Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests/Archive 11

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Archive 11

Spam-only account tagging and reporting

I've seen that often while dealing with spam only accounts, I have to tag their pages for CSD G11 with Twinkle and then report them to AIV. It might be nice to have a script that enables you to choose pages created by a certain account to tag with CSD G11, notifies the user of the CSDs and reports them to AIV all at the same time for convenience purposes. I was thinking something like a dropdown menu with options of whether to tag each page created by a user for CSD G11, warn the user and/or report to AIV (like Twinkle) would be pretty useful in such a script. ~deltasock ^{(talk • cont)} 12:53, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

@~deltasock: Is it really necessary to {{db-spamuser}}/{{db-spam}} all (or even multiple) pages created by an obviously spam-only account if you're reporting them to AIV anyway? The reviewing admin will handle them regardless. — DVRTed (Talk) 12:28, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Track event dates of new pages

Just wanted to make a request for a script to help out with Wikinews users with these things:

• Specify an event date for a page without having to edit a JSON or table.
• Generate a list of pages with an event date specified and a comment.
• Ability to remove the date tag when no longer needed.

Petarkco (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

T407051. Polygnotus (talk) 22:17, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Move section script for teahouse/refdesk/helpdesk/various noticeboards

It would be cool to have a script that allows one to move a section to the appropriate page, leaving behind a {{moved discussion to}} template and optionally notifying OP on their talkpage that the discussion has been moved.

E.g. I ask something on the helpdesk that can be answered on a refdesk. Polygnotus (talk) 17:11, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

The person who makes this earns the eternal gratitude of my brother ColinFine. Polygnotus (talk) 17:18, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Missed this on my radar because you replied to the thread yourself, but this sounds fun; I'll try coding something to test on the test wiki. — DVRTed (Talk) 17:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: is there a "Your thread has been moved" template? — DVRTed (Talk) 19:06, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed I think what we got is Template:Moved_discussion_to#See_also Polygnotus (talk) 20:11, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Ah, in that case: it'll have to be something like this: testwiki:User talk:DVRTed#Discussion moved. — DVRTed (Talk) 21:01, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Exactly, looks good. Polygnotus (talk) 22:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

It's a thing now: User:DVRTed/move-talk-section. — DVRTed (Talk) 09:59, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed Woah! That is very cool! Please add it to Wikipedia:User scripts/List and Wikipedia:Scripts++! Polygnotus (talk) 18:30, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Script for adding a References section

I have tried to make a script for inserting a References section when editing. But it doesn't work. According to the console log, the text is inserted, but the textarea has no visible changes. Can anyone please explain what is going wrong with the script?

mw.loader.using('mediawiki.util', function () {
    mw.hook('wikipage.content').add(function () {
        var textarea = document.getElementById('wpTextbox1');
        if (!textarea) {
			// This isn't an edit page
            return;
        }
        
        // Don't make the link more than once
        if (document.getElementById('pt-insert-refsection')) {
            return;
        }
        
        // Insert a link in the tool menu
        var link = mw.util.addPortletLink(
            'p-tb',
            '#',
            'Insert References',
            'pt-insert-refsection',
            'Insert a References section at the cursor'
        );

		// Listen for clicks
        link.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
        	console.log('Link clicked');
            e.preventDefault();

            var textarea = document.getElementById('wpTextbox1'); 
            if (!textarea) {
                console.error("wpTextbox1 not found, can't insert text.");
                return;
            }
            
            var textToInsert = '\n\n== References ==\n{{Reflist}}\n';

			// Fetch the cursor's start and end position
            const startPos = textarea.selectionStart;
            const endPos = textarea.selectionEnd;
            console.log (startPos, endPos);
            console.log (textarea.value);
            
            // Make new value for textarea
            const textBefore = textarea.value.substring(0, startPos);
            const textAfter = textarea.value.substring(endPos, textarea.value.length);
            
            // Set the new value
            textarea.value = textBefore + textToInsert + textAfter;
            
            // Move the cursor to the end of the inserted text
            const newCursorPos = startPos + textToInsert.length;
            textarea.selectionStart = newCursorPos;
            textarea.selectionEnd = newCursorPos;
            
            // Set focus
            textarea.focus();
        });
    });
});

Thanks, Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 13:44, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

@Dipsacus fullonum: You've probably enabled the beta feature "Improved Syntax Highlighting" that hides the #wpTextbox1 textarea and creates its own editable DOM element; see mw:Extension:CodeMirror#JavaScript. A simple fix to make it work both with and without CM would be, starting from line 34:

var textToInsert = '\n\n== References ==\n{{Reflist}}\n';

$(textarea).textSelection("encapsulateSelection", {
  pre: textToInsert,
});

// Set focus
textarea.focus();

Regards, — DVRTed (Talk) 14:45, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed: Thank you very much. That solved the problem for me. Dipsacus fullonum (talk) 15:04, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Request: Adding "Show piped links" to Special:WhatLinksHere

Can someone write a script for it? Show piped links would be a very helpful feature for Special:WhatLinksHere because it would make the cleanup process much much easier. For example, 1000 items link to article X and 10 of those 1000 items are unnecessary piped links. Using Show piped links would help finding those 10 items very fast and dealing with them per MOS:NOPIPE, WP:NOTBROKEN, and WP:NOPIPEDLINK. --Mann Mann (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@Mann Mann: This is technically doable with a userscript but not really practical. mw:API:Linkshere doesn't have any information on whether the incoming links are piped. That means we'd have to query the wikitext of every article on the list and check if it's a piped link. That'd be an enormous amount of API requests for a target with thousands of backlinks.

Update: while writing this reply I realized we could make use of the regex search instead. For example, insource:/\[\[Julian Casablancas\|/i returns articles with piped link(s) to Julian Casablancas. (Can somebody tell me how resource-intensive/expensive these regex searches are? Maybe @Polygnotus:?) — DVRTed (Talk) 13:34, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed People far smarter than I am said "Don't worry about performance" and that they will tell us when we do need to worry about it.

@Mann Mann You could try User:Polygnotus/Scripts/Piped.js. It adds a link called "Piped links" next to the "External links"-section of the What links here page. Polygnotus (talk) 14:19, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus Nice! I assumed the target audience of that page was regular editors and not people who play around with APIs, etc. I was writing a script myself that would list the results on the same page, but I guess that's not really needed now. Maybe change User:Polygnotus/Scripts/Piped.js#L-45 from

var escapedPage = targetPage.replace(/[.*+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, '\\$&');

to

var escapedPage = mw.util.escapeRegExp(targetPage); because regex is scary. — DVRTed (Talk) 14:35, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed Good point, thanks.

And yeah, that would probably be more elegant. But this is quicker. Polygnotus (talk) 14:41, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Your assumption is correct. For API users mw:API:Etiquette applies. Nardog (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

For anyone who might stumble upon this thread in the future: I found Help:Searching/Regex § Use regexes responsibly to be a helpful reference page. Apparently, [o]veruse of slow regex searches might cause temporary throttling of the feature for yourself and/or everyone on Wikipedia. — DVRTed (Talk) 18:37, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@DVRTed If I go to the Whatlinkshere of A&E and then click "Piped Links" it says A warning has occurred while searching: The regex search timed out, so only partial results are available. Try simplifying your regular expression to get complete results. but yeah there are 7 million articles on which this works fine. Polygnotus (talk) 14:58, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus: I wrote a patch at User:DVRTed/sandbox/temp.js (diff). Instead of insource:/\[\[Julian Casablancas\|/i, it does insource:"Julian Casablancas" insource:/\[\[Julian Casablancas\|/i. It's a noticeable performance improvement and, I assume, less likely to fail. — DVRTed (Talk) 15:19, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Updated. Probably not many articles with an ampersand in the title. Polygnotus (talk) 19:06, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

The script works like a charm. Many thanks --Mann Mann (talk) 18:26, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Mann Mann I added both options so you can now choose either piped or unpiped links. Polygnotus (talk) 23:41, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Perfecto! --Mann Mann (talk) 05:19, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Add a banner to all articles

All articles in this category Category:Books with missing cover should have Template:WikiProject Books banner in their talk page. If not present, the script should add it. It should also add the 'needs-infobox-cover=yes' flag to this banner either way.

It will be a (rather harmless) bot command acting on around 1700 articles.

idk what the guidelines are around this. Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:27, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

@Kingsacrificer WP:BOTREQ? — DVRTed (Talk) 09:33, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for directing me to the right place.h Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:35, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Seems much more suitable to a AWB task if I'm honest, rather than building a bot. Would be a simple enough regex. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:09, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what AWB is. Kingsacrificer (talk) 17:21, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Upload fair use book covers

I (with a few others like @Iljhgtn) am involved with a task for adding cover pages of books that don't have any in their articles.

The process is completely repetitive. We find an image, most often on Google Books or Amazon; upload it as a non-free file filling out the form with the same fields everytime except the file name, article name, and image source link; then include this new image in the article infobox; then remove the image-needed tag from the article's talk page.

I want to automate this. If someone can write the script for this, cool. I have not written any script on wiki yet so if I could be guided to writing this, I would prefer that as well. Wikipedia:User scripts/Guide felt useless to me.

Kingsacrificer (talk) 17:30, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. For some reason I did not see the ping, but thanks for letting me know separately @Kingsacrificer. This would be useful for improving our methods to improve Wikipedia with book cover images added. Iljhgtn (talk) 02:27, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I’m not entirely sure if doing this in an automated way (ripping a website) is entirely legal. One image, is one copyright infringement with a fair use get-out-of-jail card. But automating an entire collection likely violates the terms of service of that website, and might be seen as a repeated offense, which might create more trouble in case you need to defend the collective use of those images. Please consult your own lawyer. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I think what @Kingsacrificer is asking about is how to also streamline the entire process for properly using a non-free file with the Wikipedia file/image upload wizard. It is a tedious process, but one that is highly repetitive. This is normally the sort of situation where a script might be of use. I agree though that care and discretion should be advised, and though I am not a lawyer. I don't see how a human doing this 3,000 times is fine, but a script would not be. I have easily uploaded thousands of non-free book cover images within the proper rights and disclosures required by our use of these images on Wikipedia. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:46, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I am confused what you mean. There is no question here of ripping a website @TheDJ. The aim is to simply automate as many of the steps as possible.

We can download the images from the source, and provide a script modal with the article title, the image, and the source link.

As @Iljhgtn stated, there's no reason why a human doing this repetitively is acceptable but won't be acceptable for a script.

The script is only meant to automate steps ON WIKIPEDIA, not on the other websites whose sources we are using for the images. Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:12, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Correct. As @Kingsacrificer said. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

cc: @Novem Linguae Kingsacrificer (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

To better share my point (as I did in Discord)

1. Find a cover of the book on a website and download it locally.

2. Open the upload file wizard on wikipedia, and choose 'upload a fair-use file'

3. Upload the downloaded file to the wizard. Enter the SAME REPETITIVE DETAILS EVERYTIME (the only thing that changes is the file name and the web source URL of the file).

4. Once file is uploaded, go to the book article. Add an Infobox book template, if not present on the page.

5. Paste the new file's address in the Image parameter of the template. Publish changes.

6. Go to the talk page. There, the WikiProject Books template will have a parameter 'needs-infobox-cover'. Set this to false. Publish changes.

The aim is to automate as much as possible from here. Any help is appreciated.

CC: @Iljhgtn @TheDJ @Novem Linguae Kingsacrificer (talk) 14:23, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Question for techies: is there an action API for file uploading?

If so, then here is a possible engineering specification: Have the user fill out a one page custom form that the user script generates with some basic information such as the file to upload, user clicks run, and then it would do a bunch of API calls:

• 1 API call for file upload
• 1 API call to get book article wikitext
• 1 API call to edit book article wikitext
• 1 API call to get book talk page wikitext
• 1 API call to edit book talk page wikitext

This would still require the user to manually download then manually pick the file, but would automate away everything after that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Special:ApiHelp/upload. Anomie⚔ 02:27, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

This has a lot of helpful fields. But even here, the information we have to fill in to upload a 'non-free' file (type of file which in my case is a book cover, author of the file, source of the file, how the file use will stay minimal, etc.) are not present in the parameters. What do we do to tackle this? Apologies if this is a really noob question. Kingsacrificer (talk) 10:02, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

In my idea above, all information would be collected in one custom form/one page rather than multiple pages. It'd have a "browse" button to pick the file location on your computer, and you could add text boxes there to collect anything else that's needed, such as fair use information that varies between files. You'd press submit when you're done and it would run the script. If that fair use information is the same for every file, even better, because then you can just hard-code those parts into the script, or pre-fill a text box. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:13, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Most fields would be hard-coded. I'm not debating the one page front-end.

My concern is that the API does not mention the fields where I enter the fair use information when manually uploading the image file. Kingsacrificer (talk) 13:31, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

As far as the API goes, all the wikitext that you would put into the File page goes in the text parameter. The script would take your more specific inputs to build the wikitext with the proper templates and such, e.g. what you see if you go to Special:EditPage/File:The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia.jpg (with the source editor, not VE). If you're used to Wikipedia:File upload wizard, it's doing the same behind the scenes. P.S. Don't get excited about a url parameter existing. That requires the upload_by_url right, which no group here on the English Wikipedia has. Anomie⚔ 15:22, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Oh that is interesting. So, will I have to include the entire page's source code in the `text` paramter?

In other words, is this what my `text` parameter should like for this file?

==Summary==
{{Non-free use rationale 2
|Description = Official cover of the book [[The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia]]
|Source = https://www.cambridge.org/in/universitypress/subjects/history/regional-and-world-history-general-interest/cambridge-history-southeast-asia-volume-1-part-2?format=PB&isbn=9780521663700
|Date = 2000
|Author = Cambridge University Press
|Article = The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia
|Purpose = to serve as the primary means of visual identification at the top of the article dedicated to the work in question.
|Replaceability = Any derivative work based upon the cover art would be a copyright violation, so creation of a free image is not possible.
|Minimality = Single use in the infobox
|Commercial = The use of a low resolution image of a work's cover will not impact the commercial viability of the work.
}}

==Licensing==
{{Non-free book cover}}

P.S. I did get excited about the `url` parameter, haha. Thanks for the clarification. Kingsacrificer (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Other than a typo or two (which I fixed for you while wrapping it in <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight>), yes. Anomie⚔ 17:39, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much, this is a great starting point for me. Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

@Anomie

I want to recreate a similar flow, but this time for files to be uploaded to commons. I am not sure if the flow should be pretty much similar or should I make some changes that I might miss?

Example file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Treatise_on_the_Circle_and_the_Sphere_(title_page).jpg Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:50, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

The API call would be the same, but the wikitext you need to use may differ. I'm not terribly familiar with Commons to say how. Anomie⚔ 20:54, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Let me try this. THanks! Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:51, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Looking forward to what you build here! Iljhgtn (talk) 18:52, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

That would be ideal indeed. Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:42, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting

Apologies if this exists, but I couldn't find it. The closest mention was this.

When using the source editor it can be hard to discern text from references, especially if there is less text than references.

I would like a script that colours anything between <ref></ref> tags a different colour than the text. They can be the same colour, or even better a different (random) colour for each reference while the text stays unchanged.

To my layman mind this seems like a trivial thing to implement for someone who knows JavaScript, but I could be wrong. If a script or gadget like this already exists—even better!

Thanks. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 07:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

@TurboSuperA+ Have you tried Preferences → Beta features → Improved Syntax Highlighting? — DVRTed (Talk) 07:50, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Now I have. Thanks. Although it doesn't work on mobile.

Colours seem "muted", if that makes sense. Is there a way to change colours and colour scheme? I'd like the colours to be brighter and there to be stronger contrast between the article text and code/markup. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 07:59, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I've not personally tested it, but it seems like you can write your own CSS overrides for its classes: mw:Help:Extension:CodeMirror#Color and style customization.

For example, to change the color of the template name:

.cm-mw-template-name {
    color: red;
}

That preferably goes into your Special:MyPage/common.css. — DVRTed (Talk) 08:14, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Woah. That is exactly what I need! Thanks a lot. Btw, it looks like syntax highlighting works on mobile in this comment box. I'll try refreshing and see if it then works on article source editing. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 08:19, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Nope. Which is strange, no? That I have syntax highlighting in this box but not in the source editor. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 08:21, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

@TurboSuperA+ It seems like CM is not enabled on mobile; the "comment box" is likely from DiscussionTools or something similar. I wrote a little script to enable it while source-editing a page on mobile; LMK if it works for you: User:DVRTed/minerva-enableCM.js. — DVRTed (Talk) 09:56, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Where do I put the script? In global or my userscripts? TurboSuperA+_[talk] 10:48, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Add {{subst:iusc|User:DVRTed/minerva-enableCM.js}} to your common.js file. — DVRTed (Talk) 11:00, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

It works! Great job!

And to confirm, common.css still applies, right? TurboSuperA+_[talk] 11:49, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Yep! — DVRTed (Talk) 12:18, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Merge proposals

Are there any scripts available which start merge proposals discussions, tag the appropriate pages and notify appropriate WikiProjects? TarnishedPath^talk 09:58, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

None come to mind off the top of my head. You can always check WP:US/L if you haven't already. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Tools to help with the actual merge process, including adding merge from templates to talk and setting up redirects, but nothing to start merge discussions and automate adding notices to the top of affected pages. TarnishedPath^talk 12:04, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

I'd love this too! Merge proposals are much less complicated than XfDs but for some reason there still isn't anything that can nominate two pages for merging. I can imagine a sidebar link that, when clicked while on the target page, asks for a list of pages to merge, applies the same tag to all of them, and sends me to the talk page so I can write my rationale. FaviFake (talk) 16:36, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

I think I'd like to take a stab at it if such a script doesn't exist yet. I'd appreciate if someone could review the rough specs at User:DVRTed/sandbox/merge-helper-specs, as I'm not very familiar with the merge process. — DVRTed (Talk) 01:07, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

@DVRTed, the specs look about what you'd expect. The only feedback I'd give is that on occaion an editor might wish to propse a merge of two or more pages into a page that doesn't exist as yet. E.g., Merge Goat and Sheep to Goat and Sheep. I wouldn't expect any logic to stop the process, only to confirm with the editor making the proposal that the destination doesn't yet exist.

A feature you might want to consider adding is notifying any Wikiprojects which are listed in the Wikiproject banners at the top of the source and destination pages. TarnishedPath^talk 02:29, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

That looks great, thank you so much! I had a slightly different user experience flow in mind, I'm starting to work on it. I'll publish it in a few hours when I'm done FaviFake (talk) 17:00, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

DVRTed I've made a few changes to the flow at User talk:DVRTed/sandbox/merge-helper-specs, what do you think? I hope my version isn't too complex? FaviFake (talk) 20:41, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

@FaviFake Thanks! I briefly skimmed through it. Comparatively, it seems simpler than what I had planned. That said, I think a large input field that accepts a raw list of articles is less intuitive than a source page input field with a + button next to it to add more source pages. Everything else seems like an improvement. I'll update my specs to try and come up with something that merges (hehehe) both of our ideas—probably not until the weekend. — DVRTed (Talk) 22:11, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

@DVRTed Thanks! Personally, I'm kinda a merge power user, so it would be useful to me to have a blank big input field, but I agree yours is much more user-friendly! (If you had a ton of time to waste, you could even do both and let users toggle between the two states. But don't worry about it!)
I've updated mine with both options and a better visual representation of the UI for the version with a plus button! FaviFake (talk) 22:36, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Update merge notices after closing a merge proposal

After a merge discussion has been closed, the WP:MERGE process currently requires a lot of steps:

To close a merge discussion, use the {{Discussion top}} and {{Discussion bottom}} templates. Then:

• If the discussion is closed with consensus to merge, change the {{Merge to}} tag to {{Being merged to}} in the source page, and change {{Merge from}} to {{Being merged from}} in the destination page. They should remained tagged until the merge is performed, so that they are added to the relevant backlog.
• If the discussion is closed with consensus against merging or no consensus, remove all the {{Merge}} templates from the destination and source pages. Optionally, you can also place {{Old merge}} on the corresponding talk pages.

So when I close a merge discussion I have to:

1. Use this script to close the discussion
2. Open the pages involved.
3. On the first page, click edit
4. Change "merge to/from" to "being merged to/from"
5. In the edit summary, note that the discussion was closed
6. Publish
7. Repeat steps #3 to #6 on the second page

This is very repetitive and it shouldn't be too hard to automate. I'm thinking there could be a link in Tools that asks you to input the page names, asks if you want to

• remove the merge tags
  • (It would also be amazing if it could add a simple {{Old merge|otherpage = NameOfOtherPage}} to both talk pages when choosing to remove the tags:)
• or change the merge tags from Merge to being merged or vice versa, in case it's reopened

and then it finds them and automatically does it.

There are a lot of redirects to {{merge}}, {{merge to}}, {{merge from}} and their "Being merged ..." counterparts, so a simple search for the exact string {{Merge to| would fail often, but I'm sure there's a way to identify them somehow. Is this easy to do? FaviFake (talk) 15:43, 18 January 2026 (UTC)

Are you aware of User:SD0001/easy-merge? ~Kvng (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Of course, I use it daily. It can do none of the things I described here. FaviFake (talk) 20:15, 24 January 2026 (UTC)