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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URL shortener tool

Hello,

I am facing a problem in the English Wikipedia tool to shorten the URL by showing the message:

Blocked users can't make short URLs.

Even though I am not blocked on any wiki, ^Check!, could you please help solve this issue?

Best, SanBonne (talk) 11:30, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Maybe your IP is blocked at some level and that is causing a problem ? If you open an incognito browser window and you start an edit, do you see a block message for editing ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:21, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

No at all, nothing from that. Using Chrome without additional add-ons affects the IP, mentioning that I could use the shortener in other wikis, meta, and wiki: fr, es, ar, etc... SanBonne (talk) 20:49, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm confused - changing your extensions changes your public IP? Seems like you are using a VPN/Proxy? All the shortened URL's are actually done on meta, does meta:Special:UrlShortener work for you? Are you still having this issue here? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:48, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

The problem is fixed now, but when I opened the topic, the problem was only on English wikipedia, where the tool works on other wiki projects: meta wiki; fr wikipedia,...etc SanBonne (talk) 09:34, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The audio progress is unseen in dark mode

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T432793

Hi. I realized that in the dark mode the audio progress line is invisible, while in the light mode it's completely okay.

See this and this screenshot for comparison. Aminabzz (talk) 08:54, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm on a funky hotel wifi that doesn't seem to like your screenshot upload host, so I can't load them. :( Can you file a task on Phabricator and attach them there? Use project tag "TimedMediaHandler".

Then I'll try to take a look over it this week during Wikimania. Dark mode bugs usually are easy CSS fixes that just need something accommodated with an alternate style, so hopefully we can knock out a fix pretty fast. brooke (talk) 09:27, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Allright, I'll do that. BTW, I edited my post. I meant audio, not video. Aminabzz (talk) 22:18, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

@Brooke Vibber Update: I created the Phabricator task. Aminabzz (talk) 22:36, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

What Brooke asked is to upload the screenshots to Phabricator, not link from there. Nardog (talk) 00:29, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, however I still can't reach the links -- can you attach the actual images to the task instead of linking them on an external host? Thanks! brooke (talk) 06:30, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

We never got the screenshots but the task was merged as a dupe to another task which did have screenshots and a reproducible example, so we're all good. :)

I tracked the problem down to Vector 2022-specific dark mode style overrides used on Wikimedia sites, and cobbled together a patch which seems to resolve it and several other bits in the player that were broken in dark mode on Vector 2022 with the Wikimedia style overrides.

Once through code review this should get merged in and roll out within a week or two.

Thanks for the big report! brooke (talk) 11:03, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The url domain name has .ir as its tld, which might be why your wifi isn't a huge fan, it wouldn't surprise me if their internet service provider has just blocked the whole tld. Or the sight could just be down. It doesn't seem particularly eager to load, either. Mitchsavl (talk) 11:12, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Why have section edit previews changed?

Why have section edit previews changed recently? Reference sections used to be headed with a line saying "Preview of references" but this is no longer there. Sections with a note ({{efn}}) where the {{notelist}} template is not included in the actual section now report a "Cite error" when there is no error, the issue is just that the edit covers one section only, and similarly there is a "Cite error" reported when a section uses a named reference but the name is defined elsewhere in the article. The error message now says "The named reference X was invoked but never defined" whereas it used to say something like "not defined at all or not in this section". BobKilcoyne (talk) 05:39, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I am also seeing something very squirrely, at User talk:Sage (Wiki Ed) with sectioning. Some sections appear to be uneditable by section edit, or edit the wrong section when you click the section edit link. Going to the last section and clicking the edit section link, edits the previous section. Going to the TOC to find a middle section, like say, "Salesforce" (User_talk:Sage_(Wiki_Ed)#"Salesforce") and then clicking edit source, gives:

Cannot find section

You tried to edit a section that does not exist. Because there is no section 15, there is no place to save your edit. Sections may have been removed or the page moved after you loaded the page. Try to reload the page, purge the page, or bypass your browser cache.

Note that section "Salesforce" is numbered 19 in the ToC, not 15. Adding User:Sage (Wiki Ed). This applies to rev. 1365356767 of the page, and the behavior is identical on different browsers and devices. On the mobile app, the error is 'Error, can't load the editor.' My Talk page does not exhibit this problem. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 06:19, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Section 4 User talk:Sage (Wiki Ed)#Alteration of the student editor template had syntax for an unclosed template call. Closing it [1] fixed all issues. The page is now rendered with Parsoid which may be why it was handled poorly. Editing section 4 included all the remaining sections in the edit window. All sections after 4 had 4 subtracted in the section edit link so attempts to edit section 5 to 8 edited section 1 to 4 instead. Attempts to edit section 9 and above gave an error message about no such section. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I have copied the bad version to User talk:PrimeHunter/User talk:Sage (Wiki Ed) for testing. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:07, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

A much later section User talk:PrimeHunter/User talk:Sage (Wiki Ed)#Wikidata module has the wikitext the }} at the end. This matches the unclosed {{banner holder in User talk:PrimeHunter/User talk:Sage (Wiki Ed)#Alteration of the student editor template. With useparsoid=0 it behaves differently: Sections inside the matching {{ ... }} have no section edit links, and sections afterwards have a link which edits the right section. This seems like a proper response to bad code. Parsoid has an improper response. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:24, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Here is a simplified version saying what happens: User talk:PrimeHunter/Parsoid section edit error. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:20, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

This may be bug T52369, which has been known to be a problem with Parsoid for almost 12 months. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:50, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I am / we are also curious to hear your thoughts on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T52369#12150848. If you are able to, please leave your comments there directly (if not, I'll later add a summary there of any discussion that happens here). SSastry (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

The named reference missing in section issue is a known bug associated with the transition to Parsoid. phab:T431137 Izno (talk) 07:24, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

It is indeed working properly, now. Thanks, all! (Just to be clear, not all sections above 9 gave an error; in particular, the edit link on the last three sections all edited the previous section. This former behavior is still visible on your test page.) Mathglot (talk) 08:09, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Is this normal? Russian character и displays differently in italics

Compare

• и
• и → this looks like a italicised latin u
• и

I'm using the default Firefox sans-serif font (Arial). I wonder if this is the same across other fonts, especially default ones, or if this is normal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:20, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Can confirm this seems to be the case across other fonts too. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:22, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I (Cyrillic)#Form says that's correct. —Cryptic 16:29, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it's normal. In italics, most fonts use cursive letterforms. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 16:29, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

A lot of Cyrillic italics look nothing like their standard lower case version.

Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it THURSDAY or is it Firefox

Background: Vector legacy/2010, Firefox Beta (freshly updated to 154.0b1), source editor

Issue: I signed on, edited a page, and thought it weird when I tabbed out of the edit box to add an edit summary, it instead shifted to the "Insert / Wiki markup / Symbols / etc" dropdown just below the edit box. I don't remember this happening this morning when I made a few edits but I also don't remember tabbing to add an edit summary. I definitely know it wasn't happening yesterday.

Is this a THURSDAY thing or is my freshly-updated FF beta not playing nice? Thanks for the thoughts. Primefac (talk) 21:47, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

This might be autosuggest for the source editor which was rolled out earlier this week? Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 22:26, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, I just on a hunch turned off the Syntax highlighter and things return to "normal" tab use, so it could be (though I'm not seeing any indication of an autosuggest in my editor). Primefac (talk) 22:38, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I cannot reproduce it using Firefox 150.0.1, so it is likely to be Firefox.析石父 (talk) 00:55, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm on 155.0a1 and can't reproduce it. Jerod Lycett (talk) 00:12, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Thumb won't preview, but enjoy. If it doesn't happen in Alpha then I guess they've fixed it... Primefac (talk) 00:53, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm on alpha and can reproduce, but I'm a couple weeks out of date... I'll update and report back. LittlePuppers (talk) 04:26, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I updated and it's still here. I don't tab to there though, so I have no idea when/why it changed. LittlePuppers (talk) 04:32, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I do think it's likely a Firefox thing, my laptop only updated yesterday and right after I noticed the change in behaviour. I filed at bugzilla so we'll see how things get on. Primefac (talk) 09:43, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, just tried in Edge and it doesn't happen there. Do you have a link to Bugzilla, for the curious? LittlePuppers (talk) 14:59, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2057769 Primefac (talk) 15:36, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Downscaling File:Erika Kirk & Charlie Kirk, June 2025.jpg

A user commented that File:Erika Kirk & Charlie Kirk, June 2025.jpg is 17 MB and needs to be downscaled. Is there a protocol to follow for this? guninvalid (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

No they linked to a zoom in of just Mrs Kirk, and called it obscene. Slatersteven (talk) 09:44, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

@Guninvalid: This is outside our remit. The image is hosted on Commons, where the image policies are significantly different. See in particular c:Commons:Maximum file size. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:04, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Italic links

Is there a One True Correct way to italicize a link? In the visual editor, if I select a bit of linked text and do Command-I, it adds makes the piped text italic, as in this diff. I'm sure somebody will come along and turn Soho Weekly News into Soho Weekly News or maybe even SoHo Weekly News. Are any of these actually better than the others, for any reasonable value of "better"? Is VE doing it wrong? Are the gnomes who come along and "fix" it just being obsessive? RoySmith (talk) 23:03, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

From an HTML semantic perspective, it doesn't matter. The italics affect presentation only, and it doesn't matter if they're nested within the hyperlink or the other way around. From the perspective of someone using the wikitext editor, ''[[SoHo Weekly News]]'' is more compact and avoids redundancy. But changing it is a cosmetic change, so generally isn't desirable to do on its own. isaacl (talk) 01:30, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I believe visual editor only put the italics in the pipe because the link was already piped since you did "Soho" instead of "SoHo". If you had done SoHo Weekly News and linked to SoHo Weekly News or done Soho Weekly News and linked to the redirect Soho Weekly News, per MOS:NOPIPE (I think?), then the italics would've been outside of the brackets. 1brianm7 (talk) 01:46, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

By the way, the real name was Soho Weekly News with lowercase h but many others (indluding our own SoHo Weekly News) write it SoHo because it was named after SoHo, Manhattan, and the newspaper usually stylized it SOHO or SOHO without directly revealing the correct mixed case Soho although SOHO hints at it. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:00, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

"not a valid map data page"

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T433008

Robben Island Marine Protected Area and 926 other articles, at this writing, are displaying messages like mapframe: Title "Robben Island Marine Protected Area.map" is not a valid map data page. They seem to come from {{maplink}}. commons:Data:Robben Island Marine Protected Area.map exists, appears to be working fine, and if I had to guess, was probably working fine at Robben Island Marine Protected Area at some point in the past. I don't see any templates used in this page that have been changed in the last few days. {{Maplink}} was last modified in 2018, and Module:Mapframe was last modified on 1 June 2026.

At the bottom of the article, a series of red error messages is displayed instead of {{Marine protected areas of South Africa map}}, which looks fine on its Template page. The above problem is present in both Parsoid and the legacy parser. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:21, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I've noticed that a bunch of other articles with Template:Maplink don't have this problem until the page is purged, then the error message appears and the map disappears. Steelkamp (talk) 05:29, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

This probably means that a WP:THURSDAY MediaWiki code update causes the issue, and pages are showing the error message when they are purged or edited. The count of articles has increased from 926 to 941 just in the last 15 minutes, so it will probably go much higher. [Update: I found T433008.]– Jonesey95 (talk) 05:37, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

The number has gone up to 1,269 Quake1234 (talk) 14:51, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, and Category:Pages with broken maps has increased to 1,500 pages. I hope the developers work on Fridays. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:47, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

They don’t —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:18, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, it looks like a volunteer developer from de.WP has submitted a patch. We'll see if anyone is willing to test and apply it. Off topic: Then why TF would they deploy new software on Thursdays? When I worked in IT, we NEVER changed anything at the end of the week. I liked having my weekends free and knowing that my systems were working for my customers while I was out rock-climbing or whatever. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:14, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

To answer the question, the reason we get new software on Thursdays is to allow the WMF to do a staggered rollout: testwikis on Tuesday, non-Wikipedias on Wednesday, Wikipedias on Thursday. No I don't know why they don't move that one-day earlier but there's a trilemma between staggered rollouts, no end-of-week deployments, and a weekly release cadence all of which are good things which are mutually incompatible. * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 23:32, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

IIRC, the Tuesday start was to avoid running into Monday holidays and Monday deploys of fixes for bugs found over the weekend. As for the "no deploys on Fridays" rule, looking through some recent Fridays in wikitech:Server Admin Log I do see some Friday deploys, including some that are things I really wouldn't expect given the strict language on wikitech:Deployments/Emergencies (which does include "Major loss of functionality / appearance", BTW). Anomie⚔ 00:28, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Feels like one of those products people would naturally discuss on Reddit once more users discover it. ~2026-42024-47 (talk) 11:06, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Since when don't they? Anomie⚔ 23:02, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

While we are here, can we break out Category:Articles with broken maps??? Ahecht you helped me do this with Category:Articles with script errors perhaps you can assist here? Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:22, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: The bug has now been fixed so Category:Pages with broken maps is down to 143 pages and it has a link to search articles so I don't see a big need for a split. The search link currently gives too many articles because search hasn't updated fully after the fix but that's a temporary issue. Category:Pages with script errors and its namespace-specific subcategories have around 1,600 pages in total so a split is more helpful there. If we want to split Category:Pages with broken maps then MediaWiki:Kartographer-broken-category could propbably make similar code to MediaWiki:Scribunto-common-error-category. I say "probably" because some MediaWiki messages don't allow wikitext and it's hard to tell which ones without trying it. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:07, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

So who busted Template:Maplink?

The |from= parameter doesn't work for any given mapdata link, and everything else is intact. ⠀⠀ .n 03:30, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Related to phab:T433008, perhaps? Staraction (talk · contribs) 03:44, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

hm yeah definitely :sob: ⠀⠀ .n 03:48, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Map error on M-47 (Michigan highway)

For some reason, the map feature on M-47 (Michigan highway) is displaying the error mapframe: Title "M-47 (Michigan highway).map" is not a valid map data page. Anyone know how to fix this? Ping @Imzadi1979: Ten Pound Hammer (they/them) • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:23, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer Maplink is busted right now. ⠀⠀ .n 07:07, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Display better error message?

MediaWiki:Kartographer-error-title says: Title "$1" is not a valid map data page . That's a wrong error message at the moment and displayed in thousands of articles where many editors don't know what to do. They shouldn't do anything but just wait for the bug fix. Maybe we should customize the message until a fix is deployed. I suggest: "A bug prevents map display. A fix is underway." I have tested that the message allows wikilinks. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:24, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

this broadly makes sense to me but i would suggest not putting the ticket in. while it may provide some contrete reassurance it also might result in people coming to the ticket to urge the hurring up of a bugfix they're hard at work on.... Morwen (talk) 04:00, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Morwen. Please implement this in plain text ASAP. It looks like a fix may be on the way in the next MediaWiki update; it is not clear why they did not roll out a patch more quickly, given the scale of the impact and the potential for editors removing things from pages in error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:22, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I have saved it as plain text. See e.g. the effect in Robben Island Marine Protected Area where the infobox previously said mapframe: Title "Robben Island Marine Protected Area.map" is not a valid map data page. MediaWiki:Kartographer-error-title should be deleted after the bug fix is deployed but first check that the fix has propagated so the searches "not a valid map data page" or "bug prevents map display" don't give results caused by the bug. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:32, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

A bug fix has been deployed and appears to be working. The searches "not a valid map data page" and "bug prevents map display" still give some results but I haven't found any which actually display the eror message so it's just search which hasn't updated. Category:Pages with broken maps previously had 1000+ pages. Now there are only 143 and those I examined have other errors unrelated to the bug. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:48, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Battle of Cable Street map

Can some of you bright talented people take a look at the map on this article and get it to align right? Right now it's centered and in the Events section. The Events section is where it seems to belong, but I can't figure out how to get it to align right. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

How's that? Morwen (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

It's a beautiful thing. I'll update Talk:Battle of Cable Street#Map. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 16:17, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Re: 429 'too many requests' on Media viewer

We talked about this two months ago, and for a while it seemed fixed, but it's been back now for a few days, rendering the media viewer unusable for me. The annoying part is that the desired image shows up for a fraction of a second, and only then is replaced with a broken image symbol. -- Seelefant (talk) Seelefant (talk) 09:32, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

2nd request: Minor edits showing up on watchlist though I've ticked "Hide minor edits"

Hallo, I asked here about this last week but it was archived unanswered; I tried at the Help Desk and a mystified @Michael D. Turnbull recommended me to come here, so I'm trying again.

The problem: I have ticked "Hide minor edits from watchlist" in my preferences, but they aren't hidden. Two recent examples I see on my watchlist, both labelled neatly with "m", are this, someone improving a link, and this, one of the many I see where deprecated infobox parameters are being cleaned up (which is what inspired me to try to hide minor edits).

Any thoughts? I'm using a Windows desktop with Firefox, but I see the same minor edits on my watchlist on my Android phone, both in "desktop view" and in "mobile view". PamD 16:02, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

How are you accessing the watchlist? If it's through a bookmark or something, the option might be fixed in the URL. Nardog (talk) 16:44, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@Nardog Thanks for taking an interest! I usually click on the "watchlist" icon at top right of the page, so I don't think that can be the problem. Thanks. PamD 17:13, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Hmm. Do you have a saved filter set as default? Nardog (talk) 17:33, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@Nardog Not that I know of - where/how would I check? (I'm not very techy: periodically someone says "You ought to do such and such" with jss etc and I follow their guidance but it's all a bit of a blur.) PamD 23:01, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Click "Saved filters" at the top right of watchlist and see if there's an item with a pin. If so, click the pin and select "Remove as default" or "Delete". Nardog (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Nardog Thank you, problem solved! I found "Default January 2021" or some such named filter and deleted it, and the minor edits have now disappeared. I don't know whether there will be any other consequences from deleting the filter, as I've no idea why or how I set it in the first place @Michael D. Turnbull for information, with thanks.) PamD 08:06, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Over complicated template populating categories

Can somebody technically minded take a look at Template:Conflicts in year category header and adjust it to change all the categories from Category:Conflicts in YYYY to Category:YYYY conflicts please? The categories are being renamed but they all have this on them and it's not obvious how to simply change it over. Thanks in advance. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Timrollpickering, I've made the changes in Template:Conflicts in year category header/sandbox. — Qwerfjkltalk 18:41, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, it's working fine. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Timrollpickering, you may also want to move the template to {{YYYY conflicts category header}} or similar. — Qwerfjkltalk 08:47, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Moved to Template:Year conflicts category header which matches the category names. Timrollpickering (talk) 09:37, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

For the future, it's usually not worth the time to move a template that is Close Enough to the intended name. Izno (talk) 17:26, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Amanda Jones (inventor) - Harv warnings in Engineering articles section

I give up. Tried but can't figure out how to fix these 2 Harv warning/no links issues. 2 of the articles are fine, 2 are not. Same ref for each. whhhhhhy. Thanks in advance. - Shearonink (talk) 20:42, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

As of this time stamp, that article is not in any reference-related error categories. It looks like you fixed everything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:23, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks Jonesey95. - Shearonink (talk) 23:45, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Adding |ref=none to {{cite magazine}} solved "There is no link pointing to this citation." I suspect the reason only two of them had the error has something to do with the fact having multiple citations with the same author surname and year results in duplicate IDs (which is a lint error in and of itself). Nardog (talk) 22:45, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I know about ref=none but tried to find the specific Why of It & specifically How To Fix It & was unsuccessful. I was thinking there was some code or parameter or whatever that I was missing. The Why of the 2 refs seemingly not working and not knowing the reason...I guess it's nothing to be concerned about? Thanks for the fix. - Shearonink (talk) 23:45, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The error is generated by User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js. Since there were two items each with the ID "CITEREFJones1904" or "CITEREFJones1905", which is not supposed to happen, the selector #CITEREFJones1904 or #CITEREFJones1905 returned only the first item. That's the why. Nardog (talk) 00:29, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I tried adjusting the years to 1904a & 1904b but that didn't work. - Shearonink (talk) 04:14, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "work". That should make the error appear for both 1904 Jones citations, and since there indeed "is no link pointing to this citation", I would consider that "working". Nardog (talk) 04:30, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Why doesn't the archive button show up for me anymore...

I have "User:Elli/OneClickArchiver.js" installed & was going to do some manual archiving on a talk page but my "Archive" button - for talk pages - is not showing up for everything. All I am seeing now is "Subscribe" at Talk:Woodlawn (Alexandria, Virginia) & at Talk:Mount Vernon but I can see "Archive" at Talk:Wilmington massacre. - Shearonink (talk) 04:28, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Shearonink: Have you asked at User talk:Elli/OneClickArchiver? Elli was replying to threads there as recently as 22 July. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:28, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Shearonink: I don't use the script but it was updated 17 July and the documentation added "This script requires archiving be setup on a page to work".[2] This is consistent with your examples where only Talk:Wilmington massacre has set up archiving. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:38, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Sheesh...so in order for it to work now someone (like me) has to go set up the talk archive page. It used to do that automatically... oh well, thanks for letting me know. I hadn't asked at User talk:Elli/OneClickArchiver, I always ask about this kind of stuff here first. I'll ask Elli whhhhhy. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 16:34, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

For anyone in a similar boat, there are some ongoing discussions about this change at User talk:Elli/OneClickArchiver, including User talk:Elli/OneClickArchiver#Update broke the tool (plus User talk:Elli/OneClickArchiver#Discussion format breaks tool). - Shearonink (talk) 18:22, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Generally speaking, if there is a problem with a script that's in somebody's user space, and that user is active, it's best to ask that user first. They might not have VPT on their watchlist. Also, although several VPT regulars are JavaScript coders, very few of theme have WP:INTADMIN rights. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:12, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Bug: template causes bullet point to shift far left

I noticed a visual bug on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works#See also – the last bullet point (MOS:TMRULES) is shifted way to the left, outside the usual "box" within which text is placed. This seems to be caused by the preceding template Wikipedia:Manual of Style/titles hatnote include, when it is followed by the * in the next line. It can be fixed by simply adding an additional line between the template and the bullet point, but I guess it's better to report the bug here so someone can look into it and correct it properly.

The bug occurs on Firefox with MonoBook skin and Edge with Vector 2022. It does not occur on the mobile version of the site or in the mobile app.

— Phazd (talk|contribs) 14:37, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I believe that I have fixed this bug. It was a subtle thing that happens when a div tag is opened on a normal line and closed on a bulleted or indented line. This sometimes causes a Linter error; I don't know why that didn't happen in this case. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:45, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, it looks good to me now. Thank you! — Phazd (talk|contribs) 15:48, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Broken template

Hello. Please see the results of matches with a gray background here: 2026 FIBA U18 EuroBasket Division C. Today, eight hours ago, everything was working properly. But then someone messed something up, and I can't figure out what... Thanks, Maiō T. (talk) 15:57, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

That's to do with an edit request I handled recently. Someone beat me to the punch on reverting it, so I'm gonna start looking at trynna fix it now. Thanks for the notice. Aidan9382 _(talk) 16:11, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-31

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

Updates for editors

• Content Translation now supports dark mode, fulfilling a Community Wishlist request. This brings the tool in line with the accessibility features available in the Vector 2022 and Minerva skins, helping reduce visual fatigue for users translating content. [3]
• DiscussionTools' source mode and the 2017 wikitext editor will now offer autocomplete for links ([[), templates ({{), HTML and parser tags (<), and magic words (__), making it quicker and easier to insert links, templates, and other wiki markup while editing. [4]
• The Readers Growth team has concluded its experiment with mobile page previews and will not roll out the feature. Page Previews are a pop-up bottom sheet that appears when readers tap a blue link, showing a thumbnail, lead paragraph, and an option to open the article. The experiment showed flat retention and negative indicator metrics, suggesting that mobile web readers preferred navigating directly to linked articles rather than using page previews.
• The Reader Experience team has seen encouraging early results from the Reading Lists feature, with 93% of participating users reporting that it was useful. Reading Lists help active readers save articles for future reading and support their learning goals on Wikimedia projects. The team plans further improvements before expanding the feature to more users.
• The Explore Feed Refresh initiative was tested with new and casual Wikipedia app readers. The refreshed feed helps readers discover new and relevant content. After a 10.5% increase in engagement with the feed, Wikimedia Apps team has decided to scale the Home Feed redesign to iOS with the learnings from the Android release applied.
• View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where subject names in the Article Guidance feature were displayed with incorrect capitalization on French Wikipedia, has now been fixed. Subject names will now follow the correct capitalization rules for the language. [5]

Updates for technical contributors

• After running several Account Creation Experiments to improve registration completion rates, a new version of the username field on Create Account has been rolled out. It includes a popover summarizing the username policy to provide clearer guidance during account creation. As part of this change, the messages createacct-helpusername and createacct-username-help that several communities have configured will no longer be used. If communities want to customize the guidance shown in the new popover, they can instead edit the following messages: createacct-username-policy-popover-bullet1, createacct-username-policy-popover-bullet2, and createacct-username-policy-popover-bullet3. [6]
• Later this week, the CodeMirror syntax highlighter will offer themes. The themes can be picked from a dropdown menu in the full CodeMirror preferences dialog. For wikitext, available themes are default, colorblind-friendly (previously the colorblind preference option on Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing) and no-highlighting. For code languages (i.e., CSS/JavaScript/JSON/Vue/Lua), there are several themes available. These same themes will eventually be available for wikitext, too. [7]
• From now on, wikis can restrict editing in the "User" namespace to only the page owner and certain user groups. Read the configuration documentation to learn more.
• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 18:47, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Re "From now on, wikis can restrict editing in the "User" namespace to only the page owner and certain user groups": If anyone here sees a proposal to make this happen on the English Wikipedia, please post a link to the discussion here at VPT. There would be significant technical ramifications to making this change on this site, so technically minded editors should be involved in any such discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:07, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

no longer possible to have pipe characters in wikilink fragments (section headers)?

In the cs1|2 update notice at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 100 § module suite update 30–31 August 2025, I wrote this wikilink which, at the time, produced a working wikilink:

[[Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_99#{{pipe}}page=_same_value_as_last_n-digits_of_{{pipe}}doi=|discussion]]

That no longer works there (rendered by parsoid) but apparently does work here (edit preview not rendered by parsoid):

discussion

It used to be that {{pipe}} and | were not treated as wiki markup. Is this going to be a permanent breakage caused by parsoid? or merely teething pains that we must suffer through until someone decides to allow html numeric entities to represent wiki markup characters as just characters?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:20, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Definitely a difference between Parsoid and the legacy parser. Submitted as T433320. (One quick troubleshooting method is to click "Switch to legacy parser", which appears in my right sidebar in Vector 2022, under "General".) – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk As a workaround, using %7C in place of {{pipe}} does appear to work, e.g. [[Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_99#%7Cpage=_same_value_as_last_n-digits_of_%7Cdoi=|discussion]] → discussion (rendered with parsoid here). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:59, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Of course, I should have thought of that. Thanks. The question still remains however, will parsoid forever treat html numeric entities as wiki markup?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:16, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

That is not information anyone but the content transform team has access to, so you will need to wait for the Phab task to reach completion or a decline. Izno (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Discussion+, a script for opening various types of discussions

I've created Discussion+, a script that can be used to open various types of discussions. It currently supports the following:

• RfC
  • Open RfC
  • Appeal RfC
• RM
  • Open RM
  • Review RM Closure
• User conduct
  • ANI Report
  • AE Report
  • AE Appeal
• Content promotions
  • In the news
  • GA nomination

I intend to expand it to:

• User conduct
  • AE quick report
  • AN3 report
• Content promotions
  • GA reassessment
  • FA nomination
  • FA reassessment
  • DYK

Are there other forms of discussions that editors would appreciate this handling?

Further in the future, I intend to make it possible to use it to notify editors of already-open discussions, as well as to close discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 10:53, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

This seems very useful, perhaps add the feature for starting and closing discussions for other things such as split proposals, merge proposals, etc? Fortek67 (talk) 12:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Rename article

Could someone help me move the contents of Estrella, Goodyear to Estrella, Arizona. Every time I've ever tried something like this I've messed it up. Thank you for your help! Magnolia677 (talk) 14:36, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I have moved it to Estrella, Goodyear, Arizona, to match the pattern of other neighborhood articles like Arbor Lodge, Portland, Oregon. It could also be merged into Goodyear, Arizona; the neighborhood may not be independently notable. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

And then Ahecht moved it to Estrella, Arizona. Consistency is not Wikipedia's strongest suit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:06, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 WP:USPLACE says to use "Placename, State" unless additional disambiguation is needed. There's only one Estrella in Arizona, so no additional disambiguation is needed. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:09, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you both! Magnolia677 (talk) 15:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Overzealous edit filter prevents linking to talk page archives

At Wikipedia:Archiving a source#Perma.cc there's a link to an RfC described as "recent" which isn't (2016). It's also been archived so the link is stale. I can't fix either problem because whenever I try, an edit filter blocks the edit "because it adds a link to archive.today or a related domain". But it doesn't! The section doesn't contain any such links. It does contain the string "archive.is" but that's in the title of the page with the RfC on it. The edit filter should not prevent us linking to any page on Wikipedia. Hairy Dude (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Fixed the wording and the link to the talk archive, thanks for pointing that out. Someone else will need to see if the edit filter needs to/can be fixed. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Pinging @Daniel Quinlan. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:41, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan and Ahecht: I will update the filter to avoid this one. @Hairy Dude: Thanks for the report. If you ever run into similar issues with any filter in the future, please report the false positive to WP:EFFPR. Thanks! Daniel Quinlan (talk) 19:53, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:46, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Broken bot spamming my talk page with the same message

See [8], [9], and [10]. Probably broken AI. Ricky the Dinosaur (talk) 05:18, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

This does appear to be inadvisably rapid tool use. That said, I would advice you to heed the advice of the message, even if it does link to an essay. CMD (talk) 05:41, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Link notifications

When you create an article, and another editor links that article at another page, you receive a "link notification" in your inbox, unless you opted out of it.

Now my question is, it is possible to receive these "link notifications" for any article, your perhaps interested in? Watching it doesn't seem to do anything. Fortek67 (talk) 11:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

No, not possible. Izno (talk) 15:42, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Blocked username is sometimes struck, sometimes not

Recently Edittttor was blocked. I'm now seeing their username in strikeout style in many places, but not all. For example, in the attached screenshot from Template:Did you know nominations/Abdul El-Sayed, their username is not struck, but the corresponding talk link is. What's going on here? RoySmith (talk) 11:16, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Looks like the redlink uses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Edittttor?action=edit&redlink=1">, which isn't properly detected by the markblocked gadget. If I switch from Parsoid to the legacy parser, the link becomes <a href="/w/index.php?title=User:Edittttor&action=edit&redlink=1"> instead, which is detected properly. So either Parsoid needs to be changed to emit /w/index.php links for redlinks, or the gadget needs to be updated to remove URL parameters from /wiki/ links. --rchard2scout (talk) 11:41, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I think this is a bug in the markblocked gadget. Since User:Edittttor is a red link, MediaWiki adds ?action=edit&redlink=1 to the URL. The gadget's regex doesn't stop at ?, so it ends up trying to parse Edittttor?action=edit&redlink=1 as the username, which fails, and the link gets skipped. The talk page link isn't a red link, so it doesn't get the extra query string and works fine. Changing const articleRegex = new RegExp( mw.config.get( 'wgArticlePath' ).replace( '$1', '' ) + '([^#]+)' ); to const articleRegex = new RegExp( mw.config.get( 'wgArticlePath' ).replace( '$1', '' ) + '([^#?]+)' ); should fix this. – DreamRimmer ■ 11:41, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

That can't be the whole story because the redlink is struck in the block log, and in edit histories, and in Wikipedia:Peer review/Abdul El-Sayed/archive1. RoySmith (talk) 11:49, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@MSantos (WMF): could you take a look at this? Is this a parsoid issue? RoySmith (talk) 11:54, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Red links starting with /w/index.php? are handled correctly, but links starting with /wiki/ are not. Wikipedia:Peer review/Abdul El-Sayed/archive1 renders links in the former format, which is why this happens. The change above should fix the issue for /wiki/ links. – DreamRimmer ■ 12:05, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Grey out Minor edit tick box for TAs

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

I have been editing as a TA for months, and using the Minor Edit tick box when it seemed appropriate. I have only recently realised that this setting is ignored for TAs. This is misleading, for people who are less likely to be familiar with editing Wikipedia. Could this box be greyed out for users for whom it will be ineffective? ~2026-42114-05 (talk) 04:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I seem to be missing something, the "minor" interface selector doesn't normally appear for logged out users. Can you describe all the steps you are taking that lead to that element showing? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:33, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps this is in one of the installed mobile apps? If so, which one? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:34, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-42114-05: This post is the only edit by your current TA. If you make an edit where you see and tick minor edit then we may be able to tell how you made the edit. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:11, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Check the related temporary accounts and you can see they all appear to be "Android app edit". Looking at the code, https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia the minorEditCheckBox does not appear to have any conditional code to disable for TAs. A bug would need filling at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org KylieTastic (talk) 14:28, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

A previous issue was raise as T123876 but is was merged into another task T296952 and I assume got lost. KylieTastic (talk) 14:31, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Birthday problem

Trying to get a decent interactive widget for the birthday problem article and had a thought: rather than just generating a bunch of random valid month-day combinations, wouldn't it be more fun to populate an experiment with real people? So fetching birthdays of random notable people. Is there any way this is doable in an article? I could prepopulate a list to randomly select from, but in addition to that being less convincing of randomness, a good-sized list is going to seriously bloat the size of the page. I know there are strict limitations on what can be fetched within an article, and something like scanning for random biographies and then parsing the dates in articles is not realistic, but I feel like I've seen wikidata templates/tools that might of use? Looking for help brainstorming wikidata possibilities, basically. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:00, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

User:Mathbot needs a new owner

Crossposting at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#User:Mathbot needs a new owner for best coverage. User:Oleg Alexandrov has asked in a recent discussion:

Are there any poeple willing to maintain this bot? Last time I worked with Dreamrimmer who is listed as co-owner at https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/tools/id/mathbot. If he is around, or somebody else is willing to help adopt the bot, that would be great. It has been too long and I don't visit much or remember how things work anymore.

Note that Mathbot is a fairly important bot, as it cues up the new pages for AfD and maintains other aspects of AfD. BD2412 T 15:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Mathbot co-maintainer here. I'm around if you need anything. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:37, 29 July 2026 (UTC)