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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Number of watchers

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T336250

If you go to ?action=info for any page, you will see a table with various statistics, including two lines about how many people are watching the page, e.g.:

Number of page watchers	375
Number of page watchers who visited recent edits	12

For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?action=info for this page.

I am finding that the ratio shown here is not at all unusual for older articles, but the first line gets more attention from editors. They think "hundreds of editors are watching this page", when they should be thinking "almost nobody is watching this page". Is there a way we could remove/hide the irrelevant number from this info page? Or should we just change MediaWiki:Pageinfo-watchers to something like "Total number of watchlists (includes inactive editors)"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we should localize that message. This topic was recently more broadly discussed in meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Notifications, Watchlists and Talk Pages/Change information about the number of watchers on a page. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

phab:T336250 is open about this. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: It's certainly possible, the system message is MediaWiki:Pageinfo-watchers. We haven't created this, so we presently use the MW default message. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m one of those who ‘think "hundreds of editors are watching this page", when they should be thinking "almost nobody is watching this page"’ ...

I think we should have that “second line” added to these pages (or replaced the “first line”):

• https://xtools.wmcloud.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Contents
• https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=latest-20&pages=

--Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I bet someone here could write a .css script that would blank that out, or rename it to something like "This is the wrong line – ignore it". I checked a bunch of Special:Random pages, and most of them showed no data, due to there being too few people watching the pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

For hiding that row on the page information page on Wikipedia, try #mw-pageinfo-watchers { display: none; } in one of the .css files. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Novem Linguae. That seems to have worked for me. That suggests that iff we ever decided that we wanted to do that globally, it could be done in (e.g.,) global.css. I'm going to try this out for a while. I suspect that I'll like it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

#til:

If it's on <30 watchlists, no number is given for either item (the second item is simply suppressed).

If it's on ≥30 watchlists, an exact number is given for both items.

If the second number is zero, it says "There may or may not be a watching user visiting recent edits" instead of a second number. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there a way we could remove/hide the irrelevant number from this info page? I would not support removing this. Presenting both numbers, and letting the user decide which they want or need, seems like an acceptable status quo here. The less than 30 thing for non admins is for security reasons. Admins can see both numbers at all times. The linked phab ticket mentions changing the second message to mention 30 days explicitly. I could get behind a change like that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Under what circumstances do you think it would it be useful for to you to know that the watchlists associated with 1,991 mostly inactive (and sometimes actually dead) include the defunct Wikipedia:WikiProject Contents?

The number of active editors presently watching that page is a single-digit number. I can understand why that number would be useful to know, but not why the first has practical value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, pages can be watched actively, without the user being considered active there - such as through email or syndication. — xaosflux ^Talk 08:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Or by looking at the watchlist but not visiting the links. Nardog (talk) 09:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that the scenario Nardog describes is far more common than the one Xaosflux describes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

That was an argument against hiding the total number of watchers. I was echoing Xaosflux. Nardog (talk) 05:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I've never spent much time reading about the internal mechanism, but I believe that it works like this:

• If you have some pages on your watchlist, and then get permanently locked out of your account, you are "a watcher" for all of those pages forever, even though you can't actually watch anything from that account.
• If you have some pages on your watchlist, go to Special:Watchlist, close the tab without clicking on any link or visiting an article at all, and then get permanently locked out of your account, you are counted as "an active watcher" for all the pages on your entire watchlist for the next 30 days (including pages that did not have any changes made, so they weren't listed at Special:Watchlist on the day that you visited that page).

This means that there are 9 active editors with this page on their watchlist, of which an unknown number – but it is quite possibly zero – actually looked at the page in question during the last month.

So Xaosflux says, yes, there may only 9 editors who have that page on their watchlists and actually went to Special:Watchlist at any point during the last 30 days, but maybe a few more people also get e-mail messages about changes to articles on their watchlist, so the "9" might be a slight undercount.

The scenario you describe – visiting the watchlist but not checking every page – is certainly common. The "9" is probably an overcount, if the goal is to know whether anyone actually checked the specific page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I don't believe merely viewing the watchlist makes you an active watcher. — Qwerfjkltalk 07:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

You're correct. The count uses the same "first unseen timestamp" data used for highlighting of unseen edits on the history page. If a revision older than the configured age would be highlighted, the user is not counted as having visited recent edits. Viewing the watchlist or history page doesn't reset that, while visiting the page itself will and viewing old revisions or diffs may. Anomie⚔ 11:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I have corrected the errors I introduced last week to Help:Watchlist ("Number of page watchers:  3,644; Number of page watchers who visited recent edits: 29; Number of editors who noticed my error:  0").

The "visited recent edits" should probably be changed to "visited the page recently". I think most editors will interpret this as "checked a diff" (i.e., the edit) instead of "clicked on the article" (e.g., displayed the page via Special:Random). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Does hovering over the diff with WP:POPUPS count as "visiting" the edit? I rarely click on anything unless the popups diff is unclear, or I want to investigate the history. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 16:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't reset the "first unseen timestamp" (a fact that I've found particularly convenient). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I would interpret "visited the page recently" to mean "visited the current version of the page recently". I think the natural assumption is that "page" without a qualifier refers to the current version. isaacl (talk) 16:59, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Would you feel the same about "visited the page during the last 30 days"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

"Template parameters changed" appearing on every template on page when "review your changes" clicked

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T362359

Hi there, I started having this issue today that's making it nearly impossible to edit.

When I click "review your changes" after editing a page, "template parameters changed" appears for EVERY template on the page, even if I have not changed any of them. Here is a screenshot I took (uploaded to Imgur). I tried disabling all my user scripts, and I am still having the issue.

I am using Firefox version 124.0.2, on desktop, and my browser is up to date.

I would really really appreciate any help with this. Thank you so much for any help. HeyElliott (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, it's not an issue with any of my extensions, as I'm still having the issue without extensions. HeyElliott (talk) 19:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that today is thursday? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Same thing happens to me. At first I thought I messed up somehow. (I'm using Chrome, so it's not the browser). Nikolaj1905 (talk) 11:07, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey all, I've left the results of the investigation in the phab task, but this is a one-off disruption because of changes in contents of data-mw attributes of template content wrappers in Parsoid HTML. When cached HTML (generated by older production code) is compared with new HTML (generated by new production code that went out this week), you will see these noisy diffs reported by the visual diff code which compares HTML (not wikitext). But, you shouldn't run into this in subsequent edits. Sorry about the disruption. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 13:43, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@SSastry (WMF): Thanks for the explanation. I thought page diffs are based on Wikitext. Can you explain why in this case it is comparing the output HTML instead of the Wikitext? RudolfRed (talk) 19:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

There are two kinds of diffs. One is the wikitext diffs - the kind that is most commonly used. Visual diffs need to compare the rendered output and hence it compares HTML. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 09:26, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your quick fix on this and the reply, I really really appreciate the work y'all do on this site! I've still been having this issue a few times today but I assume that's just because of the cached stuff, and it'll fix itself? (Sorry, I don't know much about caches and HTML and such.)

Thank you again, and I hope you have a great day! HeyElliott (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to reply again, but I'm still getting the error often. Do I need to clear my cache or something? Again, sorry, I'm not super knowledgeable on this stuff. Thank you! HeyElliott (talk) 03:20, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

You don't need to do anything on your end. If the page is edited across the deployment date, that first edit will have this problem in visual diffs. You could forcibly clear the cache of the page via the purge query parameter if you wish and then look at the visual diff again - that should fix the problem in most cases. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 09:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Changing "input element" to "anchor element" and then making anchor elements unselectable

Hi, after the title of articles, and after final rendering, an expression appears as "translate links from en to fa". Bug scenario is that when we want to select the title, if we suddenly extend the selected region, for example for Wikipedia article, the texts of "Toggle the table of contents" and "en" and "fa" would be in our clipboard. So after pasting the clipboard, the total clipboard text would be:

Toggle the table of contents
Wikipedia
en
fa

To solve this problem, we should apply these styles:

.vector-page-titlebar-toc .translator-equ-wrapper {
  -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
  -ms-user-select: none; /* IE 10 and IE 11 */
  user-select: none; /* Standard syntax */
}

But the element type for "en" and "fa" is "input" and we can not make "input elements" unselectable, so please convert "input element" to "anchor element" for "en" and "fa" and then apply the above styles. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess this is related to a userscript, not part of the standard user interface. Without that script installed I don't see quite what you're talking about. I suggest asking at fa:MediaWiki talk:Tofawiki.js or consulting Ebrahim. --Jeremyb (talk) 02:46, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hooman Mallahzadeh: This was proposed here User talk:Ebrahim/ArticleTranslator.js#user-select but was making breakage in some other browser so I applied another solution which supposed to not have the issue which apparently isn't imperfect in your case though I couldn't reproduce your issue. Guess the best way forward is to add your username to a blacklist for the tool so you can develop your own version and after that if your version covers all the use cases on all the different browsers we can merge the versions. Does that sound good? Just please keep your changes to minimum possible for the ease merging back the versions. Thanks −ebrahim^talk 06:27, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I can reproduce this, it only happens on double clicks (and not in triple clicks?), and only happens in Chrome and not in Safari and Firefox. Changing those input elements to editable anchor elements isn't that easy, in fact it initially was like that before this edit and some users weren't able to edit them when needed and having that with user-select: none makes users not able to select the text inside to modify the actual language code. −ebrahim^talk 06:56, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hooman Mallahzadeh: Should be fixed now by this. Thanks! −ebrahim^talk 07:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ebrahim No the problem is not resolved! To correct that, at this page and at the lines 340 and 341, you should convert input element to anchor element like this:

.replace('$3','<a class="translator-from" href="#">en</a>')
.replace('$4', '<a class="translator-to" href="#">fa</a>')

@Jeremyb-phone The problem for the "Toggle the table of contents" persists for all users, this code makes that unselectable.

.vector-page-titlebar-toc {
  -webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
  -ms-user-select: none; /* IE 10 and IE 11 */
  user-select: none; /* Standard syntax */
}

Would you please do something to apply this style? Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 08:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the user script (not toggle part), unfortunately that solution will disturb the tool on other browsers and things like this can happen on double/triple clicks on Safari (at least it once it used to be). I'm testing with all three browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Safari) but suggestions that have given to me were fixing one browser issue making the other major browsers worse so maybe I can add you to the blocklist of the tool so you copy the script and use your version, then if your solution could work on other browsers on my testing I can apply it to the main script also. −ebrahim^talk 09:23, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ebrahim Such problems (inconsistencies between browsers) arise from bad design of codes. Maybe you should refactor this Javascript code. Implementing codes layer by layer such that one layer be completely independent of other layers would probably solve this bug and other similar bugs. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 09:49, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hooman Mallahzadeh: Some of the mentioned inconsistencies are documented browser bugs like this one https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40249785 −ebrahim^talk 17:26, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Can't edit

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T356157

Hello guys, it's been a few hours and I can't edit any page on Wikipedia not even my userspace. Prior to this, for about 30 mins I had an issue checking the page history revisions of a particular page. While checking the page history, it seemed to glitch with an error saying "Unable to stash Parsoid HTML." I couldn't compare the revisions of other editors. Normally I'd ignore such issues thinking something related to "Wiki Sever" is going on, but now it's getting me worried. Rejoy²⁰⁰³(talk) 14:11, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Also see help desk post. 97.113.173.101 (talk) 14:21, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually, now it's broken for me on iPhone. GoutComplex (talk) 14:36, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I see page history perfectly, but it's just editing that won't work for me on PC. It works fine on phones. GoutComplex (talk) 14:33, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Well I'm on phone, I can't edit nor check history properly apparently due to "glitching." Rejoy²⁰⁰³(talk) 14:36, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

that's odd, you did just edit this page though? see https://wikitech-static.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reporting_a_connectivity_issue and also mw:how to report a bug. --Jeremyb (talk) 14:35, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm also getting ""Unable to stash Parsoid HTML" on Chrome on Windows 11. Same thing on Firefox on Windows 11. Looks like Microsoft Edge on Windows 11 works properly.

On Android 14, I get a different error, "Error, can't load the editor". ReferenceMan (talk) 14:37, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

After 1 successful edit, Microsoft Edge now gives the same error, "Unable to stash Parsoid HTML."

ReferenceMan (talk) 14:44, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Same issue, Firefox on Windows 10. Mrchikkin (talk) 14:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay I can edit now, but still there's still minor glitch or bug (along with the Parsoid HTML pop-up) while checking some history of some pages. I tried to login into my account through Opera browser, the good thing is I can edit back. Probably something's up with Google chrome or Firefox. Rejoy²⁰⁰³(talk) 14:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Same here, the visual editing is not opeing on my phone, and opening sometimes on Desktop. Grabup (talk) 15:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't edit again, looks like an on and off relationship with my browser. Rejoy²⁰⁰³(talk) 15:20, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm also getting the same error message saying, "Unable to stash Parsoid HTML". But what's weird is I tried using the Legacy renderer instead of the Parsoid; But it still says: "Unable to stash Parsoid HTML". I don't understand how come a problem with the new Parsoid renderer, could be effecting the Legacy renderer also. 𝓥𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓷24𝓑𝓲𝓸 (ᴛᴀʟᴋ) 15:20, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the problem was, it seems like its fixed now. Both visual and wikitext editors are now working in both renderers. 𝓥𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓷24𝓑𝓲𝓸 (ᴛᴀʟᴋ) 15:24, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Still not working on mobile. Grabup (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Same here not working for me too (Android 13 user). Rejoy²⁰⁰³(talk) 15:35, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems fixed for me too. GoutComplex (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem disappeared when I asked a question about this error at the Teahouse. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 15:26, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

For context, I'm editing on Google Chrome with Windows 11 installed. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 15:30, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

• Possible related to phab:T356157 - added info there. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:27, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

...I can edit my user page, apparently. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 15:37, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, I can't do it anymore. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 15:38, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

British Library web archives

The British Library instance of Wayback Machine has been down for a while, weeks or months. Could anyone located in Britain verify if this link is working? Maybe there is a regional policy block: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100602000217/www.westsussex.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/your-council/election The links exist in 736 pages. -- GreenC 16:05, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

It's down for me in London. Looking at their twitter account (https://twitter.com/UKWebArchive) they were subject to a number of cyber attacks at the end of last year. This British Library announcement and this BL blog suggests it might take months to fix some services. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:49, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Jts1882, thank you very helpful. -- GreenC 02:06, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think (though I'm not totally sure) that if you have an account/membership you can still access the pages. — Qwerfjkltalk 07:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024

Resolved

 – Technical issue resolved. Please makes arguments for or against this image at Talk:Solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 § What happened to that NASA photo? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:06, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I believe that File:2024 Total Solar Eclipse (NHQ202404080102).jpg taken by NASA photographer is superior to the image now in the infobox of the article. In particular, it shows the Solar prominences much more clearly. However, I cannot figure out how to replace the image in this particular infobox. By the way, the photo was taken in Dallas, not in Indianapolis where the current image was taken. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks. Cullen328 (talk) 00:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Man, that's a tricky infobox. Looks like you need to change it at Module:Solar eclipse/db/200. I think. Zaathras (talk) 00:23, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Already switched it out at Special:Diff/1218973782. I have no idea why it has to be so complicated. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:25, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Zaathras and Suffusion of Yellow, thank you very much. I have been editing for 15 years and have never edited a module, and would have no idea how to do so. Cullen328 (talk) 00:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea why it has to be so complicated. LOL. Complexity is the enemy that looks like a friend. -- GreenC 18:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328 I'm oppose this change because the image you're proposing has noticeable noise around the corona. In addition, there is already an image of the solar eclipse in Dallas, Texas in the gallery.  √2 ^(talk) 06:03, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

sounds like the technical question is resolved and now it's an editorial issue. take it to the article's talk page? Jeremyb (talk) 06:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

However, Indiana was the most viewed state for the eclipse and now this Wikipedia page is making it look like it wasn't.

Although the photo from Dallas shows the finer details, the photo from Indianapolis shows us a greater aesthetic and the fact that Indianapolis was the hotspot for viewing the eclipse based on weather throughout the day and a bloom in tourism.

And it was the first total solar eclipse for Indianapolis since September 14, 1205.

And if it weren't for the weather forecast ahead of the event, Texas would've had more visitors than it did as many went to Indiana for the best spots. Eric Nelson27 (talk) 23:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Tables next to each other

Is there a way to put two tables next to each other instead of having one underneath the other? Flaming Hot Mess of Confusion (talk) 00:59, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

There are many ways to do so. See Template:Col-begin#Column-generating template families for some options. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:37, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

One way is to use CSS, float: left.

Multiplication

×	1	2	3
1	1	2	3
2	2	4	6

Addition

+	1	2	3
1	2	3	4
2	3	4	5
3	4	5	6

Uwappa (talk) 12:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

But remember that tables next to eachother on mobile are problematic most of the time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I discovered recently that floating tables is disabled in mobile using !important in the CSS. So those two tables are arranged vertically in mobile view, despite being so narrow. I discovered this when trying to make a template more responsive. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:50, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, weird. Yes, tables arranged vertically even if plenty of horizontal space available.

A less elegant alternative: nested tables. Uwappa (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

See Help:Table/Advanced#Side by side tables for a solution which only wraps when needed, both in desktop and mobile. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:04, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

pagelinks normalization

Hi, you might be aware that pagelinks table is being normalized (phab:T299947). I want to give enough time before dropping the columns. So here is the notice that the data has been fully populated in all Wikis except Turkish Wikipedia and Chinese Wikipedia (and these two wikis will finish in roughly a week). This means if you have tools or database reports in English Wikipedia that relies on pl_namespace or pl_title, you need to switch them to use pl_target_id ASAP. The rough estimate is that the old columns will be gone in a couple of weeks.

I was asked to make an explicit note here (one and two). Let me know if you have any question in the ticket. Thank you and my apologies for inconvenience. You can read more why we need to do this in phab:T222224. Best ASarabadani (WMF) (talk) 12:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification. Like the earlier templatelinks change, this will break to many on- and off-wiki tools (some of which may be unmaintained), and it's difficult to assess the likely scope of the damage. Here is a list of affected {{database report}}s, but there are plenty of other ways to use the table such as Quarry. Pinging R'n'B, who will probably be one of many with work to do. Certes (talk) 12:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Pinging SD0001 as well. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

... and Cryptic (Articles with links to drafts), Pppery (Missing Wikipedians), Wbm1058 (Linked incorrect names) who maintain active database reports using pagelinks. Certes (talk) 20:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm aware. Hope to update scripts before the end of this week. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:58, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@ASarabadani (WMF): Would it be possible to add a view to the database which simulates the old pagelinks table by joining the new pagelinks table to linktarget? Then, updating our software would be as simple as replacing the word pagelinks by the name of the new view throughout. We would need to check that the performance hit of using the view is not significantly worse than what we will suffer anyway by adding the linktarget table explicitly. Certes (talk) 20:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Certes We sometimes do this to provide backward compatibility for short period of time but the main use of views is to hide private information (e.g. suppressed usernames, etc.) and adding layers of b/c increases complexity and has led to accidentally such information getting leaked and because of that we are avoiding to add b/c unless absolutely needed. I hope I have given enough time to people to update their tools. I"m sorry but this is something we have to do. ASarabadani (WMF) (talk) 10:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Allow 2FA for more users

I wanted to ask, why is two-factor authentication restricted to the oathauth-enable group (meta:Help:Two-factor_authentication#Enabling_two-factor_authentication), and would it make sense to make 2FA more available?

I got a notification recently that there were recently multiple failed attempts to access my account, so I looked into enabling some kind of MFA. Allowing this for most/all users seems sensible since it would help prevent account compromises, and mult-factor auth is pretty common these days.

Catleeball (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC) Catleeball (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@Catleeball: Notifications of the kind you mention merely mean that somebody went to Special:UserLogin, entered your username, then had at least one try at guessing your password, and failed. This sort of thing happens to most of us from time to time, and is rarely worth worrying about - unless you habitually log in somewhere public, where somebody might be watching over your shoulder to see what you type. The way that I deal with it is to (i) always log out when finished editing, this kills all login cookies (regardless of which device they are stored on); (ii) change password from time to time, always doing so when in a private location; (iii) always use a strong password; (iv) don't use the same password on any other website (but note that because of WP:SUL, your password at French Wikipedia, Commons, Meta, Wiktionary etc. will always be the same as your English Wikipedia password). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

2FA is allowed for all users, just follow the instructions at meta:SRGP. It may seem like a pointless song-and-dance, but the idea is that saying "I have read the instructions" to a human has a greater effect than clicking an "I have read the instructions" button on a form. You'll be more likely to take the importance of backups seriously, and less likely to waste people's time after you lock yourself out of your account. I don't if that actually works in practice. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Did you mean to link the page for stewardship requests when you put meta:SRG there?

I saw that the oathauth testers group was allowed to sign up at Special:OATH, but I wasn't finding where in the documentation it said how to self-enroll for that group. Catleeball (talk) 23:28, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I fixed the link; that should be Meta:SRGP#Requests for 2 Factor Auth tester permissions. However, so long as you have a strong password that you do not use on any other site, you should be fine. You don't have any advanced permissions, so anyone attacking your account is going to move on to the next one after a few tries. The only exception is if there is a "catleeball" (or similar) account out there on some other site, with the same (or similar) password. If that site has been compromised, then it might only take a few tries to get in to your account. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Short answer: because if you screw up, you lose your account. WMF does not provide staff for an end-user helpdesk, and also doesn't collect other things that would maintain a reliable second-factor for recovery. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-16

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems

• Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "Reverted" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed. [1][2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar). [3][4]
• Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked). [5]
• A new variable page_last_edit_age will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made. [6]

Future changes

• Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
• Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the abuse_filter and abuse_filter_history tables. Some queries might need to be updated. [7]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 23:26, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Why does the talk page visual editor not have a "cite" button?

Am i missing something, or is it impossible to automatically cite urls from the talk page visual editor? Yes, you can use the source editor, but is there a specfic reason why this is? Is there any way to get a more featured editor on the talk page visual editor? MarkiPoli (talk) 12:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if it's intentional, but the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+K (Cmd+Shift+K on macOS) still works for this. the wub "?!" 13:17, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, i noticed that too. Its still annoying not having a full featured editor exactly the same as the main page editor MarkiPoli (talk) 09:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

There's some things that're not allowed there because they don't work well in list-indented discussions, but mostly it's because of space constraints for the toolbar. The compromise is that the things left out are more on the power-user end (e.g. citations are very rarely used in discussions), and we hope that power-users will be able to use keyboard shortcuts and sequence triggers for these things. (You can press ctrl/cmd + ? to see all the options here. Or type \ if you're in visual mode for a nifty command-palette...) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Or edit the full page in source mode with all the bells and whistles of course. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but they said they already knew about that. :D DLynch (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't add a paragraph break after a table

At Head injury#Intracranial_bleeding, after the "Hematoma type" table, the text starts on the same line, i.e. to the right of the table, even when I add two new lines or <br/> after the table to try to put the next paragraph on a separate line. How can this be changed? (In case this is relevant: I'm viewing the page with the "Vector legacy" skin in Firefox 124.0.) - LaetusStudiis (talk) 15:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

How is it now? I added a {{clear}} — xaosflux ^Talk 15:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The table was set to float left, possibly in a misguided attempt to align the text left. Gonnym has removed that now. Izno (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

AFD Stats not updating grid templates

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T362732

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352010

AFD Stats not updating on the individual grid templates — Maile (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66 It looks okay to me. Can you describe in more detail the problem that you are experiencing? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:33, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The top listings are from yesterday, the 15th. I have made two deletes today that are not showing up there. The change is usually instantaneous if I reload the grid page. — Maile (talk) 18:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66 Per toolforge:replag, there is currently about 2 hours of lag on the enwiki database replicas that all toolforge tools use, likely related to the database maintenance mentioned in #pagelinks normalization above. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:12, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll just wait out. — Maile (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

And now it's up to over 4 hour lag and my Quarry and bot reports are not updated. I hope this is not a maintenance tasks that takes several days. Work will just pile up. Thanks for pointing out the message from yesterday. I assume this will affect database and bot reports and not article content, right? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just re-checking, and it's now been 4-plus hours for me on the above AFD Stats. — Maile (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Liz and Maile66: do you think we start a bug report? Found this thread through my watchlist and looks like it is a bug that should be reported. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Do you know how to do that? This might affect even more processes than we've mentioned above. — Maile (talk) 22:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Maile66: This page is a good start. You should follow the instructions there to create a Phabricator account, then you can create a bug report. If you need me to, I can, and I can give you the link. If you or Liz does, please put the link in this thread, I'd like to keep track of it. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@TheTechie: that would be great if you would start it. — Maile (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I will when I can, and will drop the link below. I'll be sure to ping you. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 22:52, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Done, see here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T362732 thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 23:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, TheTechie, for starting this but the bug report just mentions AFD stats, not Quarry queries or any of the bot reports. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I edited my original post. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 01:48, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

 Thanks I added my issue. Seems I already had a Phabricator account. It's been such a long time since I was over there, I had forgetten. — Maile (talk) 23:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, my primary participation is subscribing and following problems not filing reports. The discussion there goes over my head once it stops being English and starts into code. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks like it's fixed. Now finally, I can view my mainspace edit count without 1 day of lag. Stay safe, thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 00:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Infobox television

Infoboxes keep shrinking on mobile view. Can someone please fix. Key limes (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Key limes Please provide an example article where you are having this issue. Izno (talk) 23:48, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Local 58, Backrooms (web series) etc. I believe someone changed the parameters. Key limes (talk) 23:53, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I don't see any "shrinking" in mobile view for the Backrooms article. What do you mean by that statement? Izno (talk) 00:00, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

When logged in, it’s normal. When logged out it is smaller,skinnier. Lines separating director, genre etc are gone. Words are squished together. Key limes (talk) 00:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Jon (WMF), I can reproduce this in a private window. hacks.less seems not to be loading for mobile right now? The styles show up when I plug ?debug=1 into the URL but not without. Izno (talk) 01:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Filed phab:T362747. hgzh 06:31, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I need a bit more information for this one. Can someone upload a screenshot or a video of the issue? And just to double confirm we are talking about the mobile domain in an incognito window, right? e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backrooms_(web_series)

Since Izno could fix this with debug=1 I'm currently inclined to think this is some kind of caching problem that can be fixed by ?action=purge but I want to make sure there isn't a bigger issue here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backrooms_(web_series) looks like it's working as expected right now. Can somebody also please confirm that's true? Jon (WMF) (talk) 14:11, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that page looks correct now. I'm kind of wondering how this could have been caused by caching I guess, since the rules were added/removed at the same time, targeting the same ultimate element. Izno (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Print options gadgets

It's been a few years now that this hasn't worked User:TheDJ/Print options..... Should we not remove this from our Gadgets€preferences under gadgets? It doesn't come up often but a few times a year I see people inquiring about this at the help desk. Just wondering if there's routine testing of our gadgets to ensure they're still functioning? Moxy🍁 03:29, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean hasn't worked ? Works fine for me. Where are the bug reports ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

When selecting something like hide images or high references... these function do not work. For example can't get an output like this. User talk:TheDJ/Print options mentions this but to no avail.Moxy🍁 21:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I just tested again with both Safari and Chrome and both options work for me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Database replication lag

Replication lag

The database on which this query was executed has a synchronization delay with the wiki. This can be caused by maintenance or incident on database, and should be resolved soon. The modifications that was made in last 20 hours on the wiki are not taken into account in results bellow.

Just bellowing here to make sure that someone in charge is aware of this, and working to resolve it. Every time I've checked in for the past several hours, the lag has grown longer; there is no sign as yet that it's started to get shorter again. I searched for a Phabricator, and couldn't find any. Would like to have some idea of the meaning of "soon" in this case. wbm1058 (talk) 14:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Wbm1058 See the #AFD Stats not updating grid templates discussion above or T352010. Per the phab ticket, it should resolve itself in the next 2-4 hours. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:41, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Aha, I didn't find this because T362732 "enwiki_p database replica has stopped updating" doesn't match the search string "replication lag".

I was pinged to the #pagelinks normalization discussion, but that discussion did not warn me that the process of "normalizing" pagelinks would temporarily abnormalize database replication. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

"normalize" in this context refers to database normalization. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

"Reviewed an image suggestion" user log entry

Does anyone know what "reviewed an image suggestion" means and its use? See this user's log for an example. S0091 (talk) 20:35, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be coming from the Android app. I can't find the option to try it out, even in the Alpha version, but at first glance this seems to be a privacy violation. We've never publicly logged pages that people were just viewing (or previewing an edit for) but decided not to edit. Is it being disclosed, up front and clearly, that the choice not to edit will be visible to the whole world? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@DBrant (WMF): How can I try out this feature? All I see under "suggested edits" is "Article descriptions", "Image captions", and "Image tags". And is my assumption correct, that we are logging when someone decides not to edit a page? If so, are they told that their username, along with the page they were viewing, is being publicly logged? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, for some reason it doesn't work for me on the enwiki or testwiki, but I found it on the desktop site at es:Special:Homepage. I was told that Your answers improve future suggestions. but for all I would know, that just means I'm training an AI or something. There was no indication that by clicking "Submit", this log entry would be created, and my name would be publicly recorded. This feature needs to be disabled. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

• This is a "growthexperiment" log type. Pings to @Trizek (WMF) and KStoller-WMF: who can hopefully point to the documentation. Notably, @Suffusion of Yellow: this doesn't say it is about "viewing" but about "reviewing" so I'm assuming there was an affirmative user action performed here other than reading. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:07, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  You're asked if an AI-selected image should be in an article. If you click "Yes", you're given an opportunity to add it. If you click "No", you're asked why, but not told that your "No" is going to be made public. This is equivalent to logging every time someone previews an edit, and then abandons it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think that is a bit of a stretch. Patrolling essentially is similar in nature and we don't warn from the interface that those actions are publicly logged either. I do see however that the barrier to entry is significantly lower here, so some additional caution might indeed be warranted. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping! The Android app is indeed using the same underlying API as the Growth team, but their implementation is a little different: Android/Image_Recommendations I'll follow up with that team and ask them to review this discussion. Thanks, - KStoller-WMF (talk) 16:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @S0091@Suffusion of Yellow@TheDJ and @Xaosflux,

@DBrant (WMF) is under the weather, I think I've coordinated with each of you before at some point, but I am Jaz the PM for the apps.

"Reviewed an image suggestion" means that someone determined that an Machine suggested image for an article is either adequate for an article, and the subsequently adds that image OR the image is not adequate (rejected). The reason it is important to track is so that we can remove bad recommendations from the stack that we share with the Growth experiments. Do we need to publicly log this information? Probably not, I am investigating why we are showing rejecting a suggestion publicly, if there isn't a super compelling reason, I will ensure we suppress the public log but still send the API call that is necessary for the feature.

As far as accessing the feature, you'll need to be:

• Logged In
• Set your app primary language as one where you have more than 50 unreverted edits

If you follow these steps and are still unable to see the feature, would you kindly file a task and screen record the steps you are taken, because that would be a bug. The feature is available in both the Beta version of the app and the production version.

The requirement of having over 50 unreverted edits for the language wiki you are using the feature in is the implementation difference that @KStoller-WMF. Under the hood and the flow of the feature is the same, however who has access to it is different. The Growth implementation is available to new editors on select wikis and we use the same API. New editors do not have access to this suggested edit task on the app.

The onboarding and guidance for the feature on Desktop is not the same as on Android. For example, on this screen we do let users know that their answers improve future suggestions.

Once DBrant is back in office (fingers crossed he's feeling better tomorrow) our team will update this thread about removing the rejection log. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 19:05, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't like putting using my main password on my phone, so I had used an alternate account with only a few edits. Honestly I spoke too quickly when I said "this feature needs to be disabled". So long as the messaging is changed to be more like MediaWiki:Thanks-confirmation2 ("Publicly send thanks?") I don't think the log needs to be removed. The problem with "Your answers improve future suggestions" is that it sounds like I'm training an AI ("select all squares containing Sarah Connor"), or taking an anonymous survey. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Suffusion of Yellow this is helpful, digging into the code we were able to determine the rejection log is coming from the Growth Experiments API, which means the rejection log publishes for the Growth Experiment implementation as well. We are going to coordinate with them on next steps to see what makes sense regarding the public log. @ARamadan-WMF will follow up with the link to any phab tickets should they be created to make the rejection log private.

In the meantime, I've created task T362935 to update the copy in the UI for the app should the decision be to keep it public. I've subscribed you to it @Suffusion of Yellow, I welcome all of you to subscribe and comment on the proposed language change. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Suffusion of Yellow and the WMF team for digging into this! S0091 (talk) 15:52, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Meryl Davis & Charlie White (figure skater)

Both of these articles feature a template ({{Excerpt|) that is meant to display the material entered on a third article (Meryl Davis and Charlie White). The section marked Competitive highlights displays properly, while the section marked Detailed results does not. The templates appear to be identical. Please advise, and thank you! Bgsu98 (Talk) 20:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bgsu98: {{Excerpt}} does not include subsections, so maybe that's what is omitted in that case? RudolfRed (talk) 01:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Promised Land (Queensrÿche album)

Load the mobile version of this album on a cell phone. The section title "Song overview" displays vertically along the left side of the page, over top of the professional ratings. This does not duplicate on a desktop machine whether you load the mobile version or not. Home Lander (talk) 23:02, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module:Music_ratings&diff=prev&oldid=1219528952 but this module should use template styles if anyone has the time to implement it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:52, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Getting table captions to render with conditional statements

Per MOS:DTAB (and general accessibility best practices), all data tables must have a table caption. {{Linescore}} is a template that generates a data table and it ostensibly has a parameter Header that should generate one, but in reality, it does not. See Lee Richmond's perfect game where the HTML is:

line 82:<caption><span class="nowrap"> </span>

line 83:</caption>

rather than actually generating the caption "Line score for Lee Richmond's perfect game". I briefly made a fix for this that just removed some if/then statements and I previewed it on many pages (2001 World Series, Disco Demolition Night, 2009 Claxton Shield, box score (baseball)) and no problems appeared, but since there are 1,400+ transclusions, I wanted to be conservative so I reverted myself and came here to see if anyone thought there was a better solution or saw any problems with my approach. If anyone can debug this as-is, that would be great, but I can't and it seems like my solution actually works. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Koavf: Template:Linescore#Optional parameters doesn't say Header is supposed to be displayed. It's a flag to hide other parameters which can be used to generate a heading. You could use Other for your wanted heading. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

Brilliant. It works. Yeesh. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:46, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

New posts not showing up as separate posts on a user talk

Myself and one other editor have posted on Jweaver28's user talk and I just realized our posts are showing up all mashed-together. Any subsequent posts will also show up all mashed together under the wrong header. Someone with more bandwidth than myself please take a look at User talk:Jweaver28 and the oddness going on at Unblock request for library wifi address. I've tried and tried to figure out how to fix it and have given up. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Something got messed up with the unblock request template on that page, and it had an unclosed <nowiki> tag. I fixed the markup: [8] Matma Rex talk 18:46, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! Those darn unclosed tags...At first I thought it might be some stray }} but that obvi wasn't the issue. Thanks again, Shearonink (talk) 19:12, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes, a blocked user doesn't read the instructions properly and screws up the Wikimarkup when attempting to request unblock. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Image sizes on mobile version

Could someone have a look at the issue raised at Talk:2024 London mayoral election#Susan Hall’s photo is larger than the others, please? I asked at the help desk but it seems to need a technical fix. Cavrdg (talk) 19:04, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand these edit summaries

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T360164

that I've seen pop up recently, like the following:

#talk-full-source-editor and #talk-topic on Talk:Robert E. Lee.

They don't quite make sense to me and don't seem to be telling me anything useful about the edit. Anyone care to explain? Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 19:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be more of phab:T361495. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:57, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh interesting. So it's the Android and iOS apps appending these strings to the edit summaries? –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

User page doesn't contain a language

Resolved

Hello, I have 2 user pages, one in Arabic and another one in English, but the problem is that when I click on the languages tab on any of them it says "No languages yet"

May I know why? AmeenTN (talk) 21:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@AmeenTN: You need to set up some interlanguage links. At en:User:AmeenTN, add this line at the bottom:

[[ar:User:AmeenTN]]

similarly, at ar:User:AmeenTN, add this line at the bottom:

[[en:User:AmeenTN]]

--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much!

That worked AmeenTN (talk) 22:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Could there be a stopgap solution for the Graph module until its replacement is developed?

It has been 1 year since Graphs were disabled due to security vulnerabilities in the extension. The update plan as of now is to completely replace the Graph extension, because the other solutions to upgrade it were found to not be feasible. This process has only just started to gather the members necessary and will not start in earnest until July, per the update posted. This extension will then obviously take time to develop. In the meantime, there's 18k articles, per Category:Pages with disabled graphs, with data that is completely inaccessible unless you view the page source. We could either put the data in a table so at least the data is there, in an expando if there are many rows. We could even have a link to an external graphing service that graphs it visually on a separate page (Quickchart.io being an example that works simply, simply putting the data in JSON format in the URL.). Thoughts? MarkiPoli (talk) 15:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Help with phabricator ticket -- Unable to login on iPhone with Passkey Enabled

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T358771

6 weeks ago I did a deep dive for 1-2 days helping to debug, reproduce, identify the root case and help formulate a fix for the following issue. [9] This issue affects any user using webauthn aka 2FA security tokens across wikimedia. @Reedy (WMF) was very responsive and back-ported a fix from another repository. The fix was committed March 5.

Could I ask your help getting more detail on what the next steps are to integrate and deploy the fix? Tonymetz 💬 20:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

cc: @Novem Linguae Tonymetz 💬 20:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing anyone on the English Wikipedia can do about problem with webauthn directly. See Help:Two-factor_authentication#WebAuthn. I suggest no one use this method with any account they care about. There is now a ticket open, so some developers may eventually work on phab:T358771. If you want to personally work on this see: mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

my issue is more about getting help from WMF to deploy the fix that is ready to go. maybe this is better for village pump WMF Tonymetz 💬 21:08, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Patches are primarily deployed by volunteer developers not "the WMF". There are currently over 70 tasks open for OATHAUTH alone, most of which are significantly older. This isn't anything specific to the English Wikipedia, so none of our noticeboards are the right venue. You could email the mailing list that has a team of volunteers that look over technical matters relating to MediaWiki software and interface - this team can be reached at mediawiki-llists.wikimedia.org. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed this is the wrong venue, but the fact that patches are as usual not getting reviewed in a timely fashion is ridiculous. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Patches are primarily deployed by volunteer developers not "the WMF". It might be more accurate to say that patches are auto-deployed by the weekly train for most repos. And a combination of volunteers and wmf do both the patch writing and the patch approvals. What's needed here is a patch approval (+2). Which can be a lot of brain power, because it involves wrapping your head around the ticket and the code, reviewing the patch code, and loading up the patch code in a localhost environment and testing it. But sadly, many repos are backlogged or do not have active maintainers or do not have any wmf team currently assigned to them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there more information on how to apply to be a maintainer? I had assumed we were blocked by WMF. I’m happy to help contribute as a maintainer if it would help. Tonymetz 💬 23:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)