Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2009-02

Speedy sharma

Gives sysops to "suppressredirect" right

The following discussion is closed.

---

Why don't sysops of Wikimedia projects have suppressredirect rights? sysops can delete pages, but unefficient to caring them. When moving vandals raised, sysop should do 3 things at least per a page. move page and go to redirect page and delete it. Global rollback has this right. No reason to give this right to sysop at all. I'm suggesting enable this.

$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['suppressredirect'] = true;

--Kwj2772 03:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree. See bugzilla:14998  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 03:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to note that people must show support for making this change, or nothing will happen.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. According to tim we need to have a vote on this here. Prodego ^talk 01:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

• Support. This would be very handy, saving us time and effort. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:09, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support: Would be useful on all projects. - Rjd0060 02:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support: This would be very useful, and I did use it in pagemove reversion scripts before it was disabled. Mr.Z-man 02:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Definitely. bibliomaniac15 03:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• I'd like the move log to show up like the deletion log does when a page doesn't exist. Other than that, no objections from me. --MZMcBride 03:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

  I agree that'd be nice - do you know if there's a bug for requesting that?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:06, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

• As long as we are voting, support. NuclearWarfare 04:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support. MER-C 04:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support, totally. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support -- Avi 05:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Could save a lot of trouble. Luna Santin 08:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

  Over at enwiki, JoshuaZ mentioned the possibility of accidentally creating GFDL violations and such, here, if the tool is used for non-vandalism moves. I would prefer it if this were used only to fight vandalism, as I think seems to be the intent. Luna Santin 00:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

•  Support Very helpful! — YourEyesOnly 08:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Very helpful! Raymond 08:20, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Useful.--Ahonc 09:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support useful. --Complex 10:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support sysops often move pages for users, so this is useful for not always having to delete the redirect afterwards. --Sargoth 11:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support absolutly Laaknor 11:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• support —DerHexer (Talk) 11:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support -- Ra'ike 12:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC) very needful function
•  Support it'll reduce a lot of work -- heuler06 12:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support might be useful, can't be really harmful, so why not? -- ShaggeDoc talk? 12:18, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support — Aitias // discussion 14:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support, but how can we use this option when we move a page? Via api.php? Either will be okay for me, on the usual Special:MovePage, or by calling api.php. --Kanjy 14:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I didn't notice that the current SpecialMovepage.php has wpLeaveRedirect field. I should have checked the codes more carefully. What a dick I am... --Kanjy 15:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support - Quite frequently, admins need to preform a move and delete the redirect. Most of the time, it would make sense to just do the move without a redirect. Od Mishehu 17:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Church of emacs 17:16, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support MBisanz ^talk 17:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support This flaw was irritating to me. Should save time and work for overall good. McMonster 18:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support -- John N. 18:26, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support — per ShaggeDoc. →Na·gy 19:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support - Really useful. I actually thought it was turned on by default, but apparently that's only the case for global rollbackers and stewards. --Erwin(85) 19:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --buecherwuermlein 19:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• oke, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --OosWesThoesBes 20:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --SMP (talk page) 20:46, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Leinad 23:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
• support All bugs with it seem to be fixed, no reason to hold it back. dewiki sysops have it already. --Thogo (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Definitely support. --Meno25 23:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

---

And it has been done. Thanks for commenting! Prodego ^talk 02:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Gender specifier

What's the go with the new gender specifier in myprefs? Does it do anything or is it just to remind me in case I forget? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Huh, good catch. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

We can use {{GENDER:}}. If your language has strict rule about grammatical gender, It will be useful. (I think it will be good in de and ru)--Kwj2772 13:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you go into detail about how that magic word works? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Well. I'm testing :) Kwj2772 13:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Got it: {{GENDER:USERNAME|masculine|feminine|neutral}}. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC) (fixed by Kwj2772 at 13:59, 28 January 2009 (UTC))
  • So how much longer before we get the rest of a/s/l? ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I think Age and location wouldn't be added to Special:Preferences. GENDER parameter was suggested due to linguistic problems. In some languages, using masculine words to female can be considered as offensive manners (bug 13040). Age, Location wouldn't be needed. and will not be added, and should not be added to protect privacy.--Kwj2772 11:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Don't worry, it was just a joke! Cbrown1023 talk 21:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
        • What a terrible & annoying joke!--Kwj2772 06:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
          • That's what most of my jokes are. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
• Y'know, location could be useful... Kylu 06:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
  • A whole "Personal information" section could be extremely useful for statistical purposes... who needs a survey when we have Special:Preferences? :-) Cbrown1023 talk 15:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Rule #29 of the Internet: "In the Internet all girls are men and all kids are undercover FBI agents." bibliomaniac15 03:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
      • I think it goes: "The Internet: Where Men are Real Men, Women are Real Men, and Little Girls are FBI Agents." Kylu 02:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
        • I'm not able to understand accurately, I think you mean all websites use masculine.--Kwj2772 06:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
          • Incorrect. I was offering an alternative version of the phrase he used. It is internet-related humor. Kylu 07:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, age could be useful for languages which have different forms of address for different ages. --::Slomox:: >< 02:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Localisation of error message

I was wondering if it was possible to translate the Wikimedia Error message into more languages than those it is localised for at present. Thanks. --Harald Khan Ճ 20:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I once asked the same question and got told, that no futher languages would be supported cause the page would become too long. That was at least a year ago, perhaps it has changed (at least I am under the impression that the list was shorter then than it is now). --::Slomox:: >< 02:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems, it was extended from 11 to 28 supported languages on Dec 5 2007. Filing a bug on Bugzilla or asking on wikitech-l could help. --::Slomox:: >< 02:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Aromanian Wikipedia

Aromanian Wikipedia seems to be abused. There are many articles refering the inexistent state of Pohlania, which appears to be an alter-ego of Romania. Google, apart from placing Aromanian Wikipedia at the top of search results' list for "Pohlania", suggests that the word itself is a misspelling of a Polish verb "pochłaniać". Informing Aromanian Community about the problem did not cause any feedback. That is the reason I seek potential interest here. Remigiu 22:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried to ask the local admin, roa-rup:User:Eeamoscopolecrushuva, directly? Perhaps nobody has read your question on roa-rup:Wikipedia:Community Portal. --::Slomox:: >< 02:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

His last contribution is from 2 February, the earlier one from 1 December and the earlier from August. It's really hard to catch him, as one might see looking at his contributions' list. Remigiu 14:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps he has "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed" activated. Or you can directly send him an e-mail. I think Meta cannot do anything if there is an active admin on that project. --::Slomox:: >< 19:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Sidebar

Could an admin here please update MediaWiki:Sidebar so that the Wikimania link goes to the 2009 page? Thanks. Aude 23:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Done but you might want to try WM:RFH in the future. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 23:59, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change. Also, would it be okay if I added the RFH page to {{Meta}}? I looked around for an admin help page, but didn't see it linked anywhere. Aude 02:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with you adding it. I know it's linked from {{RF}} and Special:Recentchanges, but another place couldn't hurt — it is pretty hard to find. Cbrown1023 talk 22:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

can the number of versions be limited?

Hello all,

i am looking for a possibility to limit the number of versions in my privat wiki. For example i just want to keep the last 10 versions of a page.

Thanks for all hints Thomas

Hi, I don't know whether or not that's possible, but I suggest checking mw:Project:Help and possibly leaving a message at mw:Project:Support desk. --Erwin(85) 09:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I do think it's possible to make various altercations to the History interface, but I'm not sure about the details. I advise you follow Erwin's links. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Oriya Wiktionary closure notice is hidden

I am writing here as well just in case this message is not noticed. Could a steward please redirect the default Main Page of the Oriya Wiktionary, which is empty, to this one? By doing that, the information about the closure of the project would stop being hidden in the site. Thanks. --79.78.6.163 14:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks, Birdy --79.78.6.163 23:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Username policy

Moved to meta:babel by Anonamous Dissident. 220.142.1.161 10:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

election question

Hello! I'd like to know if there are any elections planned for this year (beside the steward election) and the eligibility criteria for voting in each case. Thank you! cristixav 13:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Betawiki

Could somebody please tell me what Betawiki is and if it has any place in the Wikimedia Foundation? I was over at http://id.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Warung_kopi#Betawiki:_better_support_for_your_language_in_MediaWiki , where it is advertised on the link, http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki. I had gone to "Warung Kopi" to ask why I could edit talk pages but article pages there and in Japanese kept throwing up .php's when I tried to edit them. It sounds great but it just seems a bit suss (suspicious) to me. It asks me for information I do not usually give out. Please, help. :)--Thecurran 15:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hoi, Betawiki is where most of the Localisation and Internationalisation for the MediaWiki software. We have been doing this for quite some time now.. All in all there are currently over 300 different localisations under way. Meursault2004 has been doing much of the Indonesian localisation at Betawiki.. Thanks, 20:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The preceding comment was left by User:GerardM. Are there any links to Beta wiki on a Wikimedia page, rather than a talk/user-page? :)--Thecurran 23:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

betawiki: works. ;-) Cbrown1023 talk 00:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

OMG... It worksuss... :| --79.72.182.150 02:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User Ali20 wiki is preventing me of voting for stuard elections

Can somebody stop user User:Ali20 wiki from mobbing me, please. I voted on steward elections, clearly stating that I am in process of changing my name from Armchoir to Lasta, and that my contributions will be migrated as well. Therefore, to find out my contributions both nicks should be checked. But, insteaqd of checking my contributions, he cancelled my vote. I complained on his talk page, and he stated that I should vote under my old name (that is stupid because all my contributions are migrating as well, and sooner or later there be no contributions under Armchoir). I voted again at the same spot, signing my old name together with my new name, but he cancelled my vote again.. He cancelled my vote again, despite more than 4000 contributions under both names. Obviously, he is using his power to create false outcome of this elections, and now I am questioning his motives. Clearly, that is not an act suitable for wiki, and I am asking somebody to stop that user of simmilar malpractice. --Lasta 08:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Lasta/Armchoir. Lasta followed Ali20's instructions, only to find that Ali20 continues to cancel the vote. Even if it's not Ali's intention, he did make it look like he's tampering with votes. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"movefile" right

It has "movefile" right listed at Special:ListGroupRights, but sysop still cannot use so. Is it possible to enable it? --J.Wong 07:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

No, Brion has not enabled file moving yet. Either more testing is needed, or review of the testing which has already been done is needed.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Trouble updating to 3.1

This is my first ever attempt at administation of a media wiki server, and I am stuck:

following the instructions at [http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/branches/REL1_13/phase3/UPGRADE?view=markup]

I run php update.php from the maintenance dir of the new version

 
[root@intraweb /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/mediawiki-1.13.0/maintenance]# php update.php 

I get this error:

Error, Setup.php must be included from the file scope, after DefaultSettings.php

There is a Setup.php both in the include directory of both the original installation and in the new installation directory I am trying to run update from.

my existing installation is at /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/wiki vs the new installation at /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/mediawiki-1.13.0/

Any help would be appreciated.

(I think I am updating from version 1.8 but am not sure, and not sure how to determine that)

Thanks

This page isn't for support for the MediaWiki software. You should probably ask in #mediawiki or mediawiki-l.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a wiki about MediaWiki. The people at the mw:Project:Support desk will probably be better informed about this than the Meta community. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I will repost the question in a more appropriate place

Technical question for stewards

Does the steward interface work correctly with users who have the @ symbol in their names? I ask in connection with an RFA on enwiki. If I, as an admin on en, go to en:Special:UserRights and enter a name with an @ symbol, I receive the error "You do not have permission to edit user rights on other wikis" because it interprets the symbol as attempting to access another wiki. Question 1: Do bureaucrats also have this limitation? Question 2: If it is possible to sysop a user with an @ symbol, is the steward interface correctly able to desysop that individual? In other words, if this account were to, in the future, become compromised, would we have created an unstoppable account? Thanks. --B 22:19, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

You can edit userrights by using the userid number instead of the username if need be, see the Steward handbook. Cbrown1023 talk 02:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a slight issue, actually, in that when you enter the userid number, userrights "translates" the userid into the local username@project. What's been done in the past has been to rename the user first, then grant rights. See Request for rollback for j.sweeton@wnri.com for the previous attempt. Basically, the user will have to be renamed first. Kylu 21:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Question

Hi there,

is it possible to protect seperate paragraphs at a page? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.79.166.27 (talk)

Not directly. You can make subpages for each paragraph and transclude them onto the parent page, which may or may not (itself) be protected:

Example: You have a voting page where the instructions are to be protected but the votes themselves not. You could protect the page and have a section on it {{Voting page/votes}} so people could still edit the page. If you leave the main page unprotected, people could still remove the transcluded protected page. If you need a clearer explanation, leave a note on my talkpage and I can try to explain better and with examples. Kylu 21:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Input requested on a "respect pseudonyms" policy

One of the people contributing to the talk page discussion of an en.wv policy requested that we get input from this forum on a "pseudonyms" policy. Please have a look at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Respect_pseudonyms ... he seems to think it runs against meta policy, but I don't see how it does. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 17:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's me missing something here, but I seriously can't understand how this could run against policy, left a puzzled note about it at en.wv as well. Regards, Finn Rindahl 18:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

how to setup a discussion page with version 1.7

Hello

I would like to know how to setup a discussion page/forum with wiki 1.7

Thanks in advance

You might want to take it to Mediawiki site. This wiki is about Wikimedia projects, not Mediawiki itself. Thanks. Techman224^Talk 02:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

blocking live mirrors?

Hello! I am often working on de:WP:WN/M, comparable to en:WP:MF. Both WPs ask for reporting live mirrors of WP contents on live mirrors because they cause significant load on our servers, funded by donations. But as far as I can see nobody blocks these sites on Wikimedia's servers. Is there a decision to tolerate live mirrors or what else is the background? Thanks for your answers and greeting. -- Martina Nolte 15:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can do anything about this from a technical POV. Those sites probably get the content like any other user does. This means we would have to revoke access of the IP addresses they use. However, IPs are pretty cheap, so they can change quite frequently. In order not to exclude any users from viewing the content, range blocks cannot be set. So I really don't see how this should be done. Regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 20:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Martina, I wouldn't worry about this too much. First, it's only a tiny fraction of the bandwith. Second, isn't our purpose to freely spread knowledge? Guido den Broeder 18:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Semi-automated translation of missing articles aross wikis

I made a post to the English Wikipedia's village pump about this idea, but I think this may be a more appropriate place. I would like to create a process where a bot that generates a list of articles that are missing from one wiki, but can be found in another wiki. The generates list would have links to existing articles, as well as translation tools. Then willing editors use the translate tools to create a workable English version, or create redirects where appropriate. The example that led me to this idea was the word Syurga, which is the Islamic equivalent of Hell. It has an article on the Malaysian wiki, but not the English wiki.

I think this would increase the coverage in the English wiki very quickly, especially on areas like geography and biography. I think the easiest way would be to get data from the languages sidebar, then run that through a search, but I;m not sure how to write a tool to do that. Does anyone here have any thoughts? --NickPenguin 05:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The bot would need to be extremely intelligent to know all these equivalents. :-) Guido den Broeder 18:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Toki Pona Wikipedia

Why Toki Pona Wikipedia can't be edited? Is that closed? - Matema 09:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and database locked. See http://tokipona.wikia.com/ for the moved content of that Wikipedia. --- Best regards, Melancholie 00:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

oooU.. Thanks for the info. - Matema 07:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

But can I request to re-open it? - Matema 07:24, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that would be successful due to the current language proposal policy, I don't know where it had been discussed to close it (all tokipona projects had been closed) but there had been at least two requests for closing (after it already was closed) Wikipedia 1, 2. If You wish to contribute to the tokipona "wikipedia" You can do that at wikia, where it had been moved to (like the Klingon projects etc.)

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 18:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Blacklisted userspace characters

Hi Metawikipedians,

as I was working on an article concerning many languages in de:wp and thus visiting many wikipedias, I decided to create a minimalistic user page on each wiki, leading to my "home".

Unfortunately, the Makedonian Wikipedia seems to be somehow misconfigured: It's the only wiki out of about 260 that I visited which refuses to create a user page with my SUL user name. See here what happens if you try to create/edit my page.

Of course, I tried to ask the local admins what this is about (see here), but (A) they don't answer and (B) I don't speak Makedonian and thus am unable to find the perfect discussion page to reach the local admins.

So, what I ask you now: Is this page restriction possibly a thing that should be globally solved because it concerns SUL usage, or should that be treated as kind of a bug because it is unique in all wikipedias, or where could I find a Makedonian admin to help me (in a language I can understand)?

Thank you all a lot! -- JøMa 21:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, they seem to have the titleblacklist taken from en.wiki, mk:МедијаВики:Titleblacklist, en:MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. If You wish to talk to the local admins directly, I would recommend to look at the list and pick one who claims to speak Your language on his userpage, imho that titleblacklist on mk is completely overdone on such smaller project compared to en.wiki, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 22:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Spacebirdy, I am overwhealmed how quick a reply came to my - how I felt - complicated quesion! Thank you! :-)

I am going to follow your advice to use the Makedonian admin list. I didn't know this link which is obviously globally existant.

But what makes me wonder: Wy can a copy of the English Titleblacklist to the Makedonian Titleblacklist lead to a restriction on mk while en lets me edit? -- JøMa 22:24, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello JøMa, I was wondering about that too, maybe it affects only new pages, (I am not an expert with that titleblacklist and leave that to others fit in regex), Your page on en.wiki had been created on 7.oct 2008 and back then the titleblacklist did not contain that string [1], we could test that, I could inicially create Your page on mk.wp and we can see if You can edit it afterwards ~

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 22:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Spacebirdy, that would be great! Maybe you could use the code of any "left-to-right-typing" language version, for example... this one. Let's see if I can edit it then. By the way: The discussion page should be somehow "initiated" too then. It is blocked as well. -- JøMa 22:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC) EDIT Oh, by the way: Which nice language is this? Is it Icelandic? As I told above, I am collecting languages. This is the page I was talking about. :-) -- JøMa 23:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I created mk:Корисник:JøMa, please try if it works to add something, if it works I will create the other pages too, @btw: yes Icelandic, it is from Genesis, Gott sprach:"es werde Licht", etc. [2], the language is most beautiful, more on my user-talk if You are interested Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 23:37, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for testing, but it now just tells "Моментално нема текст на оваа страница. Можете да направите пребарување за овој наслов на страница во други страници, пребарување во дневниците, или да ја уредите оваа страница.", which sounds to me like "Not available at this moment". I asked mk:User:Brest for help as well, let's see what he/she knows to help. Indeed I find Icelandic the most interesting language in the Germanic family. It keeps so many archaic forms which remind me of Gothic an Nordic roots! -- JøMa 23:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It means, in this moment there is no such page, you can create it (new one)--Brest 00:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The servers seem to have problems atm, I tried to edit the page while logged out and I could get to the edit window with save page and everything, maybe that is temporary :S (and found another error there in the interface while doing that XD )

:) yes, if You wish to learn it, don't forget to visit is.wikt once in a while, it contains lots of flexions and a nice appendix already Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 23:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Try contacting, Brest. (S)he's helpful and speaks English. Cbrown1023 talk 22:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Cbrown1023, thank you too for your assistance! I will keep her name in mind! :-) -- JøMa 22:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The account for user JøMa was created on 30 January 2009, long time after mk:МедијаВики:Titleblacklist, and I just make a test on user talk page, and it works fine?--Brest 00:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, You can edit it, as You are an admin, I guess JøMa can edit it now too since it is created (try to log out and inicially create a similar page, it won't let You), please rethink this huge titleblacklist, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 07:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I suppose you get this message: The title "Корисник:JøMa" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: (?!(User|Wikipedia|Image|File)( talk)?:|Talk:)\P{Cyrillic}*\p{Cyrillic}.*[^\P{Latin}A-Z].* # Cyrillic + Non-ASCII Latin which is related with mk:МедијаВики:Titleblacklist, and definitly the ø in your user name is in question. But your user account was created? It can be treated as a bug?--77.28.20.3 00:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Afaik it only blocks entries that contain that char, the newuser creation would be blocked only if <newaccountonly> would be added. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 07:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all very much for your help! It works fine now. -- JøMa 18:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I can still edit normally, it is just the domain is strange if I follow the link of the first message in this topic. It seems that every link to a page I want to click on that project starts with https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mk/wiki/ <Pagename> instead of the normal http://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/ . But if I try to reach the page with the normal domain, it works as well. So it can be watched secured and unsecured... Greetings - Romaine 23:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia main page display error

Hello. I don't know if this is happening to everyone, or if it's just me, but the Wikipedia main page (http://www.wikipedia.org/) seems to have the following oddity: in the upper-left corner of the screen there is a tiny letter D. Not sure what's up with that?  ♪ Tempo di Valse ♪  01:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this, please feel free to move my question if so. I don't know my way around Meta very well....  ♪ Tempo di Valse ♪  01:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the problem. Thanks for the note! :-) Cbrown1023 talk 04:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Egyptian language Wikipedia

It 's possible create a wikipedia in the ancient egyptian language? --MelParlez 14:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this language is so important like the ancient greek or the latin

Visit Requests for new languages and see Meta:Language proposal policy. Cbrown1023 talk 16:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikimania 2009

Wikimania 2009, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from August 26-28 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For more information, check the official Call for Participation. Cbrown1023 talk 17:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Extension:VariablesExtension

Is it planned to install the extension VariablesExtension to the Wikiprojects? It would be a huge advantage for creating templates, where now the error Expansion depth limit exceeded is often a big problem and variables could help to avoid accumulations of conditions. --Petrus Adamus 12:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Add a request on bugzilla after you get community consensus for it to be enabled. Cbrown1023 talk 16:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And where can I get the community consensus? --Petrus Adamus 10:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

This is bug 7865[3] (links from mw m w), shot down in flames by four Wikimedia developers including the CTO. This is unfortunately Not Going To Happen. Happy‑melon 12:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Legal enquiry

Hello. I have raised a question about the usage of documents from w:Wikileaks which is a source of unauthorized documents, some of which are confidential government secrets. Obviously there are issues of official secrets laws and also of copyright. I'm not even sure if it would be legal to quote other sources who use the documents. I have been given the advice to contact WMF legal counsel. How would I contact them? Thank you. fr33kman ^{t - c} 20:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

See w:User:MGodwin or wmf:user:Mikegodwin. Cbrown1023 talk 21:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! :) fr33kman ^{t - c} 23:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

• Correction: Wikileaks it not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. You really need to contact them directly. Kylu 06:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Kylu, I never thought that they were affiliated. I also don't think that Cbrown1023 thought that either. My question was what would be the legal situation if a wikimedian editor used material contained within that site on a wikimedia project. Wikileaks can't answer what the legal exposure of WMF would be as they are not affiliated with WMF (obviously). Wikileaks don't own the copyrights of any leaked documents on their site, they are owned by the original authors. Mr. Mike Godwin (General Legal Counsel for the WMF) has answered my question via email; he said "I wouldn't cite directly to Wikileaks, but I would cite to mainstream news sources that cite or (even better) confirm publications on Wikileaks." I think that this closes the issue and gives anyone wanting to use information that is contained in documents on Wikileaks an answer. fr33kman ^{t - c} 15:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

It'd be terrifying to think of us as linked to them. Poor Mike and Cary! :D Kylu 03:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

And Jay, for that matter :-O -- Avi 05:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hotcat Extension

Could anyone explain why I cannot add a category to pages using the Hotcat extension from the gadget section in the preferences, it was working perfectly fine earlier on - it wouldn't have anything to do with the Meta:Babel#Abuse_Filter_testing which was turned on by User:Werdna would it?. Dark Obsidian 20:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hm, it's still working fine for me. Regards, Finn Rindahl 20:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Help for sw-wiki (work around lost password)

Hi I need some advice from someone with experience. I am bureaucrat on sw.wikipedia.org and have a problem I never had to handle. One of our users on sw forgot her password but wants to continue using her identity. How do I get her back to her account?

A) Is it possible just to delete her user account and to tell her just to register anew on the same name? B) could she register under a different name temporarily and I move her temporary account to the original name?

My sw-user-talk-page (would you mind posting there?)

Kind regards --Kipala (talk) 15:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll ping you there but perhaps continue this discussion here. First, I assume, for whatever reason, the user cannot use the "mail me a password" link to get her password reset that way. It is ALWAYS the easiest way to go, and everyone should set their email if only for that. Next, it is not possible to delete accounts. Accounts can be renamed, blocked, or locked, but not deleted. Nor is it possible to merge two accounts together. So the answer to your question A)... no. as for B) ... It is possible to register under a different account, and usurp the existing one to a new name, giving her that name. But all the contributions of the old account will be with the usurped name, her new account with the old name will have none. What I would suggest is that if this user is a very long time user in very good standing who has made a lot of contribs, and has ways of proving it is them, ask for developer assistance. The developer can set an email and that would let the user get their pw reset. But this is a difficult task and it needs to be justified... Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 21:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Developers certainly can do that, but I think they are usually reluctant to do so. The easiest way to get the name back, without the contribs, would be to move the old account and then have the person re-register the old name. (One less rename than signing up and then usurping.) --Tango 01:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If the person affected is willing to come onto IRC and sort something out with regards to providing evidence of their ownership of the account, we can certainly work something out. Werdna 01:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! I would like to take the shortest way, we are a small wikipedia (just over 10,000 entries) with very few users so I know this one. Many problems have not appeared yet - I have no idea what IRC is and how to get there. I think I try Tangos advice. If some one still has time to write how I as bureaucrat can decide an usurpation I would be grateful (did not find it - only explanations how to apply on other wikis but not what the admins have to do if the agree). --Kipala 05:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

@IRC: please go to this site select #wikimedia-tech from the second drop down menu (leave the first one as it is), and choose a nickname in the first field, then press "login" and there You are.

(Alternatively You could install a chatclient such as w:ChatZilla and go to #wikimedia-tech^connect).

If the user does not want to loose his edits I would recommend to try to contact werdna first via this chat his nickname is "werdnum".

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 16:44, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys, having some problems with my wiki

I was trying to enable uploads from urls.

All I did was change this line:

$wgAllowCopyUploads = true

In the Defaultsettings.php file in the Includes folder.

Now I am getting messages like this:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /serve/www/nietzy/wiki365.info/public_html/wiki365/includes/DefaultSettings.php:1) in /serve/www/nietzy/wiki365.info/public_html/wiki365/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10

On the top and bottom of each page.

Can anyone help with this please?

Email me at nietzy@gmail.com if you can.

Thanks — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.169.141.162 (talk)

Hi, you will likely have to put a semicolon at the end of that line. Anyway, if it still does not work, your best bet is to ask at mw:Project:Support desk, as this is the place where such questions are usually answered. Best regards, --ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 23:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)