Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• Jump to bottom
• New topic
• All village pumps

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).

If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this how-to page. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for 5 days.

« Archives, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231

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)

But why is parsoid producing different output for these two cases when the old parser did not? RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 17:00, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@RoySmith It's not. Parsoid is enabled in the Template: namespace, which is why your first link doesn't work, but not in the Wikipedia: namespace, which is why your second link does (see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Parsoid#Timeline). You can check at the bottom of the page: if it used Parsoid, it will say something like "This page was last edited on 29 July 2026, at 14:31. Page was rendered with Parsoid." --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:29, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

What??? Why are we running different parsers in different namespaces? RoySmith (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Parsoid is being rolled out over a period of weeks or maybe months to namespaces on the English Wikipedia. It is causing a bit of confusion and difficulty in troubleshooting. In addition, some back-end processes like categorization are being handled by either the new parser or the legacy parser, causing some pages to work fine when viewed but still show up in a category that is not listed on the page, or similar weirdness. See this technical page for some information(?) about testing that the developers are doing to see if pages look different in Parsoid and the legacy parser. It appears that they are using this output to schedule the rollout to other namespaces, although it is unclear how. Diligent editors at VPT and other places have noticed and reported bugs in Parsoid, some of which have been fixed since it started being the default parser for some pages about a month ago. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:51, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Ugh. I knew it was being rolled out incrementally, but I wasn't paying attention to the details and assumed that meant wiki-by-wiki, not namespace-by-namespace. I guess there will be some pain for a while until this all stabilizes. Thanks for the explanation. RoySmith (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

We rolled out Parsoid to all namespaces couple hours back. SSastry (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. I've been watching the parsoid project for a long time. It's good that it's gotten to this point. I'm sure there will continue to be pain as new problems emerge, but that's the price we have to pay for progress. RoySmith (talk) 22:44, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Template:Did you know nominations/Abdul El-Sayed still has "talk" struck but "Edittttor" is not, even after purging the page. RoySmith (talk) 11:06, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

That's because nothing was actually fixed anywhere yet. I've just put in an edit request to implement DreamRimmer's fix mentioned above. --rchard2scout (talk) 13:17, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

@RoySmith, my edit request has been implemented, so this should be fixed now. --rchard2scout (talk) 13:35, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, indeed it is. Thank you for the fix, and also for the ping. RoySmith (talk) 13:42, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Article button at the bottom of talk pages

Could we please get an Article button at the bottom of talk pages?

The following happens all the time: My watchlist shows an edit to a talk page. I open the talk page, scroll down to read the new comment. Hmmm... I need to check the article. I scroll up, click on the Article button, open it in a new tab and read what is written there. Aha... Back to the talk page, that now, again, shows the top of the page. Scroll down once more to find the comment.

If we would have an Article button at the bottom of the talk page, that would save me from scrolling up and then scrolling down again for each time I switch between a talk page and the article. I do that a lot, so I would be very grateful for such a button. Lova Falk (talk) 09:58, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Alt+Shift+c perhaps? Ponor (talk) 11:32, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

If you have a keyboard then "Home" and "End" may go to the top and bottom of the viewed page. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:48, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

fn -> and fn <- does the job, but it is still a drag! Lova Falk (talk) 12:12, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Do you have the floating bar at the top of your screen when you're scrolled down on a page? If so, when you're on a talk page, do you see this icon in the row of icons at the top right? Because that's the article button you're looking for. --rchard2scout (talk) 14:27, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, floating bar, but no row of icons, only a "Toggle reader view" icon. Maybe because I use the Timeless skin? Timeless works the best for me by far. Lova Falk (talk) 14:50, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Ah, that might be it, I'm on Vector 2022, which does have the buttons. It's probably possible to add a button somewhere with some userscript, maybe ask the folks over at WP:US/R? --rchard2scout (talk) 07:49, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you --rchard2scout, I had no idea that this page even existed! Lova Falk (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I got my button and I am even more happy with it than I thought I would be. 😊 Lova Falk (talk) 05:18, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Enabling syntax highlighting by default for newcomers

Autocompletion, a new feature in CodeMirror 6

Hi all! In April we deployed CodeMirror 6, an upgraded version of the extension that powers syntax highlighting, the feature that helps make wikitext easier to read in the source editor by turning wikilinks blue, templates purple, references green, and other color codings. The new version includes additional features like autocompletion and identification of linting errors. Syntax highlighting can be toggled on or off at any point by clicking the highlighter button () in the 2010 editing toolbar, and individual features can be enabled/disabled in CodeMirror’s preferences.

However, syntax highlighting is not enabled by default, so many newer editors never discover it and do not benefit from these features. A 2021 village pump discussion I initiated as a volunteer found consensus to turn on syntax highlighting by default for all new editors, but the implementation stalled for technical reasons. Given the recent upgrade, we are ready to move forward again. Our plan is to enable syntax highlighting for new editors (leaving existing editors’ preferences unchanged) starting August 20. How does this sound to you all? MusikAnimal (WMF) (who led the upgrade) and I are available to answer questions!

Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 13:53, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support this. I’ve been around for just about two years, and I only recently learned about and activated syntax highlighting. Ever since, it’s been an indispensable tool for me, and I have wondered why it isn’t automatically enabled. The thing it’s most useful for to me is to provide contrast in the Source Editor so I can more easily see where I am by looking at the pattern of colors, rather than assisting that much in identifying different types of source code at a glance, but that’s because I’m a pretty quick reader and am reasonably adept with wikitext so I can mostly already do that. However, I feel like if I had had this enabled from the start, it would have helped me memorize the different kinds of source code better and I would’ve learned wikitext much quicker and more painlessly than I did. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 01:36, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

WantedCategories explosion

Bit of a situation at Special:WantedCategories that I need some assistance with, of a type very unlike anything I've ever reported here before.

Normally, each run of the report turns up about 150-200 redlinked categories, but the latest one features over 1,100 — and the overspill, so far, has been attributable entirely to nonexistent categories being added to {{non-free book cover}} — e.g. Category:Yon Ill Wind resulting from the licensing template on File:PiersAnthony YonIllWind.jpg being coded as {{Non-free book cover|image has rationale=yes|category=Piers Anthony book cover images|Yon Ill Wind}}.

The presence of these categories, further, is deeply interfering with the process of even trying to find the categories that aren't attributable to this in the list — I can't tell whether a category is one of these or not without checking every one of those 1,100+ categories one by one, which I'm not interested in dedicating my entire day to doing.

So could somebody who knows more about template coding than I do edit {{non-free book cover}} to slap an #ifexist condition on its category-generation function to make the redlinks go away, so that I don't have to manually gnome my way through over a thousand redlinked categories? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 14:55, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

The problem appears to be Special:Diff/1367996176 by Paine Ellsworth. It's not clear to me what exactly that edit was trying to do, but if nothing else it could be reverted until it's figured out. Anomie⚔ 15:10, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for that. I reverted and the redlinks went away from the pages, although the categories themselves haven't emptied out right away at the "stuff in redlink even though redlink not still on pages" level — I know that part takes a while, so I'll let it ride and see what happens, but at least it got the redlinks off the pages themselves. Thanks for the catch. Bearcat (talk) 15:17, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Bearcat You can use User:Ahecht/Scripts/refresh to do a null edit on all pages in the category, which will clear them out faster. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:37, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I already have that, but it wouldn't have helped — it would still have entailed hitting a thousand categories one-by-one to null one page out of each category as a thousand individual edits, which is exactly the thing I was trying to avoid having to do. Bearcat (talk) 15:40, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Perceived explosion of em-dashes

For the last three months I've been witnessing more and more em-dashes in articles, like this one. My intuition tells me it's due to an expanded use of AI to edit and compose articles. I would also not rule out the possibility of hired companies overwhelming the website with automated edits. Is there are way to see if the frequency of em-dashes has increased or not over the years? CongruenceRelation (talk) 20:35, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't know about trends but your example currently has 14 em dashes. There were 16 after a 2014 edit by Omnipaedista who presumably didn't use AI. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:38, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I have been using em dashes on Wikipedia since 2008, long before generative AI was even a thing. Omnipaedista (talk) 07:04, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Recent AI models don't use em dashes significantly more than human writers, and ChatGPT actually uses them less, according to a study by The Economist. the wub "?!" 08:49, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Americans seem particularly fond of them. British people hardly use them at all, preferring a spaced en-dash to an unspaced em-dash. DuncanHill (talk) 09:00, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

(neither here nor there, but this article is really good, what the hell; I guess I’m just so used to misinformed stuff that it’s refreshing to see stuff that actually acknowledges, say, model changes) Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:23, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

MOS:DASH has always called for the use of em-dashes. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:43, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Why have section edit previews changed?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T431137

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".

I asked this question here on 22 July, but discussions all picked up on a different issue concerning sectioning and section numbers, and my query was never addressed. This item was then archived on 29 July so I am asking the question again. BobKilcoyne (talk) 04:09, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

This is a bug. User:Izno answered your question at the end of the section that you created, which was indeed derailed by another bug: The named reference missing in section issue is a known bug associated with the transition to Parsoid. phab:T431137. It was also discussed on VPT on July 3. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:50, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. That's helpful. I had not seen the discussion on 3 July. Does this mean that the issue is being looked at, or do we just have to live with it? BobKilcoyne (talk) 03:26, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Using subst-only templates inside other subst-only templates

I have a few userspace templates, such as User:guninvalid/w, that I use as a personal template shortcut, but I have to add the signature myself when adding it. Is there a gold way to add something like Template:Sign to it so it can automatically populate? guninvalid (talk) 00:30, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Bad example, w is just a redirect. Basically, I'd prefer something like: {{Template:welcome|art={{{1}}}}} {{sign}} guninvalid (talk) 00:33, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

For that specific use-case, have you considered {{subst:Welcome-autosign}}?

In general, might {{subst:Delay subst}} work? That's not its intended use case, and I haven't tested it, but it might just work? You might need to reintroduce it each time you edit your template, though.

Solomon Ucko (talk) 01:22, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

The usual way these days would be to do like {{safesubst:<noinclude/>foobar}}. For a signature, something like ~~<noinclude />~~. You can see both of these in use in Template:Uw-ublock. Anomie⚔ 11:29, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

"The content you're looking for seems to have disappeared"

{{Reqphoto}} seems to be broken. When you click on the Openverse link within the template, you get an error message saying "The content you're looking for seems to have disappeared". Anyone know how to fix this? Ten Pound Hammer (they/them) • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:44, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer: It works for me, e.g. https://openverse.org/search/?q=Jessica+Yaniv&license=cc0,pdm,by,by-sa on Talk:Jessica Yaniv. Please always give an example when you report an issue. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Big font size on desktop view on mobile

The font size is egregiously big in Template:Tennis slam abbreviations in desktop view on mobile while logged out (screenshot). What would be causing the issue? 8rz (talk) 06:09, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and verify whether the link there is "Mobile view" or "desktop view". Izno (talk) 06:56, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

At the bottom, it says "mobile view". I know it's in desktop view, because mobile view displays as expected, again both on mobile, using the default Vector 2022 skin while being logged out (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Tennis_slam_abbreviations&useskin=vector-2022 defaults to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Tennis_slam_abbreviations). 8rz (talk) 11:42, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Ok, so two possible things: Either you nudged the zoom up on your mobile device in desktop mode, or the algorithm that decides what's important and what's not changed so things got bigger or smaller. I really should make a help page for people who use desktop view in mobile.

Either way, we can't help you here. One is your device settings and one is the browser doing things the browser does. Izno (talk) 16:46, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Either way it doesn't matter. That's just for the Vector 2022 skin, which I rarely use. I opened it one a different browser logged out to see what the page looked like to the average passing viewer. What does it look like on your end? 8rz (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Reasonably normal, no overly-emphasized items. But I use Firefox on mobile. I suppose there's a third option where you have some sort of extension that changes appearances of things. Izno (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Chrome resizing was the issue. Works fine on other browsers. 8rz (talk) 11:09, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Is there a "suffix index"?

Special:PrefixIndex exists, looking for the exact same thing but searching for suffixes (text at the end). Fortek67 (talk) 21:29, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

No. You'd need to do a search for something like intitle:/example$/. Certes (talk) 21:33, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

My guess, based on my surface knowledge of databases and string searching, is that such a query would be prohibitively expensive on the databases. Izno (talk) 22:01, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Cirrus search completes surprisingly quickly but would be greatly assisted by adding one or more whole uncommon words in separate intitle: terms with no //, e.g. intitle:/ing of the finish$/ intitle:finish. Certes (talk) 09:46, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Unable to use math templates in citation titles

Since very recently I am unable to use {{math}} and {{mvar}} templates in the titles of {{cite journal}} etc without getting some sort of stripmarker error. Formatting mathematical formulas in titles using instead <math> works, but with this alternative formulas in linked titles stay black instead of turning blue with the rest of the title. Using plain html for formulas is just wrong (bad mathematical typesetting). The only workaround I have found is to format the entire citation manually. I've left more details at Help talk:Citation Style 1 § Stripmarkers in titles with template mathematics; advice there would be welcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

My reply tool (both visual and source mode) broken on all Chromium-based browsers

Screenrecording of DiscussionTool bug in Wikipedia that removes ability to write or send reply.

Wikipedia's DiscussionTools Reply working fine in Firefox

Hey, I am having a bug on my system with the DiscussionTools Reply feature on article talk pages.

Some of the symptoms:

• If I click "Reply" under a comment, the reply box opens normally.
• When I try to type into the box, however, the reply box renders as a non-editable/disabled field and clicking into it produces no cursor, and it does not accept text input. I also tried manually copying and pasting a sentence into the box (also selecting text elsewhere on the page and pasting it in), but the paste option does not appear either.
• And so, obviously, the "Reply" button stays greyed out.

There is also another bug that happens occasionally: some existing discussion text/comments on the same Talk page intermittently appear hidden or missing and sometimes half of the words are missing.

I actually tried multiple browsers to see if this was particular to my browser. I tried Brave, Chrome, and Vivaldi, then tried each browser's Incognito mode, but it still did not work. The only place where this bug does not appear is Firefox (or any Gecko-based browser).

Is there some help I can get? I don't wanna rely on Firefox as its slow and buggy in other places.

I am attaching some screenshots. Morris (talk with this worm) 07:26, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm wondering, if that’s somehow related to phab:T434403 (DiscussionTools are VE-based as far as I know). But I‘ve used the reply tool all day using Chrome (on Linux) and didn’t experience any issues with DiscussionTools. Johannnes89 (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

It worked two or three weeks ago iirc, and it still works if I don't log in. I think maybe it's somehow related to my account, but why would that be the case? Morris (talk with this worm) 12:26, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

and it still works if I don't log in. I think maybe it's somehow related to my account That's very likely, if it doesn't happen when you don't log in. Try checking your browser's error console for a start. You might also try Help:Safe mode. Anomie⚔ 12:32, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Does it work at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?safemode=1 and at commons:Commons:Help desk? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:41, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes! Morris (talk with this worm) 12:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

That indicates something incompatible in your Wikipedia account. I don't know what but you could try to blank User:Morrisworm/common.js and User:Morrisworm/common.css, and disable some gadgets at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. It's not remembered which gadges were previously enabled so write it down or take screen shots if you want to be sure you can restore what you had. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:11, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

 Done. Now I see the issue. User:Anomie/hide-images.js and User:Anomie/hide-images.css&ctype[equal]text/css were the culprits. I started using this to remove images from pages. I removed both, and now everything is working normally. Also, thanks, PrimeHunter. Morris (talk with this worm) 13:23, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

FYI, that should be fixed with Special:Diff/1368681061. Anomie⚔ 13:41, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

thanks. Morris (talk with this worm) 14:05, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Lua pattern error

In User:8rz/sandbox#ex4,5,6, trying to color a row table and add a symbol at the end of the 3rd data cell below

from

|-
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| {{flagicon|}} [[Aryna Sabalenka]]

to

|-style="background:#ffcfcf;"
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| {{flagicon|}} [[Aryna Sabalenka]]<sup>{{down-arrow}}</sup>

using

 {{#if:{{yesno|{{{e_mark|}}}}}|<!--
-->{{#invoke:String|replace
|source={{{1}}}
|pattern=(%|%-)(\n)(%|%s*.+%|%s*%d+\n)%3(%|%s*%{%{.+%]%])
|replace=$1style="background:#ffcfcf;"$2$3$4<sup>XYZ</sup>
|count=1
|plain=false}}
|}}

and invoking it

|-{{User:8rz/sandbox 2|e_mark=yes}}
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| {{flagicon|}} [[Aryna Sabalenka]]

but get the message

Lua error: malformed pattern (ends with '%').

Script error

Lua error: malformed pattern (ends with '%').

Backtrace:

1. [C]: in function "v"
2. mw.ustring.lua:84: in function "gsub"
3. Module:String:415: in function "chunk"
4. mw.lua:678: ?
5. [C]: ?

Can the Lua pattern replace in

|pattern=(%|%-)(\n)(%|%s*.+%|%s*%d+\n)%3(%|%s*%{%{.+%]%])
|replace=$1style="background:#ffcfcf;"$2$3$4<sup>XYZ</sup>

be fixed?

P.S. Using regex

(\|\-)(\n)(\|\s*.+\|\s*\d+\n)(\|\s*.+\|\s*\d+\n)(\|\s*\{\{.+\]\])

->

$1style="background:#XYZ;"$2$3$4$5XYZ$2

works for me. But converting it to a lua pattern to use it as a template param, hit a few snags. 8rz (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

A | within |pattern= marks the end of that parameter, so Lua only sees (% as its whole pattern. Try replacing | by {{!}}. Certes (talk) 10:47, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Get {{{1}}} as the result not the actual replacement. Are the source param or #if causing the issue? 8rz (talk) 11:06, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Looks like you're not passing any value for |1= in your invocation of {{User:8rz/sandbox 2|e_mark=yes}}, so {{{1}}} is what gets passed to |source=. Anomie⚔ 12:28, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Should I pass {{{e_mark}}} directly then? 8rz (talk) 12:31, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

It looks like what you'd really want is to invoke it something like

{{User:8rz/sandbox 2|e_mark=yes|1=
|-
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| style="text-align:center;" | 1
| {{flagicon|}} [[Aryna Sabalenka]]
}}

except that won't actually work due to all the pipes in there. There are various ways you might hack around that (e.g. how Template:Row numbers does), but those have other complications or negative effects (e.g. Template:Row numbers' hack may confuse bots and scripts attempting to process the wikitext). Anomie⚔ 12:38, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Any other way to solve the issue? 8rz (talk) 18:28, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Are you trying to create a procedure for modifying the tables that someone else can run on-wiki? If not, then personally I'd suggest doing the changes off-wiki, using your regexp replacement tool of your choice. isaacl (talk) 18:38, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

On-wiki. 8rz (talk) 18:40, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate that's your preference. Are you looking for others to perform the same task? There are public websites that do regexp replacement so that a procedure that anyone can do can be created. For a strict on-wiki solution, I suggest handing over the text to process directly to Lua, so there won't be any need to deal with passing patterns into a Lua module. A Lua module can retrieve the wikitext contents of a page and then process it. isaacl (talk) 18:55, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

If only I knew lua coding. 😔 8rz (talk) 18:58, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

That's why I suggested just using the regexp tool of your choice. In the end, it's a choice of what you want to struggle with: wikitext processing, Lua, or copying from your computer system or another website. isaacl (talk) 19:17, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

While regex works,

Extended content

(\|\-)(\n)(\|\s*.+\|\s*\d+\n)(\|\s*.+\|\s*\d+\n)(\|\s*\{\{.+\]\])

->

$1style="background:#XYZ;"$2$3$4$5XYZ$2

implementing it into a template is something I can't wrap my head around. 8rz (talk) 19:55, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Alternatively, replace the pipes by templates: something like

{{User:8rz/sandbox 2|e_mark=yes|1=
{{!}}-
{{!}} style="text-align:center;" {{!}} 1
{{!}} style="text-align:center;" {{!}} 1
{{!}} {{flagicon|}} [[Aryna Sabalenka]]
}}

(The pipe in the nested flagicon template should be fine.) Certes (talk) 19:02, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

tried that a few hours back. Still bupkis. 8rz (talk) 19:09, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

What you are basically trying to do is parse wikitext, and this is known to be a bad idea. Don't do that. Put whatever color you want in the page and move on. Izno (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Very well. 8rz (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

List of Wikipedias article - old revisions not displaying

For some reasons old revisions of this article aren't currently accessible. If you access https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Wikipedias&oldid=1345133948, for example, which is the revision created at 13:33 on 24 March 2026, you can see from the text in the first paragraph that it's defaulting to the current version. Is there a way of fixing this? Thanks in advance.Translat99 (talk) 11:36, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

It is not defaulting to the current version, see for example the lack of wikilinks on "348 currently active, 16 closed". What is happening is that the old version calls templates, such as Template:CURRENTMONTHNAME and Template:CURRENTYEAR, which load the current versions of those templates. CMD (talk) 12:11, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@Translat99: Those two are actually magic words at Help:Magic words#Other variables by type. Magic words without parameters use the same syntax as templates. The answer still applies. Old revisions show what you would get today if you reverted to that revision, so both templates and magic words are evaluated today. The Wayback Machine shows at https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias what it actually looked like in the past. Wikipedia does not have such a feature except for Main Page at Wikipedia:Main Page history. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I am aware of the archive.org workaround but that site inevitably only archives a minority of revisions. My attention was drawn, however, because what now gets loaded when you request an old revision is different from what it used to be. If I look at a revision from 2023, say, then it now gives the current number of active editions (i.e. as of now), whereas previously it gave the contemporaneous one (i.e. as of 2023). This is why I've consulted old revisions of this page - because I've needed that figure. I'm curious as to why the behaviour has changed. Translat99 (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The behaviour has not changed, all the old revisions store is the source code. They don't independently store templates, files, wider formatting, etc. from that period. CMD (talk) 00:02, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

@Translat99: For example, your linked version from 24 March 2026 has the wikitext:

As of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, Wikipedia articles have been created in {{NUMBEROF|languages|Wikipedia}} editions, with {{NUMBEROF|active|Wikipedia}} currently active, {{NUMBEROF|closed|Wikipedia}} closed and 11 moved to [[Wikimedia Incubator]].

All those {{...}} are evaluated with their current values when you view the page. Wikipedia does not provide a way to display how they evaluated 24 March 2026. {{NUMBEROF}} uses commons:Data:Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab. I think it counts the number of "wikipedia" rows with a given status so I suppose you could look at the page history and make your own count for different dates but I don't promise it will always show the same as List of Wikipedias displayed on the date. Such things can be complicated to work out manually and our software simply doesn't have a way to do it automatically. It's one of the oldest feature requests phab:T2851 but it's complicated, and there are legal issues if it displayed transcluded text which has since been deleted for legal reasons like copyright violations. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:44, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Toggling between upper- and lowercase

Is there a template that converts all caps text to lowercase and vice versa? 8rz (talk) 12:11, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@8rz: See Help:Magic words#Formatting. Note they are magic words and not templates so they have a colon and not a pipe. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:14, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Depending what you're doing, you may want to subst the magic word, so the output contains the result rather than the {{...}} wikitext . Certes (talk) 13:17, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Forgot lc and uc were magic words so succeeded them with a pipe instead of a colon. Needed it for a quick fix. Thanks. 8rz (talk) 13:22, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Colheader bgcolor not night mode compatible

Need help making the colheader bgcolors on tables in WTA 1000 Series doubles records and statistics, namely, the first 2 sections dark mode compatible.8rz (talk) 18:30, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't quite got the query about your colheader bgcolor. Basically following text:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ style="background: #ffeebb"|Header
! style="background: #ffeebb"|Column
|-
| style="background: #ffeebb"|Row
|}

Will produce:

Header

Column
Row

See more on Help:Table, and let us know if you need more specific help.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 19:17, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

See light mode table 1 -> dark mode table 1 and light mode table 2 -> dark mode table 2. Dark mode does not distinguish between the colors. I am using vector legacy, btw. Modify the background color by adding something along the lines of: this. 8rz (talk) 19:47, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

By default i use Light theme, but right now after switching between both theme and examining your screenshots, i am still not sure which specific column or row or box needed specific dark mode compatibility. Kindly point that out, maybe i am missing that specific box. Thank you.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 19:58, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The ones colored differently in light mode to be also distinguishable in dark mode. Colheaders titled:

1. ST, EU, HA (white color) in ATP Masters 1000 doubles records and statistics#Title leaders
2. FL, CH, GE, SD, PH, KC, PP, ZU (white color) in WTA 1000 Series singles records and statistics#Title leaders
3. Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Beijing (pinking color) and Tokyo and Guadalajara (white) in WTA 1000 Series singles records and statistics#Premier / 1000 (2009–2023). 8rz (talk) 20:09, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

   Oh, I see. You can change to any color which can be identified in dark and light theme, try picking from mw:Table background colors.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 20:26, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

25th anniversary logo

Is there a reason that the 25th anniversary logo is still up? I believe it is time for it to come down; we are closer to Wikipedia's 26th birthday than the 25th one. CC Izno and Chlod who deployed the change back in January. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 20:13, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Chill, this is the year afterall. we didn't implemented back in 2025 thinking anniversary is closer, our motive is afterall celebrating 2026, be it till December. Happy Hippy anniversary.––KEmel49(📝,📋) 20:22, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I have left it up because I have not gotten a signal from Chlod particularly that it is "safe" to pull it down. I also don't know what the consensus was that was discussed for after the first month. Izno (talk) 20:23, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The last discussion about the logo was on February, which decided that it'd be taken down at the end of the year. That would mean sometime around December 23, which is the last allowable deploy date before the end-of-year holiday freeze. If there's support for it, we can take it down earlier than that. Chlod (say hi!) 01:55, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-33

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

• A new ChartWizard is now available on Wikimedia Commons for users interested in creating charts from their own data. The wizard makes the Chart extension more beginner-friendly by allowing editors to create charts, such as bar and pie charts, without needing to use JSON. Users can still switch to the JSON editor if they prefer. Feedback on the new tool is welcome on the wish talk page.
• View all 19 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where the Wikipedia iOS app’s Picture of the Day widget displayed the same image every day instead of updating daily, has now been fixed.

Updates for technical contributors

• Math formula SVG images will soon be generated in the browser instead of on the server. MathML continues to be generated on the server and renders in the browser without JavaScript. Wikibooks will see this change on 12 August, Wikisource on 19 August and Wikipedia from 20-27 August. You can try this by selecting "Client side MathJax rendering (for browsers with limited MathML support)" in your preferences. This change is part of deprecating RESTBase and deprecating Mathoid.
• Category pages will soon support sorting entries by the time they are added to a category. This will make it easier to find recently or long-standing categorized pages. It will also improve workflows for maintenance categories such as deletion backlogs and other time-based review tasks. You can use cldsort=timestamp URL argument in category view to sort the entries.
• Gadgets and user scripts on Wikimedia wikis may now use ES2018 features and ES2019 features in JavaScript code. Previously, the platform only allowed up to ES2017. MediaWiki validates the source code to protect functionality from syntax errors and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers.
• 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 20:43, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Help needed

Hello, I need help. I want to install an image filter and made a custom one. However I can't run Interceptor anymore. Can someone help fix the issue for me. I'm not amazing with tech. I'm on a mobile device, running from google chrome.In solidarity Dafootballguy Want to talk? 22:38, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@Dafootballguy: Did it work to revert your changes to User:Dafootballguy/common.js? If you restore them then try to remove lang="javascript">, and don't set two const blockedKeywords =.... const means it's constant and shouldn't be assigned again. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:55, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I reverted my changes and it works, but I don't have the filter I wanted. Would you mind copying the code I should insert instead? In solidarity Dafootballguy Want to talk? 00:15, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

@Dafootballguy: I cannot edit your common.js and those are my only suggestions. I haven't tested it but it should at least fix two errors. I suspect you got lang="javascript"> by partially copying wikitext which was used to display JavaScript:

<syntaxhighlight lang="javascript">
...
</syntaxhighlight>

PrimeHunter (talk) 00:51, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

What line is the first bit of code that you said to remoce on? And which one of the second mentioned codes should I keep, I think there are 4? In solidarity Dafootballguy Want to talk? 00:57, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

@Dafootballguy: Remove the whole line saying lang="javascript">. You said you made a custom filter. I don't know which keywords you want in your filter but only set them once. There are indeed 4 total const blockedKeywords = [...]; in , 2 of them inside 2 separate but very similar function() {...} . I suggest you remove everything from , and copy your wanted keywords to . PrimeHunter (talk) 01:18, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Special:Block interface questions

1. Special:Block used to be configured so that if you put your own username into the target bar, it would produce a warning with huge red letters saying basically "You are about to block yourself!!! If you just want to see the message shown to blocked users, visit [MediaWiki page whose name I don't remember anymore]". But I just went to Special:Block/Nyttend and found no such warning.
2. Special:Block still has warnings about IP blocking, despite their replacement with temporary accounts. Is this information still relevant for people who have enabled the feature to see IP addresses behind temporary accounts? I don't want to obey the associated policies, so I've intentionally not enabled that feature. Nyttend (talk) 23:58, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

   Yes, they are still relevant. Izno (talk) 00:29, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

   Maybe MediaWiki:Blockiptext should mention Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal-checkuser-tempaccount (admin-only). PrimeHunter (talk) 01:00, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

   The warning is now shown as a pop-up when clicking the "submit" button: phab:T391079#10712035. Johannnes89 (talk) 06:49, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Blank Screens in Firefox

I don't know whether this is a problem with Wikipedia and Firefox, or simply a performance issue with Firefox that I am seeing trying to display Wikipedia pages. Sometimes when I right-click a link to display it in a new tab, it brings up a blank screen. Pressing Refresh has no effect. I see the URL at the top of the tab displaying what I know is a valid Wikipedia page. Is this a known issue that occasionally happens using Firefox to view and edit Wikipedia, or is this just a Firefox problem that happens to interfere with my viewing and editing of Wikipedia? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:32, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I use Firefox and the same thing happens with me with several sites, so probably a Firefox problem. 7amiþ reform · solidarity · 💬 · 📊 06:27, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Same, just with white screen. IKhitron (talk) 12:26, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Implementing TWAfI on the main page

An RFC was held recently with consensus to add a box to the main page, featuring This week's article for improvement. The following is copied from InfernoHues' post in the RFCBEFORE.

The RfC [to implement TWAfI] was just closed by Barkeep49, with consensus for template design M3, and weak consensus for placement P2. Let's discuss what the next steps are in this section. Just off the top of my head, we need to:

1. Test the template code to see if it works properly.
2. Decide what the first article for improvement should be.
3. Write the suggested improvements for the selected article.

After these are done, I believe an admin can add TWAFI to the main page.

I think we should clear out the existing TWAFI queue, as the articles for it weren't selected to entice new editors. Then we can use the standard voting process already in place there. Let me know if I've missed something/if there are other ideas.

7amiþ reform · solidarity · 💬 · 📊 06:57, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Not sure why you're posting here? This discussion should take place at Wikipedia talk:Articles for improvement. isaacl (talk) 07:02, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I posted here because I thought that this was the place where major changes to the main page were discussed to be implemented. I can move it (again) if need be 7amiþ reform · solidarity · 💬 · 📊 07:05, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

This page is for specific questions about using MediaWiki. The proposed major changes have already been discussed in the request for comment discussion. The participants in the articles for improvevment initiative can discuss and implement on the initiative's talk page. If any co-ordination is needed with other editors working on the main page, a thread can be started at Talk:Main page. I think a notification should be posted there about the new section, to let interested editors know about it if they haven't seen the proposal and the outcome of the discussion. isaacl (talk) 07:15, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the help. 7amiþ reform · solidarity · 💬 · 📊 07:23, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Tab size in syntaxhighlight

<syntaxhighlight> assumes tabs to be four spaces long, and there seems to be no way to change that. mw:Extension:SyntaxHighlight#Advanced claims since 10 years, that this can be solved by nesting a <span style="..."> in it. But that does not work (anymore). See also talk page. Does anyone know a way to solve this? Watchduck (quack) 08:31, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The "nesting in it" part was changed recently, apparently by someone who didn't actually understand what they were changing. I suspect the prior advice to wrap the <syntaxhighlight> was taking advantage of some older version of MediaWiki's HTML cleanup code that moved the <span> inside the <div> and <pre> block elements. Your best bet these days would probably be to wrap the <syntaxhighlight> in a <div class="syntaxhighlight-tab-size-8">...</div>, along with a TemplateStyles stylesheet that applies .syntaxhighlight-tab-size-8 .mw-highlight pre { -moz-tab-size: 8; tab-size: 8; }. Anomie⚔ 12:17, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

That was also my thought in making Template:Syntaxhighlight tab size/styles.css. I even chose the same class name before seeing your post but I got the error "Unrecognized or unsupported property at line 2 character 3" when trying to save -moz-tab-size: 8;. It works for me in Firefox with only tab-size: 8;.

Using {{syntaxhighlight tab size}} and wrapped in class="syntaxhighlight-tab-size-8":

CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md  HISTORY	       RELEASE-NOTES-1.44
COPYING		    INSTALL	       SECURITY
CREDITS		    LocalSettings.php  UPGRADE
FAQ		    README.md	       api.php

Without the wrap:

CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md  HISTORY	       RELEASE-NOTES-1.44
COPYING		    INSTALL	       SECURITY
CREDITS		    LocalSettings.php  UPGRADE
FAQ		    README.md	       api.php

PrimeHunter (talk) 12:47, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Talk archiving blocked for unclear reason

I setup autoarchiving with lowercase sigmabot III at Talk:2026 Ceuta migrant crisis days ago (6 August), but the bot still hasn't run. The bot is working fine on other pages, so the problem is with the Talk page. I looked over the page for common issues like indented headings or unpaired tags but didn't see any (though perhaps I missed them).

The only problem I found was that Special:LintErrors flags up 2 night-mode-unaware-background-color errors. I suspect this is caused by customised signatures using <span>...</span> with style="background-color:". I've seen lint errors prevent archiving before, but I don't see how a background colour that's not compatibility with dark mode would confuse the bot. If it's not the lint errors, what else could it be?

While I could brute force it by manually archiving most of the page, I would prefer to fix the actual problem so I know what to look for in future. (And if it is the signatures which are the problem, then the editor(s) should be asked to change their signature(s) to prevent future problems.)

Any ideas on what could be the problem? – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 13:29, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Scyrme, well, it's set to archive after 90 days, and all of the sections are much newer than that. — Qwerfjkltalk 13:38, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The archive parameter must also be a subpage. It was a subpage until a recent move so it was algo = old(90d) which prevented archiving before that. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:44, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

By the way, both issues are listed at User:MiszaBot/config#Causes of no archiving. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:46, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank-you both! I was too focused on niche problems and missed the obvious. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 14:29, 11 August 2026 (UTC)