Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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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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How do I transfer Google authenticator from one Samsung phone to another?

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I use it for 2FA on my account. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 07:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I guess you have already installed the app on your new phone. On your old phone, open the app, tap the three-dot menu, and select Transfer accounts, then choose Export accounts. Select the accounts you want and a QR code will appear. On your new phone, open the app, choose Import accounts, then Scan QR code, and scan the code from your old phone. Your accounts will be copied over, and you should keep your old phone until you have confirmed that everything is working correctly. – DreamRimmer 07:46, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@DreamRimmer Sounds good. I've no plans to get rid of my old phone in any caee. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@DreamRimmer, you should keep your old phone until you have confirmed that everything is working correctly Better yet, make sure you know where the printout of your recovery codes is and verify it hasn't faded. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:17, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Another way is to disable 2FA when on the old phone, and then re-enroll with the new phone. This does require that you are still eligible for 2FA however (different groups have different eligibility). As you are still an oversighter, you should still be eligible. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 08:54, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@TheDJ Thanks. Forgot about eligibility! I think all Admins should be required to have 2FA. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Global requirements are slowly increasing over time. There are some sensitive groups that we require to have 2FA, and some that their tools become disabled when 2FA isn't set up now. — xaosflux Talk 14:09, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think there needs to be a better recovery system other than "have a database admin manually flip the 2FA bit" before it's made mandatory for a larger group of editors. --Ahecht (TALK
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19:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
What's the procedure if your phone is lost or damaged? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:24, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Turns out I didn't have to do anything. When I transferred my apps with Samsung Smartswitch it worked on the new phone. Doug Weller talk 14:24, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Tech News: 2025-34

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

 
Hmm, the "Report" feature seems interesting--I wonder how that's gonna work if it ever gets implemented. Some1 (talk) 03:17, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Looks like it would use the m:Incident Reporting System. – SD0001 (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, that's what's going on with that link. Izno (talk) 19:43, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, that screenshot is from ptwiki, where we had already been testing that feature out. If you're curious to see more about it, it's also on testwiki.
We released Thanks there first (without the beta feature), because it already had the overflow menu present for Report and the editors were thus used to an extra button being present. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do have to say, the single-item overflow menu just for "Thank" is a bit goofy, but it will make more sense once "Report" is rolled out. --Ahecht (TALK
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13:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
What Report does and when it should be used seems unclear to the casual visitor. I suspect most of its clicks will accidentally escalate minor matters which are best dealt with by local admins. Certes (talk) 22:48, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Periodic table not horizontally centered

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Periodic table is a bit to the left in infoboxes, mobile website view at updated Chrome browser. I presume it shall be centered, or fixed logical position for rectangles part with text part floating around. 5.43.101.148 (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am poking at this presently, trying to correct it more fool-proofly. The basic gist is that the mobile skin is very aggressive about how tables should display (to account for the vast majority of tables). And we're using an old way to mark stuff up anyway. Izno (talk) 22:15, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ok, I've rolled something out that I think should improve this. Izno (talk) 23:07, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It is not centered, still.
Also, isotopes tables (e.g. Hydrogen) are not full-width (mobile). You might check at srwiki template(s) how isotopes tables are of desired output (it was at enwiki that way, then applied to srwiki with translation, but here were some updates that broke it meanwhile; maybe to revert at some stable version...).
Vapor pressure table at e.g. Lithium is of to the right.
5.43.101.148 (talk) 09:57, 21 August 2025 (UTC) [e]Reply
You may need to bypass your cache. Being logged out means you receive a cached version of the page from the server also, so making a WP:NULLEDIT so you can see the difference may also be a good idea. I checked both desktop Firefox on mobile website (logged in) and desktop Edge on mobile website (logged out) and both show the fix also.
I will look into the isotope and vapor pressure. Izno (talk) 15:43, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do see the limited width of isotopes as well as the issue with vapor pressures and will poke at those when I get a chance. Izno (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think I've fixed both of these also now. Izno (talk) 23:41, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Isotopes table takes space as much as needed, less than width of its header for whole table. Vapor pressure tables seem OK now. 5.43.101.148 (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sigh, simple mistake there.[9] Izno (talk) 15:17, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Periodic table is still not centered.

I propose also to replace left and right words with symbols for those elements because when word for element is too long it goes into new line (and we are not interested in those elements surrounding the one an article is about, black symbol in vertical middle at right and name with letters in horizontal middle below is just what is topic).

--5.43.101.148 (talk) 18:35, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The periodic table cannot be fully centered due to the content at right. It should be mostly centered now otherwise.
Your other suggestions should be put on Template talk:Infobox element as they are no longer about fixing broken display. Izno (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

CSS / dark mode images

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no class
 
mw-no-invert

OK, so the image at right in "light mode", renders correctly. When you switch it to "dark mode", the colors become a bit de-saturated, this is especially obvious in the reds. I initially thought this was an optical illusion, but confirmed it by inspecting the element in Firefox's DOM/style inspector. The guilty CSS for handling dark mode appears to be this CSS:

html, html img:not(.mw-invert), html video:not(.mw-invert), html ogvjs:not(.mw-invert), html svg:not(.mw-invert), html iframe:not(.mw-invert), html .mw-no-invert, html .cdx-no-invert, html td .diffchange, html .wvui-typeahead-suggestion__thumbnail, html .skin-minerva .mw-notification-visible .mw-notification-content, html .oo-ui-searchWidget-results .oo-ui-iconElement-icon, html .list-thumb, html .media-viewer .image img, html .media-viewer .mw-file-description img {
	filter: invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg);
}

If I remove the hue-rotate(180deg) the image renders correctly, however, the other colors on the page do not. I initially thought it might be possible to override the filter property on just the image element, but this does not appear to work. I know there's a CSS class, .mw-no-invert, but this seems to have the effect of inverting the image (see other example at right).

Is there some way to prevent the images from being inverted selectively that I've missed? —Locke Coletc 03:38, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That doesn't seem right. Please report it as a bug in Phabricator. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 07:48, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's because you're using the deprecated WP:Dark mode (gadget) instead of vector-2022's dark mode. The above CSS is defined locally (see MediaWiki:Gadget-dark-mode.css) so a phab report wouldn't help. – SD0001 (talk) 08:25, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
That got it. Oddly I disabled the dark mode gadget in preferences, hit save, then went to appearance and chose vector-2022, hit save and came back and the issue was still present. Went into the appearance widget in vector-2022 and dark/light mode were disabled, saying the gadget was still active, helpfully it had a button to disable it and that finally got it working.
Still not a huge fan of vector-2022, but I guess if I want a functional dark mode, this is my only choice. —Locke Coletc 15:39, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If the gadget is deprecated and the vector2022 dark mode is preferred one for vector 2022, is it possible to disable the gadget from running if the skin is vector 2022? – robertsky (talk) 17:14, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
We can remove it from the options. I am fairly certain that does not remove it from the selection people will have made in their preferences, but I am not totally certain.
I do not know about the word deprecated myself. Izno (talk) 19:44, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, I don't know that deprecated is the right word. It currently says not recommended, which makes sense, but if you want to use a non-vector 2022 skin, I think that gadget is the only thing that enables a dark mode option. —Locke Coletc 19:51, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Like I said, 'if the skin is vector 2022'. Have additional codes or something to detect if current skin used is v22 and either direct the user to enable the darkmode option in their preferences or enable that for them instead of allowing the css to load. It shouldnt impact on the other skins until they get dark mode support... if ever. – robertsky (talk) 05:53, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Vector 2022 already disables its own dark mode if you have the dark mode gadget on. Nardog (talk) 06:37, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Vector 2022 TOC is still needlessly disabled on most lists

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Hi, as you know the Vector 2022 skin has the TOC on the sidebar, which is no longer inserted inside articles. However, it seems most TOC templates (such as {{Compact TOC}}) automatically hide the TOC, and other pages manually hide it by using the _NOTOC_ magic word. This makes browsing lists much harder. Since it could be argued that alphabetical lists are the kind of pages where having a TOC is most important, why haven't the TOC templates and specific list pages been updated?

Just as an example, compare Glossary of nautical terms (A–L) with Glossary of nautical terms (M–Z). (Here, the TOC is disabled by the wikitext of the page). FaviFake (talk) 14:58, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is the technical question here? That a TOC is hidden when editors have asked for it to be hidden is expected. — xaosflux Talk 15:06, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Since it could be argued that alphabetical lists are the kind of pages where having a TOC is most important, why haven't the TOC templates and specific lists been updated?

I guess my question is "shouldn't we check the NOTOC pages (or use a bot or script to do that) and correct the outdated templates/magic words that cause the TOC to not appear?" FaviFake (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It would probably be nice to not break things for people who use skins other than Vector 2022, however, so it's likely not that simple. Anomie 17:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yup! This is one of the reason I asked here before doing anything :) I had suspected that would be a problem. I'd like to find a solution to this problem that hopefolly works for everyone. FaviFake (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
There is discussion at phab:T317818#8778839. de:Vorlage:Nummer-eins-TOC (example) uses <div style="display:none">__TOC__</div> instead of __NOTOC__ to hide the MediaWiki TOC inside the page in all skins but allow it in the Vector 2022 sidebar. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oh, that's smart! I don't see any drawbacks. What would it take for all templates and pages using NOTOC to start using that method instead?
Maybe we could create a template that just contains <div style="display:none">__TOC__</div> and replace every NOTOC with it. It could be called {{hit}} (hide inline toc). Thoughts? FaviFake (talk) 09:41, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The trend over the past several years would prefer the template be named like {{hide inline toc}} over an abbreviation like {{hit}}. I'd be wary of blindly replacing all __NOTOC__ with this template, and if there really aren't ever reasons to hide the TOC in Vector2022 it'd probably be better for devs to remove support for __NOTOC__ from that skin entirely rather than hackily having the TOC be hidden with CSS in all other skins. Anomie 13:34, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, of course, i intended {hit} to be a redirect. (But we still haven't renamed ambox...).
Sure, it would be better for the devs to do something, but it's been two years since this started happening and nothing has changed. in the interim we should try to do something for these poor lists. Also, some very specific pages might still need to hide the TOC, but they're likely very few in comparison to the many article needlessly lacking a sticky TOC. This might make the devs wary of removing the magic word.
What do you think of creating {{hit}} and letting people manually replace NOTOC on the pages they find, without any bots involved? FaviFake (talk) 13:48, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
They tried renaming ambox, but it failed for that case.
Manual replacement, 🤷. I'd still skip the cryptic redirect name in this case and use the more descriptive name though. And hopefully no one decides to act like an unauthorized bot or a WP:MEATBOT about it. Anomie 14:02, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Since all non–Vector 2022 ToCs are inside .mw-parser-output, you could just have TemplateStyles with #toc { display: none; } and it would hide the ToC for all non–Vector 2022 skins. Nardog (talk) 16:00, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not too technical, could you explain what this means? FaviFake (talk) 16:27, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nothing if you don't understand it. I was just suggesting a simpler alternative to PrimeHunter's approach. Nardog (talk) 00:13, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oh ok thanks, I think I get it. FaviFake (talk) 10:49, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Many custom TOC's like {{Compact TOC}} add id="toc" so it isn't that simple. If duplicate id's are still considered problematic when one of them is in display:none then my approach may also need more work. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

  You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Module talk:Message box § c-Waddie96-20250823092200-Edit protected 2025-08-23. Relating to giving messageboxes/mbox's the role=note as currently they have the role=presentation which means the accessibility API in implementing WAI-ARIA just skips past all messagebox content. waddie96 ★ (talk) 09:29, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why are you notifying us of a discussion on Meta? Meta's version of messagebox is independent of enwiki's. * Pppery * it has begun... 21:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's more just input on the accessibility part @Pppery as I was unsure if my correction to give mbox role="none" instead of role="presentation" is correct, and also that would affect our version because I'd make an edit request because it's a meta template, and it would of course be most ideal if our mbox met accessibility requirements... waddie96 ★ (talk) 18:20, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

A technical challenge for anyone up for it

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Commons category § Automating lowercasing of first letter for common nouns. Sdkbtalk 21:44, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

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I am advertising the aforementioned discussion here in case any interested parties wish to comment. Thanks, -- Patient Zerotalk 00:08, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Strange lag making even basic tasks difficult/inconvenient

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Since returning to semi-active editing a few days ago, I'm noticing a strange lag that is making it inconvenient to do pretty much anything and everything that involves some form of automated function, including Twinkle and most other scripts, and extending to things as simple as using the search bar and wanting to be taken directly to the page when there's an exact title match, rather than having to make an extra click from Special:Search. With Twinkle in particular, whenever I go to warn, welcome, or report anyone or anything, it never works on the first attempt, no matter what the input is. TW will just say "processing request" or "retrieving page" indefinitely. However, when I refresh the page in my browser and attempt to do the exact same thing again, immediately, without doing or clicking anything else, it now works as intended, which suggests that it's not a TW code issue, at least not directly. I've noticed some issues even with things like the page preview - after making edits, clicking the preview button the first time does nothing. No response whatsoever. I then have to do a cut-copy-paste of the text with my changes, reload the webpage in my browser, paste the text back in, and then preview it - this usually works.

I've uninstalled all but the most essential of my user scripts for the time being, to see if one of them might be causing the problem, but unfortunately I'm still experiencing issues. My browser is Microsoft Edge Mobile, on an iPad, using the latest iOS version 18.6.2. For now I may switch over to editing on my laptop instead though until this can be figured out. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 18:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Did something break caching recently?

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Over the past few days (glancing furtively at the calendar to see when Thursday was most recently) I've seen several instances of making an edit, viewing the page, and seeing the previous version. Reloading the page would get me the latest content. This makes me suspect something changed in how caching is handled. RoySmith (talk) 18:56, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

And, yeah, I know, it could be happening on the client side too. I'm running the latest Chrome (Version 139.0.7258.139 (Official Build) (arm64)) on MacOS Sonoma. RoySmith (talk) 18:57, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've been seeing that for more than a few days (weeks, maybe?), just didn't think to bring it here. Chrome 138.0.7204.232 on a Chromebook. Donald Albury 21:39, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1 § module suite update 30–31 August 2025

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1 § module suite update 30–31 August 2025. Rjjiii (talk) 20:25, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Page deletion problem

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Hello, VPT,

I'm having a problem with deleting pages right now, both using Twinkle or manually through the drop down menu. The process just gets stuck and doesn't progress or I get an error message: "Database error [3c4e0cfa-081f-440a-a6d8-ce9272ac50f1] 2025-08-24 23:05:17: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"". With Twinkle it states "Deleting page: Failed to delete the page: error "error" occurred while contacting the API."

Is anyone else experiencing this? I've had this happen before but it usually cleared up within minutes and this is lasting longer than that. Liz Read! Talk! 23:08, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

phab:T402749 I think. Izno (talk) 23:11, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Izno. It looks like it cleared up. Liz Read! Talk! 23:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Broken syntax

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The universal LaTex for the matrix is broken, & 2 \\ 2 & 4\end{bmatrix}\begin{bmatrix}1 . This is not correct syntax for the matrix. Correct is: \begin{bmatrix}1 & 2 \\ 2 & 4\end{bmatrix}. Needs fixing. I am not sure if it just in my end, but I tried with 3 different devices. Isolatedchimpanzee (talk) 04:00, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Isolatedchimpanzee: The second is correct as you say and produces:  
Where are you seeing the first which moves \begin{bmatrix}1 to the end? I guess it's when editing Singular matrix#Conditions and properties but I cannot reproduce it. Is it in VisualEditor and/or the source editor? Please give precise steps to reproduce, name one of your devices, say if it may be set to a right-to-left script, and say if it still happens if you log out. What is your "Math" setting at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? PrimeHunter (talk) 07:34, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
No, actually I tried this on multiple devices (tab, mob and computer) and more importantly on multiple aticle unrelated to maths, the result is still the same. Maybe its a glitch in my account or browser. For your question's answer, no my browser is not tied to show right to left script and problem is in visual editor where the code appears automatically. I will try to log out and let you know. I am using SVG. Isolatedchimpanzee (talk) 07:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Please outline the steps that you take to see what you posted above. What do you click? Is any other action needed before seeing the broken syntax? Where do you see the broken syntax? There is no glitch in your account. Johnuniq (talk) 08:09, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nothing special. visual editor>Insert (+ icon)>math formula>scroll to matrices>chose the 2x2 simple matrix, I get the result. I just tried and it is still happening. Isolatedchimpanzee (talk) 08:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Isolatedchimpanzee: Thanks for finally revealing that it only happens when you make a new matrix with the insert menu in VisualEditor (which does not produce your code but gives variables instead of numbers). We would all have saved a lot of time if you said that from the beginning or at least when explicitly asked for precise steps to reproduce. It also happens for me and it's the same with many other math expressions, e.g. the min(x,y) button under Standard numerical functions which gives ,y)\min(x. It also happens logged out. This should be reported at WP:PHAB (maybe not by a new user like you) if there isn't a report already but I don't have more time now. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:49, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
okay. Isolatedchimpanzee (talk) 08:59, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Isolatedchimpanzee: I have created phab:T402788: "VisualEditor insert math formula moves start of code to the end". Thanks for reporting it and sorry if I was a little harsh. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
No its understandable. We are humans altogether. Isolatedchimpanzee (talk) 12:14, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Add topic button shiver

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Why is Add topic button shiverring and reappearing sometimes while scrolling down or up? This is much more common while scrolling to see content below. It behaves unintuitively. Sometimes, it flashes near plus symbol on the other hand. (mobile view, updated Android Chrome browser more than a week ago to latest version) 5.43.101.148 (talk) 08:26, 25 August 2025 (UTC) [e]Reply

The problem is present especially when scrolling while lower line of text 'Last edited before ... by ...' is visible. --5.43.101.148 (talk) 10:45, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is because of clashing animations. When it is in view, it should always be visible. When it is not in view, and you scroll down, it is not visible, but if you scroll up, it makes itself visible.. When you get to the bottom these commands seem to conflict at times. I have filed the ticket phab:T402798. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 12:59, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is flashing also when click at Edit link from three dots loaded somewhere in the middle, along with loaded text Reply and arrow before that are flashing and are part of same tech feature. --5.43.101.148 (talk) 08:49, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

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What happened in Special:Diff/1307716563? I made that edit by clicking on the "reply" link after Kusma's signature in Special:Permalink/1307711238. And somehow

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12819538/ short]

in an unrelated part of the page was changed to

[[imdbtitle:12819538|short]]

Without my having touched it. RoySmith (talk) 08:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

And reproduced in Special:Diff/1307719925. RoySmith (talk) 09:17, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Check your scripts first to see if anything would do something like this, but otherwise I think it's fair to file an upstream for it. Izno (talk) 16:23, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
T402843 RoySmith (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

What is going on in the page history of Poopy

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I came across this page and its page history makes no sense. It is full of seemingly RevDels for the edit summary and a lot of zero byte edits with no diff from the previous edit. I have browsed edits that have had revdel/oversight applied to them on other pages and they don't appear like this, normally it won't let the edit be selected for diff comparison in the history. For example, I haven't seen a diff between consecutive edits like this before where there is (No difference). If this is the wrong place for this question or if this is not good for a public forum, please let me know and I'll remove, but what is happening with this page history and is it broken? Casablanca 🪨(T) 16:03, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Apparently this is the result of a revdeleted page move. Izno (talk) 16:24, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Casablanca Rock: Yes, the two edits by Milan092 were actually page moves and the following edits reverted the moves so they didn't change the wikitext. The edit summary would have started with "45dogs moved page ...", but the whole edit summary was revisiondeleted. For comparison, here is a normal move without revisiondeletion. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Visual editor stalling while opening the editor

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I've been experiencing a problem using the visual editor today: if I click on "edit" or open the source editor and then try to switch to the visual editor via the pencil icon, it starts to open the visual editor and then stalls ~2/3s of the way through. (2/3s is based on the how much of the block at the top of the screen turns from white to blue; see image.) I've encountered this problem on every page I've tried to edit using the visual editor (e.g., Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia). I've tried clearing the cache and restarting my browser, Firefox 142.0 for Mac, but neither helped. Wondering if anyone has a suggestion. Thanks, FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Tech News: 2025-35

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:08, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can someone help guide me through how to customize my default Dark Mode appearance?

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I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but I was sent here. I know there's a way to do it via the user CSS page, but I don't know how. There isn't really a guide or tutorial (as far as I can see) from the Preferences page. I'm not trying to make a new skin, or make changes to the default skin itself, I just want to configure/customize how it looks personally; I just want to make the default Dark Mode as dark as the gadget version, and also make some color changes. CheckNineEight (talk) 01:59, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe Wikipedia:Personalization#Personal_CSS will be the right place to start? Sapphaline (talk) 10:17, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It doesn't tell me how to actually customize skin appearance, it just tells me that a CSS subpage is a thing that I can do – which I already know about. The Main page for that link is almost close enough for providing samples, though; still, doesn't really give me a good grasp of how this works, doesn't give me confidence of doing what I intend to do – which is to customize the look of Dark Mode. CheckNineEight (talk) 02:44, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Okay, is there, like, a way to easily import a default skin's entire CSS code, so I can read it and edit it from my CSS subpage? Like, a {{subst:}} function? CheckNineEight (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
"easily import a default skin's entire CSS code" No, Wikipedia's CSS is pretty complicated, stretches hundreds of lines and even differs for almost every single page of the site. This is also why it isn't further explained. People who know how CSS works should be capable to change it already, for those who don't it mostly boils down to "you are going to have to learn or copy from someone else (if that person exists)". If you just want to change colors, you should be able to get the list of CSS variables from your browser's web inspector (they are all on the html element, as they are for most websites in the world) and be able to change them as you see fit via you common.css. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 08:19, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oof! How do I inspect element on mobile? I don't even have a PC. CheckNineEight (talk) 11:36, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Should items be in caps?

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Should these items be in caps in a "see also":

Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:00, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

See Rock Garden, Calhoun#See also where you have correctly listed them as Miniature park and Rock garden. Matching the case of the article title is correct. This is a question for WP:HELPDESK, not WP:VPT. Johnuniq (talk) 06:10, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks; sorry I asked in the wrong place. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 06:32, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Template:WikiProject status is confusing people. They usually see this at the top of a WikiProject's main page (e.g., Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography). If they want to leave a note for the WikiProject, they click the bolded link to Wikipedia:WikiProject (not what they want), and then to the talk page (which is WT:COUNCIL and definitely not what they want).

How can I put a link in the template that will point to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography for WPBIO, to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine for WPMED, to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history for MILHIST, etc.? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why is the search engine getting worse?

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Wikipedia previously had one of the best fuzzy search engines on the Web. Lately, it seems to be getting dumber and dumber. Today I searched for "Former NPR host Hansen," and it gave me every entry containing "NPR," EXCEPT "Liane," which is the correct answer. It even gave me pages containing "Liane Hansen" in both text and hypertext link, but didn't return the actual "Liane Hansen" page. This is TERRIBLE performance from what was previously one of the best search engines around. What was done to dumb down the search engine? Gil gosseyn (talk) 22:28, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

YMMV, but I always go to Google and type "wiki xxx", where xxx is the thing I want. "wiki Former NPR host Hansen" takes me to the right page. For all of the complaints about Google that I hear, it still works great for me. In my 12 years of active editing, I have never had good luck with the Wikipedia search page when doing plain-text searches; it can give a lot of results, but they are never sorted by relevance. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:45, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
mw:Help:Searching says "The results will only include pages that contain all the words in your search.", and has done since at least 2013. The word "Former" doesn't appear anywhere in the text of that article (ignoring the templates), so it is working as expected. It is possible to make a "fuzzy" search (details in mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Words, phrases, and modifiers) but that isn't the default. If we search for NPR host Hansen that gives the expected results. I hope that info helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Gil gosseyn: The navbox is deliberately ignored because it has the class autocollapse. That's usually good to eliminate irrelevant hits. Here the occurrence of "former" in the navbox was indeed irrelevant to her being a former NPR host but Google picked up the random hit on the word so it gave the right result for the wrong reason. It's an odd word to include in the search. The article is the first hit on NPR host Hansen. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:51, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Screen reader-only § Simplify CSS?

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Screen reader-only § Simplify CSS?. Sapphaline (talk) 10:14, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Example css file to remove Depictions of Prophet Muhammad doesnt work

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Ive tried using the css file that is supposed to remove/censore depicitons of the Prophet that is linked to in the in the instruction page which itself linked too in the "wikipedia is not censored" template on talk pages.

The css file doesnt work and I dont know how to get it to work, Ive tried adding an extra comma but that did nothing (link to the revision[26]). I swear i hit publish on it three seperate times but my contributions history says i only did it once. regardless,I used the 2008 section of the wiki contraversies article and Depictions of Muhammad to check and all three times the images still showed, before i added and after.if anyone has any advice please do pitch in, thank you! AssanEcho (talk) 18:05, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That CSS examples page uses a pretty brittle method in that it targets the specific image names. Someone needs to update it for the images that are presently on the page.
Example: One of the lines in the CSS is a[href="/wiki/File:Muammad-as-youth-meeting-monk-bahira-compendium-persia-1315-edin-550.jpg"],. The file has been renamed such that this rule doesn't match any longer (a[href="/wiki/File:Young_Muhammad_meets_the_monk_Bahira_-_from_Jami'_al-Tawarikh.jpg"], would now match what I believe to be the same image).
An alternative would be to use the |class= that images have to add something like |class=image-of-muhammad on that page and then target that. It would be marginally less brittle. Izno (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
perhaps that should just be whats added instead of the current method even if (im guessing) it results in the more tame images (eg, depictions with a veil) being censored too.
also, general wiki policy dectates an editor shouldnt edit a talkpage post beyond minor grammar corrections soon after originally posting but i copied and pasted by accident an older version of this post from notepadd and left out a sentance, could i readded even though its a bit against guidlines, it doesnt add anything which would require you change your post AssanEcho (talk) 18:16, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Maybe a userscript like Anomie's linkclassifier would be a better fit here. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:52, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Dark mode makes equation images unreadable

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The dark mode in Wikipedia settings makes the transparent background of equations black but leaves the equation itself a black and unreadable. There's a tiny difference in the shade so you can technically read it if you turn your brightness way up or strain your eyes really hard, but that defeats the point of dark mode so it should really just make the equations the same color as text. NNNNNNNN (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

1) Open Friedmann equations
2) Switch to dark mode.
3) Observe no problems with equations.
Issue is not reproduced. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:46, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
NNNNNNNN, Johnjbarton makes a good point: when reporting a bug of something you see somewhere, make sure you say exactly where you are seeing it so others can try to help diagnose a cause. There are at least five different ways of creating equations I can think of off the top of my head, each of which has different tricks and traps, and traps when editors use tricks to overcome other traps. DMacks (talk) 02:55, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If the equation happens to be a file (uploaded image), it might have to do with that file missing the "|class=skin-invert" parameter. CheckNineEight (talk) 11:47, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
When it comes to "dark mode", it's also worth specifying whether it's the Vector 2022 dark mode or the Gadget dark mode. Anomie 13:04, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Outline of Sen̓áḵw (red), in the Kitsilano neighbourhood of Vancouver.

The {{Maplink}} on the right is an exact copy of the one used on Sen̓áḵw. Despite working perfectly fine last time I checked a few weeks ago, |id=Q116290876 no longer automatically navigates to, and displays, the boundary defined by Q116290876. No meaningful changes have been made to the Wikidata entry, nor the OpenStreetMap feature it's linked to.[3] Switching to the similar |id=Q17018530 also doesn't work. I have no idea what happened here. — AFC Vixen 🦊 09:02, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see a blue screen (ocean, I think it is). It does not display the island it’s meant to. 2001:8003:B15F:8000:D7E:2F03:5B3D:FAE6 (talk) 11:41, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
2001:8003:B15F:8000:D7E:2F03:5B3D:FAE6, I can see a blue screen, and zooming out, it looks like Null Island. — Qwerfjkltalk 14:49, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think the issue is related to the link between OpenStreetMap and Wikidata rather than Wikidata as such. I am using a module/template that shows rivers (based on OpenStreetMap) as well as their basin (based on Commons .map). Currently it is showing the basins, but not the rivers themselves (see https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indals%C3%A4lven for an example). Gunnar Larsson (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Side note: this may be related to #Infobox map not rendering properly, as Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area also uses a {{Maplink}} relying on Wikidata, and unlike the editors in that discussion, I am seeing no shapes on that particular map. — AFC Vixen 🦊 09:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see an orange triangle-like shape at [27] and the same shape in red here and at Sen̓áḵw. Have you tried another browser or logging out? PrimeHunter (talk) 09:50, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have the same issue, all I see is a blank blue box. I'm using the latest version of Firefox and the only addon I have installed is an adblocker, which is disabled.
Testing in incognito mode in Firefox, and normally in Edge and Chrome, the issue also persists. It exists both logged out and logged in. Nebman227 (talk) 12:53, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. Works fine for me here both logged in and in incognito mode in Firefox 141, and while logged out in Chromium 139. Anomie 13:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Huh. Now it switched to Null Island as others mentioned above. No idea. Anomie 14:59, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I know they just joined one of the datacenters back, after upgrading it to newer version of Debian and Kartotherian. That might have something to do with it, and explain why some ppl have different results than others. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 17:36, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
For what it's worth, this issue I first noticed on Omaha appears to be affecting many articles - a brief glance shows Kansas City metropolitan area and Greater St. Louis having the same issue. Home Lander (talk) 00:49, 29 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Infobox map not rendering properly

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On Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, the map in the infobox is only rendering the brown shaded areas; the blue, green, and orange are not showing, at least for me. Can someone sort it out, as it's beyond my level of intelligence? Home Lander (talk) 18:02, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm getting blue and brown, but the other thing that's weird for me is that I'm not getting a map consistent between what's displayed currently and the MediaViewer version of it. Firefox 142 on Win10. Izno (talk) 18:05, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I should have mentioned, I suppose, that I'm on Windows 11 and Chrome 139.0.7258.139. Home Lander (talk) 18:07, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion seeking advice on edit filters and modules

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There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Should an edit filter be used to make the template admin-only? where it would be very helpful to have advice from editors with technical expertise on edit filters and modules. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2025 (UTC)Reply