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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

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view · edit Frequently asked questions (see also: Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical) Click "[show]" next to each point to see more details. If something looks wrong, purge the server's cache, then bypass your browser's cache. This tends to solve most issues, including improper display of images, user-preferences not loading, and old versions of pages being shown. No, we will not use JavaScript to set focus on the search box. This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See task 3864. There is an accesskey property on it (default to accesskey="f" in English). Logged-in users can enable the "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page" gadget in their preferences. No, we will not add a spell-checker, or spell-checking bot. You can use a web browser such as Firefox, which has a spell checker. An offline spellcheck of all articles is run by Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss; human volunteers are needed to resolve potential typos. If you have problems making your fancy signature work, check Help:How to fix your signature. If you changed to another skin and cannot change back, use this link. Alternatively, you can press Tab until the "Save" button is highlighted, and press Enter. Using Mozilla Firefox also seems to solve the problem. If an image thumbnail is not showing, try purging its image description page. If the image is from Wikimedia Commons, you might have to purge there too. If it doesn't work, try again before doing anything else. Some ad blockers, proxies, or firewalls block URLs containing /ad/ or ending in common executable suffixes. This can cause some images or articles to not appear. For server or network status, please see Wikimedia Status. If you cannot reach Wikipedia services, see Reporting a connectivity issue.

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Usually I am only notified of a discussion if it occurs within a thread I have started or participated in. This usually excluded comments that aren't a response to mine in most of the noticeboards. Lately though, I have begun to be notified whenever an edit is made to any of these threads I have edited (e.g. WP:AIV or WP:UAA), meaning I basically get a notification every couple minutes about an admin responding to a completely unrelated report, or to someone making a new post. Worse, this also affects talk pages, so I get notified whenever someone I warned gets blocked or warned again. Was this intentional, or is this a mistake/bug? Aside from being annoying, it also gets confusing to repeatedly get notifications saying "You have been blocked indefinitely", or similar. Lynch44 02:44, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Lynch44: Discussions have a [subscribe]/[unsubscribe] link to the right of the section heading. Are the sections listed at Special:TopicSubscriptions? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:56, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is phab:T290778 I believe. Izno (talk) 03:34, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Worth checking if "Automatically subscribe to topics" in Special:Preferences is checked. CMD (talk) 03:37, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 – LuniZunie_(talk) 03:53, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Lynch44 It looks like this problem is occurring via Twinkle usage. I.e. From a glance at your contribs, I'd guess that you got notified from the subsequent edit at The Oneeeeeee's talkpage because Twinkle is re-using the ==December 2025== section header, and similarly Twinkle is adding entries to the single ==section== at UAA. Context: As Izno noted, the change is coming from phab:T290778 (as announced in the 2nd entry in m:Tech/News/2025/45, but deployed late, this week). The Editing team devs will talk to the Twinkle devs to see how we can make Twinkle not auto-subscribe (which might require changes in the Extension, and/or just in the Gadget. TBD.). Sorry for the noise in the meantime, or, you may wish to temporarily unset the preference noted above. I hope that helps, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:07, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Quiddity (WMF) The issue is unfortunately happening with every tool. Even my script, Wikipedia:WikiShield, is being effected. – LuniZunie_(talk) 20:13, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll pass that along so that they're examining this for a generically applicable fix. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate it so much =D
Happy editing, – LuniZunie_(talk) 20:25, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and done that. Thanks. Lynch44 20:25, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It'll probably be something that tools will need to adapt to -- like the existing watchlist parameter for edits, where it defaults to "respect the user's preference" but where you can explicitly set it to override that behavior. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing work now in phab:T412462. Thanks again, all. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate it. I think the extra API parameter will actually be rather useful. – LuniZunie_(talk) 19:11, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Thoughts on serverless functions for toolforge? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:02, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Serverless toolforge crustimony proceedcake what? — DVRTed (Talk) 08:56, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If I understood it, I'd have explained it. See also [1] WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Copying a discussion from WP:AN:

[2]NZ-non-WANZ-members is placed in the main namespace, and is listed in e.g. the newpages feed, but is not editable (is some mass-message list?). I suppose this shouldn't be possible, but as it needs deletion an admin is needed. @Schwede66: you created this, perhaps you can explain what is happening? Fram (talk) 14:45, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia namespace. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:09, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Yep. Probably not the right location either (should be with some project, and when editing is listed suddenly as a "special" page). In any case, such pages shouldn't be creatable in the mainspace, serve no purpose there. Fram (talk) 15:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

I think there's definitely a valid task to restrict MassMessage to operating in certain namespaces. Izno (talk) 18:39, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

phab:T411661 now. Izno (talk) 18:44, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Right then. Sorry for creating a mess. This did end up in the wrong namespace, and I wasn't awake enough to notice that. For how it happened:

• Wikipedia:Mass message senders has, under the heading "Before making your request", a line that reads: "Administrators and template editors may create lists with a special content model via Special:CreateMassMessageList."
• That opens a form at Special:CreateMassMessageList
• Nothing there indicates that you must move the list to a particular namespace after creating it.

Once you've stuffed it up, you'll probably remember for next time. But it would obviously be better for the form to be set up so that the list gets created in the correct namespace. Schwede66 23:41, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

You can consider trying it right now, but I'm guessing the page title input there is for a {{FULLPAGENAME}} and not the {{PAGENAME}}. Izno (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Is there anything we can do (without waiting for the Phabricator ticket to be resolved) that would prevent this tool from creating pages in mainspace, or at least add a big warning so that people don't leave it in mainspace accidentally? We can't edit the Special namespace, but perhaps an edit to the relevant message names would help with the warning. Could we create an edit filter preventing anyone from putting this kind of page in mainspace? I don't understand how the tool works (perhaps my requests aren't possible), because I don't want to go testing and make a mess. Nyttend (talk) 05:44, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend I created Special:AbuseFilter/1394 that will warn on any attempt to create a non-wikitext page in the article namespace. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:44, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This should have been discussed at WP:EFN. Every edit filter has a cost and we have generally avoided using it as a guardrail for a niche mistake that occurs once in a blue moon. – SD0001 (talk) 14:12, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SD0001 Feel free to disable if you feel it has limited utility. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:34, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Over time, I have found searching the Wikipedia namespace more and more difficult as the results are increasingly discussion pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Is there an easy way to omit these? For example, of the first 20 search results for "talk header cruft", 12 are AFD, TFD, and RFD pages, 3 are peer review discussions, and 3 are featured candidate discussions. That leaves only two of twenty pages that are not obviously discussion pages. Is there a way to do a search query of the Wikipedia namespace that will omit most discussion pages?

Perhaps due to poor search terms, the most relevant pages for my query did not appear. These are:

• Wikipedia:Talk page templates
• Wikipedia:Avoid template creep

Daask (talk) 15:46, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Daask You can exclude some titles or some words and phrases: example. I'm not sure what you're looking for in these pages (talk? header?), maybe your search terms need some improvement too. See Help:Search. Ponor (talk) 15:59, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose I can create a custom search box with -intitle:"Articles for deletion" as you suggest. However, I thought this was likely a common problem that others have experienced and thought perhaps there was a common solution. Daask (talk) 16:22, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're most definitely not the only one. I have a browser shortcut to use google to search wikipedia when I want to actually find something in project or template space, because the SERP here are so frustrating. -- Avocado (talk) 15:57, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a -UTC will get rid of pages with signed comments, and it's unlikely that much baby will go out with the bathwater. Unfortunately, there's no clean way to do this, and it would probably be a better system if we had projectspace split into a place for policy/guideline/information/essays and a place for project-wide discussions. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:53, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I wish we had something like -hasmagicword:NEWSECTIONLINK -hasmagicword:NOEDITSECTION, which would work for this use case. Nardog (talk) 16:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

Just today, I noticed that a few noticeboards, ANI and VPT, were appearing strangely formatted. No horizontal menu at the top of the page, at the bottom of the page were a lot of links. I posted about this at WT:AN but only got the suggestion to change my skin in my Preferences so that's what I've done but I don't care for other features that came with it. Has there been any system-wide changes to noticeboards which are transcluded? I feel odd that I'm the only one noticing a change. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:20, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you may have run into CSS not being loaded. Try changing your skin back, then if it's still happening try bypassing your cache. Anomie⚔ 03:06, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that someone figured out the problem at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#ANI's formatting yesterday. Hooray! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:14, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

List of battles 301–1300 has (for me) no TOC (desktop view, Google Chrome, Windows). Something on my side or something with the article? Fram (talk) 21:11, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Lists of battles calls Template:Compact TOC without setting |allowtoc=, so it suppresses the normal TOC with __NOTOC__. Anomie⚔ 21:22, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that seems (at least on this page) not optimal. Fram (talk) 21:45, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All the pages have sections so I have added |allowtoc=yes. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:09, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that solved it! Fram (talk) 09:04, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page watchers may be interested in the discussion at Template talk:User-multi § Show IP links. Izno (talk) 23:48, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know how to repair broken {{TCMDb}} links to archive.org copies but I do not know the software needed to do it.

copied from archive:

{TCMdb} https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/913841|41847/Dwain-Esper/

now redirect to https://www.tcm.com/

but they all say "powered by AFI"

so

https://catalog.afi.com/Person/41847-Dwain-Esper

exists

so, for all https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/*

there is a https://catalog.afi.com/*

Piñanana (talk) 15:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Piñanana. What is your question about Wikipedia? ColinFine (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Piñanana I think the question here is whether a bot can change the tcmdb template so that instead of hitting a redirect at tcm, that it goes to the page at catalog.afi.com . A note has been added to Template talk:TCMDb title about something that may be similar, but I am not sure.Naraht (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nardog and Jonesey95 are the most recent editors on the template and may be able to help.Naraht (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, the TCMdb family of templates are hopelessly broken. I have tried to contact TCM a couple of times for help, but I have never received a response. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also Template:Screenonline name Template:Screenonline title Template:Screenonline TV title:

https://www.screenonline.org.uk/ is offline since August 29, 2025: https://web.archive.org/web/20250829200700/https://www.screenonline.org.uk/

but frequently archived since 2004, most recent is likely the best choice

thus, for: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/525318/index.html

https://web.archive.org/web/2/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/525318/index.html

Piñanana (talk) 18:24, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:TCMDb name, Template:TCMDb title

for https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/87065%7C10493/Alfred-Hitchcock :

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/87065%7C10493/Alfred-Hitchcock

which gives the first https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/87065%7C10493/Alfred-Hitchcock archived in 2024

https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/87065%7C10493/Alfred-Hitchcock

yields: https://www.tcm.com/unavailable

for https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/30594/the-birds

& https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/30594/The-Birds/ :

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/30594/the-birds

https://web.archive.org/web/20250427134938/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/30594/The-Birds/

13:49:38 April 27, 2025 Got an HTTP 302 response at crawl time...Redirecting to...https://www.tcm.com/unavailable

thus adding a prefix of "https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000/" to the current values of Template:TCMDb name and Template:TCMDb title seems a workable repair

Piñanana (talk) 19:19, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{tcmdb title|id=515251|Piccadilly }}

‹See Tfd›Piccadilly at the TCM Movie Database

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/515251/enwp fails

https://web.archive.org/web/20250610175444/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/515251/enwp

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/515251/Piccadilly works

https://web.archive.org/web/20210924010612/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/515251/piccadilly/ is the most recent workable archiving

Piñanana (talk) 22:45, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Piñanana (talk) 03:46, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:Link rot/URL change requests. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:49, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&action=edit&oldid=1326524026

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/191988%7C57782/wp

https://web.archive.org/web/20110827090049/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/191988%7C57782/Gene-Tierney/

Piñanana (talk) 03:50, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you really can fix it, that's super. You should be able to demonstrate the fix at the appropriate template sandbox pages for Template:TCMDb title and Template:TCMDb name, then show your work at the testcases page, then post a note or two at Template talk:TCMDb title and Template talk:TCMDb name. If it works and there are untemplated links in articles, a URL change request can be filed after that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:28, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• 
  24kt gold 2025 Omega penny
• 
  Denver minting of 2025 Omega penny

Any special magic to getting transparency to work for WebP images? I was uploading some images of the Omega penny that were auctioned off in the past 24 hours, and midway through I had the wild idea to see how much smaller WebP could get the images. It seemed to produce good results (even at 100% / Lossless, which ought to line up well with the PNG I had intended to upload) and on the file description page you can see the transparency works when you hover your cursor over the image. But when I used it in an article, it has a white background. See the gallery above. Is this a known issue, is there a phab ticket, is there a workaround? =) —Locke Cole • t • c • b 06:55, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Strange, the gallery above shows both images with a white background, but the same gallery on Lincoln cent has one white and one transparent. :/ —Locke Cole • t • c • b 06:56, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the gallery above, I see the gold coin with a transparent/checkerboard background, and the other one with a white background. Looking at the PNG previews generated by the server, I see that the original-size one (i.e. the 2000x2000 PNG) has a grey background (which I assume is Chrome's way of rendering a transparent background), and the smaller ones have a white background. Looks like this might be T283646? --rchard2scout (talk) 08:50, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oooh, that looks like it could be the issue. Guess that means I should stick to PNG for now until that gets resolved. Pity. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 10:41, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently noticed that TM:Convert abbreviated does not carry over the TemplateData from TM:Convert, despite being almost identical. This is because the TemplateData was only defined at TM:Convert/doc. I split the TemplateData out to TM:Convert/TemplateData and transcluded it on both TM:Convert/doc and TM:Convert abbreviated/doc, which seems to have worked: VisualEditor now picks up the TemplateData for both templates. I was following WP:TemplateData/Tutorial#Shared documentation, with the example of TM:Col-begin/TemplateData.

TM:Convert and TM:Convert abbreviated have different docs, but the doc of the latter is basically just one sentence pointing to TM:Convert/doc and noting that the difference that the abbr parameter is prefilled.

However, some editors raised concerns that this was not the right procedure. The tutorial seems to be outdated, as this method is no longer preferred for TM:Collapse top for example. There seems to be a preference to include the TemplateData on the doc subpages directly rather than transcluding a dedicated subpage. I also found this TfD, where consensus was to keep a bunch of TemplateData subpages (at least for those that have to be transcluded on shared docs), but this was 8 years ago.

So, for TM:Convert and TM:Convert abbreviated, is it now best to have the TemplateData on a dedicated subpage and transclude it on both docs, like how I did it now? Or should the same TemplateData be defined twice locally, for TM:Convert/doc and TM:Convert abbreviated/doc each? Or is it better to merge the entire documentation (thus making a dedicated TemplateData subpage no longer necessary) and transclude that on both template docs? YuniToumei (talk) 09:55, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where have "some editors raised concerns"? The last option above (duplicate the docs) is a very ugly idea. That makes people who encounter {{cvt}} wonder how it is different from {{convert}}. The current situation (where cvt has just a few words stating what it is) is best. Johnuniq (talk) 10:06, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The transcluded documentation looks right to me. It's an elegant solution. I don't see any editors complaining at the templates' talk pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that transcluding the TemplateData is good. Johnuniq (talk) 03:58, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On pages such as List of countries by credit rating and List of public corporations by market capitalization, sections do not collapse, each section of the page always remains expanded.

== Section Title == does not have a collapse symbol next to it.

(mobile website, Android, chrome) ChickpeaAnxiety (talk) 14:07, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone help me out with a mapframe issue? Looking at MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation, I cannot figure out why the shape is not showing up on the mapframe. I have linked the OpenStreetMap shape in wikidata, and {{Infobox museum}} has |mapframe-wikidata=yes, what is the missing piece here? I'm pretty good with templates, but still new to Wikidata and OpenStreetMap... Any help appreciated! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:59, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oof, I embarked on a similar quest a while ago; it wasn't easy... Here's a discussion that may be a helpful starting point. Sdkb ^talk 19:19, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all! I wanted to quickly share that the WMF Growth team is planning to release an updated version of the email new users receive to confirm their email address. The new version introduces clearer and more welcoming language that we hope will result in more new users confirming their email and continuing on their journey to becoming editors. You can read more in this Growth team update, and feel free to let us know if you have any questions or feedback! Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 00:07, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I hate obfuscated boxes which, when clicked, do who-knows-what. Aren't prospective editors assumed to be clever enough to understand a simple sentence saying what clicking the box will do? Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, which Internet are you on ? ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:00, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what's obfuscated about a box that clearly says "Confirm your email". – SD0001 (talk) 10:49, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What actions will be taken if the button is clicked? What are the consequences? Johnuniq (talk) 03:12, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

<sarcasm>Isn't it obvious? Your Wikipedia account will become complete.</sarcasm> – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:00, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Confirming your email? — Qwerfjkltalk 16:03, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you provide an email, but don't confirm it, then you won't be able to use almost any of the email features, including email notifications or emails from other users. (I think we only use non-confirmed email addresses for password resets.)

This is because until you prove that you can receive emails (by clicking that button), we don't know that the email you provided is really yours, and we don't want to let you spam someone else with notification emails etc.

I think this email confirmation workflow is common enough across websites that it doesn't require explanation. Many don't even let you use your account at all without confirming the email (although on Wikipedia, it is only recommended, not required). Matma Rex talk 21:35, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You need to have a visible URL to click for people who don't click buttons without being able to see where it's taking them. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On mobile, you can long-press the “Confirm your email” button, or on desktop, hover over the link, to preview the destination URL. The link points to the wiki’s local Special:ConfirmEmail page.

For users whose email accounts are configured to display messages in plain text, a plain text version is also available and displays the full URL directly. - KStoller-WMF (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I knew about hovering, but this is the first time I heard that long-pressing works. Thanks! (Doesn't mean I don't still think you should show the URL clearly instead of obscuring it.) SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:18, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, personally, I'd prefer "Wikipedia account setup is almost complete". How do you complete an account? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed this when attempting to add {{BLPCRIME editnotice}} to an existing WP:BLP, and found there was no link to actually do this because instead of the "Page Notice" redlink there was a bluelink to {{BLP_editnotice}}. Choosing a random example, you can see on this edit page, there is no link to add a manual edit notice, whereas on this page there is a redlink to add a Page Notice, and on this page which has both a default BLP edit notice and a manual one, the edit link is visible. RunningOnBrains^(talk) 19:46, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page notices are always in the same place, [[Template:Editnotices/Page/{{FULLPAGENAME}}]], so you can still add one even if the module didn't make a link for you. Those links all come out of Template:Editnotice load though, so if you have an improvement to add, that is where to do it. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:44, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed with Special:Diff/1327315714. This has come up before: Template talk:BLP editnotice#Suppresses link to Page notice, where there was support for having the link. I finally got around to look at it. – SD0001 (talk) 20:51, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 2013, I created Wikipedia:Wikidata/Wikidata Sandbox, which links to d:Q4115189, Wikidata's sandbox item. A few months after that, mw:Extension:Echo went live, and for the 12 years since, I have gotten a notification every time someone adds or removes that page from the sandbox on Wikidata. I added the page to the mute list at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo, but that appears not to apply to Wikidata updates. This has been getting mildly on my nerves over time, and so I thought I'd ask if an admin could IAR-revdel my username from the first revision, but I just tested that on testwiki (creating testwiki:Page creation test and then using my alt to link it to testwikidata:Q243049 since you don't get notified if you're the linker), and I still got notified after revdelling my own username. I'm not sure whether it's that Wikibase "sees through" the revdel or just looks for the second username (also mine), but either way, I still get notified. If it's the latter, I guess this could be fixed by revdelling by username from all of the first three edits to the local Wikidata sandbox page, but that'd just pass the problem on to the second editor, which would be unfair.

Is there anything that can be done here? I can only think of two things, both kind of ugly:

• Find a random empty edit by an IP from before 21 February 2013 and merge it into the page history, making that IP the page's "creator".
• Have someone, using an account that they don't mind getting all these pings on, move the current page to Wikipedia:Wikidata/Wikidata Sandbox/old and then copy that page's contents over the resulting redirect.

There is, in fairness, also the option of telling me to suck it up and deal with the occasional pointless ping. :P -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:02, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you getting echo's from here or from wikidata? If the later, did you mute the page on that project? 20:47, 13 December 2025 (UTC) — xaosflux ^Talk 20:47, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get the notifs here, same as I get if someone links one of my articles or DABs on Wikidata. Specifically this is MediaWiki:notification-header-page-connection. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:56, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamzin: If you disable "Connection with Wikidata" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo then the notificatinos will stop but also for all other pages you have created. Is that acceptable? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Occasionally such notifications make me realize I've forgotten to check if a creation exists on other wikis, letting me make merges like d:Special:Diff/2430612829, so I'd rather not disable the thing entirely. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 22:12, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of "blaming" random IP users, maybe we could import a fake 2013 edit by User:Maintenance script creating that page. Or maybe we could actually create that page by running a maintenance script (after deleting/moving the current version). Or maybe the Wikidata connections should respect that preference, it seems like a similar use case. Matma Rex talk 23:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like it should be an echo feature request or bug; not a need to hack around otherwise normal behavior. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:19, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In theory I agree (in my opinion, rewriting a page's history works against one of the basic principles of a wiki and should be avoided). In practice, although it is a hack, for this specific case of a sandbox, if all of the editors of that page are amenable (without trying to sway their decision), it could be deleted and re-created, as suggested by Matma Rex. On the third hand, I don't really like putting a burden on the page editors that they might be seen as non-collaborative if they don't agree.

I am sympathetic about the desire not to see Wikidata notifications for a specific page, and that implementing a specific feature for it (particularly if editors would like to decouple it from the page link notification muting feature) may not happen anytime soon. Maybe someone is interested in writing a script to automatically acknowledge notifications meeting a configured criteria? isaacl (talk) 18:06, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamzin If you can convince either of the two importers to import this file, it will resolve your problem by inserting a fake page creation revision into that page. (No need to delete or move it.) I don't really know whether this is cool by the rules, but I haven't found a rule against it; I'm leaving it for you three to figure out.

If that turns out not to be cool, then I suggest filing a bug to make the mute preference apply to these notifications too. I can't promise that this will be prioritized though. You may be the only person facing this problem. :) Matma Rex talk 21:55, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That almost seems like a targeted nerd-sniping attack.. and of course it worked. taavi (talk!) 22:58, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you taavi!! -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 16:12, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for something to do, I went to the maintenance reports on Special:SpecialPages . Unfortunately I find that many of the reports contain many pages that in my opinion shouldn't be included. For example Special:ShortPages includes redirects and set index articles, and while they are indeed short pages, they do not require maintenance. Similarly Special:LonelyPages contains a lot of Soft redirect to Wiktionary pages. I'm not sure why these would even exist (i.e. At any rate) and again they don't need maintenance, other than perhaps deleting.

Looking at the associated talk pages, it seems like issues such as these are mostly ignored and unfixed. Is there a better place to bring these issues to the attention of someone who can address them? Derek Andrews (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With some of them, I think the people who care use reports from Wikipedia:Database reports or Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia that have better filtering. Talk pages of those might be places to try if you don't get more responses here. Anomie⚔ 00:00, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that ShortPages report, like many Special: pages that are effectively uneditable, is abandoned. See its talk page at Wikipedia talk:Special:ShortPages, and that page's archives. Anomie is right; find a corresponding database report that sees active use and maintenance, or ask for one to be created. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:03, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For some strange reason, I have sometimes been notified of replies in deletion sorting lists. On all 4 occasions, this has happened when someone added an AfD to a deletion sorting list. Since I, at present, have no involvement in those AfDs, I should not be notified of replies, especially considering the edits to those lists aren't even supposed to be replies to begin with. Unless someone is actually able to see the notifications I get, my only evidence of this is a series of e-mails that I refuse to publicize. Is someone here able to fix this, or should I take it to the Phabricator? JHD0919 (talk) 23:12, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JHD0919: Please give an example so we can see why you were notified. You can obviously leave out your email address but if you aren't willing to quote any part of the mail or reveal any of the edits then it's hard to help. Do not post such a vague report to Phabricator. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The edits that got me notified are here, here, here, and here. I received a reply notification in all 4 of these instances, despite these four users not replying to anything. JHD0919 (talk) 23:49, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably something similar to #Notification issues above. Until the problem is fixed, you can unsubscribe from these topics (there should be a link to do so in the email notifications that you got, or you can find them on Special:TopicSubscriptions) and you won't be re-subscribed again. Matma Rex talk 23:58, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why I was even subscribed to those topics to begin with is beyond me. Thanks for the heads-up! JHD0919 (talk) 00:01, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@JHD0919: You have edited two of the three involved sections: Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Albums and songs#Albums and songs and Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Music#Music. Maybe you clicked "subscribe", or used a tool which subscribes you when you edit, or "Automatically subscribe to topics" is enabled at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing. I don't know why you would be subscribed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/United States of America#General. You haven't edited the page but maybe you viewed it and accidentally clicked subscribe. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:10, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking of filing a bug but want to make sure I'm not the only one here.... Looking at Burbank, California (for example) on my iPhone using the Wikipedia app. The Mapframe won't load. Just seeing an empty square with a blue question mark. Can anyone else confirm this issue? Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:22, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like phab:T193312, open since 2018 and low priority... Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 20:45, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is because the apps use Parsoid, and support for maps in Parsoid is not yet working. There is work happening on this problem for the last couple of weeks, but the mapimage generation is a complex process and the adaptations need to happen at multiple levels, so its a slow process. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:26, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. HUGE relief to know it is being worked on because it is broken on a sizeable percentage of the pages on the English Wikipedia (and I'm sure a large chunk of other languages). Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 17:27, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm setting up the Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/Wikipedia Day 2026 page. For the signup button, it uses the signup template and I tried to use the ordered list. But the template doesn't seem to accept this parameter despite the documentation. Anyone knows if the template for ordered list is bugged? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:24, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@OhanaUnited: Template:Meetup/signup was bugged. #tag:inputbox is needed to pass template parameters per mw:Extension:InputBox#Using InputBox in a template. Fixed by [3]. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:34, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the quick fix. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:07, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki message delivery 19:00, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, why does using Google Translate to translate a page from the desktop site always redirect to a translated version of the page on the mobile site?

Secondly, and I appreciate that this may not be the correct forum, why have some Wikipedias, like the German and Japanese sites, ceased to work in Google Translate in the past couple of days? Eldomtom2 (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Eldomtom2 Because google uses mobile browsers to consume the original website, as most people in the world use mobile. Im not familiar with the second problem. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:04, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@TheDJ, apparently not, see mw:Talk:Requests for comment/Mobile domain sunsetting#Another Google snafu with mobile domains. Izno (talk) 01:10, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

TIL.... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:12, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

not sure about issue, how to reproduce it? i use timeless skin, it is a lot more functional than the mobile mode (including on smaller screens) Gryllida 02:52, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Eldomtom2: ?useformat=desktop (there is also a ?useformat=mobile) gives the desktop version in Google Translate for me, e.g. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com?useformat=desktop. Please always give an example. Translation from Japanese and German works for me at https://translate.google.com, e.g. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beispieldomain. Do you have the source language set correctly? "Detect language" also works for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:49, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, inexplicably now they work - but in the case of the Japanese Wikipedia only if I choose "detect language".--Eldomtom2 (talk) 13:01, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any option other than WP:RX to get BBC paywalled articles? (That is, do I have to go to RX every time I need a BBC article, or is there another route?) They aren't in ProQuest, they aren't in archive.org, and the price they've put on the subscription is absurd. Is it only the US that is paywalled? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i didn't know bbc was paywalled, they never asked me to subscribe, do you have a link? Gryllida 02:52, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: For clarity, WP:RX means asking a someone else to find the article and somehow distribute it to you. I assume you have tried https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org. Yes it seems to be US only.[6]. Do you have an example of an article that is paywalled (I can't see experience the paywall in Australia). Is this 2017 BBC.com article paywalled and the archive.org stored version not available?

I think a Virtual private network (VPN) may allow you to mask your IP address as from the UK and access the articles. There could be free options, and given the small bandwidth of text articles speed is not a great concern for you. Commander Keane (talk) 02:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Commander Keane thanks for the help!

I'm often at WP:RX, but I hope to not have to go there every time I need to see a BBC article! Yes, I can see that 2017 article you link; I think it's only newer articles that are affected in the US (how rude - and it's $8.99 per month to subscribe, which is steep). I use WP:TWL for many US sources, but don't see the BBC anywhere there. I don't know anything about VPNs and am too old to learn! So I'll stop citing the BBC, but I need access for a copyvio check.

The article I need is "Maduro says Trump wants Venezuela's oil. But is that the real US goal?" If anyone can email it to me, I guess I'll have to put up a cot at WP:RX. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:19, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: Check your inbox. – DreamRimmer ■ 10:39, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: If you Google "online VPN", you can find a number of services that'll proxy you to an IP in a given country without you having to download anything or register an account. These aren't very helpful for most of the things people use VPNs for, due to limited bandwidth and poor privacy, but should work fine for the specific use-case of accessing news articles. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 10:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, archive.is should work. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:26, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DreamRimmer, Tamzin, and Qwerfjkl: thank you all for the help. Tamzin, I'm afraid of trying to set up a VPN; old dog, new tricks, afraid I'll do something that will cause me a problem ... but I appreciate the tips and will look into it. Thx also DreamRimmer. I think what would work best going forward would be for me to have a way for someone to archive the non-paywalled version as Qwerfjkl did, as I (and anyone else who needs to) can see that ! I will ask around to see if there is an editor outside of the US who will archive.is any article I need. Thanks again, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But for now, to deal with another in a long string of copyvio. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can reach out to me at any time. I will be happy to provide archived copies. – DreamRimmer ■ 18:17, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/another-buffalo-woman-accuses-harvey-weinstein-of-sexual-assault/article_1619126c-98bf-5cc5-a135-8b727d4bfb33

found: https://buffalonews.com/news/local/article_1619126c-98bf-5cc5-a135-8b727d4bfb33.html

might be a pattern

Piñanana (talk) 03:07, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You probably want WP:URLREQ. Jay8g [V•T•E] 04:27, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

if there are multiple links like this then does this request still need to go to URLREQ, or does it need to go as bug report linked below? Gryllida 05:21, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

phab:T412778? you can login with your wikipedia account and subscribe. Gryllida 05:20, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gryllida: I think you are assuming IABot is designed to handle URL migrations. It can not. It only sees a dead link and adds a dead link tag. There is no bug IABot is doing what it is designed to do. URL move requests are made at URLREQ, which is handled by WaybackMedic, a different bot. -- GreenC 18:51, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at portals, like Portal:Math, they have click-to-purge buttons that update the page. Recently, I added a portal to User:ProcBot/PurgeList, which calls a bot to purge a page (daily, weekly, or however the editor specifies). I saw that no other portals are listed there. I'm going down a bit of a rabbit hole now. Are any other portals (which must be purged to update their rotating content) purged by some other bot? And if not, why do we use the click-to-purge links? I can't imagine most readers would (a) understand what it means, (b) feel comfortable doing it, and (c) then click to purge the portal. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 12:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Portals often display content that updates automatically through templates and subpages, but caching can cause outdated versions to remain visible for some time. The purge link exists as a simple manual mechanism to clear the cache so the portal immediately reflects the current state of its underlying content. It is mainly intended for editors maintaining the portal rather than for readers. ProcBot previously performed scheduled purges, but that task is now inactive. – DreamRimmer ■ 13:01, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Purging of portals is mostly to change a random selection of content and not to ensure the portal is up to date. If a transcluded page is edited then a page is automatically updated (sometimes with a delay, see Help:Job queue) so even without requested purges, there will be updates. Portals generally don't have time-sensitive content so they don't need frequent purges. I'm not aware of any bots purging portals. I don't know how many readers do it but does it matter? If a reader does want to see other articles then the link saying "Refresh with new selections below (purge)" at Portal:Mathematics doesn't sound uncomfortable to me. Most readers may not realize it affects everybody. I have also heard there is a process which automatically reparses all pages sometimes but the interval may be long and I don't know whether it happens for all namespaces. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:12, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ProcBot did not explicitly purge portals, but was used to purge specified pages or categories, and it is now inactive. When I work on the admin newsletter, I often need to purge the main page so that content transcluded from subpages updates. Based on that experience, I assumed that portals, which also transclude templates and subpages, may likewise need purging for changes to appear. I have not worked much with portals before, so my assumption could be wrong. – DreamRimmer ■ 13:22, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to set up talk page archiving at User talk:AmandaNP/UAA/Blacklist, but it's not working. This page is 85 sections (including an instructions header that should not be archived) and 117 KB. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved the instructions section heading to subpage to ensure it is not archived. Everything else appears to be in order, and the bot should be able to archive in its next scheduled run in around 19 hours. – DreamRimmer ■ 17:11, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, band timelines are code that I am not good playing with.

I am trying to make a significant change to this timeline. Basically I want the whole bottom section to go - everything from "ex-Batushka/Patriarkh" down two "MK", as it is presently showing two concurrent bands unnecessarily. I managed to get rid of the actual coloured horizontal bars, but everything else remains. The vertical yellow "split" line can stay.

Can someone help? — Czello ^(music) 16:11, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]