ru to the spam regexp as a temporary solution. -- Nx / talk 10:52, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

CaptureBot

Looks borked to me. The Goonie 1 ^{What's this button do? Uh oh....} 00:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

coverstory abstracts

Moved to Talk:Main Page --Onion^talk/edits 16:09, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Navigation popups

Don't work on diffs now. 23:21, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I've updated to the current version on WP. Let me know if there are any problems. -- Nx / talk 23:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

[[:File:Navigation popups 02.png]] [[:File:Navigation popups 01.png]] see these. 23:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Strike: it's OK now. :) 23:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

capture tags on CP specifically

Should we promote (The box thingy that shows up when you edit the talk:WIGOCP)/enforce(Make it kind of broken unless you give it a revision number or find one automatically) the use of current rev (like this) instead of just the page (like this)? Since you guys have tags like auto replacing wigocp and such, I am thinking maybe a tag like that should be made that auto replace the link with current rev. Comments? [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 19:56, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

the extension for outputting formulae seems to become a bit too fragile at some point

ripping a formula at here gives ${\frac {n!}{k!(n-k)!}}={\binom {n}{k}}$

Or did you guys stopped using it after we have most of the major formulae in place? [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 17:23, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Lies, all lies. Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I need help refreshing main page

my random featured article isn`t purged when I tried to reload the page (ctrl-shift r in FF, ctrl-f5 on IE). Is that normal? if it is, can I have a purge button somewhere? [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 19:03, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have to purge the page. There's a gadget (Add a "*" tab to the top of the page, which purges the page's cache when followed.), or just click on edit and change action=edit to action=purge -- Nx / talk 19:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Its done on purpose as part of our caching routine, if you absolutely need it to purge every time use http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page?action=purge. Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:07, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Capturebot is failing?

See Category:Failed screencaps. In WIGOCZ and WIGOCP there are some 'img" links that are blue but lead to empty pages.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I'm an idiot. Fixed now. -- Nx / talk 09:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The "sort" tag is broken

I was rather surprised to see that Rational and irrational YouTubers seemed much shorter than I remembered. Then I looked at the code. It seems that the "sort" tag has stopped working (perhaps after the upgrade?) and the lists enclosed in it are not displayed. --ZooGuard (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

New RW isn't working with Java 1.6.0.22 in Safari

Title says it all. Since the RW Mediawiki update, I can almost never access RW unless I turn off Javascript - pages simply don't load. I've set my Gadgets to default turned every Gadget off, to no avail. Doggedpersistence (talk) 06:05, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Java has nothing to do with javascript, except marketing (the name javascript was chosen because of java's popularity at the time). Does it happen when you're logged out? Does it happen when you use a different safari profile, preferably a clean one (create a new account on your computer and try with that)? I'm using safari for windows now, and everything is fine. -- Nx / talk 07:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit more debugging: If I'm logged out, it still happens. If I turn Java off, but leave Javascript on, it still happens. If I leave Java on, and turn Javascript off, everything works fine. I've tried Extensions on and off, neither makes a difference. Specifically, the symptoms are typically that I get one or two page loads (page irrelevant, I've checked), then no more page loads - the progress bar is stuck at about 10%, and eventually I get a page failed to load error. PS Forgot to mention - this is Safari on the Mac, 10.6.5. Doggedpersistence (talk) 18:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no Java on RW, so that shouldn't matter. Try creating a new user account on your computer (or just enable the guest account) and see if it happens there. -- Nx / talk 06:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, testing indicates that the Guest account doesn't bork. So it's something with Safari in my own account. I'm gonna trash Safari's prefs and see what happens. Maybe a big bridge will collapse somewhere or something? DogP (I buggered up my sig) (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that didn't work. Ah well, just have to visit here less I guess. :-) DogP (I buggered up my sig) (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Aha! A bit of a cleanup of Safari (Internet Plugins, Input Managers, and Extensions) seems to have sorted it out. DogP (I buggered up my sig) (talk) 03:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocking search engines

Is there a way to block search engines from cataloging/caching/whatever a specific page on the wiki? I ask because I have an essay I'd like to share with the community, but I'm not comfortable with it being google-able. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Place __NOINDEX__ on the page. - π 05:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Another RA essay? I'm excited. Blue (pester) 03:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Login errors...

"Login error
There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Go
back to the previous page, reload that page and then try again."

happens here and other places that aren't "*.wikia.com"

Try a different browser. Candlewick 02:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you registered an account here or are you trying to use the one you registered at Wikia? - π 02:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Problems with liquid threads when scripts are disabled

If you disable scripts you will probably find that you can't remove liquid threads from your watchlist by clicking the star or the "ignore"; you have to edit the watchlist manually. This is strange because clicking the star can remove other pages from the watchlist.

Nx blocked me a few times due to this confusion and probably not because he is trying to suppress dissent regarding the way the voting machines could be fixed so that the cabal can't alter the election results. So I'd like to apologize for any suggestion of a possible accusation there. Thank you. ~ Lumenos (talk) 09:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I blocked you because you are an annoying idiot. You keep on babbling about some stupid conspiracy with the voting machines and bothering me with all kinds of nonsense. -- Nx / talk 10:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a conspiracy with the voting machines?!?!? ~ Lumenos (talk) 15:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Advanced web applications don't work when you disable scripts? Dear LORD I had no idea! ^{d hominem} 09:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I realise you have problems with acknowledging that other people do things differently to you, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons to have JS turned off, and basic functionality — like communicating through the standard channels with those who have chosen to have LQT enabled — should not be altered by this. Mindless word Phantom! 12:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there should be a non-js fallback for something as simple as this, but it looks like they forgot to implement it. I'll look into it. -- Nx / talk 10:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It should be simple to fix, give me a few minutes. -- Nx / talk 10:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

There it's fixed. -- Nx / talk 10:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

OMG how'd ey do that? We are so fucked. I think he is sending electromagnetic rays into my brain. In fact, I'm sure of it. Stop making me horny! ~ Lumenos (talk) 15:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit history bug with LiquidThreads

[Me edit history got Wong stuff in me liquid threads and repeating stuff]

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Lumenos&oldid=614551

I don't understand what you are whining about. Learn to speak normally and stop wasting my time. -- Nx / talk 07:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

According to that edit history at 05:46, 7 July 2010, there are liquid threads on my talkpage and the thread summary contains everything that is on my talkpage now. The rest of the page repeats the same content over and over, part of it appearing to be a liquid thread and part of it not. Do you not see this? You after me lolcow utters, is that it? ~ Lumenos (talk) 09:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

That's weird. -- Nx / talk 09:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. This is a "LQT bug" because I removed LQT and my edit history looked normal. Good news is it doesn't seem that it corrupted the database. But you have to remove LQT from the page in order to get to the wiki markup (edit page) of pages in history. So now that Nx has protected his talkpage, you can't get to the wiki markup of the history of his pages, and they are difficult to read with all the repeating and LQT stuff inserted from the current page.

Some of the history pages have the repeating and the strange thread summary (here are some more examples on Nx' talkpage,2 3. I think all the rest don't have repeating but show LQT at the bottom of the page when it is not actually in the history and this prevents you from being able to get to the wiki markup. ~ Lumenos (talk) 00:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Pay attention Lumenos, because I'm only going to say this once. I KNOW ABOUT THE BUG. I AM GOING TO FIX IT WHEN I HAVE THE TIME AND I'M IN THE MOOD. SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. You're like a retarded kid asking "are we there yet?", and you're getting on my nerves. -- Nx / talk 05:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

And it's fixed. -- Nx / talk 06:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Please be nice to my "retarded" yet special brother. Thank you for all you do. Troutmaskreplica (talk) 07:57, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You never said you were gonna fix it. I didn't know you could or if having more information about it would help. Your analogy is flawed because this is not sound. You could read it at your leisure, not read it, or skim over topic sentences to see if there might be something of interest. I can't help if you think there might be something important in my post. ~ Lumenos (talk) 07:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I did say I was going to fix it. Pestering me about it constantly doesn't help. -- Nx / talk 08:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Well all it says on this page was "that was weird". I was NOT trying to get you to fix it and not really even expecting you to read it if you did not need any more info about this bug. Keep in mind no one else exactly verified that they could see the bug and I thought maybe you were saying that I was weird and there was no bug. So I posted more information about it, providing "valuable technical support" AFAIKnew. I'm sorry, I guess any less valuable information I post is superfluous/annoying. Next time I plan to wait longer before posting any further information, if it might help people understand the bug (and maybe workarounds). ~ Lumenos (talk) 15:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

LiquidThread edit history bugs?

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thread:Forum:Genetic_evolution_vs_memetic_evolution_(LQT!)/Gene_propogation_machines/reply_(15)&oldid=712996

Did Sprocket J Cogswell copy my post at that time in the edit history? I don't think so. The copied post reads "Your book review, didn't elaborate much on the simple concept of genetic determinism, so I'm replying to your later comments."

Question: Why do I not think so? Answer: I posted a reply to that edit history. My reply was "What's this button do?" but it showed up as a copy of that post again in edit history. This could be seen at the following url, but since I deleted the comment, it also disappeared from this edit history link:

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thread:Forum:Genetic_evolution_vs_memetic_evolution_(LQT!)/Gene_propogation_machines/reply_(15)&lqt_method=reply&lqt_operand=698&oldid=712996#Gene_propogation_machines_698

It "actually" posted my new comment because it was visible at this location... Thread:Forum:Genetic_evolution_vs_memetic_evolution_(LQT!)/Gene_propogation_machines/reply_(14)

But then I couldn't figure out how to get a diff link to the page as it appeared at that time. So I deleted the comment to see if I could then find a link to it in the thread history. However it does not appear in the thread history. It should be the last comment here:

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thread:Forum:Genetic_evolution_vs_memetic_evolution_(LQT!)/Gene_propogation_machines&lqt_oldid=865

But that history link looks no different than the one it has for when I deleted the comment:

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thread:Forum:Genetic_evolution_vs_memetic_evolution_(LQT!)/Gene_propogation_machines&lqt_oldid=866

~ Lumenos (talk) 03:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

If you delete a comment, you obviously can't see it any more. -- Nx / talk 05:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

But anyway, there are two bugs here, one is that the comment history gets merged when you delete then reply (see [1]), the other is the first link you posted. -- Nx / talk 05:59, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you meant that if you delete a comment it is supposed to be deleted from the edit history. I'm telling you that is what happened, and I have screenshot to prove. ~ Lumenos (talk) 06:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not deleted from the history. It's here. Unfortunately, it has been merged with the new reply because lqt names replies based on their position in the thread. Thanks for reporting the bug. Now shut up and let me see what I can do about it. -- Nx / talk 06:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You probably know this already, but I found the deleted post here. ~ Lumenos (talk) 06:36, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. -- Nx / talk 08:34, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you send these bug fixes upstream?--ZooGuard (talk) 10:08, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. -- Nx / talk 10:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Rename user issue

I tried renaming User:PunchingBag to "Punching Bag" and received the following error:

Detected bug in an extension! Hook VandalBrake::userRename failed to return a value; should return true to continue hook processing or false to abort.

Backtrace:

1. 0 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/extensions/Renameuser/SpecialRenameuser_body.php(401): wfRunHooks('RenameUserSQL', Array)
2. 1 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/extensions/Renameuser/SpecialRenameuser_body.php(262): RenameuserSQL->RenameuserSQL('PunchingBag', 'Punching Bag', '3698')
3. 2 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/includes/SpecialPage.php(559): SpecialRenameuser->execute(NULL)
4. 3 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/includes/Wiki.php(254): SpecialPage::executePath(Object(Title))
5. 4 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/includes/Wiki.php(64): MediaWiki->handleSpecialCases(Object(Title), Object(OutputPage), Object(WebRequest))
6. 5 /home/rationalwiki/public_html/w/index.php(117): MediaWiki->performRequestForTitle(Object(Title), NULL, Object(OutputPage), Object(User), Object(WebRequest))
7. 6 {main}

The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 15:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoops. On it. -- Nx / talk 15:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Trent fixed it. -- Nx / talk 15:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Lost posts

It lost another post, this time going back in the browser didn't help. There is only one thread on this page and, as I told you before, it shows me the page with Contents and the thread I'm editing, is missing. So in this case is shows no thread. Going back in my browser showed me the same page (with no thread). This thread is quite long and most posts are indents.

I suppose it may be my browser because the buttons flickered a little, but a post has never been lost on a regular wiki page.

(I don't know how your gonna fix this because we can't reproduce it.) ~ Lumenos (talk) 01:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I was able to reproduce this last time, but now I'm out of luck it seems. If you can find a reproducible test case, that would help a lot. -- Nx / talk 09:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know why back didn't work, but anyway, this is probably the same bug as this, i.e. someone replied or edited a comment while you were replying (maybe this?), and I figured out why it happens. -- Nx / talk 11:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps "back" did not work because I had caching disabled, but caching was disabled when "back" worked with the same web browser IIRC. ~ Lumenos (talk) 20:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It may happen after loss of session data. I left one sitting for a long time and when I go to preview it, it is lost (as described above). I tried going back a few times and hitting preview and it does it every time. On a regular MediaWiki page (if I tried to post?) it would display the error "loss of session data". It also happens when I have not waited so long, IIRC. ~ Lumenos (talk) 23:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually here is the link that it goes to when I tried to preview. I put it in a different browser and it still shows the disappearing thread symptom, so maybe that will be repeatable for you (so long as no one posts to that location, or something?). Sorry if you (Nx) already know about this. ~ Lumenos (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorting threads by "Activity" doesn't seem to work

When I sort by Activity they seem to be in order of time, while the similar activities are not grouped together. ~ Lumenos (talk) 14:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Disappearing threads

This has the same symptom described in the "Lost post" section. It loads the talkpage with LQT enabled, while the thread it is supposed to show is the only thread not shown. However in this case, I came to the page from Recent Changes, instead of when I had tried to preview or post. ~ Lumenos (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

class="wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed"

Somehow, I have problems to hide tables: I declared both tables in Conservapedia_talk:What_is_going_on_at_CP?#Patrolling as "wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed", but only one of them is collapsible, and none of them is collapsed :-(

And it seems not to work in liquid threads, neither: User_talk:LArron#Patrol_Stats_988

What am I doing wrong?

larron^{sicut fur in nocte} 12:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I haven't gone through the code to see exactly what's wrong, but it seems our version of the collapsible Javascript is well behind the WP version. I'd just copy over the updated JS from here to here and see if that resolves it. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 12:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sidebar navigation templates cause an article's first paragraph to drop

Recently, I have been making lots of edits like this one, because if a sidebar navigation template is transcluded at the top of an article and a line break is placed between the transclusion and the beginning of the article's first paragraph, the first paragraph winds up one line lower than the top of the template, leaving a gap at the top of the page.

This should be fixed, either by re-working the sidebar navigation templates or by running a bot that takes out the superfluous line breaks. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem was (mostly) with Template:Navsidebar, and I appear to have fixed that end of the issue with this removal of a line break. Blue (pester) 05:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

There are odd line breaks that keep appearing and disappearing. It's bothersome because I'm sure I've edited them out on several occasions but they keep coming back. ^{d hominem} 20:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Mediawiki Sidebar

I've just been upped to a sysop and can see the email user item in the toolbox but some people who are bureaucrats cannot. Just a thought but could there be a missing setting for the crats? Clickbot (talk) 05:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Er yes, I just realised that I don't have Email this user either and I'm a 'crat. Anyone else care to comment on this?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 16:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I can see it... Blue (pester) 20:12, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it usually depends on whether that user has the email feature enabled and has little to do with user rights. I know I have it enabled if you want to test it. ^{d hominem} 20:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

HotCat

Is not working properly. Usually, it gives a menu for what categories to add/subtract. That menu, however, seems to have disappeared. In my case, it no longer seems to be there. In my case (I use firefox, btw), HotCat seems to be gone completely. Lord Goonie ^{Hooray! I'm helping!} 16:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Same, but isn't hot cat a WP issue? Тy^Talk. 16:52, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Does it really matter? Trent is likely too busy to care, and Nx does not care anymore. Thus, this issue will never actually get addressed. Lord of the Goons ^{The official spikey-haired skeptical punk} 16:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

... lovely. Тy^Talk. 16:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Weird, it works fine for me. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Upon a double check, mine still does NOT work. And I don't think that's it's relative to my alcohol intake this morning/night. The Spikey Punk ^{I'm punking my punk!} 17:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. Blue (is useful) 21:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it works now. Тy^Talk. 21:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Some CSS file is borked

Pibot templates and LQT threads no longer display according to the modified CSS. Blue (is useful) 22:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Nor does the welcome template and wigonav. Тy^Talk. 22:03, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

And hotcat is borked again.Тy^Talk. 22:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. - π 23:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It does work again, after restart of browser. Тy^Talk. 23:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Search

The search function isn't working for me. If the search term I put in is an exact page title, it tells me there is such a page, but for every other search term it says "There were no results matching the query", even with words which appear in many pages' titles or text.

Is everyone having this problem? Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 10:59, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The search engine wasn't running for some reason. Restarted it. Ponder Stibbons (talk) 12:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Cheers dude. Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Capturebot borked?

There are redlinks in WIGO:CP that have been there for over 12 hours.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 06:49, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

My wikifu is very low and I haven't been accused of being a geek in years but I'm thinking it's the linkages that are the "problem" since they point to sections of pages rather than actual diffs. 07:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

No, they're not. -- Nx / talk 07:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, then Cap'bot is borked. 07:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

It looks like the images were correctly captured, but there's a problem with uploading them. -- Nx / talk 07:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, fuck it. I don't know what's broken, I don't have time to fix it and I don't really care. CP can go die already. -- Nx / talk 07:39, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I fuked with the only thing I saw that might have something to do with it. I'm going to bed and dream dreams that have nothing to do with wikis or bots ('cept for the sex dreams and the bot isn't a bot but a guy who typoed "bot" when he meant "boy", which doesn't mean man-child but BOY, you know...) Hilarity ensues. 07:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Leftovers from before the user rights change

Javascap and Totnesmartin are are still "bureaucrats," and Reckless Noise Symphony is still an "irrational number." Blue (pester) 17:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

This is basically a caching issue. Will "fix itself." Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Problems with mass anonymous vandalism again

Mostly the same stuff as before - reverting edits and replacing content and creating pages with spam-style comments. I think that the last time a captcha on anonymous editing fixed it.--ZooGuard (talk) 06:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It's like they don't stop coming. Goddidit. but seriously, that was insane. RatMaster ^háblame 06:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There's been the same trouble at Palaeos, it seems spammers have developed a new probgamme that can create new accounts so blocking is a waste of time there. A CAPTCHA on anonymous eidting could be the first line of defense. If that fails the CAPTCHA can be extended to users who are not yet autoconfirmed. Asking users who are not yet autoconfirmed to solve a CAPTCHA when making external links is common on many wikis including Wikipedia. Proxima Centauri (talk) 06:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

And we already do that, genius. That's why you don't see a lot of vandalism with external links. -- Nx / talk 07:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been vandal-binning the IPs, because if it's a bot, it'll discard one when it's useless and move on to the next. I just wanted to put the brakes on it until a more sophisticated wiki-genius can come up with a solution. The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 06:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Proxima, I think that the people who read this page and can do something about the problem know what a captcha is. :) And I'm pretty sure that these are vandals, not spammers, despite the fact that they may be using spammers' software.

Please don't vandal-bin the BoNs - these are disposable accounts (open proxies or something similar) and they are discarded after a pair of uses, so putting them in the vandal bin is pointless. Block them instead - blocking an IP for some period of time usually forces the bot to obtain a new IP.--ZooGuard (talk) 06:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems to cycle through IPs, there are a few that have been used for two edits. Still, both blocking and vandal binning won't do much. Captcha should do the trick, though - is there any reason for not having this on permanently? A minor inconvenience for anonymous users should easily be worth the protection against persistent vandals. Röstigraben (talk) 06:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Captcha for BoNs sounds "fair" and useful, but it would really have slowed down PsyGremlim/40. in his massive trial of Eira. Politics aside, why don't we have some such simple hurdle for BoNs when we encourage registration, and sysop on sight, anyway? ħuman 06:49, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I should have been blocking. That makes more sense in retrospect, but at the time, it seemed to be pure vandalism and the blocking guide recommends the brake for such edits. I'm kind of burned out from writing federal contracts at the moment, and refreshing the recent changes page and answering the call of duty was a nice little diversion to keep me from totally flipping my lid. The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 06:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

The blocking guide is stupid. A vandal binning will stay forever, whereas a short block will expire and won't cause problems later on. I'm of course being idealistic and assuming that proxies are not used solely for vandalism. -- Nx / talk 07:04, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've enabled captcha for all BoN/non-autoconfirmed edits. that should slow them down. -- Nx / talk 07:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Where did the external link icons go?

It is common practice in MediaWiki installations to have icons that appear following the text of external links, which allows them to be told apart from inter-Wiki links. We do not seem to have these anymore; what happened? ListenerX^TalkerX 03:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

the arrow things are gone! I think maybe it's asking too much to ask us to tell links apart by their shade of blue.--User:Brxbrx/sig 03:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The color difference between intra-Wiki and inter-Wiki links is enough to tell them apart, but inter-Wiki and external links are exactly the same color. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we can agree to bring back the arrow thingies?--User:Brxbrx/sig 03:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see a huge difference between the classification of inter-wiki and external. All inter-wiki links are external, so them being the same color doesn't seem that weird. Also, I'm a fan of no arrows. Looks cleaner. Thunderkatz^Ho! 03:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not much of a reason. The reader needs to be able to see which links in articles, WIGOs etc. will take them offsite & which will take them to another RW page. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 07:54, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

+1. I was going to ask the same thing, but I thought that something was borked on my side of things, as no-one else had complained. And the color difference is too subtle to be immediately obvious on some displays, including mine.--ZooGuard (talk) 07:58, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I really can't see the color difference. On the other hand, I don't really care about arrow icons or no arrow icons. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:01, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Nx / talk 22:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

was this another casualty of trent's upgrade? what did he upgrade, anyways? Was it bandwidth?--User:Brxbrx/sig 22:08, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Probably, it was caused by mod_pagespeed, maybe it was just a caching issue, but I've disabled mod_pagespeed since it's not worth the headaches. -- Nx / talk 22:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help on the wiki!--User:Brxbrx/sig 22:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Uploading error

It seems there's a problem - at first I thought capturebot was borked, but when I tried to upload a file, I get the "The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver." error.

Is there a problem, or is this part of Trent's update he was doing today? --PsyGremlinPraat! 12:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

And my sig has suddenly borked.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 15:15, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Trent upgraded the wiki and didn't apply some patches. -- Nx / talk 16:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

SUBST has packed up too. Pippa (talk) 16:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, now if only I could find that patch I'd be able to fix it. -- Nx / talk 17:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

There. -- Nx / talk 17:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed uploads as well. -- Nx / talk 17:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you once again Nx. Тy^YAUA 18:14, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been having problems uploading newer versions of images, this one in particular. It kept "replacing" the old image with the same one, even though the old version on my own computer had been overwritten. When I tried uploading the new image under a different file name, the dialogue told me that an identical file had already been deleted, even though that version newer showed up properly. Does anyone have an idea what causes this? Röstigraben (talk) 08:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Your browser's cache maybe? -- Nx / talk 09:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it, I've cleared the cache, uploaded it again and now it's displaying correctly. Thanks! Röstigraben (talk) 09:49, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hotcat

can Hotcat be fiddled with so so that its edits are marked as minor? Real first name and last initial^{Talk, talk, talk skim my contributions} 11:51, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

It already is. Thunderkatz^Ho! 02:57, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Login/registration diffuckulties

(discussion moved from RationalWiki talk:Newcomers)

Login error
There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Go back to the previous page, reload that page and then try again.

No loosening of my security settings in Firefox made a difference, so I had to switch to a different browser just to create an account. I’ve never had any problem logging into Wikipedia with the self-same Firefox browser. ―cobaltcigs 02:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Nor have I ever had a problem logging into or creating an account on RationalWiki using Firefox. Might I suggest you talk to our technical expert about your issue? I'm most sure he can help you figure out what's going on. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 03:12, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I’m using Google Chrome at the moment but I dislike it and would indeed prefer to use Firefox. ―cobaltcigs 03:15, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

But damned if I can figure out how to use liquidthreads properly on his talk page. ―cobaltcigs 03:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Click the "Add topic" tab in the top right corner as you would on any other talk page. Does this error happen every time you try to log in? Or only during registration? -- Nx / talk 19:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm… it seems to work now in Firefox, even with third-party cookies turned back off. I can’t seem to reproduce the error today. ―cobaltcigs 04:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Preview not working with LiquidThreads

Hi Nx! I'm back to drive you cR@Zy some more. =) ~ Lumenos (talk) 02:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I had this same problem, but I hope you preserve your sanity--User:Brxbrx/sig 02:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

PLEASE REMAIN ON TOPIC GOG DAMN YOU! ~ Lumenos (talk) 04:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

?--User:Brxbrx/sig 04:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought you meant me. These things seem entertaining at the time. I was gonna delete that one but after you reply I can't. ~ Lumenos (talk) 13:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. ~ Lumenos (talk) 22:08, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

"You are not elligble to vote"

Then who is? I am a sysop at RatWiki and I can't vote in the election? I assume this is a bug... DMorris2 (talk) 23:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Eligibility is defined as a user of the site for at least 3 months and 75 edits. Tmtoulouse (talk) 23:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

You're also forgetting that being a sysop means almost nothing. Thunderkatz^Ho! 23:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it seems more paradigm of machines being dumb; I have over 100 contribs and I've been here much longer than 3 months if you look at my other account, User:PCHS-NJROTC, which I cannot remember the password for. But to the system, I've only been here a couple of months. DMorris2 (talk) 23:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Does User:PCHS-NJROTC have an e-mail associated with it? Can you prove your the proper owner of that account? If so we can reset it for you to log in. Tmtoulouse (talk) 23:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It does but I have no idea what email address I used for it. DMorris2 (talk) 00:01, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Plus that user account has less than 50 contributions. DMorris2 (talk) 00:03, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Well this is a silly rule. I feel like once you've become sysop, you are at least a part of the community, so shouldn't that be what qualifies one to vote? - Jpop (talk) 06:49, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

For a long while now, it's meant "mostly harmless." I think that unless someone is invested enough in RationalWiki, they won't know what's going on - the requirement seems like a suitable one.--^talk 08:54, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like the rule strengthened to 75 mainspace edits. - π 08:58, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Me too. The criteria are already as lenient as they come - someone who can't even be bothered to make 75 edits in three months can be assumed not to be terribly interested in the site, at least not enough to make an informed choice about such matters. And given that RW is a small community, each vote will have a considerable impact, so a few mainspace edits to be able to cast one are not too much to ask. Röstigraben (talk) 09:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I also agree - but we can hardly change it in the middle of the process.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 09:18, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. An issue for next time.--^talk 09:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

It couldn't be a requirement that you only had to be a sysop to vote because then I would have 3 votes. Damo^Hi 10:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

One of the reasons for imposing some qualification on voting is because open voting is often plagued by socks. By enforcing some level of activity many (but not all) of those socks are prevented from voting. You become part of the community here by participating in the wiki, making a hundred snide comments about CP (for example) is hardly helping to make RW grow in line with its mission statement. So I would also like to see the number of mainspace edits increased. After all you generally need to be a citizen and 18 years old to vote in government elections. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 01:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Uploading images

I can't find the uploading tool and I have an image I have released into the public domain I would like to contribute to this wiki. Can somebody help me? Cyclopath (talk) 13:58, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion continued on user's talk page

NSFW images

Images that are categorised as NSFW only display the file name which seems to confuse people and the image then gets deleted from that page. I don't want this site to be full of porn but there are some images that an adult should be able to see if they so choose. So instead of having just the file name displayed, could a NSFW logo with a pop-up hover thumbnail be coded? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 01:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

There is an option in preferences to display NSFW images, but I agree that there should at least be an indication that said viewing is possible. The first time I saw (or didn't see, as it were) one, I honestly thought there was an error in the wikicode and spent like five minutes trying to modify the page to display the image, before I somehow figured out the whole no-display-by-default-thingy. Thunderkatz^Ho! 02:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"unsigned" template

I notice that {{unsigned}} doesn't give the date of addition. It would be preferable if it did, wouldn't it? ^{— Unsigned, by: Pippa / talk / contribs} Pippa (talk) 13:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Just use five tildes -- Nx / talk 13:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

True but here for instance, I've no idea when the BoN left these comments. & it'd be nice to see if one was replying to a year old or hour old comment. If the date is worth noting then it's surely worth being in the template. 13:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC) ^{— Unsigned, by: Pippa / talk / contribs} Pippa (talk) 13:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

In that case you'll have to check the history and manually enter a timestamp. That's the only way of knowing when a comment was actually added to the page. -- Nx / talk 13:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that the history displays the time in your local time zone (which you can set in preferences), but the timestamp should be in UTC -- Nx / talk 13:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I know that. Any reason for it not to be in the template? Pippa (talk) 13:25, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

What? The timestamp? The template accepts a second parameter for the timestamp, but you still have to manually figure out what that timestamp is. The template cannot magically check the history to figure out when the comment was made. -- Nx / talk 13:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Maximum permitted length of a username

Maybe should be made shorter? Usernames are not meant to be essays... (((Zack Martin)))^™ 04:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Back in the good old days, UNIX usernames were limited to eight characters. My alma mater still holds to that; when I was there they could still assign usernames with four letters of the last name followed by four numerals, but they have since had to switch to five and three due to saturation. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The way the limit works in mediawiki is stupid. It stops you from creating a username longer than the limit, but it also stops you from logging in with an existing username that's longer than the limit. -- Nx / talk 05:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

How many legitimate users do we have with usernames greater than 32 characters in length? ListenerX^TalkerX 05:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

At least one, and when I limited usernames to 32 characters they were locked out. I raised the limit but later removed it completely because the long username troll got bored and went away. -- Nx / talk 06:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we really need to put an upper limit on them unless it becomes a common issue. Until then, we can deal with it on a case by case basis. Klaus Vos (talk) 05:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Give autopatrolled skipcaptcha

So we can turn off CAPTCHA for Autopatrolled group, i.e. give them skipcaptcha rights? That way we can stop the captcha from bothering them without having to give them full sysop straight away? (((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

They already have it. -- Nx / talk 11:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

No they don't:

“”Autopatrolled (list of members) Have one's own edits automatically marked as patrolled (autopatrol) Not be affected by rate limits (noratelimit)

(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention, I thought you said autoconfirmed. Anyway, done. -- Nx / talk 11:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Rights screwed up?

Just noticed that for some reason I can view oversighted diffs and also change certain group memberships despite only being a sysop. Not sure if I'm meant to be able to do this as a sysop or if just my rights are screwed. If the former then I would have thought:

1. Sysops should not be entitled to view oversighted diffs, considering we give sysop rights out to everyone it kinda defeats the object of oversight, and
2. I wouldn't have thought sysops should be able to promote / demote other users to sysop level (obviously the higher levels are restricted)

I know we got rid of crats and I'm pretty sure I missed a discussion, so what's the deal? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

My understanding, there's a difference between hidden revisions, which sysops can view, and oversighted revisions, which sysops can't view (but I think mods can). Don't believe anything has changed since the old rights system.

Part of the design of the new rights system, is that sysops can sysop and de-sysop others (but can't touch mod/tech/bot/ninja). And "Autopatrolled" is a kind of sysop-lite, stops the CAPTCHA etc for newbies who are genuine, but not ready for full sysop yet. (((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha. Ta. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

1. Autoconfirmed also stops the captcha, but autopatrolled stops the red !s.
2. Can you give me a diff to an oversighted revision you can see? Since sysops can delete and restore pages, they can also see deleted revisions, but mods can suppress them so sysops can't see them.
3. Sysops promoting/demoting sysops is a result of us getting rid of crats. IMHO it's a bad idea, but so far there haven't been any problems. -- Nx / talk 11:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

They were hidden revisions, not oversighted. My bad. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Pibot acting up?

I've noticed that we have a few month-old threads on the chicken coop, but the auto-archive seems to be set to seven days. Blue (pester) 19:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

1. When you use {{movedto}} and co., put a timestamp on the source page, or else pibot won't archive that thread.
2. It's {{Template:Talkpage/Pibot ..., not {{Talkpage/Pibot ... -- Nx / talk 20:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Bit odd that nobody noticed until now. Blue (pester) 20:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

A lot of people noticed (check the history, it's full of manual archiving accompanied by people asking what's up with pibot), but no-one cared enough to figure out what was wrong. -- Nx / talk 21:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Huh. Well, thanks as usual, Nx. Blue (pester) 23:42, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Can we have interactive molecular models? Pretty please.

Any possibility we can install the Jmol extension? Pretty molecules.... The only thing is I'm not sure about the security, which was an issue at WP at one point. sterile^talk 23:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Why? -- Nx / talk 06:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Because it's harmless, and I would think easy to implement. But that's OK, too, if you don't want to. sterile^talk 02:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It's neither. -- Nx / talk 05:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the "in depth" explanation. sterile^talk 11:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

You said security was an issue at WP at one point. As for being easy to implement, read the installation guide. -- Nx / talk 15:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If I knew how to do it myself, I wouldn't put it under technical support. (Duh.) I'm also not an adminsitrator. (Duh.) I'm glad things are not a community decision any more. sterile^talk 20:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why we need this extension. "It's pretty" is not very convincing, and this isn't MoleculeWiki. You said security was an issue at one point. Every extension adds potential problems, extra maintenance (this one even more than usual since MediaWiki needs to be hacked to accept cml files) and so forth. And if I install something and people start relying on it, I can't just remove it later; a good example of this is DPL, which is a security and maintenance disaster, but we rely on it too much, so I can't get rid of it. -- Nx / talk 04:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Nx. Why do we need an extension for displaying molecules in 3D? Do we even have any 2D molecule diagrams? ListenerX^TalkerX 04:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for a paragraph of explanation, finally, Nx. We do have a lot of molecular diagrams: File:Meth.svg, File:Water.svg, File:Heroin.png, etc. There is a lot of woo about substances such as homeopathy. Jmol is a fairly standard, actually, but I get the problems. sterile^talk 12:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

WIGObot misspells headers

Putting in the header for a new month's entries, WIGObot spells it "Recent entires" instead of "Recent entries." ListenerX^TalkerX 17:18, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

*sigh* I'll fix it. - π 23:52, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Statistics question

Do we have any stats on total page views per a namespace? What percentage of pageviews go to mainspace versus other-than-mainspace? (((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Note: Maratrean isn't being transparent about the reason for his request and continues to criticize RationalWiki at A Storehouse of Knowledge. sterile^talk 12:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

So?--User:Brxbrx/sig 12:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

So, while nobody can stop Maratrean from grievance collecting and going from site to site to slag RW based on his own experience and his own redefinitions of "rationality," it's not in RW's interest to help him do so. In any event, this is not a question of technical support. As the pages notes, server questions should be directed to Trent. Nobody else has permission from the Foundation to access the server in this manner. 13:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Too bad I just did that. The mediawiki hit counter is not perfect because some stuff got reset (e.g. WIGO:CP when it was deleted and restored), but the result is still surprising. Do I have to ask the board for permission to tell Maratrean the result? -- Nx / talk 14:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems rather churlish to deny him the information just because we don't like him. And when people want info on Rationalwiki, I doubt ASoK is their first (or second or third) port of call anyway. People learn about RW by coming here and seeing for themselves, and I don't think "he's a twat, don't give him the info" makes a good impression. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 14:11, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Nutty, what the page says is that Trent might not be monitoring the wiki 24/7, so if it's an urgent problem, you should email him. Also, page counters are public, anyone could use the api to get the page counts for every page, then sum it up and produce the result; but with access to the database it's a bit faster (a single sql query). So with that in mind, here are the numbers:

namespace	%
Main	49.8274
Conservapedia	7.5544
User talk	6.5428
RationalWiki	5.7828
Conservapedia talk	4.9882
File	4.4513
Talk	4.0073
User	3.9763
Category	2.9772
Fun	2.8633
Template	1.5045
Essay	1.0985
RationalWiki talk	0.8403
Debate	0.5171
Fun talk	0.4889
MediaWiki	0.4521
Help	0.3905
Forum	0.3806
Essay talk	0.3469
Template talk	0.3220
Recipe	0.2002
Category talk	0.1486
File talk	0.1327
Debate talk	0.0584
Help talk	0.0510
Recipe talk	0.0339
MediaWiki talk	0.0246
Thread	0.0243
Forum talk	0.0107
Summary	0.0029
Summary talk	0.0002

-- Nx / talk 14:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Nx for the information. Actually, it was really for the benefit of a discussion between Philip Rayment and Hamster, which was kicked off by a question by CPalmer.

I really don't see how asking for basic stats like this has anything to do with criticism of RW. What possible criticism is going to eventuate? "Evil Evil RW, Namespace X gets too many/not enough views!!!!". Silly. CPalmer was arguing that the aSK article focus too much on talk and not enough on mainspace; these stats show that split is roughly 50-50. (((Zack Martin)))^™ 22:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

You mean toward the end of the long thread of conversation about if civility occurs on talk pages on RationalWiki, gee, are there more talk or main edits at RW, let's go find out? sterile^talk 23:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

PS By my math it's 86-14, in favor of the non-talk spaces. Where do you get 50-50? sterile^talk 23:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I suggested that Philip approach someone here for statistics on how many users access articles rather than talk pages. His comment "You raise a good question, but I wonder how many people really go to RW for its articles. Philip J. Raymentdiscuss 05:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC) " Hamster (talk) 23:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

When I said 50-50, I meant "Mainspace vs. non-Mainspace", not "Talk vs non-Talk". CPalmer's concern was surely the casual visitor is likely to be more interested in actual article pages. Now, as to the other mainspaces, some of them are essential talkspace without the name, like Debate, or RW:Saloon Bar. The only one I see which is clearly like article-space, is CP space, which gives around 57% article pageview. (((Zack Martin)))^™ 23:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

The saloon bar only has about 600000 views (I can't remember if that got reset due to a deletion or something, it seems low), which is about 1 percent. RationalWiki:Smileys also has an inflated viewcount because there's a gadget that loads it every time a page is edited (only for users who have the gadget though). These numbers are not really reliable, but it's clear that mainspace is important. -- Nx / talk 23:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, duh. If you look at Special:PopularPages, you see most of the popular pages over the years that have been accessed a lot. Ignoring the Main Page:

Poe's Law	742123
Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax	485533
Lenski affair	235472
Project Blue Beam	219563
Goat	145357
Russell's Teapot	105936
Andrew Schlafly	97127
Evidence against a recent creation	87702
Agnostic Atheism Wager	86308
Conservapedia	76260
Pascal's wager	71975
List of scientifically controlled double blind studies which have conclusively demonstrated the efficacy of homeopathy	71284
Pseudoscience	62208
Scientific evidence for God's existence	61248
Gish Gallop	58734
Flying Spaghetti Monster	56222
Expelled: Leader's Guide	55406
RationalWiki	54354
Atheism	53206
Fred Phelps	52817
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed	52045
Jack Chick	51277
Christianity	51168
Fundamentalism	48997

sterile^talk 00:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

That only lists mainspace pages. -- Nx / talk 00:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but if Poe's law has 700,000 views, main is going to kill a lot of pages except maybe WIGOCP. sterile^talk 00:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)