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Tech News: 2015-10

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

Recent software changes

• A Lua function to use Wikidata has changed. You need to update the pages that use it. [1]
• You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Uzbek and Minangkabau. You need to enable it in your Beta options.
• You can now hide banners if you don't have an account. [2] [3]

Software changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki has been on test wikis and MediaWiki.org since February 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from March 3. It will be on all Wikipedias from March 4 (calendar).
• You can use the Content Translation tool on Wikipedia in Punjabi and Kyrgyz. You can ask for the tool in other languages.
• Editing the fake blank line in VisualEditor is now simpler. This change also fixed a few bugs. [4] [5] [6] [7]
• The TemplateData editor now warns you if a related page already has TemplateData. [8]
• The TemplateData table now tells you if a template doesn't take any parameters. [9]

Meetings

• You can read the notes from the last meeting with the VisualEditor team.
• You can join the next weekly meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meetings you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on March 4 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join technical meetings in France and Mexico this year. You will be able to ask for help if you can't pay yourself. [10]

Future changes

• You will be able to get a direct link for a section of a page. [11]

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

16:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar

We don't always agree, and sometimes clash, but I want to acknowledge you many tireless deeds to improve the project. This could have just as well be the original barnstar or the technical barnstar, but the sheer amount of (high quality) work you do made me settle on the Tireless contributor. You're a great Wikipedian, and the project is better for your presence. Thank you for all your work. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:05, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Signpost quote (1)

Hey Edokter, thanks for all of your help with {{Signpost quote}}—I owe you a beer if I see you at a Wikimania. Could I ask two further things of you? Could you change the quote font size to 90% and eliminate the strange extra break that has appeared before the quotes (e.g. here)? Thanks again. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the gap seems to be caused by the fact it is now a wrapper template. The only short term solution is removing the leading linebreak. I need to work on a new version of {{quote}} that can handle all quote scenarios and doesn't use tables. As for the the text size; {{pull quote}} does not have a parameter for that, so it would have to be done inside the wrapper template. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, alright. Thank you for the workaround. How would I code that in the wrapper table? I am, unfortunately, pretty useless beyond basic HTML. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Take a look at the sandbox of template:quote, it should have what you're looking for. Alternatively, there is a POC on test.wiki too, but that doesn't properly handle missing params. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 23:18, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

@Martijn Hoekstra: I don't see a size parameter in Template:Quote/sandbox? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:18, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@The ed17 and Ed:, No, I haven't done anything to support the size parameter yet; it's the non-table style with the decorative quote marks that's explored there. The leading space issue is a tricky one; the template is used with and without leading space, and it is generally intended to be on a line of its own. Getting the spacing right for both scenarios is somewhat tricky. I'm starting to think that a general quote template (which probably should maybe be something like {{quote/core}}) should support all these different kinds of functionality, and that wrappers for specific use cases could exist. Pull quotes should (almost) never be used in article space, nor should the boxed variety (per MOS). Having {{quote}} wrap the hypothetical {{quote/core}} setting those parameters that are suitable for mainspace makes sense to me. Having {{Signpost quote}} wrap {{quote/core}} in the same way, but with other parameters, leading to the grey decorative quotes style with a size parameter seems reasonable as well. I think that's the correct way forward, but I'm still thinking if there is a reasonable way to do that which also follows the diverse TfD closes (i.e. there is an overwhelming consensus not to merge the functionality of {{Imagequote2}} - and I still can't wrap my head around why the general quote template shouldn't be made to work for that use case as well) Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

@Martijn Hoekstra: Oh, I'm sorry, I read your post incorrectly. What part(s) should I copy and paste? As for the rest, I don't think anyone is going to complain at a most customizable template, regardless of TfD closures (and that didn't have many people voting in any case). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Main page redesign

I honestly like your main page redesign, which is a small comfort, I guess. :)

I was wondering, though, how do you feel towards using the HTML5 semantic elements? As long as you don't use <main>, you can count on 94% global compatibility even without libraries (such as the MIT-licensed Modernizr). I honestly feel that, in five years as IE6-8 gradually dies, div flooding will become as unfashionable as table layouts. And imagine trying to change the layout when that happens. :p Sceptre ^(talk) 19:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

(stalker) see also: T25932. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Semantic elements only make sense in the context of the entire page, not just the (editable) article. I don't think divs are going anywhere soon either; they were created for layout, while tables were created for organizing data. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

In the bigger picture, If we replaced with div#content with article, it then makes more sense to semantically style the rest of the article window. h2+p+p+p... becomes section>h2, table.infobox becomes aside.infobox+table, etc. I recognise the utility in divs, but using them as flooding when better elements exist, is messy and, IIRC, against the spec. Sceptre ^(talk) 10:27, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Just another voice wandering over to offer approval of your redesign. Normal service is now resumed. Dolescum (talk) 00:17, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Me too! Mlpearc (open channel) 00:22, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

If you're interested in advocating for this, the Signpost's opinion desk is open to you ... hint. ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Nodisplay

can we redirect this to {{hidden sort key}}? seems like that is the current usage. Frietjes (talk) 15:29, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, they are not the same. Hidden sort key is used to add (and hide) a sort key in sortable tables, and is only hidden in table cells. {{Nodisplay}} hides the text unconditionally. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:04, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Table

find a solution for Betelgeuse and we can probably nominate Template:table for deletion. Frietjes (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Done! -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

now nominated. Frietjes (talk) 14:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Main Page

Hi. The Main Page needs some attention. As you probably know, the latest version of the software introduces clickable § anchors for headings. This is awesome, until headings are transcluded, and depend on user-defined padding in templates. This padding is currently set to 0.4em, which causes the section signs to be placed on top of the border. It needs to be changed to something like 1em. There are probably more places where this needs to be fixed. On Swedish Wikipedia, I have made such changes here and here, for template documentation and request for adminship, respectively. Nirmos (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Electronic Component

Hi Edokter. About your deletion of Template:Infobox Electronic Component - I don't think WP:R3 applies here, as the page was not recent (February 2008), and it's a long stretch to say that "Template:Infobox Electronic Component" is an implausible variation of "Template:Infobox electronic component". It was also created by a page move, which is explicitly excluded from R3. Would you consider restoring it? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

That was probably just a misclick; I nominated it for G2. The template contained nothing but a title, as far as I recall. Alakzi (talk) 02:49, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

It was a redirect with capitalized words and had no incoming links or transclusions. Just harmless cleanup (G6). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:09, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Not that it really matters, but it wasn't a redirect when I nominated it. Alakzi (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Columns

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T95739

This is in the category of "advance planning", but: I'd like to make wikitext handle columns gracefully, without need to resort to a hodge-podge collection of templates. I'm looking at Dinajpur District, Bangladesh#Population statistics as one example. If you were presenting this in an ideal format, that works for widescreens and smartphones, in the wikitext editor and (eventually) in VisualEditor, what would you do? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) - Tough one... Where tables are static, there are some dynamics in columns that need to be specified, like desired column width and maximum number of columns, although some sane defaults could be applied. But columns are CSS, not HTML; straight wikitext ↔ HTML conversion is tricky, unless the parser/parsoid is made to handle inline CSS as well. The alternative is to use some pre-fab CSS classes instead, but that incurs loss of flexibility. Either way, you'd need to come up with new wiki syntax to generate columns. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like I should set my expectations to "this is going to be kind of difficult". Overall, do you think it would be desirable for the parser to handle inline CSS? Or is the likely benefit too small to justify the costs?

In terms of the wikitext markup, I've assumed that we'll do something sensible, like decide that nobody's ever going to need to write %%% at the start of a line in an article, so you'll put that on its own line at the top and bottom of the thing that should be in columns—and, voilà, you have the correct number of columns for your screen. Perhaps %%% will trigger normal columns and %%%% will trigger wide columns (or more compact columns/fit more on a screen). Does this sound even remotely reasonable to you?

My goal in talking to you now is to come up with something sensible to stick into Phabricator, so please feel free to tell me the Right Answer™.  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:53, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF) - I don't think it is too hard using inline CSS; it is the most straightforward approach. Personally, I would choose [| and [| as column markers, with | (or ||) as optional column break points. That should not create a conflict with existing markup. HTML-wise, they should translate to somthing like:

Wiki markup	HTML
[| cols="..." colwidth="..."	<div class="mw-columns" style="[generated columns CSS]">
||	Enclose content between markers in <div class="mw-nocolbreak">...</div>
|]	</div>

The parameters are optional; a default like 30em and 3 cols maximum should do. I think this should get the ball rolling. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 07:34, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Broken

So what are you going to do to unbreak what you've broken? [12][13] Seriously, this disruption is totally unacceptable. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:10, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Screenshot please. I can't imagine anything being "broken". -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:14, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Unless you have a time machine to provide me, I can't possibly take a screenshot. Take a look at the source for User:Curly Turkey/Recognized content, where there are clearly seven instances of {{top icon}} to display my TFAs, and then look at my user page, where only one shows up. They all showed up until this new version of the template appeared. That's aside form the icons now being unexpectedly huge. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:24, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Like I said on Template talk:Top icon; that is because the name or id parameter is missing; each use of {{top icon}} requires a unique name/id. Reverting the templates doesn't help. You can also specify width from your user page. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:31, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

You do realize that most users will not be watching these behind-the-scenes changes and will be frustrated but them when they jump out suddenly, don't you? Most users don't expect the code they've been using for years to change its behaviour without notice. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

hat would mean no improvement of any kind would be possible. User pages are low priority and are allowed to break in these cases. The template documentation even stated it explicitly. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:46, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

"That would mean no improvement of any kind would be possible."—talk about hyperbole. This has just sucked all my faith out of trying to use templates. I'm not interested in playing whack-a-mole. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:54, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics‎/temp

A week ago I moved this revision to main page. The greatest difficulty in doing these improvements has been getting any feedback. You can see my postings on the various talk pages. At the moment the text is stored at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics‎/temp while I have still got the longer working text (with options ) at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics‎/sandbox. I thought the text I submitted was ready for main space where it would be exposed to editors with more expertise, but others say it still suffers from notes and other weaknesses. So lets use that as the starting point.

As you made a posting today, could you have a look at the /temp version and make the changes needed (When you have time or a space on you todo list). It would be helpful to know where I am barking up the wrong tree. I will cross post to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics to allow (entice) other experts to join in. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 13:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the better way to do it is to post the changes directly on the talk page; no one is going to read the entire sandbox page to find out what has changed. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. The major changes are ones of formatting and ordering of sections. The logic of posting was that the changes could be revealed by the diff tool on the watchlist page- but that was reverted. Still it can be found on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics‎ view history. If you do have a little space in your schedule I would be grateful. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Hillary Rodham Clinton

You are invited to join WikiProject Hillary Clinton, a WikiProject dedicated to improving articles related to American politician Hillary Clinton. You received this invitation because of your history editing articles related to her. The WikiProject Hillary Clinton group discussion is here. If you are interested in joining, please visit the project page, and add your name to the list of participants.

Thanks for your consideration, and please note that joining this project is in no way an endorsement of HRC or her political positions. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:Nowraplinks

Hello, I saw your recent edit where you changed the use of {{Nowraplinks}}. I've added that template to several hundred "List of birds of ..." lists. If you think it would be helpful, I can make the changes you made to List of birds of Kerala to the other lists using AWB. Let me know if that would be worthwhile.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  14:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary; I can't find any other uses. But thanks anyway. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:47, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Physical oceanography/sandbox

Template:Physical oceanography/sandbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Crowsnest (talk) 12:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Forks?

[14] — BranStark (talk) 16:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

As in Fork (software), meaning another version of the same thing. If you're not happy with the current icon, that's fine. But please don't promote an alternative version; it creates a wildgrowth of icon templates I'd like to avoid. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Ok thanks for explaining — BranStark (talk) 16:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for FontSizer.js

I've found it very useful in certain specific circumstances. --Dennis J au (talk) 05:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

April 2015

Hello, I am AuraSphere999999. I am a beginner in Wikipedia. I just letting you know, that the period MUST be inside the quotation marks ("."), not outside it ("".). Having the period after the close quotations in incorrect punctuation. Thanks. AuraSphere999999 (talk) 00:35, 27 April 2015 (UTC) AuraSphere999999 (talk)

Hello AuraSphere999999. Actually, you are wrong. In English grammar, punctuation is never inside the quotes, unless the punctuation is part of the quoted context. Please review Wikipedia:Manual of style (specifically the section on logical quotations) for reference in the future. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:49, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

No, According to the English language, punctuation is inside the quotation marks. Please stop making edit wars! And Please do NOT REVERT EDITS ON MY USER PAGE! I am a beginner in Wikipedia. AuraSphere999999 (talk) 23:53, 27 April 2015 (UTC) AuraSphere999999 (talk)

File:Daredevil-televison.jpg

Hi, I noticed you removed {{Non-free reduce}} from File:Daredevil-televison.jpg. My understanding is that non-free images were supposed to be smaller than 400 x 400 pixels (or 160,000 square pixels), preferably under 100,000 square pixels. At its current size, the image is 230,400 square pixels and it only has to be 250 pixels wide. Shouldn't it be reduced further? Mosmof (talk) 19:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not a hard limit. Any lower does make some parts (like the Marvel logo) illegible. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:52, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation. Mosmof (talk) 00:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

2015 main page redesign proposal

See also: User talk:Nikkimaria § Re: Nexus for Exoplanet System Science

@Guy Macon: I just want to let both of you know that I support a Wikipedia:2015 main page redesign proposal if you should desire to reboot it. Beyond that, I could help drum up support for such a proposal. One thing I would like to recommend: try writing an article about the rebooted proposal in the Signpost to both make your case and to invite people to a new discussion. Viriditas (talk) 22:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

FormWizard gadget debugging

Hi there. I saw the comment of your revert. What can I do to debug? I have an identical setup for FormWizard on testwiki, and can install charInsert there to see if I can duplicate the conflict, if need be. But any info you can provide to help me get started would be great. Cheers, Jmorgan (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

You can still enable both gadgets here and you will probably get the same error. Just edit any page/section in Wikipedia space (not in VE), such as WP:AN, and start debugging. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:39, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Intentional disambiguation links

I've had to revert a couple of changes you made to Master#See also. When we deliberately link to a dab page, the link should point to "Whatever (disambiguation)", even when this is a redirect. So sayeth WP:INTDAB. Favonian (talk) 16:46, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Right. Thanks. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:52, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:ITN

Hello. For this edit, you cited MOS:NUMERAL. This is perplexing, as you replaced the consistent usage of guideline-compliant words with a non-guideline-compliant figure/word combination.

• Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all in figures:

  •  five cats and thirty-two dogs, not five cats and 32 dogs.

  •  86 men and 103 women, not eighty-six men and 103 women

  •  There were 3 deaths and 206 injuries (even though 3 would normally be given as three) or Three died and two hundred six were injured (even though two hundred six would normally be given as 206), not There were three deaths and 206 injuries

I routinely watch ITN and adjust the blurbs for optimal compliance with the guideline – resulting, in this instance, in the consistent usage of figures to quantify people; the earthquake item contained two such quantities for which the spelled-out forms are undesirable ("125" and "2,500"), so the train derailment item's single instance of the inverse ("8") was preferable. When the earthquake item was bumped, it became possible to make all of the blurbs optimally compliant by switching to the consistent usage of words. I'm confused as to why you not only undid my edit, but manually modified the train derailment blurb to state that "eight people" were killed and "more than 200" were injured (while citing MOS:NUMERAL, which explicitly advises against doing this). —David Levy 16:35, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Err... that only applies when two numbers appear in the same sentence. That is not the case here, so we should follow the standard rules (1-9 spelled out, otheriwse numerals). Besides, it saves valuable real-estate. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:47, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

But didn't your edit change one sentence to "An Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring more than 200." thereby mixing numbers and words in the same sentence? So per David's example it should either be "An Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring more than two hundred." or "An Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia, killing 8 people and injuring more than 200.", right? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

OK, I missed that one. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

No worries, it's off the main page now. In other news, thanks so much for your updates to the ITN template for RD and Ongoing, absolutely brilliant. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:07, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks from me, as well. I'd been meaning to work on something along these lines, but your implementation is more advanced than mine would have been, so it probably is better that I didn't get around to it. —David Levy 19:48, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, I've never seen the rule in question interpreted as applicable strictly to individual sentences. It's routinely applied – at a bare minimum – to a full section (if not the entire article).

Secondly, "1-9 spelled out, otherwise numerals" isn't our style convention. Quoting WP:NUMERAL again:

• Integers greater than nine expressible in one or two words may be expressed either in numerals or in words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred). In spelling out numbers, "components" from 21 to 99 are hyphenated; larger ones are not (fifty-six, five hundred).

The earthquake item contained two numerals not expressible in one or two words ("125" and "2,500"). When it was bumped from ITN, all remaining numerals were expressible in one or two words (and doing so eliminated the non-preferred "8" figure). So even on an individual basis, each blurb seen here was fully compliant with the guideline.

As the Rambling Man noted, the train derailment item has since been bumped, so no relevant problem remains. I just want to ensure that the situation is clear in the future. —David Levy 19:48, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Bug?

If I'm not mistaken, the right-aligned links appear only when neither the "currentevents" parameter nor the "recentdeaths" parameter is used; when only one of the two is unused, the relevant link is omitted entirely. —David Levy 21:44, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

That is correct, and I thought that was the intention. I can't remember what was showing before if only one of them was used. Should both lines be used even if only one is passed? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 23:12, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 23:37, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much. In my opinion, the new setup is an improvement over the one used previously (wherein either of the two links was shifted to the right when its "ticker" was unused, even if the other remained on the left).

I see only one additional (and relatively minor) element in need of fixing: when the Portal:Current events link is unaccompanied by a colon and article links, it should be piped to read "More current events..." instead of "Ongoing" (as it is when it appears on the right).

And as a suggested change (not a fix, per se), I think that it would be preferable to abandon the right-alignment entirely (and have both links always appear on the left, thereby maintaining a consistent layout that's less likely to confuse readers), particularly given the current setup's maintenance of a left-hand link when one of the two is unaccompanied by a colon and article links. (It probably makes sense to continue combining the pair onto a single line, though.) As I noted previously, when I experimented with an always-left-hand layout, no one complained.

Thanks again for all of your hard work. —David Levy 01:15, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

No problem. Re the Ongoing line: I've made the line read "Ongoing events". Switching text proves slightly complicated (without having to repeat the template code 4 times). I hope that is an improvement. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:30, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we can discuss a more definitive layout on the template page. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

You may be interested in...

...this discussion, as it concerns changing of the MP. Eman235/talk 20:49, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

{{TFArecentlist}}

Hello - just spotted this handy template. But the list of recently featured articles always used to be left-aligned e.g. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 2015 - was it a deliberate decision to switch sides, and if so (out of interest) why? Thanks. Bencherlite^Talk 08:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that was intentional, but perhaps a little inpertinent on my part. But the reason is simple; all other Main Page footers are right-aligned, so I felt it looked more balanced when all footers are dispalyed consistently. So far, you're the first to notice. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, ITN ("recent deaths" and "ongoing") is left-aligned, as is "more anniversaries" at OTD. Bencherlite^Talk 01:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

ITN is dynamic; it only moves left when there are items, and OTD has 366 pages. But all "recent ..." lines are right-aligned, so it is more consistent. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:02, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't particularly mind - it's a design/presentation issue, and I generally avoid getting into those discussions when it comes to the main page because life is too short etc. As long as it was a deliberate decision, rather than an oversight, it's fine by me - particularly if no-one's noticed! Thanks. Bencherlite^Talk 10:56, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

TFAIMAGE

Ah - I was adding the functionality of {{remove file prefix}} to {{TFAIMAGE}}, having spotted it at {{TFAVIDEO}}, then spotted that you had removed that functionality from the video template! Is there a technical reason not to use it? It's currently in use on the main page via TFAIMAGE and doesn't appear to have broken anything... Bencherlite^Talk 18:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

That is a pretty useless template, and we have always have perfectly done wihtout. What is the actual benefit in using it? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:29, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I am perfectly well aware that "we" (i.e. mainly me, since I introduced the TFAIMAGE template and was the curator of the TFA section for quite some time) have managed without using that "remove file prefix" template before now. Using it would streamline the instructions for nominators – which are long enough already – as they wouldn't have to worry about whether the prefix was or wasn't required. But you disagree and have just reverted me without discussion, so I shall stop playing with the TFA* templates now, since my input is clearly unwelcome these days. Feel free, though, to remove the "alt" and "link" parameters from TFAIMAGE since "we have always have perfectly done without" those parameters as well. Surely they just add unnecessary processing as well. If they are to be kept, though, please add them to the documentation subpage and the TFA template instructions, otherwise nobody will know about them or use them. Bencherlite^Talk 21:33, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Bencherlite OK, that was uncalled for. I realize you created the template, and to be fair, I do think that even that is slightly overkill. Any editor that know how to use images (and all in TFA do), doesn't need that template. In fact, it is a bit of an insult to editors that are a little experienced. But it does provide some consistency. However, you should know I am one that is wary about exessive template code, especially on the main page. The core priciple is: keep it simple. Any unnecessary template that is used on the main page is removed, because apart from unnecessary processing, every additional template used on the main page is automatically cascade-protected, and can no longer be edited by non-admins. That is why I reverted it. Keep that in mind whenever you are working on anything related to the main page. Now for the link and alt parameters, those are essential, as it allows to link to uncropped images, which happens regularly in the other sections, but was not possible for TFA until now. You saw David Levy use raw image format, just to accomodate for that, and he pointed out that shortcoming. That is why I added it. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 23:28, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

"Any editor that know how to use images (and all in TFA do), doesn't need that template. In fact, it is a bit of an insult to editors that are a little experienced." Well, I've read that through several times and you are clearly talking about TFAIMAGE. Gee, thanks. I have clearly been insulting myself, my successors as TFA coordinators and every nominator at TFAR since November 2013, and nobody had the heart or courage to tell me until tonight. As you might imagine, I strongly disagree, as someone who actually (to be fair) knows something about the day-to-day operation of the TFA subpage system. I created {{TFAIMAGE}} after nearly a year of stewarding the TFA section, having found that the chore of inserting

<div style="float: left; margin: 0.5em 0.9em 0.4em 0;"> [[File:2011-01-28 Cracker Barrel in Morrisville, NC.jpg|100px|A Cracker Barrel in Morrisville, NC]] </div>

and its equivalent into every daily subpage was, well, a chore - a minor one in its own way, but one of the many that I had to do. That's not to mention the need to clean up TFAR in the old days from time to time when people had incorrectly copied and pasted from elsewhere (too many div tags, not enough, etc...). So I looked for ways to make things easier for me and others (hence {{TFAFULL}} as well). One easy-to-remember template did the hard work (and prevented people from coming up with their own freestyle design variations, deliberately or accidentally - but again you don't know about those days at TFAR, I suspect) - all it needed was a filename and a caption. It kept things simple. No-one, until you, complained. It was one of the things that make the task of managing TFA/TFAR a lot easier for me, and (I hope) made nomination at TFAR easier for others. If you think the template is insulting and overkill, please take it to WP:TFD, and explain to the current coordinators that you prefer less template code on the main page and more inconvenience for those who actually organise its content, because it insults their intelligence to think that they might find it useful.

As it happens, I did not see David Levy use raw image format, because I'm increasingly inactive on Wikipedia these days. (I've since found it and the discussion, and am rather underwhelmed at what I've been missing). But in all the years that I was involved with TFA (prior to and during my time as coordinator) I never saw anyone ask for or add a link to an uncropped image, as far as I can remember - so "essential" is hardly an accurate way of describing the addition of |link=. Nor has there been any demand for an "alt" parameter. Again, if you think these are necessary additions to the template, please document them at the template documentation and TFAR nomination instructions, otherwise nobody but you and I will know about them (and I have no need to use them).

While I have been writing this over-long reply, I see that Crisco 1492 has reinstated the 100px default size and the remove file prefix function. I'm sure you won't edit-war on protected pages. If you have any issues with the way that the TFA family of templates are run, please take them up now with Chris and his fellow TFA coordinators. Bencherlite^Talk 00:49, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Bencherlite. The old HTML was a pain in the butt, in which a single misplaced quote mark meant that nothing would display. The TFA image has streamlined the process, making it easier for the coordinators (who have many other issues to deal with as well), and including something which eliminates the need to include "file" can only increase efficiency (I've made the mistake myself, and I'm sure others have and will in the future). As to the image size: that is a very controversial issue (as evidenced by the numerous threads dedicated to it in the MP archives) and a very visible one, and as such it should not be done without discussion. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:56, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Fine... I'm not touching it ever again. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 07:26, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• Could you explain this edit. I don't see what was broken in the syntax. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 15:44, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

You should never evaluate (#if:) a variable that has no default (that is, wihtout a pipe). Doing so leaves it undefined if not passed, or passed empty. The whole point of the evaluation is to trap empty parameters. At the same time, a default (|100px) was specified in the first clause which would never be used anyway, as {{{size}}} would always have a value. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• Alright, thanks. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

POTUS & VPOTUS Templates

I see no reason against having a color themed template box for each list. Plenty of topics have such colorations: colleges/universities, military templates, medal tamplates, etc. This template:

is solid black with gold. This stands out more than anything, but has been like this for 5 years. The color themes are not completely functional, but they can help follow a theme of sorts. Spartan7W § 16:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

You can overdo it; the POTUS navbox looked like a election banner, and really clashed with the other navboxes (when grouped, such in Barack Obama). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:53, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

But isn't the above not overdoing it? The same argument can be made, looking at the infoboxes related to Douglas MacArthur, this too might be seen as a distracting theme. If that standard is held, I'd say no boxes should be given a theme of any sorts. Spartan7W § 19:43, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll refer you to the manual of style. Styling infoboxes is acceptable, but I think such styling should be avoided in navboxes, especially when they are grouped. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:13, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

T87077 redux

I just stumbled upon phab:T87077 and didn't think re-opening it for what could amount to nothing more than an FYI of sorts was a good idea without touching base here first.

First; I was surprised nobody mentioned the issue with IE 9, 10 & 11 and it's sub-pixel font scaling "features" under a wiki-environment such as Vector. I know a calculated size of 14px is a good fit for something like the needs of Wikipedia but that never truly materializes for those of us "stuck" with IE thanks to that little gem -- never mind the needs at other sister-projects.

And every subsequent change to that Vector "default" only widens the rendering gap and/or compounds the differences between browsers. I'm not saying 16px would be all that much better but at least its a multiple of 2, 4 & 8 whereas 14px is just 2 & 7 (i.e. fewer 2 decimal-place values in ems possible).

Fwiw... The following does a good job of curbing this problem ...

#bodyContent.mw-body-content {
	position: relative;
	font-size: 0.8750em;
	font-size: calc(1.00em * 0.8750);
	line-height: 1.6;
	z-index: 0;
}

.... though I can't say its been vetted for possible ill-effects against every other browser out there at the moment. IE7 & 8 do use the fallback value which is what Vector has now.

Second; the real problem with going to 16px is the presence of a static side-bar period. If you go to Mobile View, one can see 16px is not overkill at all if margins, cpl, line-height and @rules are all well managed at the same time. Can't do anything like that with site logos hidden then padded back into view or with 10 to 11 ems locked in away in a side-bar etc. etc.

Anyway - if there is any chance of just patching up the current settings (.Less is more I take it?) with something like the above - it would be one less thing I would need to do/monitor locally. -- George Orwell III (talk) 15:12, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T102364

I never knew about that. Does it really cause an inconsistency between IE and the rest? If that is the case, and the calc() rule fixes it, I recommend opening a new task in Phabricator to have it added (Chrome and Firefox seem to accept it, and the fallback works in IE8 and Opera 12.x). The original task discusses font size in general, but this is not related to that. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:31, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

That's why I didn't want to convolute the two nuances - real bug vs. wishful thinking - by opening it back up again.

And yes there are inconsistencies abound - mostly in scenarios like this where there is a "skin-like" environment driving settings and the like. You'd easily see things shifting about if you had IE 9, 10 or 11 and toggled between the two possible font-size values -- but go to Amazon.com for example and you would hardly find any difference between IE and another browser. Lists here are by far the worst because line-heights & font-sizes seem to change more frequently for that class of element; which in turn multiplies any previous differences of course.

I'll try to get around to filing a task later today -- though I'm not sure how that is going to work since Vector is in .LESS the last I checked instead of plain old .CSS. -- George Orwell III (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

<forehead smack> Duh! If you want see "the shift" without IE just try a value of 0.87em along with 0.8750em for the core font-size and toggle between the two. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:07, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

That hardly has any effect on XP with Chrome, and I don't have IE 9/10 to test with. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:20, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Added bug tracker -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:37, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Template:Crlf

Hi. I have undeleted Template talk:Crlf and redirected it to Template talk:Break. I appreciate the help - also in deleting the documentation - but I ask you to give others a little time to finish up, so not to get things confused, please. Thanks. - Nabla (talk) 12:18, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

It was never deleted. If you are going to redirect a template, you should state so in the TfD's outcome; it now states "deleted" when in fact, it is not. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:45, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The *talk* page was deleted, by you, not the template. Yes, you are correct, for a while the closing appeared as "deleted". It was some error that I am not sure how it happened; instead of my intended closing statement it displayed the default message, but it is fixed by now. Again, no big deal, I was simply informing you on why I reverted you deletion, thanking the help, while also asking not too be too fast as it may get unnecessarily confusing. Enjoy - Nabla (talk) 17:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I missed the'talk' part. However, talk pages of redirects are genrally deleted. There are no incoming links. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:25, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Telos

Why did you remove telos from the infobox, are you a cryon? Shall I remove Mondas, it is stated that it is a home planet of the Cybermen elsewhere in the article too. Telos is a massive part of Cybermen history and deserves to be in the infobox. Millions of Cybermen were created on telos so it is a home planet. It was also well sourced. I have not re-instated it as you would likely unreasonably remove it again.

Also, while mentioning that the Cybermen appeared in the five doctors and silver nemesis, in the other mention it is not linked to popularity as my reference is, therefore you should not have deleted it.

Thanks for reading,

Gothaparduskerialldrapolatkh (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi, This is best raised on the article's talk page. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:02, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

You are using AHistory: An Unauthorised History of the Doctor Who Universe as a reference for the information. The key word being 'unauthorised'. That would seem to indicate it not being a reliable source for Doctor Who information. Tardis.wikia.com might be more appropriate, as they have different standards than Wikipedia. Cheers. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Union of Opposites ‖ 18:06, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

User:Ebyabe I have now mentioned my problem of the page's talk page as you suggested thank you. Looking there I have attempted to allay your concerns about my source and tardis.wikia, while a fantastic site I use often, may not work as a source as I do not believe references from wikis, whether this one or another, are permitted as valid. Thanks.

Gothaparduskerialldrapolatkh (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Doctor Who Series 9 Casting

It's on her CV so I don't see why it shouldn't be on there. I'm referring to Caroline Boulton by the way. A majority of all the other guest actors on there have their CV (mostly the SAME as Boulton's) as the source cited. Therefore, you must have a problem with all of them too, from Eisabeth Hopper to Robin Soans.

Actors with a CV cited include: - Eisabeth Hopper - Darshan Anderson - Robin Soans - Todd Kramer - Gareth Berliner - Shin-Fei Chen - Alec James - Julie Hendy

--Badgerdog2 (talk) 21:26, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Basically, I do have a problem with all of them; CVs are self-published and have repeatedly proven to be wrong (which can happen when scheduling conflicts arise). Only when the BBC or producers have confirmed the actors' imvolvment should their names be listed here. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, okay fair enough. But we know some of those people are definitely in it, as Elisabeth was photographed. How do we not they're not in it? I think we should leave it in FOR NOW until proven other wise as this still counts as a source. I understand where you are coming from to be honest, but these are still sources. So unless proven otherwise, i think we should keep them in. Or, if you want to debate this even more (which i dont want to) then just remove them if it will help you sleep better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Badgerdog2 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Can you bring this up on the article talk page? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 05:46, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:Governors of California

Could you see that this template looks good to you now? Also, it would be better if each governor (from de Portolà to Burnett) were numbered in order from 1 to 32 through the first four groups; can that be done in this template? Wyeson 17:26, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The years are too small, see WP:FONTSIZE. Other then that, I see no malformations. You can reset the count using {{hlist-reset}}, but it is a bit of a hack. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:50, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks good. Wyeson 18:45, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

mathml

Hi,

thank you for caring about the new MathML rendering option. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Help%3ADisplaying_a_formula&type=revision&diff=671309670&oldid=671307754 It would be expected that this falls back to SVG rendering in MathML disabled browsers. Are you sure that it displayed PNG and not SVG. It would be helpful to analyse this problem in detail to fix the software in case something is broken.

Best --Physikerwelt (talk) 23:21, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

The generic fallback is always PNG (TexVC). As MathML is Firefox-only (Chrome has poor support), it should not be treated as a generic option. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:51, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

PS: With regard to http://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T105320 could you explain what's the intention behind the examples

${\frac {\sum \limits _{k=1}^{^{N}}k^{2}}{a}}$

$\bigcap _{i=_{1}}^{n}E_{i}$

$\bigcup _{i=_{1}}^{n}E_{i}$

on Help:Displaying_a_formula#Subscripts.2C_superscripts.2C_integrals — Preceding unsigned comment added by Physikerwelt (talk • contribs) 23:25, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know. I did not add them. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

User appealing a ban from template space

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive273#Missing evaluation. I don't have enough patience to notify everyone who participated in the original discussion, but I know your name as someone who edits template space. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 20:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:33, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Your last edit to Main page image

Now there's too much top margin. :( —howcheng {chat} 09:08, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I see (but only for TFA and TFL). I will deal with it when I get home. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:53, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Howcheng, fixed. However, I think we're going about it the wrong way. Instead of one catch-all template, we should just implement the caption on each repective MP project page. This template is too error prone. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Could you explain the problems you're seeing in a little more detail? I did make a page of test cases. —howcheng {chat} 08:13, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

No problems at the moment, but each edit to an MP section (containing div) or template itself could introduce an issie. The extra top margin was caused by a rogue linebreak that happened because of an empty caption paramenter. I prefer to avoid these situations, and the best way I know how is to add the caption to each respective MP image template (or section). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Main page 2015

Hi, why don't you like this? Ilya Drakonov (talk) 08:55, 8 August 2015 (UTC).

1. <center> is obsolete
2. The information was already there (at the bottom)
3. It was poorly formatted.

If the number of articles is included, it should be integrated in the text already there, not as a separate line or block. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:00, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I see, can we add it to the text then? Ilya Drakonov (talk) 09:16, 8 August 2015 (UTC).

Maybe. The best place to discuss is at Wikipedia talk:Main Page (2015 redesign). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:03, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Ilya Drakonov (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2015 (UTC).

DRV

Someone raised a DRV for Wikipedia:2015 main page redesign proposal - here, since you deleted it you should have been informed. --86.2.216.5 (talk) 09:56, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Not primary topic

Hi thanks for your edits, but we do not distinguish primary topic (and this is nowhere near a primary topic in Google Books) based on the difference between "h" and "H". There is no primary topic at Nothing to hide therefore Nothing to Hide (Heroes) should be restored to having (Heroes) as it was. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:33, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Primary topic is not the issue. Capitalization is sufficient 'natural' disambiguation, and the disambiguation page is right where it needs to be. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:42, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Versions of the Doctor

I made a new version of the Versions of the Doctor file that I think looks better aesthetically, without all that awkward white space in the bottom right corner or Capaldi striking a much more dramatic pose than the rest. I put it on Imgur here. It doesn't look like I have the permissions to update the file myself, and I'm not sure I ought to. Any help or advice would be appreciated. CountGrasshopper (talk) 16:56, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Main Page

The thing I was editing on the main page that you said was a byte counter, I thought it made the text smaller. Can you edit the main page todays article section to be a little smaller because it is in grandma size font. Thanks, I like what you did with the header too. 20:53, 16 August 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Glacialfrost (talk • contribs)

I'd like to keep fontsizes consistent. The current size is the same default size used throughout Wikipedia. It is also related to the skin, ie. on Monobook, the fontsize is smaller. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Shared-repo-name-shared

Hi Edokter, what was your rationale for editing this page? What are the situations in which this creates a problem? — This, that and the other (talk) 10:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

On file pages, this text is displayed in a tab. This resulted in "View on Wikimedia Commons" for just one tab, and with limited space on smaller screens, causes the tabs to be pushed down. I only removed the "Wikimedia" part. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

But that just causes the links to be pushed over to the menu, as was intended. Or is your concern that this causes problems for non-JS users - who surely must be accustomed to UI glitches like this? — This, that and the other (talk) 11:47, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Non-js users aside, the link was just overly long, and not all tabs are allowed to flow down (just History AFAIK). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:07, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-34

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

Recent changes

• Many Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Before they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [15] [16] [17]
• Some auto-saving problems and other issues in the Content Translation tool are now fixed. Please report to the Content Translation feedback page if you still have problems. [18]

Problems

• Older gadgets that are not using ResourceLoader are not loading anymore. They need to be updated. [19] [20]
• On August 12 the machine translation servers and the Content Translation tool didn't work. This was fixed on the same day. [21]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 20 (calendar).
• You can soon watch when something is added to or removed from a category. [22]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 18 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Twelfth Doctor companions

Template:Twelfth Doctor companions has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. NYKevin 19:22, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"Yuck... (and bad grammar, it either contains, or is comprised *of*"

Firstly, a comment more specific than "Yuck" would be helpful. I've explained my concern regarding the current format, and I've attempted to implement two different remedies. Perhaps you could join me in seeking an alternative solution or explain why you disagree that a problem exists.
Secondly, you might want to consult a dictionary. The parts compose the whole. The whole comprises its parts. The idiom "comprised of" has a long history of usage, but numerous grammarians and style guides have deemed it incorrect. Some would argue that this stance is pedantic. I'm not here to debate that point. I'm addressing your assertion that my wording constitutes "bad grammar". —David Levy 16:49, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I said "yuck" because it is a vastly overused peacock word in general. If I understand the problem correctly, there are essentially two taglines. I've been struggling with the banner for some time now. I removed the blurb, but try to maintain essential information. If you want to combine the two lines, I'm all for it, using appropriate language, but without empty styling (italics) and if possible, maintaining two lines to keep some balance with the wordmark. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:59, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly what I attempted. I'm not clear on why you regard "comprising" as a peacock word, but I'm open to suggestions. "Containing" strikes me as relatively stodgy, but I consider it acceptable. Perhaps you have something else in mind.

Incidentally, my concern is not that we have two taglines, but that the two lines are stacked inelegantly (with no clear demarcation). To my eye, they come across as an awkward mass of text. —David Levy 17:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

It is quite hard to position the text next to the wordmark. That is why I'm using fixed (font) sizes. Short of using tables (which I won't!) there isn't much else I can do. But we can play with the text. How about prefixing it with "Wikipedia contains...", allowing a comma after "...can edit," and also an opportunity to link to Wikipedia if that is a goal. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

To tweak that slightly, I suggest the following:

Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit –
currently contains 6,932,000 articles in English.

—David Levy 19:07, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

OK. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:01, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Doctor Who

You changed the way episodes are counted without going to the Talk Page to gain consensus. Do not do this again. 90.192.195.45 (talk) 15:36, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

There is only one way to count: from one up. If there are episodes not part of the series, they should not be listed at all. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

OTD

I don't disagree with the "redundant" comment, but note that the instance in question replaced one appearing at the top of the section (thereby aligning the first bullet with that of ITN).

Under what scenario could caching cause an incongruity between the date and the content displayed? If the Main Page cache hasn't been updated since the previous day (UTC), the same is true of the transclusions contained therein. All date-dependant content switches over at precisely the same instant, with no page loads resulting in a mishmash.

Note that conditional heading text is in use on the main page already (and has been for years); if the current day's TFA or TFP content is missing, the previous day's is substituted, with "today's" dropped from the heading and advice to check back later inserted. The same method occasionally is used to pluralize "From today's featured article" when two articles share a blurb.

More prominently, if caching presented the problem whose potential you cited, we'd have a broken TFL transclusion (i.e., a red link) up to four times per week. This, of course, doesn't occur (because the page's cache never reflects a Monday or Friday without also containing the corresponding date's content). —David Levy 19:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

In theory, that is all correct. However, it is possible for the MP to update but for the OTD template to be stuck (that is why there is a purge link). All the other (sub) headers are there as contingency anyway; they should never happen, and they rarely do.

I see what you did with OTD; I thought something was missing. How far did you go? For the time being, I'd like the sections to be transcluded as is please. You basically changed the content, and it makes the bottom look cluttered. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

In theory, that is all correct. However, it is possible for the MP to update but for the OTD template to be stuck

How is that possible? Again, in what scenario could that occur? I've never heard of one.

(that is why there is a purge link).

That link is included because the entire page (whose cache it purges) might be outdated. When a cached version of OTD from the previous day appears, the same is true of all other date-dependent content. It's never just OTD.

All the other (sub) headers are there as contingency anyway; they should never happen, and they rarely do.

The TFL heading – and the box containing it – appears every Monday and Friday. Again, if the hypothetical problem that you've cited were to arise, it would cause the entire section to break (resulting in a red link).

I see what you did with OTD; I thought something was missing.

I noted the change in my edit summary.

How far did you go?

Tomorrow (10 September).

For the time being, I'd like the sections to be transcluded as is please. You basically changed the content, and it makes the bottom look cluttered.

My apologies for failing to realize that only you are allowed to rearrange sections' content. I was under the mistaken impression that I was participating in a collaboration. To prevent further confusion, I suggest that you move the page back to User:Edokter/Main Page. —David Levy 21:21, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

No need for that tone... I thought it was clear we were not dealing with content to begin with, and hence should not be changed. It does make it harder to track rendering errors because I often compare it with the current page. So yes, please change it back... Note that I'm asking, not doing it myself.

And yes, it is theoritically possible for transcluded content to trail behind. I see it with /doc pages all the time. They do have some hack in place to prevent that, but I can't find it at the moment. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I thought it was clear we were not dealing with content to begin with, and hence should not be changed. It does make it harder to track rendering errors because I often compare it with the current page.

Until a few hours ago, you had TFA's image repositioned from the left to the right.

So yes, please change it back... Note that I'm asking, not doing it myself.

Formalities notwithstanding, you're telling, not asking. This, in my view, set the "tone".

And yes, it is theoritically possible for transcluded content to trail behind. I see it with /doc pages all the time.

After you or someone else edited the template? —David Levy 22:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Until a few hours ago, you had TFA's image repositioned from the left to the right.

ONLY using CSS!

Formalities notwithstanding, you're telling, not asking. This, in my view, set the "tone".

You know what, with that attitude, I don't even want to collaborate with you anymore. I was ASKING, but if you can only interpret my wishes as commands, then fine; I'll change it back myself. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:55, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

ONLY using CSS!

And I used conditional code that had no impact on the section's appearance outside pages with the base name "Main Page (2015 redesign)". I'm at a loss as to what material distinction exists.

You know what, with that attitude, I don't even want to collaborate with you anymore.

Understood. Should I move the page back to your userspace, or do you wish to do so yourself?

I was ASKING, but if you can only interpret my wishes as commands, then fine;

You "asked" in a manner clearly conveying a belief that you're in charge of this endeavor and responsible for setting its ground rules. You didn't merely express disagreement with the change or suggest that the matter be discussed. You informed me that I committed an infraction.

I'll change it back myself.

And this, in your view, corroborates your assertion that you were "asking", not "telling"?

Fine. I'm sorry that refraining from extending the redesign layout change to subsequent dates (immediately upon learning of your objection) was insufficient. If it was this important to you that the effect of my work be undone eight hours sooner, I'm glad that you took the initiative.

Regarding this edit summary, I assure you that I don't "use live MP templates for testing". That isn't an accurate description of the code that I inserted, which was a simple application of tried-and-true conditional syntax (on which much of the main page is based). It enabled testing elsewhere, not unlike your temporary additions to the MediaWiki namespace (apart from whatever distinction you evidently draw between CSS and other methods). —David Levy 16:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry it has come to this. I follow a strict policy of not touching any code related to the live main page. Your first edit to {{SelAnnivFooter}} did break the main page, which was only saved by the current main page still using tables. But that did cross the line for me. Any changes I made was done using CSS, and never on components that were used on the current MP. And you should know better then that as well.

This is still a collaboration, but apparently I do have to set some ground rules. And yes, as the initiator, I do consider myself a guardian of this project, even if that means clashing with others, such as this occurence. I'm just peeved that someone else has broken a rule that I live by, namely "no change to transcluded content". At the very least, the OTD director should have been ionvolved, but you did not notify him either.

Every change I make is usually under the hood, and never involves live components. My mistake is that I asumed that this was obvious to others. For that I apologise. I like to continue working together, because we do agree on lots of things. But we have to agree on this very basic rule. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:39, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry it has come to this.

Likewise. I'm quite fond of the proposed redesign and genuinely wanted to take part in its refinement.

I follow a strict policy of not touching any code related to the live main page.

I don't.

Your first edit to {{SelAnnivFooter}} did break the main page,

On what do you base this assertion? Absolutely nothing was rendered differently. I made sure of that before (by previewing the code in place of the transclusion) before I saved the edit.

A glitch arose at Wikipedia:Main Page (2015 redesign)‎ (which is exceedingly difficult to preview properly), but this had nothing to do with the change in question. I simultaneously modified unrelated code (and would have done so regardless).

which was only saved by the current main page still using tables.

In other words, the page didn't break. Otherwise, I wouldn't have saved the edit.

But that did cross the line for me.

Obviously, we draw different lines. You've crossed one of mine by claiming ownership of the proposed redesign.

The same thing occurred during the 2006 redesign process (and nearly torpedoed it). A key difference is that you're far more experienced and knowledgeable than the editor with whom I had a similar conversation back then.

Any changes I made was done using CSS, and never on components that were used on the current MP.

And evidently, you feel entitled to unilaterally prohibit others from performing edits with which you're uncomfortable.

And you should know better then that as well.

Than to live by standards other than yours?

This is still a collaboration, but apparently I do have to set some ground rules.

By what authority? Do you understand why this attitude discourages participation?

And yes, as the initiator, I do consider myself a guardian of this project, even if that means clashing with others, such as this occurence.

That's fine. It just doesn't mean that you're in charge. (Likewise, an article's initiator or primary contributor might be protective of its content, but he/she lacks veto power.)

I'm just peeved that someone else has broken a rule that I live by, namely "no change to transcluded content".

I'm peeved by the expectation that I operate under your rule.

At the very least, the OTD director should have been ionvolved, but you did not notify him either.

There is no "OTD director". Howcheng simply performs most of the section's maintenance. (Similarly, I handle most of the upkeep at {{Wikipedia languages}}, but I'm not the WL director.)

I recently assisted Howcheng with our rollout of main page image captioning. And guess what? It entailed a great deal of editing (on Howard's part and mine) to a template transcluded on the main page. And unlike my edits to {{SelAnnivFooter}}, this did affect its rendering. Nonetheless, the sky didn't fall.

Every change I make is usually under the hood, and never involves live components. My mistake is that I asumed that this was obvious to others. For that I apologise.

Your mistake was assuming that others either share your editing philosophies or are bound by them.

I like to continue working together, because we do agree on lots of things.

Ditto.

But we have to agree on this very basic rule.

I'm sorry to hear that. —David Levy 20:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

That's tough. But it's there; no change should be made for testing purposes to code that could possibly impact the current main page, period. It's a matter of common sense. And it's not my rule; it's the community's. Your error may not have shown, but that doesn't mean it wasn't broken (however briefly). Any of my edits that end up on the main page go through at least ten previews before I hit save. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:51, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

That's tough.

What is?

But it's there;

What is?

no change should be made for testing purposes to code that could possibly impact the current main page, period. It's a matter of common sense.

Agreed. And for anyone reasonably familiar with ParserFunctions, limiting the effects (whatever they may be) to specific pages is trivially simple and easy. The main page and the pages transcluded thereon are full of conditional code with no material difference, triggered under all sorts of circumstances not present at Main Page at a given time. Again, the code had no impact outside pages with the base name "Main Page (2015 redesign)", regardless of what it did when called.

Your error may not have shown, but that doesn't mean it wasn't broken (however briefly).

1. What's your definition of "broken"?

2. Again, the error was unrelated to the code that I inserted. I swapped the order of preexisting tags that I mistakenly thought were inverted from their correct sequence. The formatting change had nothing to do with it, apart from bringing me to the template. —David Levy 21:57, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Your swapping of the closing tags was the error. It caused HTML Tidy to throw in a closing div tag at the wrong place which left all formatting within it to spill to the rest of the page. I don't mind the occasional error, but I can't stand this denail! You fucked up, just admit it and move on... -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Your swapping of the closing tags was the error.

Indeed, it was. That's what I stated in the message to which you replied.

Again, this portion of the edit was unrelated to the code that I inserted for the redesign draft.

It caused HTML Tidy to throw in a closing div tag at the wrong place which left all formatting within it to spill to the rest of the page.

And this broke Wikipedia:Main Page (2015 redesign). Please explain how it broke Main Page (which I previewed beforehand).

I don't mind the occasional error, but I can't stand this denail!

How are you interpreting "I swapped the order of preexisting tags that I mistakenly thought were inverted from their correct sequence." as a "denial"? I don't know how I could have acknowledged the error more clearly. —David Levy 16:17, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The main page was broken in the same way, but it was hidden by the table. But it was broken none the less, and that should never happen. The denial part is where you insist nothing bad happaned to the main page. It did; it just didn't show. Bad code spilling to the main page—visible or not—is a no-no.

I'd like to drop this now, I fear this is going on to infinity. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:54, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

It seems that you and I have differing views on what constitutes "breaking" a page. When a behind-the-scenes flaw has no outward effect, I don't consider the page "broken". You do, and that's fine. Surely, we can agree to disagree on that point. This isn't a factual dispute, so there's no need to hurl accusations. A sincere difference of opinion regarding an incident's severity ≠ denial that it occurred.

Of course, this still has nothing to do with the code that I inserted for the redesign draft. —David Levy 20:30, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Watchlist styles

It seems there is a bug or issue with loading watchlist styles (unbolding of watchlist entries). The entries appear bold for ~1 second then become unbold. I don't recall that being an issue before, and must be a result of gadgets loading later.

While having the styles not in MediaWiki:Common.css is nice, I think we should revert the change and then find another solution if we can't easily fix the issue in the gadget.

See: http://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T109935

Aude (talk) 17:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Responded on Phab. I can't move it back; changes in ResourceLoader forced me to move the styles to a gadget to ensure proper loading order. We're stuck with the flashing boldness until I find a better solution. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. If I think of a possible solution, I'll let you know. Aude (talk) 18:42, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia Developer Summit 2016

Please do me the pleasure of joining us at Wikimedia Developer Summit 2016 !!! Next to the traditional architectural topics, this year there is a special focus on such topics for gadgets, templates, bots, Wikimedia apps and tools, and third party products relying on Wikimedia APIs etc, and we cannot do that without the users/developers of those. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:45, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

"False" edit summaries

I only just realized what you meant with this. There was no false edit summary there – I started editing before your edit, and it looks like the edit conflict wasn't caught, so your background color change was inadvertenly reverted. nyuszika7h (talk) 14:52, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it was an edit conflict; I partially reverted your edit. You changed a color instead of removing whitespace. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Music of Heroes

Both Heroes: Original Soundtrack and Heroes: Original Score fail to abide with WP:NALBUMS. We can't let both stay as stand-alone articles any longer. --George Ho (talk) 16:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I reverted on technical grounds; You copied both page into a new one. The proper procedure is to copy one to the ohter, then move the page if appropriate. I pointed to Wikipedia:Merging, especialy the section Wikipedia:Merging#Full-content paste merger is of interest. Apart from that, most merger require some form of consensus, so I'd prefer if you'd start a merge discussion first. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:24, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

How improper is copying and pasting without merging? And I don't wanna read the WP:merging. --George Ho (talk) 07:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

If you don't want to read it, I'm not going to explain it. The crux is, the article's histories must be preserved. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 07:48, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Both approaches

I noticed proposals are made at talk:Main Page from time to time. So the incremental change approach is being conducted at the same time as the design draft approach.

I think that you should take the dual approach (work on the draft while trying to get specific changes approved upon the current Main Page).

This would have several benefits:

• provide feedback on specific elements
• modify the design of the current Main Page to be closer to the design draft, which in turn will make adoption of the draft easier
• faster progress (faster than 2 years with no adoption of any of your design elements)
• we're responding at talk:Main Page anyhow. Might as well make the proposals and thereby help direct the changes rather than address the random proposals that come along.
• avoid the unexpected. The longer the discussions drag out on the design drafts, the more likely unrelated proposals will be adopted at talk:Main Page.

And so on. The Transhumanist 12:54, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

CSS and Main Page

Could you produce a version of the Main Page that looks the same as the current version, but that does not use table encoding?

Once completed, I think that would be an easy change to get approval for at talk:Main Page.

Then we could work on getting the style and layout changes made incrementally. The Transhumanist 12:54, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I made one over a year ago. It was proposed (look in the archives of the Main Page talk page), but even then reaction was luke warm, mainly because there was no visual change whatsoever. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:58, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I assume you mean this discussion.   I'm impressed. The response was not luke warm; rather, the volume of responses was low. That's not the same thing. Proportionately, the responses were overwhelmingly in favor of your proposal, with some concerns and conditions. Even 4 out of the 5 who opposed (including me) did so conditionally.

I was surprised to see my name on there. I don't remember the discussion at all.

Bugs (display problems) seemed to be the main concern. So I have some questions for you:

1. Is the current Main Page bug free? Does it have display problems on various platforms?
2. Is the current Main Page more bug free than the div version?
3. What testing and tweaking has the div version undergone since you posted that proposal?
4. What browsers and hardware has it been tested successfully on so far?
5. Do the benefits outweigh the costs of testing and fixing the display problems? How?
6. I'm having a hard time understanding the benefits of div vs. table. Please explain.

I look forward to your answers. The Transhumanist 11:58, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The current main page is bug free in so far as that it works as intended, but has issues on modern displays. Its static layout is problematic on small- (content doesn't fit), and very large screens (content is strechted to a single line).

The 'div' version as you call it, has all major bugs ironed out. However, a test drive is always welcome, as my testing is limited to the major Windows browsers (and I can't test IE9 and up for now). For what has been done since the last major discussion, see the 2015 MP's history (and that of the CSS page).

I do believe the benefits outweigh the effort. As I said in the intro of the discussion you linked, the benefits include:

1. Flexible layout which allows future modifications to be implemented more easily.
2. Responsive design; sections will stack instead of being pushed off-screen. This also makes the page more mobile-friendly (for those prefering desktop view on mobile).

Tables were never ment to be used for presentational layout, but to organize data. But other then that, tables can not be made responsive, while divs are flexible with regards to eachother. Add to that the flexbox model (on which my page is based), and divs are like putty. They also provide limited fallback for older browsers. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I hope I covered all the questions. I'm not much of a writer, but I know I should write a white-paper for this. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting. So much so, I have more questions for you:

How does the current Main Page use tables for presentational layout? What problems does this create?

Tables cannot be made responsive in what way?

What does "divs are flexible with regards to each other" mean?

What is a flexbox model? What capabilities does it have?

What does "divs are like putty" mean?

You should write a white paper on what?

How will "future modifications be implemented more easily"?

What does "limited fallback for older browsers" mean?

Based on the answers I did understand, I suggest a 5-point plan:

1. You write (from scratch) the problems of the current Main Page (table design) and the benefits of the div version over the current Main Page

2. You create a Change-Log, listing all the bug fixes and platform accommodations from the date the last proposal was posted to present

3. You list the hardware/software combinations that it tests clean on

4. Incorporating those and your answers to my previous and further questions, I'll work up a "Testing Phase Two" announcement (we'll probably have several cycles of Q&A between us before it's ready)

5. Before even thinking about posting the announcement, we'll move it to a user subpage of yours, and we'll gather a small group of individuals to its talk page (you, me, David Levy, Dweller, and a testing-savy person of your choosing) to polish the announcement and discuss its implementation (testing procedures such as listing the target platforms to be tested, recruiting testers, checking off each platform as problem free, etc.)

Let me know if the above plan is to your satisfaction. I look forward to helping to push this project forward. The Transhumanist 04:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

P.S.: The reasons I included David Levy in the short list above, are that 1) he is extremely wiki-savvy, 2) he is central to the ongoing maintenance of the Main Page and would be instrumental in the community's approval of any design, 3) he responded enthusiastically to your div version proposal, and 4) he is genuinely interested in improving the Main Page. Any communication style clashes you have in dealing with him (like those that emerged in the discussion further up this page) would be well worth smoothing out. The Transhumanist 05:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

P.P.S.: As David mentioned above, "the editor with whom I had a similar conversation back then", was me (as User:Go for it!). And we had far more heated discussions than that over the Side Bar Menu redesign. His communication style doesn't seem to have changed, but so what. He is thoroughly invested in the Main Page, and any open collaboration on improving it will necessarily include him. The benefits of his keen insight are worth the cost of a few ruffled feathers. If you focus on communication methods other than blaming/arguing, you'll find discussion with him will move forward surprisingly fast. Just ask for his opinion on whatever you need help with, and he'll give it. The Transhumanist 06:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Regarding you questions; I'm sorry but it does reveal a lack of basic knowledge about HTML and web design in general, that I feel unable to answer them. I will leave that to someone else. (I could explain how a car engine works, but that will not help you how to drive better.) The five-step plan is too focussed on process again. I don't wnat to go through two year's worth of history, distilling every little change; it serves no purpose. Let's look forward instead and begin testing with the current framework. I'll write up a white paper outlining the technical details and current problems. We can set up the testing right now; but remember that the framework and the layout/design issues are completely separate. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Whoa, let's not get off-track here. Our discussion is about writing, not driving. If you explain (write) how one car works better than another, it may help me (and others) decide to choose that Main Page—I mean car—instead. It's about writing clearly, so those who read the proposal/white paper know what you are talking about.

The statements I questioned you about read like unsubstantiated claims in the div vs. tables debate that has been smoldering on the web for over a decade. The div version looks exactly the same as the tables version! So the more discerning users who read your proposal may want to know what the benefits are in terms of specific physical operational differences between the div version and the current Main Page you propose to replace. You stated that "Tables cannot be made responsive", but they have been responsive enough to give us the current Main Page that has serviced users for nearly a decade—how is that not enough? What about the "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" crowd? Tables have also proven to be flexible enough for providing the current design—if not, how have they failed in this regard?

You mentioned that modern displays have problems presenting content, and if flexbox can solve that, then that would be worth mentioning too. Flexbox isn't hard to explain. Quoting the abstract from the WC3 working draft, or WP's description should provide a good start:

One of the most defining features of the flex layout is its ability to form-fit, based on its viewing environment. Flex boxes can adjust in size—either decreasing, to avoid unnecessarily monopolizing space, or increasing to make room for contents to be constrained within its boundaries. Moreover, the flex layout is less restrictive in terms of content flow than those, for example, of the block and inline display types, which are generally uni-directional. Indeed, not only can flex directional flow be specified, at the style level, as rightwards, leftwards, upwards, or downwards; individual items within a flex container may also be automatically reordered and rearranged to suit the available layout space.

But isn't flexbox still in the draft stage? Is it ready for prime time? How will fallback not be a problem with the div version?

Just some things to think about explaining, when you write the white paper on replacing the Main Page with one that looks exactly the same, but is better. I look forward to reading it. The Transhumanist 20:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the tables have survived for so long does not in any way indicate their suitability. Nor does it establish tables being "responsive" as you state. There was simply nothing better in 2006. Tables are rigid in that they cannot change when displayed; they will always keep their current layout. You seem to be capable enough of researching then benefits of flexbox; I think most editors will understand teh benefits as well, without having to explain all the intricate details. Also, everything is constantly in "draft"; it usually does not become a recommendation until it is fully in use. Flexbox is pretty mature (and I'm not even fully exploiting it to maintain backward compatibility). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

See below. The Transhumanist 01:05, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Answering questions appears to help you explain things better

In answer to your reply above...

Well, you want your readers to stick, rather than glance at the project and move on. Providing enough detail to generate understanding and keep them interested are the goals of project announcements. Concerning the type of help needed...

After looking over the replies to the initial proposal again, it seems obvious that the next step is another round of testing. An announcement called "Main Page Flexbox Framework: Testing Phase Two" would attract a lot of attention. The announcement could include a status report and a call for volunteers, with a sign-up section to allow follow-up. Just a suggestion.

Getting back to the topic of writing, when you answer questions, you do so colloquially, and your answers come across more naturally (unstrained) and direct-to-the-point. That is superior writing. For example...

"Tables are rigid in that they cannot change when displayed; they will always keep their current layout." That answer is kick ass. That type of explanation is what will attract people to the project. If you want more than a luke warm turnout of users, then making your white paper (and in turn the discussion about it) accessible to (easier to understand by) more users may be an effective way to do that.

I also like your answer concerning flexbox. It can form the start of a small FAQ within your white paper.

The better the call for volunteers/white paper is written, the more people who will want to get involved and help.

By the way, the reason I thought it might be a good idea to itemize (or at least summarize) what bugs have been fixed so far, and provide a formal list of what hardware/software the div version has been tested on is that some users who saw the proposal might wonder what has happened over the past year and a half. If you can show them what progress you've made, it may help indicate what future progress they can expect from you and this project you are leading. The idea is to generate enough momentum to reach critical mass.

I have some questions for you:

Your proposal presented 2 benefits. Surely there are more, right? What about maintenance. How much maintenance would the div version require in comparison to the current Main Page's wikicode?

Are there any other benefits? The Transhumanist 00:56, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Template:Microsoft Windows typefaces deletion

Hello, I notice that this navbox, which I know you've edited a lot, has been proposed for deletion. I wondered if you have any comments? Discussion here. Blythwood (talk) 05:06, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

All change does not require prior consensus

No editor should revert just because an editor did not seek before consensus before their editing. To impose such a burden on WIkipedia is to mire it further in stagnant content, waiting for improvements, and unnecessary article ownership politics. (In many cases, consensus, per se, is impossible, because in early stages of article improvement, only one person is very interested in the text, to begin with.)

We are to edit boldly. Incoming editors are to review the quality and sourcing of the edits, and if these fail to follow WP policies and guidelines, then they are to revert, and with clear explanation of how the edit they reverted failed to satisfy standards. If the original editor returns to re-revert, the onus is on him to explain why the reverting editor was in error, etc. Bottom line, there is no bias in favour of the status quo, which is what seeking prior consensus would create. Hope this clarifies my view. Cheers. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 18:06, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Are you referring to any particular revert? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:11, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Windows 3.1x tense issue

Hello Erwin- As I tried to convey in my first edit summary on the above article today, the sentence in question contains an aspect of English usage that may be escaping you. In that sentence, the word included being in the past tense does not necessarily imply that the OS no longer exists. In the context of the article, its meaning is the equivalent of added or introduced. You could replace it with either of those and still retain the same meaning. For example, the sentence The 1957 Saab 93 featured seatbelts. does not imply that if you found that car today, it would no longer have seatbelts. If my explanation fails to convince you, please consult other native speakers of English for their opinions before making pronouncements on grammatical correctness. Eric ^talk 23:17, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Eric Then change the word. If you use a word that still applies today, it must be present tense. Otherwise, it implies it has been removed at some point in the past. Rule of thumb, events are past-tense, and properties are lasting, so present-tense. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Edokter, you are wrong, your use of italics notwithstanding. I tried to explain it to you. As I suggested, if you really want to understand this, seek the opinions of other native English speakers. Eric ^talk 17:44, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

formatting columns on Heroes Reborn (miniseries) page

Okay, but using {{div col}} doesn't allow any control of where the column break happens, it just automatically does it halfway through the section, even though that's in the middle of the "Recurring Characters" subsection. Is there any way to adjust that? And if not, is there really any precedent anywhere determining that we shouldn't use {{col-begin}}? Because it just doesn't use the space very well to leave the whole thing in one column. —2macia22 (talk) 17:24, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

The trouble with table-based columns is that they cause accessability issues; they are forced partly off-screen on smaller displays like mobiles. One should not want to control content using hard coded columns to begin with. You can have some control using {{div col}} by wrapping the separate section into a div with the nocolbreak class, so the section don't split up. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 07:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

topicon in sa.wiki

hi @Edokter/Archive 9: ! from here I took code and pasted here But I can't see topicon on my sa:User:NehalDaveND. Can you please help me for this ? NehalDaveND (talk) 10:40, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello NehalDaveND, You will also need to copy our version of {{Top icon}}, which uses the new indicator system. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:08, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Done. NehalDaveND (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Banner on mobile front page

Please see http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2015-November/009916.html. Would you be willing to lead a discussion and/or add the appropriate tags to make Template:Main Page banner appear on the mobile site's main page? --Pine^✉ 05:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Pine, technically it's definitely possible. But the decision should be made at either Talk:Main Page, or Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• I'll start a discussion on Talk:Main Page. Thanks, --Pine^✉ 20:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Youre great at reverting revision (For Real) Chazpelo (talk) 14:08, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Angle bracket/doc

The existing text "Use this template to generate a pair of left (open) and right (close) angle brackets (also called chevrons) that will display correctly, even on operating systems and browsers that normally cannot display these characters when they are used in text." is untrue. It is refuted by a single counter-example. I can refute it with more counter-examples, such as "lynx" or other ascii-text-only browsers.

"What happens on your system is not the norm." is true, but irrelevant. The text that you reverted to is a lie. I don't believe that Wikipedia should be lying to users. If admins do, then the whole site has no credibility at all. Kremmen (talk) 03:22, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

There are always characters that do not display on some devices. The angle brackets are relatively new, but support is near 100%. The old brackets (and HTML entities) exhibit problems on their own; they are marked obsolete or have not yet been mapped. That may cause on other systems. As it is now, they only problem remains Windows XP that lacks the proper Unicode font. But even that is rare. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:55, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

1) Even if the "only problem remains Windows XP" (which is untrue -- see Lynx, etc), that is exactly what the Angle Bracket info should document, not present a fanciful lie to users.

2) According to http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems, XP is still 9.03% of laptop/desktop users as of Oct 2015. When you say support is "near 100%", you mean "about 90%" (by number of users). You can't even pretend you are lying to an insignificant number of users, when the statement is untrue for hundreds of millions of people. Kremmen (talk) 20:58, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Sol-Terra-Luna

Why did you revert my edits as "out of scope?" Astronomy regularly uses Latin terms. Surely the modern multilingual astronomical use of these terms is more important than their use in Latin (one language) and thus is important to mention? Nicole Sharp (talk) 09:14, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I disagree; the astronomical terms are very limited in their scope as opposed to their Latin term, and therefor not appropriate to mention on the disambiguation pages. Even the articles in question don't mention their names as "astronomical". I'm not even sure it is the appropriate term to use at all. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:32, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Scowiki main page request

Hello Edokter, I was wondering if you'd be kind enough to show me how Wikipedias keep the title text "Main Page" (along with "From Wikipedia" under it) from appearing on their Main Pages. I'd like to know so I could do it on scowiki, a Wikipedia where I'm an admin. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 17:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi. They can be hidden using CSS. Look at the top of MediaWiki:Vector.css and MediaWiki:Monobook.css; depending on the skin, you can hide several elements. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:02, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

That solved it. Thanks. :) --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 19:23, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Question

Hi. I noticed your comment in MediaWiki:Common.css and other CSS articles of "remove IE8 support as javascript will be disabled soon". Is there an article or text that talks about the javascript removal goals. I'm curious to read it just so I can be up to date with future Wiki changes". Thanks. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 09:29, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Sbmeirow. The removal of javascript support for IE8 was announced on the Wikitech-l mailing list, specifically, this message. If you want to be kept up-to-date on development and deployment issues, you may want to subscribe to this list. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:12, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I copied these links. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 20:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Navboxes

Thank you for you recent message on my talk page. Perhaps if your edit summaries had contained a rationale such as "bringing template into line with established common practice on Wikipedia", less well informed editors such as myself might have had more of a clue? Anyway, now that you have explained, I would be grateful if you could direct me to other templates where the established common practice has been applied so that I can form a broad view regarding how this is being implemented. Maybe I could even join the We that you say have been cleaning up templates like this for some time now, to help out? After all, if all of those listed have been engaged in this enterprise, there must be an awful lot of templates requiring attention and, I imagine, you would welcome all the help you can get. That said, I don't accept that listing the stories 'by Doctor' equates to fancruft ( a term, btw, which I thought was generally deprecated on Wikipedia), and neither do I consider that reverting an editor and inviting them to take the matter to the article talk page for discussion warrants your categorisation of this as my 'venting my opinion'. In any event, call it what you will, the standard protocol is for the matter to be debated on the article talk page, and not elsewhere. So, if you wish to have a reasoned, civil discussion regarding the edits in question and my response, henceforth that is where I suggest it be conducted; not on my talk page, not here and certainly not on the DW Project page. Bowdenford (talk) 01:36, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Responded at WT:WHO#Navboxes. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:03, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

"mentioned"

Mentioned where? by whom? Link to the relevant edit: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Impact_%28typeface%29&oldid=prev&diff=692592305 Steel Wool Killer / Lanolжeð Renforsdfer Tyklovon (talk) 01:17, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

The end of the first paragraph. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Whoops. Didn't see that. Sorry. Steel Wool Killer / Lanolжeð Renforsdfer Tyklovon (talk) 13:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Dalek appearance in Hell Bent

The Daleks appear in Hell Bent (Doctor Who). You can see them in these BBC trailers: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03978pw". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help) AND "www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039dbhc".. Theoosmond(talk)(warn) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Then I was confused. Still, we generally add them after the episodes have aired. See WP:NOTTVGUIDE. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 12:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

But Template:Dalek stories is on the page for Hell Bent, so I reckon Hell Bent should be put back on the template.Theoosmond(talk)(warn) 13:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

You could comment it out until saturday. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 13:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Template sandbox in TFA

I noticed [23] uses {{TFAfooter/sandbox}} and not {{TFAfooter}}. Transcluding a sandbox on the main page seems unusual. It also means most daily pages since Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 17, 2015 are transcluding the sandbox, with {{TFAfooter/sandbox|Month=...|Year=2015}} in the source. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

That was stupid of me... I fixed {{TFA preload}}. I'll have to fix the existing transclusions using AWB once I get home. (Feel free to fix it yourself.) -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Main page redesign

Any idea how all these newcomers are finding their way to Wikipedia:Main Page (2015 redesign) and making test edits? — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:48, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Not really. Maybe the gadget has attracted some of them. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:07, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's something else, will look into it. Thanks — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Redrose64

Please note, I have no aversion to good discussion, as said by User:Redrose64 on Template talk:Infobox Doctor Who episode, and I would never deliberatly hurl abuse, anything that is taken as abuse that was written by me was unitentional. Cheers!Theoosmond(talk)(warn) 21:05, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe much in 'unintentional' abuse. If you want to avoid the pitfalls of online communication, always read back what you wrote before posting it, and imagine being someone else reading it. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, good piece of advice you have there. Thanks.Theoosmond(talk)(warn) 21:19, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I've had a look at my talk page especially the section Redlinked cast members, and I have found nothing abusive in there, despite Redrose64's claims.Theoosmond(talk)(warn) 21:47, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Is there anything wrong with editors patrolling over what other editors' contributions? It's just User:Redrose64 is patrolling my edits, and it is really getting on my nerves.Theoosmond (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

No. It is quite common for editors to check your contributions if they find multiple edits in their watchlist that does not agree in one way or another. If you make 'wholesale' edits to multiple articles that goes against consensus, you are bound to get noticed (and reverted). You should talk this out with Redrose64. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 22:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Help please!

Hello Edokter, could you please help us on Gan Wikipedia to resolve a flaw of gan:Template:Navbox subgroup? As you may see on the sandbox, the title of the subgroup is still visible inside the template, and the list of articles is vertical instead of horizontal. Would you be so kind to help us out?--Symane TALK 15:51, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Symane. You seem to be missing the better part of the navbox-related CSS in your MediaWiki:Common.css. You will also need to copy all .hlist CSS to make the list items appear on one line (see Snippets/Horizontal lists). Hope this helps. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your replying. Il seems the flaw of the template remains, after the many ways I tried. Maybe the most critical problem is the wrongly-displayed title of the subgroup (as you may see, the buttons of "view", "history", "edit" and the "hide" option are visible on top of the subgroup), would you have any idea how to make them disappear inside the template, please? --Symane TALK 12:24, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Question about Navbox

Hello, maybe you can help me? I am trying to implement {{Navbox}} (which uses Module:Navbox) from English Wikipedia to Lithuanian, but I am having some difficulties. As you can see in this test case page lt:Šablonas:Navbox/testcases the template has this header aligned to centre, why is that so? Is this some issue with local CSS style of this Wikipedia? Thanks in advance.--Zygimantus (talk) 12:59, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Zygimantus. You also need to copy the CSS for .navbar from our Common.css. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 16:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Favour?

Hi Erwin, I was wondering if you could help me with some relatively straightforward template work? In {{Infobox University Boat Races}} I have two problems I was hoping you could fix?

1. The previous/next race link needs to change from 2015 onwards, as the the articles are called The Boat Races 2015, etc rather than The Boat Race 2014 (i.e. plural instead of singular). Could you make the format of the next/previous season conditional on the year?
2. Right now, details of The Boat Races 2016 are sparse so I'd like to remove those subheadings "Men's race", "Women's race" and "Reserve's races" until something is populated within their subsections. Is that easy enough?

Of course, if you don't have the time or inclination, I understand completely. In any case, thanks in advance. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:01, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

That is pretty straightforward. I'll have a look when I get home tonight. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:59, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought you'd say that! The Rambling Man (talk) 12:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Point 1 is complicated; I can't modify wikilinks as they are passed in full. So that is just a matter of correcting the links. But the headers (2) are now conditional. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:09, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

MarnetteD|Talk is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec15b}} to your friends' talk pages.

Make sure to click on both pictures to see them full size Edokter as they will give you a chuckle. May your 2016 be full of joy and special times. MarnetteD|Talk 03:48, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you :) -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:17, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings!

Hello Edokter: Enjoy the holiday season and upcoming winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:37, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Doctor Who Christmas special template

But since the template states the whole serial is a Christmas special, which isn't true at all, only the first episode is a Christmas special, why can't the template state it's just the first part that is a christmas special. The entry for A Feast for Steven seems to recognise that only that one episode aired on Christmas Day.Theoosmond (talk) 16:40, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Because the template is for navigation only, and should link to articles, not abstract terms like "part 1". -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:14, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's greetings!

Hello Edokter: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Esquivalience ^t 21:32, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Doctor Who List of Episodes

Regarding my edit that you undid at List of Doctor Who serials a few minutes ago... My apologies! I had not read the extensive and warm (I won't say "heated") discussion at Talk:List of Doctor Who serials#Edit Request: The Husbands of River Song. Looks like the issue of "Series 9" vs "Series 10" vs "Special(s)" vs "Christmas Special(s)" will take some time to settle.

BTW, I wasn't trying to predict the future with my comment that "Special (2015)" can be expanded to "Specials (2015-1x)" - I was simply trying to show how the revised heading could be updated IF (and only if) APPLICABLE in the future. As mentioned in the paragraph above, this idea is of little help in the middle of the bigger debate. I will watch the "9 vs 10 vs Special" debate with interest - my edit that you (properly) undid shows that I obviously think it is a standalone Special rather than part of either series, but I will avoid adding to the confusion at the debate site. Cheers. Jmg38 (talk) 11:05, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Follow-up discussion on Frietjes' talk page

Hey, Edokter. Can you review this discussion, User talk:Frietjes#Color module for Tennessee Volunteers, and make suggestions for a resolution to the issue raised? Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 08:18, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Best wishes for 2016 . . .

Edokter, may you continue to make Wikipedia a better place in the New Year. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:54, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Edokter!

Happy New Year!

Edokter,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Metamorphosis Five

You just undid my edit from Metamorphosis One to Metamorphosis Five, regarding the Battlestar Gallactica epsiode S2E2.

I listened again, and it's indeed Metamorphosis One. So I wondered how I could have gotten that wrong. Turns out that near the end of the episode (last few minutes) is another part of Metamorphosis, and that one sounds like the intro for M. Five. But that's actually the end of M. One. These songs are confusingly alike. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.179.170.198 (talk) 17:09, 1 January 2016‎ (UTC)

They are. I was confused at one point too (some time ago). No harm done. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 17:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

In case you're interested, here is a book that could be used for a citation:

Frak You!: The Ultimate Unauthorized Guide to Battlestar Galactica.

On page 109 it states: The piano piece that Kara plays in her apartment is a solo by composer Philip Glass, called "Metamorphosis One".

I noticed from the edit history that I wasn't the only one trying to "correct" this little fact, so maybe a printed source will help ;) . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.179.170.198 (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2016 (UTC)‎

Thank you, that is very helpfull. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 08:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Series of Doctor Who

Do you think the edits recently have got too rowdy, since no one is agreeing with each other and a false consensus and everything?Theoosmond (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Archiving dicussions

Are editors allowed to archive dicussions just because they don't want to talk to someone.Theoosmond (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The actions of Drmargi (talk · contribs) are entirely within WP:TPG, see in particular WP:TPG#Marking a closed discussion and WP:OWNTALK. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:Lx

Thanks again. Something seemed amiss about what I did, and I'm glad you were able to figure it out. Steel1943 (talk) 21:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

On a related note, would you by chance know of a way to perform or request for a large group of null edits be performed? Steel1943 (talk) 21:12, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This comment can be disregarded. Steel1943 (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@Steel1943: For future ref, Joe's Null Bot (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:15, 28 January 2016 (UTC)