Wikitech-l November 2014

116 participants
107 discussions

Database dumps
by Byrial Jensen 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Until some weeks ago http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html used to show 4 dumps in progress at the same time. That meant that new database dumps normally was available within about 3 weeks for all databases except for enwiki and maybe dewiki where the dump process due to size took longer time. However the 4 dumps processes at one time become 3 some weeks ago. And after massive failures at June 4, only one dump has been in progress at the same time. So at the current speed it will take several months to come thru all dumps. Is it possible to speed up the process again using several dump processes at the same time? Thank you, Byrial

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User-Agent:
by Domas Mituzas 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Hi! from now on specific per-bot/per-software/per-client User-Agent header is mandatory for contacting Wikimedia sites. Domas

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EBNF grammar project status?
by Steve Bennett 01 Apr '25

01 Apr '25

What's the status of the project to create a grammar for Wikitext in EBNF? There are two pages: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikitext_Metasyntax http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Markup_spec Nothing seems to have happened since January this year. Also the comments on the latter page seem to indicate a lack of clear goal: is this just a fun project, is it to improve the existing parser, or is it to facilititate a new parser? It's obviously a lot of work, so it needs to be of clear benefit. Brion requested the grammar IIRC (and there's a comment to that effect at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7 ), so I'm wondering what became of it. Is there still a goal of replacing the parser? Or is there some alternative plan? Steve

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Missing Section Headings
by Marc Riddell 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

Hello, I have been a WP editor since 2006. I hope you can help me. For some reason I no longer have Section Heading titles showing in the Articles. This is true of all Headings including the one that carries the Article subject's name. When there is a Table of Contents, it appears fine and, when I click on a particular Section, it goes to that Section, but all that is there is a straight line separating the Sections. There is also no button to edit a Section. If I edit the page and remove the "== ==" markers from the Section Titles, the Title then shows up, but not as a Section Heading. Also, I don't have any Date separators on my Want List. This started 2 days ago. Any thoughts? Thanks, Marc Riddell [[User:Michael David]]

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How to make commits from mirrored Wikimedia repos show up on your GitHub profile
by Bartosz Dziewoński 27 Jun '24

27 Jun '24

I know it has been annoying a couple of people other than me, so now that I've learned how to make it work I'll share the knowledge here. tl;dr: Star the repositories. No, seriously. (And yes, you need to star each extension repo separately.) (Is there a place on mw.org to put this tidbit on?) ------- Forwarded message ------- From: "Brian Levine" <support(a)github.com> (GitHub Staff) To: matma.rex(a)gmail.com Cc: Subject: Re: Commits in mirrored repositories not showing up on my profile Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 06:47:19 +0200 Hi Bartosz In order to link your commits to your GitHub account, you need to have some association with the repository other than authoring the commit. Usually, having push access gives you that connection. In this case, you don't have push permission, so we don't link you to the commit. The easy solution here is for you to star the repository. If you star it - along with the other repositories that are giving you this problem - we'll see that you're connected to the repository and you'll get contribution credit for those commits. Cheers Brian -- Matma Rex

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New RFC: better JS minification
by Max Semenik 01 Nov '15

01 Nov '15

Hi, I'd like to present a new RFC for your consideration: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Minifier It is about how we can shave 10-15% off the size if JavaScript delivered to users. Your comments are highly welcome!:) -- Best regards, Max Semenik ([[User:MaxSem]])

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Bikeshedding a good name for "the api.php API"
by Brad Jorsch (Anomie) 11 Aug '15

11 Aug '15

When api.php was basically the only API in MediaWiki, calling it "the API" worked well. But now we've got a Parsoid API, Gabriel's work on a REST content API, Gabriel's work on an internal storage API, and more on the way. So just saying "the API" is getting confusing. So let's bikeshed a reasonably short name for it that isn't something awful like "the api.php API". I'm horrible at naming. -- Brad Jorsch (Anomie) Software Engineer Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Bug in the Wikipedia main web page
by Sukyoung Ryu 24 May '15

24 May '15

Thank you for the quick fix! Best, -- Sukyoung On Jan 29, 2014, at 9:55 AM, Nathan wrote: > FYI in case you aren't subscribed to the list. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Yair Rand <yyairrand(a)gmail.com> > Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 7:25 PM > Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Bug in the Wikipedia main web page > To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > > > Thank you for pointing out this bug. Your suggested change to > MediaWiki:Gadget-wm-portal.js has been implemented by Meta-Wiki > administrator User:PiRSquared17. > > > On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Sukyoung Ryu <sukyoung.ryu(a)gmail.com>wrote: > > > Dear all, > > > > We are researchers at KAIST in Korea working on finding JavaScript bugs in > > web pages. While analyzing top websites from Alexa.com, we found an issue, > > which seems to be a bug, on the Wikipedia main web page (wikipedia.org). > > We would be grateful if you can either confirm that it is a bug and even > > better fix it or let us know what we're missing. > > > > Here's the issue. When a user selects a language in which search results > > are displayed via the language selection button from the Wikipedia main web > > page, the following JavaScript function is executed: > > > > 1 function setLang(lang) { > > 2 var uiLang = navigator.language || navigator.userLanguage, date > > = new Date(); > > 3 > > 4 if (uiLang.match(/^\w+/) === lang) { > > 5 date.setTime(date.getTime() - 1); > > 6 } else { > > 7 date.setFullYear(date.getFullYear() + 1); > > 8 } > > 9 > > 10 document.cookie = "searchLang=" + lang + ";expires=" + > > date.toUTCString() + ";domain=" + location.host + ";"; > > 11 } > > > > Depending on the evaluation result of the conditional expression on line > > 4, "uiLang.match(/^\w+/) === lang", the function leaves or dose not leave > > the selected language information on the user's computer through a cookie. > > But we found that the expression, "uiLang.match(/^\w+/) === lang", always > > evaluates to false, which results in that the function always leaves > > cookies on users' computers. We think that changing the contidional > > expression, "uiLang.match(/^\w+/) === lang", to the expression, > > "uiLang.match(/^\w+/) == lang", will solve the problem. > > > > This problem may occur in the main web pages of all the Wikimedia sites. > > Could you kindly let us know what you think? Thank you in advance. > > > > Best, > > Changhee Park and Sukyoung Ryu > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l >

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Requiring PHP >= 5.3.3 for MediaWiki core
by Legoktm 07 Apr '15

07 Apr '15

Hi, As part of the librarization project[1], we are planning on taking the CSSJanus library that is currently in includes/lib/ and bringing it in with composer. However, it requires PHP >=5.3.3 in its composer.json[2]. Krinkle has stated[3] that is due to the fact that it has only been tested on 5.3.3 and higher, and it's also what travis-ci provides. After doing some research[4], it appears that we would be dropping support for Ubuntu 10.04LTS, which has security support until April 2015. MediaWiki 1.25.0 is expected to be released in May 2015. Does anyone have any objections to dropping 5.3.2 support? I've uploaded [5] that actually increments the required version number. Thanks, -- Legoktm [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Library_infrastructure_for_MediaWiki [2] https://github.com/cssjanus/php-cssjanus/blob/master/composer.json [3] https://github.com/cssjanus/php-cssjanus/pull/5#issuecomment-60069126 [4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T839#14160 [5] https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/168535

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Our CAPTCHA is very unfriendly
by Jon Harald Søby 17 Mar '15

17 Mar '15

Hi all, My apologies if this is the wrong place to start a discussion on this, but it's a better place than nowhere. I recently took part in two very different Wikipedia workshops -- one in Uganda for schoolchildren aged 14-17, and one Bodø, Norway, for GLAM people aged 35-55. One glaringly obvious barrier of entry that was common for both groups is that the CAPTCHA we use is too freaking hard. The main concern is obviously that it is really hard to read, but there are also some other issues, namely that all the fields in the user registration form (except for the username) are wiped if you enter the CAPTCHA incorrectly. So when you make a mistake, not only do you have to re-type a whole new CAPTCHA (where you may make another mistake), you also have to re-type the password twice *and* your e-mail address. This takes a long time, especially if you're not a fast typer (which was the case for the first group), or if you are on a tablet or phone (which was the case for some in the second group). So I would like to start a discussion about changing to a CAPTCHA that is more user-friendly, and hopefully one that isn't as English/Latin-alphabet-centric as the one we currently use. If Ugandan children and old Norwegian people, which all use the Latin alphabet, have such problems deciphering the CAPTCHA, what about people speaking languages that don't use the Latin alphabet? I would prefer something more simplistic, like some sort of math or image-based CAPTCHA, instead of the current CAPTCHA we use. -- mvh Jon Harald Søby <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by>

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Wikitech-l November 2014