Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages/Archive 5

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A proposal was made at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) to change the text to something more like this:

Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary . Edit summaries help other users understand the intention of your edits. Please enter one before you click Save again, or your edit will be saved without one.

The rationale is that this is more helpful to a newbie editor, and sounds more friendly than the current text, which may come across as annoying. Please discuss this proposal here.  --Lambiam 23:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

That message is only shown if one manually turns on the respective checkbox to prevent empty edit summaries in one's preferences. I assume that if people do that they already know why they want to fill in the edit summary. Amalthea 08:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually there is also a related proposal to make "Prompt when entering a blank edit summary" the default, so that you have to uncheck it in your preferences (something only registered users can do) if you want to opt out. I'm in favour of that proposal, which prompted the one proposed here, but also if the other proposal is not implemented, I still think the change of wording proposed here is a (small) improvement. Too many standard messages, while not unfriendly, are unnecessarily distant and nonempathic.  --Lambiam 11:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

These seems like a good idea for new accounts (also IPs?). I think i'd prefer: Reminder: Please provide an

edit summary. Edit summaries help other users understand the purpose of your edits. You can add one before you click Save again, or your edit will be Saved without one. Ocaasi (talk

) 10:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Fine with me, except I wouldn't write the verb form "Saved" with a capital letter.  --Lambiam 11:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Why the gratuitously larger font? The wording looks good, as long as we're clear that this is not the place to be making a stand in the arms race between banner blindness and banner obnoxiousness. Happy‑melon 11:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

It is exactly the same size as used in the current message; the only change is in the wording. I would venture to guess it uses a larger font size to alert the user to the fact that in spite of their clicking Save page the page has not been saved; after all, it is rather annoying if you don't notice that, navigate away, and discover later that your edit has unrecoverably disappeared without leaving a trace.  --Lambiam 11:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

How about reducing text size, highlighting the message by colouring it the same as 'you have new messages' would be good for some sort of comformity across the interface ? Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 13:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Taking account of all suggestions I get something like this: <div class="usermessage"><span id="w-Missingsummary"> <center> Reminder:<br />Please provide an [[Wikipedia:edit summary|edit summary]]. Edit summaries help other users understand the purpose of your edits.<br /> You can add one before you click  <span style="font-size:110%">Save page</span>  again; otherwise, your edit will be saved without one. </center> </div> It certainly catches the eye. Further suggestions? Anyone opposed?  --Lambiam 19:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

That's even worse. This is not an end-of-the-world scenario, we do not need to go out of our way to shove this notice down people's optic nerves whenever they make this minor mistake. This proposed style is more glaring than pretty much any other message including the "you are blocked" ones. There's a difference between "it's annoying" (true) and "it is as important that people notice this as that they notice they are editing a fully-protected page" (not true). Normal notice, normal text size, normal colours, and we're good. Happy‑melon 21:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

My original proposal was to change only the wording, not the appearance, but then you objected to the slightly larger font size. I happen to think it is important people are warned that their edit has not been saved yet.

Various notices have different text sizes and different colours, and I don't know which of these are supposed to be normal and which are not. Could you be more specific what you mean by "normal notice"? I think a bland

Reminder: Please provide an

edit summary

. Edit summaries help other users understand the purpose of your edits. You can add one before you click Save page again; otherwise, your edit will be saved without one.

will not do; it is not nearly conspicuous enough, and would dramatically increase the risk of people losing their edits without noticing.  --Lambiam 22:51, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Basically I'm saying that it should be a normal fmbox:

Reminder: You have not provided an edit summary . Edit summaries help other users understand the intention of your edits. Please enter one before you click Save page again, or your edit will be saved without one.

The previous version had a custom style to make the text size larger; I didn't realise that that was already in place on the existing message, sorry if that caused confusion. I've removed it from there now. As I said, I'm fine with the proposed wording. Happy‑melon 23:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, everybody happy with this version? (I've replaced "Save" by "Save page", as the button is labelled.)  --Lambiam 10:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Right now the edit summary reminder is disabled by default, hence the only people who ever see this message are those who have activated it in their preferences and hence they most likely already know what edit summaries serve for. (If, as it's being proposed, the reminder will be activated by default, this will change.) --A. di M. (talk) 17:26, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

  This was already mentioned above. The point is that there is an older related proposal to make the edit-summary reminder enabled by default (see first contribution by Kayau). I'm in favour of that proposal, and it prompted this one (proposed in response by Yoenit): the other proposal doesn't work well with the message text as it is now, since new users may not know about edit summaries. But also if the other proposal is not implemented, I prefer the wording proposed here.  --Lambiam 18:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

May I conclude there are no further objections to the latest proposed version, shown in the box above? I'll interpret silence as an affirmative answer.  --Lambiam 17:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent change; Proceed. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What are people's opinions on getting this reinstated? Simply south...... 00:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the software no longer supports it, and because IE 4/5.5 is no longer used, it isn't really technically needed anymore either. But i'm not 100% sure. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:47, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki still supports this kind of message, please read the section #Movepagetext, Moveuserpage-warning, Longpagewarning above. — AlexSm 14:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

As I continue my work with the Account Creation Improvement Project, I have taken a longer look at MediaWiki:Fancycaptcha-createaccount and its talk page to see how we can improve it. I would like to test a few things, so I wanted to give you a heads up. More information here.//Hannibal (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Does't latest version of IE's support Javascript 1.6? According to http://javascript.about.com/library/bljver.htm, my version of IE (IE9) does. If so this sentence in preference gadget section is misleading: "The JavaScript Standard Library, a compatibility library for browsers that lack full support for JavaScript 1.6. This includes Internet Explorer and old versions of Opera and Safari. " See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-JSL for main discussion. --

That test is odd. Running from that web page, FireFox 4.0, IE10, IE9 and IE6 show they support JS1.6. I copied the test to a text file with an .html extension and opened it in the browser: FireFox 4.0 shows JS1.6 and IE10, IE9 and IE6 show JS1.3. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:36, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Opera 11.10 shows 1.6 from the web and 1.5 from the file; Chrome 10 shows 1.6 for both. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:44, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah for me too. :/ --

edit

at a time! 00:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Had to do some research to relearn this stuff. IE actually uses JScript, a fork of JavaScript. The JScript article shows supported versions and the JavaScript equivalents. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

So IE9 supports JavaScript 1.6? Then it should read This includes older version of Internet Explorer (version 8 and below), Opera, and Safari. --

edit

at a time! 20:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, enabling the option is giving me errors in IE8 (the edit bar does not appear :/). --

edit

at a time! 20:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

My version of IE8 supports JS 1.6 or so that's what the website says. My PC says the exact same thing, I think it's just IE7 (eugh...) and lower (blargh...) that don't have full JS support. —

• Support rewording - especially misleading for IE9-10 users. —
  Talk • Contribs
  ) • 4:04pm • 06:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

  Can somebody find out chich version of Opera and Safari does not support JavaScript 1.6? --

  ☎ Contact me! • Contributions

  )   Think twice before clicking save!  10:35, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Please see MediaWiki talk:Movepage-moved#The "mark for deletion" instruction for a discussion about the line in the "successful pagemove" notice page which recommends that the left-behind redirect be tagged for deletion. Rossami (talk) 13:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext#Collapsibility regarding whether or not to make the text that appears at the top of Special:RecentChanges, and that is generated by MediaWiki:Recentchangestext, into a collapsible table so as not to take up so much room on small and/or low resolution screens. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 00:33, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

On

Replied there. Amalthea 13:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It's been proposed that MediaWiki:Newarticletext be merged into {{No article text}} (used by MediaWiki:Noarticletext) with a parameter like is done for MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission. See MediaWiki_talk:Newarticletext#merge. Rd232 ^talk 04:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

How about making MediaWiki:Previewnote more graphical like the french one. The code could be "

<div id="previewnote-english"> <table width="95%" class="mw-alerte" style="clear:both; padding:2px; background-color:#e2f2d2; border-color:#acce79;" align="center"> <tr align="center"> <td rowspan="3" style="text-align:center; width:75px">[[Image:Start hand.svg|65px|Preview|link=]]</td> <td align="left" style="padding-left:30px"><b><span style="font-size:115%;">ATTENTION</span></b>, you are in the '''preview''' of the article!</td> <td align="right" style="font-size:90%;width:1%">Previewing is a recommended practice.</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="font-size:90%;" colspan="2"> <hr /> <div style="padding-left:30px"> * ''You can modify the text below and <u>preview as many times as you wish</u>.'' * ''Once your satisfactory modifications are done, to record them indeed in the article, click then on '''Save page'''.'' </div> </td> </tr> </table> </div>

" It is HTML code so there shouldn't be any problem and it would look like this.

	ATTENTION, you are in the preview of the article!	Previewing is a recommended practice.
	You can modify the text below and preview as many times as you wish. Once your satisfactory modifications are done, to record them indeed in the article, click then on Save page.

I took the code from the french wikipedia, translated it and some other changes. I am also testing it on the test wiki. To see it. For now it is working. It was already proposed but I saw that the discussion didn't really start. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 20:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC) (revised 20:41, 20 April 2011 (UTC), 20:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC), 21:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC), 12:34, 24 April 2011 (UTC))

Support! This would capture the attention of new editors so they understand what's going on. --

edit

at a time! 20:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)→

Let's please avoid using a screenshot of a button, as the widget varies by platform/browser. I think ", click the "Save page" button" would be about as effective. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

support: I think this is a good idea. I do support Cybercobra's warning about using a captured image for the 'save page'. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:42, 28 April 2011 (UTC) (P.S. OMG, In learning from the French, I'm revealed as one who wold not have clamored for "freedom fries".)

• Support. Two comments: "you are in the preview of the article" doesn't make sense. I suggest something like: "This is a preview of your changes to the page $PAGE. ... Your changes have not yet been saved. When you have finished modifying the page, click 'Save Page' to make your edit." I agree that the Mac Aqua button graphic needs to go. MER-C 08:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

  How about "You are in the preview of your edit"? It would not be too long and not complicated and it would be better. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 22:01, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

  "you are in" sounds odd. "You are seeing how the article $PAGE will look with your changes", perhaps, keeping it as simple and clear as possible. (Which is basically what MER-C had - I'm fine with that.) Rd232 ^talk 22:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

	This is a preview of the unsaved changes you have made.	Previewing is a recommended practice.
	You can change and preview the text as much as you want. Once you are satisfied with the changes made, click the Save page button below. To abandon your changes and return to the current version of the page, click here

Support This makes more sense. —

• Phrasing nitpickery: "You are viewing a preview of your unsaved changes to the article." --Cybercobra (talk) 05:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Tweaked. Rd232 ^talk 12:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Forgot a point. Added manually. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 18:46, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Er, there was more than just "the"→"a"... --Cybercobra (talk) 23:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
• I'd like to see instructions on canceling changes, since the "Cancel" link is so much smaller than the buttons. In fact, duplicated the Cancel link in this message might be good: "To cancel your changes and return to the page, click here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

  Added "* ''To cancel your changes and return to the page, '''[[$PAGE|click here]]'''''" to the notice. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 23:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

  Tweaked for clarity. Rd232 ^talk 00:09, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

  Might be better to avoid providing clickable links in the message though - so a non-linked "click Cancel" instead of "click here". Rd232 ^talk 00:14, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

  • Do we care that that doesn't avoid the JavaScript warning about abandoning your changes? --Cybercobra (talk) 23:55, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't immediately see why that's a problem. Rd232 ^talk 00:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
• The preview warning is for all pages, not just articles, I've altered the header and first line a bit. —
  Talk • Contribs
  ) • 4:26pm • 06:26, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

  "This a preview"? It should be "This is a preview". Changed ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 10:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Please find a PD image to replace the hand. Prodego ^talk 14:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• Nice change here, folks! *applause*
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:44, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose and remove until discussion complete it annoys me that this was enabled after half a week of advertised discussion (Was noted in a very minor fashion on the village pump proposals page 4 days ago), so I am undoing this until a proper discussion advertised in
  WP:CENT gains a majority of support, instead of this sneaky little corner making big changes to the backend. It is big, clunky, annoying, ugly, pointless, and pushes text down several lines. There is no need to make everything have a blotchy graphic. Please do not make this change until AT LEAST a week of properly advertised discussion has taken place. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢
  14:42, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind, I can't because it was imposed on an administrator only site. Glad to know that if I need a change to software, I can open a discussion in some murky corner of the site and then have an admin implement it... Unlike those discussions on the village pump that suggest trivial changes yet are discussed vehemently and voted on ad nauseum for well over 4 days. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The message exists here, on en.wikipedia, just as all of the other MediaWiki messages do. It's located at MediaWiki:Previewnote. Yes, it's edit protected, but you coudl make an edit request there just as you do at any other protected page. You've also voiced opposition here.

I think that you should consider that just because "trivial changes yet are discussed vehemently and voted on ad nauseum for well over 4 days." does occur, that's not really an optimal working method, and I don't believe is something that we should encourage. Why not discuss the specific problems that you see here, and attempt to work out a compromise? I can see "pushes text down several lines" and "blotchy graphic" as being legitimate criticisms, but they're not things that couldn't be resolved with some reasoned discussion.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:56, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

grrr... I accidentally marked the edit adding my comment above as "minor", which is obviously was not. Sorry.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to go open a tonne of venues because of my lone opposition, but did want to make it clear that 4 days and a handful of supporters isn't very adequate for changing the backend of the site. I agree that the village pump method isn't great, and leads to many simple but great ideas being trashed simply because some people don't like any change, period.

As for this, my main issue is the graphic and the vertical height of the message. The graphic is distracting and really unnecessary for such a minor note, which is really only communicating the obvious to users. Therefore I'd also recommend removing these two lines to reduce the vertical size:

1. You can change and preview the text as much as you want.
2. Once you are satisfied with the changes made, click the Save page button below.

These go without saying. Of course you can preview as many times as you want (does any user-content site ever have a limit on that?)... The preview button that is still there at the bottom of the edit window makes this pretty obvious. And yes, to save the changes you have to click "save page", as closing the window won't accomplish anything. I suggest condensing the last two notes into a single note, and removing the graphic.

1. Once you are satisfied with the changes made, click the Save page button below. To abandon your changes and return to the current version of the page, click here

Section break

Would need tweaking but its far less intrusive. I made this a slightly deeper green so that it stands out more against the grey-blue background The preview note doesn't need to jump out and warn editors like most other page notices. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 15:09, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that's probably better. I'd drop the "recommended practice" note too - it's a bit redundant to have it there (you need to tell people who aren't previewing!) and irritating. Rd232 ^talk 15:49, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I like your version, as well. :)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed about the recommended practise line... That was my thought as well; if we want to attract people towards using that, it would be good as a message below the save button on a non-previewed page (ie "It is strongly recommended that you preview your changes before implementing them."). Fixed accordingly - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:40, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I removed the image - as I mentioned above it isn't PD, and it would be being used without attribution. If you have a replacement image, feel free to suggest it here for discussion. Prodego ^talk 15:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose This is not a very good to display that the edit is a preview. The former "This is a preview. Changes are not saved yet..." was doing just fine. I don't see how the old one was confusing at all; I'd think people would know the difference between "save" and "preview". (If we had to change it, I'd prefer Floydian's version much better) This was also implemented with 4 supports on, to quote
  WP:CENT and be open for at least seven days. —GFOLEY FOUR
  — 15:55, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Weak support – Get rid of that first bullet point (You can change and preview the text as much as you want. → which seems like stating the obvious), then I would fully-support. Otherwise, it does a fairly good job in explaining about previewing. –MuZemike 16:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment – just to throw out there, if you don't want the preview box to display at all, you can always use a CSS tweak to suppress it, like this (add to your vector.css or common.css file) :

#wikiPreview { display:none; }

–MuZemike 16:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

There isn't an issue with the old message, only the new one. Unforunately css can't bring back the other style. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:35, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

This also apparently renders the entire preview invisible in vector skin.[1] - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that css is incorrect, use div.previewnote div { display: none; } instead - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I see that the graphic was removed for being CC-BY-SA without a link. That's really kind of silly, so I threw together File:Right-pointing hand in green octagon.svg using a public-domain hand image. As for the issue at hand, I have no opinion at the moment. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose — distracting and unnecessary. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 21:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - since the initial change was implemented pretty boldly, I've gone ahead and boldly implemented Floydian's simpler version. That can be a compromise while discussion continues, on whether to go back to the initial version, back to the original, or do something else. Rd232 ^talk 22:10, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Oppose the initial proposal, but support the compromise. as a member of the usability project. Adding an icon in such case can be helpful, if the icon is clearly associated in people's mind with subject or the task perfomed. In this case, the icon from the French Wikipedia is not helpful, as it has no meaning for readers. It's only confusing. Adding more text is useless, and makes it closer to
  WP:TLDR. The new layout doesn't improve readability either. Yours, Dodoïste (talk
  ) 07:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree it's better without the icon, and better shorter. What do you think of the current compromise version? Rd232 ^talk 12:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I did not see the compromise at MediaWiki:Previewnote. This compromise is great. Dodoïste (talk) 13:28, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
• Since there's only 1 bullet point, we should remove the bulleting and <hr>, and just use a <br> or <p>. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Possibly. I'm happy with it as it is. Rd232 ^talk 12:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree. I'm happy with it as is, as well. I wouldn't really object to the bullet being removed, but... "drop the stick" comes to mind, at this point.
      — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The old version was much better. This green background clashes with the default vector skin, there's a single useless bullet point, it's too big of a box and quite annoying. There must be some way we can show this to only new users or have an option for anyone else to see the old version. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose I'm sorry, but the new message is hideous, in my opinion. The green background isn't necessary, and the whole message is just distraction. Please revert it to the way it was before, or at least remove the green background. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 21:02, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
  • The green background is necessary to clearly distinguish the edit instructions from the rest of the page. If anything, we should also apply it to the edit instructions below the edit window ("please note..."). It remains skinnable; with CSS you can hide it or change the colour. Rd232 ^talk 22:09, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose. Why not simply make it flashing red in big black 20 point font that cycles color every 3 seconds. Seriously though, I value my screen space, why do you want to mess with that? I have disabled most of the other editing crud that gets thrown at you and this will be another turd to put on that pile. RedWolf (talk) 05:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The old version is better IMO, having seen this green bar a couple of times it's making me sick (heh). The old one was sufficient, I agree with making an elaborated version for new users (not autoconfirmed). —
  Talk • Contribs
  ) • 4:00pm • 06:00, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Another suggestion

The green box doesn't have much support; that is clear. Why do we want to invent a new style anyway when we already have standardized boxes?

This is a preview of your changes; they have not yet been saved. Once you are satisfied with the changes you made, click the Save page button below. To abandon your changes and return to the current version of the page, click Cancel.

— Edokter (talk) — 11:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Why invent a new style? Because we want to clearly distinguish edit-window editing instructions from tags etc in articles. In addition, it's worth pointing out that it is now (well, soon) possible to provide a different style for autoconfirmed users (

Wikipedia:VPR#CSS_for_only_new_users). Really, though, I think people moan about any change to the visual style they're used to (I know I do). But we should remember the perennial need to make things easier for newbies, and I think a little (little!) bit of colour to reduce the wall of text effect would help. Rd232 ^talk

16:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Why we should not invent yet another style? The box above is an fmbox, which stands for "footer (and header) message boxes", with a special type for edit pages. The reason why mbox templates were created is to minimize the wildgrowth of different styles such as this one. Personally, I think the current message is a monstrosity. We should stick with the standards here. — Edokter (talk) — 20:20, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The l^st green one was supported but not the 2^nd. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 22:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there any way we can show this box only to new users? Also, given that they clicked the "preview" button, I don't see how the old version was any less helpful. Change that original version's font color to red and it's noticeable. Done. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 00:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps file a Bugzilla report if there is enough support for this becoming the default message for logged out and unconfirmed users. —

Talk • Contribs

) • 2:05pm • 04:05, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Following up from my posting here, I've posted a preliminary proposal for a new MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new-nocreate message at MediaWiki talk:Searchmenu-new-nocreate. I'm looking for input and ideally for an admin who would instate an agreed-upon version of the message. Thanks in advance! --213.196.214.196 (talk) 07:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

When I was a new WP reader, I didn't click on the interlanguage links, because I thought they were just links to the Main Pages of Wikipedias in other languages. I told a friend I thought it would be a good idea for WP articles to link to articles in other languages about the same topic. He told me they do - surprise for me. The message at MediaWiki:Otherlanguages should say clearly where these links go: "This topic in other languages". Are there any problems with this? See MediaWiki talk:Otherlanguages where this request was made but there have been no responses. In Hebrew the message text is more explicit. Set theorist (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

New proposal at

Just a pointer, please read this thread.//Hannibal (talk) 13:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

At MediaWiki talk:Passwordremindertext I've suggested appending "Unused temporary passwords automatically expire in 7 days." to the message text. Discuss there... --Lexein (talk) 08:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31293

Protocol (http or https) is now checked by PHP in Special:UserLogin. Mediawiki provide a different system message depending on the result :

Dr Brains (talk) 21:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

How about adding class="plainlinks" at the span tag and <br><small>Please think to check <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MyTalk&action=history">the history</a> for other messages.</small> to the end of the template. It would be very useful for anyone. The user may not know that there is another message if they do not look at the history. It happened to me that I don't get a reply since another person started another conversation before the user could reply. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) ^talk
_Contribs 22:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Whilst this has happened to me, I don't think this is the answer. One of the strengths of the current notice is its simplicity. Most of the time, at least, you only have one new message. So most people would click on the first option anyway, and can check the history after if they are unsure. Few people, I think, would go for the "history" option straight from the notice. Saying "You have [n] new messages" would be better but that is a pipe dream, I think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks like we're looking at MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages? Very stable part of the interface, and with good reason. Like Grandiose mentioned, I don't anticipate many people would habitually click directly into the talk page's history. This might be a good idea for a user script, though. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Davidgothberg/newmessageshistory.js. :) Amalthea 21:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Heh, case in point! – Luna Santin (talk) 22:07, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I am proposing new wording for this warning message at

I couldn't actually find the page on Special:Allmessages, but since Autoreviewers are now called Autopatrolled, perhaps Special:Userrights should be updated to reflect this change? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 18:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Project:Autoreviewers has redirected to the right place since June 2010. Are you using a non-standard language? Or else where are you seeing it's not on Special:Userrights? Anomie⚔

19:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I completely forgot, I'm using en-GB. Which is the right page to alter in that case? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 19:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've just tested, and this is also the case for the simple (Simple English) interface language. It might also be relevant to this that there is going to be a Canadian English interface released soon. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 19:53, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Update 2: it also says "autoreviewer" for small languages which do not have their own translation yet (I've tried chr, dv, iu). It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 21:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

All that is to be expected. The translations for other languages are usually not updated, which is a much wider issue than just this instance. Anomie⚔ 21:55, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I see; but can we fix it (at least on this occasion)? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 16:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure, just append "/en-gb" (or whichever other language code) to the default message name, for example MediaWiki:Group-autoreviewer-member/en-gb. Just remember that changes to the base version won't be automatically tracked in any matter, and most people won't even think to check. Anomie⚔ 22:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've changed en-gb and simple, but is there some sort of default or en-default or something language which is used to display not-yet-translated messages in e.g. Inuit and Church Slavonic? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 13:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Not really. If a message exists in MediaWiki's message files for the language, that message will be used. IIRC if somehow the message doesn't exist in the appropriate message file then the "en" message will be used, but translatewiki.net is usually very effective. Anomie⚔ 23:38, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Logically, I cannot see how en can be the default since en says "autopatrolled" whereas iu doesn't:

en

en-gb

simple

iu

Also note that en has a block of text with instructions which does not appear in any other language interface (for me, at least) and hence which I didn't see when using en-gb.

It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 10:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. MediaWiki has most if not all of its default messages translated into all the supported languages. So if your language is set to "fr", you get the French version of the default message (unless the French version of the message has been locally customized, of course). The fallback to an "en" version would only happen if MediaWiki didn't have the message translated for "fr" at all, which is unlikely to happen with any common language. And for that matter, it seems to fall back to the default "en" message rather than the locally-customized "en" message anyway. So there really is no way to customize a message for all languages besides editing the MediaWiki-namespace page for each language. Anomie⚔ 17:23, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see. In that case that's about it; thanks for the help! It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 19:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been bold and reverted it back to the last version. There's been many more users complaining that they have been blocked for using their firm's name and no-one told them it wouldn't be OK. It's not fair to let users create names only to make one or two edits and then get blocked and presented with a {{uw-spamublock}}. The last one I read said he was not coming back - he didn't feel welcome, this surely is not the impression we should be giving out, although we cannot allow promotional user names, we need to tell the user before he creates one.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Just seen yet another blocked user - this one says Anyone can create a spurious name which I have not. I feel somewhat bullied here. I rest my case...  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the best talk page to address this, but I think its close enough. The interwiki link for the Khmer/Cambodian wiki is currently set under P. Previously, last year, it was under K. I had thought it disappeared from the Language interwiki menu. I would like to know who reodered it and what for? I believe it should be reordered back among the Ks. Just as Vietnamese is set among the V even though it is prefixed with a word that starts with a T (tieng viet). And Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia are set under M and I respectively. Formally, the Khmer language is called "pheasa khmer" (ភាសាខ្មែរ) with the first word translating to language (and there's an even more formal term; khemara pheasa, ខេមរភាសា which would be more 'encyclopedic'). But in normal speech, Cambodians refer to it simply as Khmer (ខ្មែរ). --Dara (talk) 05:42, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Anyone one listening? :( I really would like for this to be changed and I'm sure many other Khmer readers would. We can assume most Khmer readers will naturally look under K first not P for "Khmer". --Dara (talk) 06:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little late, but are you sure this is something that can be changed in the MediaWiki namespace? As far as I know, the ordering of interwikis depends only on the order the interwikis appear in the page. Ucucha (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You're correct, the ordering of the links in the language box depends on the order of the interlanguage links in the wikitext. And it seems that the ordering is hardcoded into pywikipedia (unlike AWB, which reads the order from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW), so the only way to change it for the majority of interwiki bots is to have the pywikipedia devs change it.

I don't see any sign that this is at all recent, though. The list at m:Interwiki sorting order seems to have had Khmer with the P's since December 2005, and pywikipedia seems to have had it that way since March 2006. Anomie⚔ 03:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the system message about clearing ones browser cache to see changes made to .js pages could do with a rewrite for clarification. fredgandt 15:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I have initiated a discussion about adding a reason to the drop down block reason list at the link in the section header. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 02:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

See MediaWiki_talk:Sp-contributions-footer#New edit counter?. Any ideas for a replacement of X!/redsox93's inactive edit counter? Froztbyte (talk) 02:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I've proposed a minor change to MediaWiki:Sharedupload-desc-here, on MediaWiki talk:Sharedupload-desc-here#Unlinking of Commons-logo.svg, and consensus in needed for the change. Basically, I would like see the left Commons logo on the file description page link either the file on Commons, or nothing. I've calculated that this would save me about 100 misclicks every year ;) seriously, I've clicked on that logo way too many times. jonkerz ♠talk 14:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

^ FYI. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Our developers have been working hard to integrate certain elements of the Wikipedia Education Program into MediaWiki. If anyone is interested in helping test the new extension, click here to get started.

Thanks, Rob SchnautZ (WMF) ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see here. Mark Hurd (talk) 04:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure there was a rather large WMF sponsored consensus that new section was more intuitive or something like that, so you'll probably need to show some substantial consensus. I suggest a discussion at

WP:VPPR. Prodego ^talk

04:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that option was somewhat tongue in cheek, although I note a lot of meta references to this tab only refer to it as '+'. Mark Hurd (talk) 05:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

We've (im)ported RefToolbar to

• filed as Bug 36331 - Change request enwiki: Add unwatch link to MediaWiki:Enotif_body (compare with dewiki where this is live)

I developed enotif and suggest to add in the footer the direct link to unwatch the notified page. See de:MediaWiki:Enotif_body where this is implemented.

See UserMailer.php lines 643 seq. if you want to learn which parameters can be used and how they are computed. --Wikinaut (talk) 00:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear $WATCHINGUSERNAME,


The {{SITENAME}} page "$PAGETITLE" has been $CHANGEDORCREATED on $PAGEEDITDATE
by $PAGEEDITOR, with the edit summary: $PAGESUMMARY $PAGEMINOREDIT

$NEWPAGE See $PAGETITLE_URL for the current revision.

To contact the editor, visit $PAGEEDITOR_WIKI

Note that additional changes to the page "$PAGETITLE" will not result in any
further notifications, until you have logged in and visited the page.

             Your friendly {{SITENAME}} notification system

--

This email notification feature was enabled on English Wikipedia in May 2011 -
see {{canonicalurl:Help:email notification}}. 

If you would like to modify your notifications, visit
{{canonicalurl:{{#special:Preferences}}}}

If you wish to remove the page from your unwatch, visit
$UNWATCHURL

Feedback and further assistance:
{{canonicalurl:{{MediaWiki:Helppage}}}}

Done I see no reason not to do this. I made the minimal modification to add this. Anomie⚔ 01:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I confirm: it works as expected. Thanks. --Wikinaut (talk) 01:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done

I think it would be a good idea to change "This is a minor edit" in the edit screen into "This is a minor edit". But as this is a very heavily used message I thought it best to discuss here first (and I haven't yet tracked down the specific message that would need changing). ϢereSpielChequers 21:04, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

The current message is actually "This is a minor edit (what's this?)" (unless you're using en-gb?). Personally, I'd prefer this not be changed, as it's easy to hide the useless link with personal CSS this way but not so easy with your proposed change. Anomie⚔ 23:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I use en-gb, accepting your point about css, I take it you've no objection to my bringing it into line with the default? ϢereSpielChequers 23:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I personally don't care what happens to en-gb, as I use plain en. But if by "bringing it in line" you mean copying MediaWiki:minoredit to MediaWiki:minoredit/en-gb, sound like an excellent idea to me. Anomie⚔ 00:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've done that. ϢereSpielChequers 06:50, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion/complaint at

Evidently, if a user being unblocked has spaces in their user name, then (1) the toolserver link has extra characters and (2) the link (to check for Autoblocks) does not refer to the correct user. I'm sort of stumped at how to fix this (I know it's the $1 portion too...) - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 10:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Use {{urlencode:$1}} like in MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer and many other places. — AlexSm 15:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 19:34, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Message

Sign up for free research databases: There are 125

. You need a 1-year old account with 1000 edits on any Wikimedia project.

Discussion

I want this message to go to *editors* on any Wikimedia projects that could benefit from free access to these English language research databases. I am frankly not sure what the best way to do that is. 'Blanking' the anonnotice and replacing it with <p></p>, would display only to editors. Alternately, we could use a watchlist-notice. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 03:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Would this become an addition to the current Wikipedia love libraries and Wikipedia takes america notices so we'd be running 3? Ryan Vesey 13:34, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggest/add typos to Special:Search?

Is there a MW page for adding rules regarding misspelt search entries (so that it when you search for "x", it asks you, "Did you mean: y"), or a noticeboard for posting suggestions to the devs that they do as much? Thanks It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 14:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

For individual cases, you can use a

Talk

03:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages doesn't distinguish humans from bots

Please see MediaWiki talk:Youhavenewmessages regarding the problem of distinguishing human from bot in the orange "You have a new message from another user (last change)." bar. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Uncollapse MW:Templatesused by default?

I asked this at MediaWiki talk:Templatesused but got no replies:

How do I tweak my vector css to always display this class/section ("Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page:") uncollapsed, on any edit/preview?

.templatesUsed {?}

Please and thanks. (answer here or there) —Quiddity (talk) 23:43, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe .templatesUsed > ul { display:block !important; }. But your best option may be to add a line to your vector.js that sets the cookie "templates-used-list" to "expanded". Anomie⚔ 01:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

How is that done? or pointers to an existing example? (I can deconstruct, but need a starting place). I searched for "cookie user.js", and searched the

WP:JS page for "cookie", but couldn't see anything obvious. Thanks. —Quiddity (talk

) 04:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

document.cookie='templates-used-list=expanded';

is the simplest way. Or if you want to use jQuery,

mw.loader.using('jquery.cookie', function(){ $.cookie('templates-used-list', 'expanded'); });

should do it. Anomie⚔ 12:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Much thanks, that works perfectly. I'll copy this to the original thread, for future searchers. =) —Quiddity (talk) 21:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Special:PasswordReset improvements

Special:PasswordReset is currently not user-friendly. It refers to "pieces of data" and is needlessly verbose. I propose eliminating the message at the top ("Enter one of the pieces of data below") and inside the legend ("Complete this form to receive an e-mail reminder of your account details."

Instead, I suggest we expand the legend and put "Fill in one of the boxes and submit to get an e-mail reminder". See the simulated screenshot on the right.

In summary:

• MediaWiki:passwordreset-pretext
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-pretext
  • Propose blank message
• MediaWiki:passwordreset-text
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-text
  • Propose blank message
• MediaWiki:passwordreset-legend
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-legend
  • Proposed
    - Fill in one of the boxes and submit to get an e-mail reminder

--

Talk

See User talk:PrimeHunter#Password reset. Per Help Desk discussions, users are confused when they enter both fields. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 06:17, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

As it happens, the server PHP uses the same order as the fields. If the user name is set and not the empty sring, it will use it for the lookup. Otherwise, it will use the email. You're right that this isn't addressed in my suggestion.

I'm open to doing so, but I'd prefer to keep it much briefer than the proposals at that talk page (and centralize discussion here). Also, there is no actual problem with filling both fields, if the username is correct (only the username will be tried). Prime is correct, "If both fields are filled then the e-mail address is ignored.", so we don't want to scare the user.

How about (in addition to the screenshot), "If you are certain of your e-mail, but not your username, only enter your e-mail." We don't need to explain all the machinations that will happen after they click submit (if they get the email, they get the email). We want to concisely help them fill out the form correctly.

Talk

09:38, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Follow-up proposal

This is just a detailed explanation of my proposal immediately above, with the same format at the first one:

• MediaWiki:passwordreset-pretext
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-pretext
  • Propose blank message
• MediaWiki:passwordreset-text
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-text
  • Proposed
    - If you are certain of your e-mail, but not your username, only enter your e-mail.
• MediaWiki:passwordreset-legend
  • Current - MediaWiki:Passwordreset-legend
  • Proposed
    - Fill in one of the boxes and submit to get an e-mail reminder

--

Talk

04:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done

Talk

01:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Better, but still a little technical sounding I think. I suggest...

• In general, switch 'e-mail' to 'email'. The use of the latter is obviously more common and understandable to users.
• For MediaWiki:Passwordreset-legend:
  • 'Enter your contact information to reset your password'
• For MediaWiki:Passwordreset-text:
  • 'Only email is required. If you're unsure of your username, leave it blank.'

Use of language like "boxes" is literal, but users understand input fields. The most important thing is to say what kind of information to enter and what the result will be. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 07:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Somewhere it needs to say that the page will only send an email to an email address that has been saved with an account. If the email address was not saved with the account, or that email address is no longer accessible, then "Entering your contact information" achieves nothing. I have updated Help:Reset password from the corresponding text at Help:Logging in. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

AFRINIC WHOIS links broken

Please see my message at the technical village pump about this problem and a similar message at the talk page of the relevant MediaWiki mssage. Graham87 12:48, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

This problem has been resolved through a tool created by Dereckson. Se the above-linked pages. Graham87 04:58, 26 December 2012 (UTC)