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Old page header

Discussions about the MediaWiki namespace should take place mainly on this page to avoid confusion

Post a new question if you don't want to wait for the whole page to be loaded. But consider skimming to see if your concern is already being discussed. Also, do not push the "save page" button multiple times when posting this way! The server is overloaded but it will usually respond eventually and add your question to the page multiple times!

Summary of Archives

Numbered items correspond to Sections in the relevant Archive page.

  • /Archive 1
    1. Bug reports changed to Contact us and meta:MediaWiki feature requests and bug reports created (read more)
    2. ~~~~ signatures cannot be added to messages. They must be put in manually (read more)
    3. {{subst:test}} should be used when a user makes an edit while testing the wikipedia, it should be posted on a user's or anon's talk page, not on the article itself (read more)
    4. More MediaWiki custom messages can be added without slowing down the server (read more)
    5. Page protection message and link discussion: (read more)
    6. No consensus reached on whether MediaWiki messages should be protected: (read more)
    7. Discussion links were prefixed with a < symbol to improve readability: (read more)
    8. From the SUBST vs MSG discussions the consensus seems to be to use msg in most cases: (read more)
  • /Archive 2
    1. Self link issue not resolved: (read more)
    2. Discussions about focussing discussion on this page: (read more)
    3. Protecting this page -- consensus is no: (read more)
    4. MSGs will not mess up pages that use wikipedia articles: (read more)
    5. Med and legal messages no longer needed because of the disclaimer link at the top : (read more)
    6. Where does MediaWiki:Disabled go: (read more)

What does everybody think of changing:

  • "my talk" to "talk" (a bit iffy)
  • "my watchlist" to "watchlist"
  • "my contributions" to "contributions" (a bit iffy as well)

in the bar at the top (in MonoBook) as they seem redundant to me and they are taking too much space (plus I hate this MS trend). Dori | Talk 19:09, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

  • Support "my watchlist" -> "watchlist". Changing "wy watchlist" to "watchlist" is a good idea IMO, as it's similar to "preferences": you only ever deal with your own. On the other hand, "my contributions" is useful in distinction to "user contributions", and "my talk" probably helps distinguish article "discussions" for new users; your "iffys" suggest you've had similar thoughts... — Matt 22:13, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • I support the watchlist one. The other two, as you said, are a bit iffy. So it'd be best to leave them as is. blankfaze | ?? 23:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Change 'em all. And not just in Monobook: My Watchlist and My Contribs appear in Standard, too. Death to cutesy-poo interfacing! My opinion, –Hajor 23:45, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Just "watchlist". It may just be my own cynicism, but I imagine that the "My" helps some users distinguish between their own User talk: and that page's Talk:, and between their own contributions page and those of others. - jredmond 02:16, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Leave well alone. They shouldn't overlap anything else AFAICT: they sit above the page tabs. How narrow is your screen? --Phil | Talk 08:34, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
  • Lose the "my" from them all. They appear in a row after your username. The fact that the row starts with my username makes it obvious that all those functions relate to my things, so I'd have thought it would be perfectly obvious without "my this" and "my that" Tjwood 13:32, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • The "my" sucks. Sucks hard. End of story. What are we trying to be? An encyclopedia? Or a cutse-pie kiddy-club? Tannin 15:54, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

From what I gather, most people wouldn't have a problem with changing "my watchlist". Yes, for the other two, there is a concern that some people may confuse it with other page's talk, and other people's contributions. However, as has been pointed out, these are on a place all by themselves. Perhaps we can convince Gwicke to put some character in there to reinforce this (something like User: or User --- ), would this be enough to alleviate those concerns? Dori | Talk 16:51, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

  • Seconded: just as WP isn't paper it isn't M$ either ... When we write/edit an article we all (should?!) choose our words carefully for meaning, so we should on links. Actually "Edit this page" could also be reduced to just "Edit page" IMHO. --VampWillow 22:56, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
OK, I've changed "My watchlist" to "watchlist]], I'm not sure there is enough support for the other two. Should we hold a vote? (p.s. sorry for the delay, I was on a wikivacation). Dori | Talk 15:31, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'm using standard (damn me) but I foresee getting confused if I'm at another user's page and want to see his contributions. Also, I think it's more newbie friendly, and I like the view that WP tailor for the newbie rather than the regular attendee. --bodnotbod 00:03, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

I don't like this as it is now. I have "My talk, Preferences, Watchlist, My contributions"—it seems a little inconsistent. —Lady Lysiŋe Ikiŋsile | Talk 17:35, 2004 Jun 28 (UTC)

Please keep the "my", it is important to highlight functionality that is specific to the logged in user.--Eloquence*

Most of those who commented here disagree. It's pretty obvious that those links apply to only the logged in user IMO, perhaps the design can better reflect that, but I really hate this trend MS has started. Dori | Talk 23:53, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think it's obvious at all, even I had to adjust between "My contributions" and "User contributions" when the new skin went live, for example, and many people have asked in the past if it is possible to view other people's watchlist, so that concept is also non-obvious. Some people are guided by the user icon, but more text-centric people will rely on the actual text telling them what that function does, and "My watchlist" is simply more specific than just "Watchlist". It's not about being cute, it's about giving more information to the user to help them navigate our website. Long-time users are often the worst possible judges of usability; if you want to know if this is helpful, you have to do a usability study with first-timers and ask them if they have any idea what these links could mean.--Eloquence*
It's been said before, but all interfaces ('cept one :) have to be learned. Sticking My in front of everything doesn't do that. You still have to know what a watchlist is. And as soon as you learn that, you know that there is just one. Sure there has been talk about seeing others' watchlists, but that's such a big privacy concern that it won't happen. I wonder how many new users as you say have heard of the talk about accessing other people's watchlists. Dori | Talk 00:03, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)
You still have to know what exactly a watchlist is, and you still have to know what a contributions list is, but the "my" is additional information - it gives you a more concrete, if still vague idea: The watchlist is something that I can compile, the contributions list apparently lists everything I've done here, etc. Your argument seems to be that since the "My" doesn't precisely explain what a watchlist is, it is unnecessary. But that is not its purpose.
To polemicize, why not just call it "list" and "contris"? After all, you have to click on it to figure out what it does anyway. ;-) I object to the characterization of the my as a purely "cutesy" thing. I should point out that I first introduced these labels during a restructuring of the sidebar of the Standard skin (I also came up with the idea of having a "My contributions" link in the first place). Having these prefixes aids in the logical separation of user-specific and user-nonspecific links. That is their only purpose, but I think they serve it reasonably well.--Eloquence*
Maybe initially that My helps, but later on the brain just skips it because it's the same as in all the other links up there (well, some of them, they should either all have My or even better none of them). That My just gets in the way, as the brain will work mostly on location, with the shape of the words helping it along the way. So yes, list and contris will work just as well, but they don't look as good. Dori | Talk 01:06, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

No unprotected pages

As pointed out at Wikipedia talk:Unprotected MediaWiki messages, all pages listed there as unprotected are actually protected. Given this, there seems little point in its existence. As such I've put it on VfD. Thryduulf 21:47, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Math equations to plain english

Is there a template message to tag a page of equations to be translated from math formula to plain english?

Such as: Math2english (example template)

This article's formula needs to be translated to the English language.

A simple case would be:

1+1=2 one plus one equals two;

a more complex one would be:

the resonant frequency euqals one over the product of two pi and the square root of inducatance and capacitance.

This wouldn't replace the formula, but be in addition to it. It may be helpful to people not skilled in mathematics. Thanks. JDR 16:28, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

This suggestion moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) for visibility. Thryduulf 10:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki messages

checkY Done - But more comments are always welcome. --David Göthberg 5 Dec 2009
This discussion was moved here from Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki. --David Göthberg 29 Nov 2009

We need a single place to announce discussions about MediaWiki messages. Every now and then someone wants a change to a MediaWiki message, say MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer. Then the normal thing to do would be to discuss the suggested change on its talk page. (And perhaps add {{editprotected}} if the user is not an admin.) Problem is that there are lots of MediaWiki messages, and each of them is only watched by a few or no users at all.

It would be nice to have a central page that we who are interested could watch. But having all those discussions on a central page would probably be too crowded. So I suggest we mostly use the central page to just announce the discussions (link to them), but we keep the discussions on the talk pages of the respective MediaWiki messages. For a real world example, see the message above this one.

We have the {{interface explanation}} at the top of many MediaWiki talk pages. We can add a link to the central announce page in that template. We can also add a link in the editnotice that is shown for all "MediaWiki talk:" pages. That editnotice currently links to Wikipedia:Help desk and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), which I think are bad choices for this. The Help desk is far to general, and the Village pump is to crowded.

For the .css and .js pages in MediaWiki space we should of course recommend MediaWiki talk:Common.css and MediaWiki talk:Common.js, since they are already used as central discussion pages.

I suggest we use Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki as the central announce page for the rest of the MediaWiki messages.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I have centralized cite system messages at Help talk:Cite errors and Help talk:Cite messages; see those pages for the lists of redirected talk pages. If you want centralized discussions, then it would be best to redirect the talk pages; either redirect all here or figure out related groups for several centralized pages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 01:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
The problem is that there are probably more than 1000 MediaWiki messages. (Anyone know how to see the total number?) And some of them have fairly long discussions. And every now and then the devs add new MediaWiki messages, that we don't know about. So sometimes a user finds such a new message and wants to change it, then the talk page won't even exist yet.
But sure, when messages are related then it is a good thing to redirect their talk pages to one single talk page. And we already do that in several places. But even then, those shared talk pages are usually not watched by enough users.
Oh, and what I am suggesting here is an entirely voluntary procedure. I just want to update the link and the explanation in the MediaWiki namespace editnotice, and add the same thing in the {{interface explanation}} template. So those that want to have comments on their suggestion have a decent place to go to announce their discussion. And of course link to this page from some other pages.
And I want some feedback from you guys about what page that link should go to. (My suggestion is this talk page.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 01:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I see your point. Browsing through Special:Allmessages, it is more like 6500 messages for each language. (And we should really fix British English, but that is a separate issue). ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 04:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Historically, we've used the technical village pump for these kinds of discussions. Perhaps creating a Wikipedia:Village pump (MediaWiki messages) or something would work well? I don't like "Wikipedia:MediaWiki" and it looks like a malformed page title and doesn't actually describe anything. Maybe "Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages" or something, though I'm still slightly more in favor of a village pump.

There are about 6500 MediaWiki messages, though the number can (and does) fluctuate based on which extensions are installed, which features are used, etc. I'd strongly recommend not redirecting all of the talk pages if it's avoidable. Some sort of editnotice or even JavaScript redirector would be much better in my mind. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Ouch, 6500 messages! More than I thought.
MZMcBride: Yes, a new village pump would be nice, then it would be very clear what it is for. And the name you suggest for it sounds good. It would be very low traffic compared to the other pumps, which would be good. But other people might think that a village pump would be overkill for such a low traffic page. But considering the huge amount of traffic on the other pumps, then it would be good to separate out some topics.
But your suggestion Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages also sounds good, and probably more realistic. (It is currently just an unused redirect.) Do you mean we should announce and discuss directly on that page, or on its talk page Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki messages?
--David Göthberg (talk) 05:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I was thinking about doing it on the subject-space page (Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages). That seems consistent with the village pumps and noticeboards. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&meta=allmessages (warning: large page) there are 6,412 messages currently. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
That sounds good to me. A new Village Pump would seem to be overkill. It should be linked from VPT though, somehow. Rd232 talk 12:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
6412 messages x 355 languages = 2,276,260 total messages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
End section moved here from Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki. --David Göthberg 29 Nov 2009
Okay, so I have started out this page. I will link to it from a number of places, and update the MediaWiki namespace editnotice.
--David Göthberg (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I just found a really old talk page used to discuss MediaWiki messages: "Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki namespace text". But it no longer had a subject page. So I moved it and its archives to be archives 1 to 4 under this page instead.
--David Göthberg (talk) 14:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages

I would like to add a CSS id to MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages, so we can handle it better in JavaScript. See discussion at MediaWiki talk:Youhavenewmessages#CSS id needed.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done - And it works fine. --David Göthberg (talk) 18:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Script documentation

Amalthea wants to automatically add documentation on top of .js and .css pages, and I intend to implement it. See discussion at MediaWiki talk:Clearyourcache#Script documentation.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:05, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Mostly done. But we want to add one more feature to it that might be controversial, so we would like more input. We want to always show a link to the documentation of .js and .css pages, even when the documentation doesn't exist, thus it would often be a red link. See Template talk:Script doc auto.
--David Göthberg (talk) 06:49, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Brush-up of the log in page

I am planning some fixes to the log in page. See MediaWiki talk:Loginend#Brush-up of code.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done --David Göthberg (talk) 23:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Search page help links

The help links on the search page got removed (without any discussion) when the new search interface was deployed some time ago. There is a discussion about adding them back. See MediaWiki talk:Searchmenu-exists#Renewed request.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Secure server

Currently most links to other Wikimedia projects (like Wiktionary) point to the normal servers, even when the user is using the secure server. I am now updating the links in the MediaWiki interface and in other places such as the Main Page and the sister project templates. I make it so users on the secure server see secure links, while users on the normal servers see normal links.

This means I am editing many high-visibility places, and that I am doing a site wide change, so I am announcing this in case anyone has any comments about it. See Wikipedia talk:Secure server#Sister project links for more on this and to discuss it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Viewing protected pages

When non-admins and IP-users "view the source" of a protected page, they currently don't see the editnotice of the page. But the editnotice often contains information that is useful even when just viewing the source. So I am planning to make it so the editnotices are loaded also when just "viewing the source" of the pages. Technically I will do this by adding the editnotice loader to the MediaWiki messages that are shown when non-admins and IP-users view semi and fully protected pages. See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Editnotice#Viewing protected pages.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

checkY Done - I have updated the editnotice system. But there are several discussions on that page about adding other features. --David Göthberg (talk) 06:43, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Arrangement of Latin characters below edit window

Please see MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Arrangement of Latin characters below edit window.-- Wavelength (talk) 05:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites

Where do I find the 

Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission.

MediaWiki message that's found at the bottom of every edit page? I'd like to discuss whether it needs changing, and if so, how to best change it. --Elvey (talk) 09:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

FOUND: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Edittools is it, right?--Elvey (talk) 09:37, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, MediaWiki:Edittools is the interface message that displays most of the stuff below the edit window. And it has a reasonably active talk page so you can discuss there. I think I can guess what you want to discuss, since we are also allowed to copy stuff that has licenses that are compatible with Wikipedia's licenses.
You should perhaps announce your discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) or so to bring in more people to your discussion at MediaWiki talk:Edittools.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Britain Loves Wikipedia - sitenotice

Hi all. I've put up a request for a sitenotice for Britain Loves Wikipedia at MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice#Britain_Loves_Wikipedia - comments/thoughts/screams of outrage welcome. ;-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Added request to Newarticletext

I've asked that a message inviting editors to direct new articles about breaking news events to Wikinews to the New Article message template, and the system said that should also be listed here. Interested editors are invited to see it at MediaWiki_talk:Newarticletext Squidfryerchef (talk) 13:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"templates used" message

Please see MediaWiki_talk:Templatesused#Wording_(Feb_2010). — John Cardinal (talk) 03:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Template Help

Hi, im trying to make templates like {{ambox}} on my own wiki site.
I asked someone who knows about templates and they say I need magic words and phaser functions.
See User:Sghfdhdfghdfgfd#Template_Help
Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 16:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This page is for notifications related to MediaWiki system messages. Try the Help desk. Happy‑melon 22:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:1movedto2

A discussion at MediaWiki talk:1movedto2#Delete? on whether to delete this and two other MediaWiki messages which are now identical to the default message. --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 208.124.86.54 (talk) 01:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Since this discussion now concerns many messages, I moved the discussion here. --David Göthberg (talk) 10:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

According to Special:Allmessages, the default message is now identical to the current text of this system message (the same is also true for MediaWiki:1movedto2 redir and MediaWiki:Aboutpage). I recall hearing that performance is slightly improved if the local MediaWiki message is deleted (or remains uncreated) in these cases, and therefore I'm wondering if these messages shouldn't just be deleted. Thoughts? --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 208.124.86.54 (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

There is also MediaWiki:Allmessages, MediaWiki:Anonymous, MediaWiki:Badfilename, and MediaWiki:Badipaddress. Anyone care to run an automated sweep for these messages and list them all, if it's possible? --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 208.124.86.54 (talk) 01:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
End of messages moved here from MediaWiki talk:1movedto2. --David Göthberg (talk) 10:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Dinoguy1000: I hope you don't mind I moved the discussion here? Whatever our conclusion will be it would be nice to have it visible here.
Finding the duplicates is easy, even by hand. At Special:Allmessages I clicked the option to only see the modified messages, and there are only about 785 of them. I can load them 250 a time without problems even on my slow computer. So I can look through them fairly easily. And I could right click them to open them and delete them at the same time I go through the list, so no need to first list them here.
But deleting those messages means we hide the edit histories of those messages, which might be a bad thing. And it also means they become harder to find, since they can't be searched for using the MediaWiki search. But if it costs less to run them, then it might be worth it. I think we need feedback from someone that knows more about this. I will ask around.
I took a look, it seems that all of those cases are short messages. So my guess is that it isn't much of a performance issue to keep them.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
If there really is an improvement in performance to be gained, we can discuss this but we should find put if this really is the case, before we start discussing this. I see no point in deleting them if there is nothing to be gained from it. Regards SoWhy 19:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I ask this because I recall that various accesskey messages were at one time created and then later deleted because they were identical to their defaults and because there was a slight performance hit from them existing. I don't, however, know if there was any type of discussion on it at the time or if it is still an issue. (and David, no, I don't mind that you moved the discussion here; I considered starting it here and I guess I should have =) ) --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 72.251.164.58 (talk) 01:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
The problem with system messages equivalent to the default is that they don't update when they change. If for whatever reason it's believed that it's good to change the message MediaWiki:1movedto2 in the software, here on Wikipedia the message doesn't update because there's a message on top of it. You might say that this specific message doesn't need updating, but I say we don't know that for sure. The software or the context in which the message is used can change, as we don't know what the future will give us. For example, if the context in which a system message is used changes, then an outdated message might be misleading. I see the point in keeping the edit history and I would have a solution for this. Instead of simply deleting the message, the history could be moved to MediaWiki:Foo/hist, i.e. MediaWiki:1movedto2/hist, so that it can still be referred to it, but the actual message is open for any changes (of course with redirect suppressed on). It could then furthermore be linked in {{Interface explanation}}. --The Evil IP address (talk) 16:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
The Evil IP address: Oh, good thinking, I agree. So now we have a good clear reason why it is good to "delete" all MediaWiki messages that are identical to the default.
And you are also right that it would be nice to have access to the edit history. But for performance reasons I suggest we instead move those messages to a subpage under their talkpage. Since the servers keep all the MediaWiki messages in RAM all the time, while the "MediaWiki talk" pages are cached on disk as usual. So I suggest we move MediaWiki:1movedto2 to MediaWiki talk:1movedto2/hist.
The subpage name should be standardised so as you suggest we can auto-link to it from {{interface explanation}}. I like your suggested name "/hist", but other suggestions are of course welcome. I will also make it so the namespace notices for MediaWiki and MediaWiki talk space detects and auto-links to such /hist pages.
Another benefit of this is that the content of those messages still will be searchable with the Wikipedia search! (The search box at the top of this page already searches MediaWiki talk space.) Searching that way is often the easiest way to find which message is handling some interface text, since Special:AllMessages is to clumsy.
This gave me an idea: We should perhaps have a bot also create such talkpage "/hist" copies for all the default messages that haven't been created yet. Thus enabling us to search for all the messages! That would be very convenient. The bot should perhaps do a new run every now and then to check if any of the default messages have been changed to a new default. I mean changed in the software, not by edits here.
We should think about this for a while before we go ahead. Since there are some tricky parts, like what should we do with the /hist page if the message is created?
--David Göthberg (talk) 19:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
We must also consider how to handle messages which have been created in the past, but were later deleted. Unfortunately, the deletion log (as well as all the other logs) doesn't allow for narrowing results based on namespace, so there doesn't seem to be any easy way to pull a list of such deletions on-wiki, but someone with a toolserver account could probably do it. --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 67.58.229.153 (talk) 18:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggested this at MediaWiki talk:Statistics-footer#Change one link in Other Statistics before I knew about this page: The page linked to by Most accessed pages this month hasn't been updated in months. Trends on English Wikipedia seems to at least be maintained however, so I think that we should replace the wikistics link (on MediaWiki:Statistics-footer).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI: User:Davidgothberg replied once, and I replied to him, at MediaWiki talk:Statistics-footer#Change one link in Other Statistics. Since David is on "sick-leave" the discussion has stalled, so if you're willing I'd appreciate it if you'd come and read the discussion. Thanks!
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 06:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Obsolete messages?

I would like to know if some of these messages are still in use, since their last edit were a long time ago and I didn't found them at translatewiki.net for translation:

Thank you! Helder (talk) 13:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Happy‑melon 18:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext

Note: Following a VPT discussion (Wikipedia:VPT#Make_it_easier_to_submit_edit_requests) on 25 March 2010 MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext was changed to give users a button to click to make edit requests. If this leads to a large increase in requests, especially if many are frivolous or vandalism, please discuss possible changes to MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext at WP:VPT, and announce here. Rd232 talk 11:18, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

An interesting idea. You might want to add something similar to MediaWiki:Protectedinterface, because a different message is used for the MediaWiki namespace. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:09, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Possibly. I'd think that anyone finding a MediaWiki message would know to follow the instructions and do it manually. Rd232 talk 15:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I think there should be a separate message for the MediaWiki namespace, because current one looks strange—it speaks about protection, although page in the MediaWiki namespace are not protected. Ruslik_Zero 20:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Pages in the MediaWiki namespaces are protected, it's just that this is automatic rather than manual as for all the other namespaces. Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
They are not protected because require a special 'editinterface' right to edit. $1 also does assume 'protect' value on MediaWiki pages. Ruslik_Zero 20:07, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Viewsource

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#MediaWiki:Viewsource. Rd232 talk 07:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Login end

Recently the login page was changed. This does not seem like the right location to me. I think it belongs on the register page, which is handled by MediaWiki:Signupend. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Feel free to fix it. ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:16, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
I have changed it a few minutes ago. It was already added [1] to signupend. Cenarium (talk) 17:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps we should do some cleanup to that page in general. It is one big mess, because not only does it display MediaWiki:Signupend, there is also MediaWiki:Fancycaptcha-createaccount which is displayed before the field and takes almost a full page scroll to get past. Seeing how effective the line: "don't use the name of any organization you're associated with" is, I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of this torrent of "frighting" information we direct at new users. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree, there's been some arguments against making it that big at the time, and it hadn't much impact on promotional usernames. In particular, I think the box on the username policy is too big and not that useful, we could at least move it to MediaWiki:Signupend. Cenarium (talk) 21:37, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

BLP PROD "Ad" in MediaWiki:Newpages-summary

Over at WP:BLPPROD we discussed that it would be nice to have a little advertisement for BLP PROD in a place where new page patrollers will be sure to see it, like MediaWiki:Newpages-summary. I was thinking something like:

Note: Unsourced biographies of living people created after 18 March 2010 can be proposed for deletion using a new "sticky prod" process. Add {{subst:prod blp}} to the top of the article to nominate it.

Gigs (talk) 12:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe mention the Twinkle option as well or even instead, given the emphasis in prior discussion on notifying creators, which Twinkle does automatically (I think). Rd232 talk 13:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Feel free to modify my wording directly above. I won't consider it refactoring. Gigs (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Note: Unsourced biographies of living people created after 18 March 2010 can be proposed for deletion using a new "sticky prod" process. Using Twinkle is recommended for this; or see template:prod blp for instructions for manual tagging.

How about this? Trying to keep it short and sweet, and I feel manual taggers should at least look at the template instructions once. Let's get this note going. Rd232 talk 16:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You've got the bit, go for it. If someone screams we can fix it. Gigs (talk) 17:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 Done Rd232 talk 19:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

search page

It transpires that MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new is not shown to loggedout users at the top of search results (presumably because they can't create pages). It would actually be reasonable to show MediaWiki:Searchmenu-new (providing the redlink, and a link to Help:Searching) to everyone. They can see immediately from the link colour whether the page exists. When loggedout users click on the redlink, they would see MediaWiki:Nocreatetext. This is actually better, being an opportunity to suggest creating an account, etc. Rd232 talk 14:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This requires a bugzilla ticket, because this is defined in the software
} elseif( $t->userCan( 'create' ) ) {
                                $messageName = 'searchmenu-new';
                        }
—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Do we agree it's a good idea? If so, would someone do it? Rd232 talk 15:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
As a note, we can display a specific message, MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission, to users who don't have permission to create pages, for now it returns MediaWiki:Noarticletext. Cenarium (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I thought MediaWiki:Nocreatetext was the equivalent of Noarticletext for those without permission to create? Rd232 talk 21:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This is (roughly) how the messages are displayed:
  1. when registered, viewed with no action: MediaWiki:Noarticletext
  2. when registered, viewed with action=edit: MediaWiki:Newarticletext
  3. when unregistered, viewed with no action: MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission
  4. when unregistered, viewed with action=edit: MediaWiki:Nocreatetext
Cenarium (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Not too long ago it was shown to unregistered users, we had a long discussion on adding the help link. So it's a recent configuration change. Cenarium (talk) 05:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

And the change occurred on 9 April. Cenarium (talk) 05:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the deploy of MediaWiki 1.16
OK. What do you mean "roughly"? This should be documented somewhere... And the relevant message talk pages should be updated if necessary, using {{interface explanation}}. But does any of this matter for the issue kicking off the section? It only affects what unregistered users see when clicking on a redlink - but the redlink from the search page is gone for them. Do we want it back? Rd232 talk 06:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll write a patch to add searchmenu-new-nocreate to the software. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
See patch in bugzilla:20976. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Newpages-summary

I've drafted a revision of MediaWiki:Newpages-summary, here: User:Rd232/newpages-summary. The discussion motivating it is Wikipedia:Village_pump_(development)#Save_and_Publish_Features. Rd232 talk 10:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Revertpage and Revertpage-nouser

It might be considerable to apply some changes to MediaWiki:Revertpage (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and/or MediaWiki:Revertpage-nouser (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Currently, the messages say "Reverted edits by $2 (talk) to last version by $1" for Revertpage and "Reverted edits by (username removed) to last revision by $1". Revertpage's default content is "Reverted edits by $2 (talk) to last revision by $1" (differences being the link on "Reverted", version instead of revision and no link for the user of the last good version), whereas Revertpage-nouser uses the default. To make it consistent, one would have to edit it saying "Reverted edits by (username removed) to last version by $1". However, when being at it, it might also be good to see if it's actually good like this and if more possible changes could be made.

Looking at the differences, the link is certainly helpful for explanatation what this actually is, and the supressed user page link of the last "good" user should also remain, as this link is rather useless and in several cases a red one, which gives a reader nothing. However, I'm wondering about the wording change: Is there some reason why "revision" doesn't fit here? If so, is it for a reason that only applies here or is it a reason that applies to other wikis, too? In this case, the default message should be updated to reflect this. Another thing that I'm unsure about is the "Reverted edits by (username removed)" within "Revertpage-nouser": Not only that it's pretty sloppy, it also gives a wrong impression about what's possible with oversight. There's no way to only suppress the username in a summary, only the whole summary can be removed. I would thus simply shorten it to "Reverted to last revision/version by $1", because you can just as easily see what the user did. Another option would be "Reverted edits by an account with inappropriate name to last revision by $1", but this wording is extremely long.

What do you think of this? Please let me know, --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Labels

MediaWiki talk:Cite references link many format backlink labels. Kubek15 write/sign 16:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I reverted your removal of the redirect, as that talk page is probably not watched by many editors and redirects to a centralized talk page that is more monitored. You already asked this question at Help talk:Cite errors#not enough backlink labels and someplace else. List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War uses 1043 instances of the same named reference; for many registered editors, that page will never load unless they log out, and it still takes a long time and that many backlinks are ugly and useless. You either need to split the article or use an alternative reference system such as {{scref}} / {{scnote}}. The {{scref}} / {{scnote}} has some issues, but it will get you past this problem. I am working on some alternatives, but it will be a while before anything might be implemented. There are more issues with the article, such as {{reflist}} being stuffed in a scroll box in violation of MOS:SCROLL. The other 581 reference probably slow it down as well. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki_talk:Viewsource#Change_View_Source_to_Edit_This_Page

MediaWiki_talk:Viewsource#Change_View_Source_to_Edit_This_Page. Self-explanatory in aim; follow the link for detailed explanation of why. Rd232 talk 11:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Related article suggestions

When you edit an article in Uncyclopedia you get a message that says "Thanks for your edit. You might want to check out these vaguely/somewhat related/random articles: ___, ___, ___." I don't know if these are always the same (it's a joke) or are really pages related to the one you edited. I think this feature should be added to wikipedia because if you edited a page you are likely to have something to add to related pages.

I don't know if this belongs here or not, if it doesn't, please move it and tell me. --George (talk) 01:16, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Clearer design for MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext

Three weeks ago Rd232 implemented a new design for MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext, to make it easier to submit edit requests. Although Rd232's proposal is a success, using a table makes it cluttered. I'd like to suggest a clearer design, here is a draft: User:Dodoïste/Sandbox. I tried to make it look clearer by removing every unnecessary detail, so the eye would not be disturbed.

What are your thoughs about it? Should we adopt this design? Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 23:59, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The current design is, despite looking good, indeed a bit heavy on the eyes. Your change looks good, but please change the {{Ambox}} to an {{Mbox}}, because it's not solely used on articles, but mostly on template pages. There might be more which has to be updated from the message. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, my draft is only meant to show the result, and is not entirely functional. It took my a while to understand the long and complex parser functions.
Anyway, the final version is ready in User:Dodoïste/Sandbox2. You just need to copy-paste its content in MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext. You can check the difference between the two versions: I didn't change the text nor the parser functions, only the layout. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 20:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 Done by MSGJ. Dodoïste (talk) 11:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Clearyourcache, be more intuitive!

In MediaWiki:Clearyourcache, There is no information regarding Google Chrome. According to usage share of web browsers, Google Chrome has now around 7-8% of the market share, which is more than Opera or Safari. Plus, the link "bypass your browser's cache" is misleading: it would mean that once one click on this link the browser's cache is be cleared. And it does not indicate that we can find details and informations about other browsers. I suggest the following text instead:

Note: After saving, you have to bypass your browser's cache to see the changes. Internet Explorer: hold down the Ctrl key and click the Refresh or Reload button. Firefox: hold down the Shift key while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R). Konqueror and Safari users can just click the Reload button. For details and instructions about other browsers, see Wikipedia:Bypass your cache.

Instructions for Chrome and Opera are long and complicated, it's necessary to read Wikipedia:Bypass your cache anyway. In order to keep the message short I suggest to remove instructions for Opera. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 16:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done by MSGJ at MediaWiki talk:Clearyourcache. Dodoïste (talk) 13:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion on email help

In the MediaWiki message regarding a requested password, I was thinking that "If someone else made this request, or if you have remembered your password and you no longer wish to change it, you may safely ignore this message. Your old/existing password will continue to work despite this new password being created for you" this phrase be bolded for clarity? I had a little email request I did not make earlier today and I think if that were bolded it'd help clarify the message perplexed users. Thanks, —Tommy2010 21:03, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Rev-deleted-comment

See MediaWiki talk:Rev-deleted-comment for a discussion on whether to change "(comment removed)" to "(edit summary removed)". PleaseStand (talk) 06:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done by Happy-melon. PleaseStand (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki stars are not shown

See MediaWiki_talk:Vector.css#Interwiki_stars_are_not_shown. --Kildor (talk) 21:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

"In to"

Arguably, the following eight messages incorrectly use "in to" rather than "into":

PleaseStand (talk) 19:14, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Tag: references removed

Please see MediaWiki talk:Tag-references removed-description. 167.107.191.217 (talk) 13:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Viewprevnext

As reported on the pump, on contributions pages (and history pages) there are two visible spaces between “newer 50” and “|”. This is because MediaWiki:Pipe-separator contains &nbsp; that's not there on default and MediaWiki:Viewprevnext puts another space before it. I think the spaces from MediaWiki:Viewprevnext should be removed: 

View ($1{{int:pipe-separator}}$2) ($3)

Svick (talk) 09:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik_Zero 15:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Svick (talk) 16:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
As the person who first happened to notice that, let me express my thanks too. --Theurgist (talk) 22:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Newpages-summary

Added edit request to [[2]] Gerardw (talk) 16:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Obsolete "Take me back" on top

Following this message on Wikitech-l, I think it would be a good thing to remove (quite obsolete now) "Take me back" link on the top. I suspect the only reason it's still there is because of other Wikimedia projects that switched recently or are about to switch, and the developers can only remove it once all projects are switched. Note that "New features" link would still be there and switching back would simply require 3 mouse clicks instead of 2. — AlexSm 20:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be useful if we added the rdcheck tool to MediaWiki:Linkshere. An example of what it does at tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py/BioShock. — Dispenser 17:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik_Zero 15:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Could you change the code to [[tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py/$1|Show redirects only]] since as it works with & in the title? — Dispenser 17:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 Done Ruslik_Zero 18:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Ordering of Greek polytonic characters in edit tools

I've proposed a different ordering of the Greek polytonic characters in the edit tools at MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Ordering of Greek polytonic characters.  --Lambiam 07:39, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Separating transcludes on edit window for clarity

I was thinking to make the edit window clearer to new users, we could visually separate the transcludes and hidden templates at the bottom of it by adding a heading just before them e.g. something like

Technical page information

pages transluded onto current version of page ...

I've had a search around but as far as I can see adding to the end of MediaWiki:Edittools should do the job, but there may be a better location? Like the top of MediaWiki:Templatesused... Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 23:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Common.css, styles for wikitables

Please comment MediaWiki talk:Common.css#some wikitable ideas. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 19:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki_talk:Globalblocking-blocked

I'm proposing, here, that we link to the secure.wikimedia site in order to allow users with ISP or national proxies to be able to edit normally, while still blocking the abusive aspects of those proxies. Kylu (talk) 05:14, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Reminder to check for redirected navbox template links after moving a page

Shouldn't the page MediaWiki:Movepage-moved contain a reminder to change redirected links in navigational templates, per WP:R#Bypass redirects in navigational templates? -Set theorist (talk) 08:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

And also on WP:MOVE#How to move a page? -Set theorist (talk) 08:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

MfD nomination of MediaWiki:Talkexists

MediaWiki:Talkexists, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/MediaWiki:Talkexists and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of MediaWiki:Talkexists during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 05:03, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Explainconflict

I don't see any mention of the {{edit conflict}} tag. It should probably be included in the lower section of the message. mechamind90 01:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Russian interface

As a russian native speaker I should make some tips to interface translation.

Please make changes. V0d01ey (talk) 23:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

defamation warning needed on 'edit' notice

I have put up a thing about the possibility of puting warnings about defamation on the 'edit' page warnings.

MediaWiki_talk:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning#Warn_people_they_are_liable_for_defamation_and_other_things

Decora (talk) 20:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

RfC to change MediaWiki:Common.js for archived citations at Wikiwix

Based on the conversation here, I started an RfC to achive websites at Wikiwix, which requires modifying MediaWiki:Common.js. As this is a major change to Wikipedia, I am posting this information in several places to make certain everybody is notified. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (H3O+) 15:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Movepagetext, Moveuserpage-warning, Longpagewarning

Some updates in MediaWiki call for some updates in enwiki system messages.

— AlexSm 18:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Coding style for CSS and JS pages

It would be nice if the CSS and JS pages would follow MediaWiki's coding conventions so that said pages would be easier to read and edit. In addition to readability, following MediaWiki's coding standards also reduces the risk of subtle bugs (see mw:Manual:Coding conventions#Braceless control structures). I find this snippet of code that follows MediaWiki's coding conventions: 

	if ( norm == test + 'js' ) {
		ext = 'js';
	} else if ( norm == test + 'css' ) {
		ext = 'css';
	}

a lot more easier to read than the current one: 

  if (norm == test + 'js') ext = 'js';
  else if (norm == test + 'css') ext = 'css';

What are your thoughts on this? --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 02:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Much of that page is only applicable to PHP, but I believe the part about bracing and indentation is important as I have seen it recommended elsewhere. The lack of braces can be spotted by JSLint. The strict indentation mode of that tool, however, does not allow the spaces within the parentheses of the if statement. If you wanted to get really strict, you could disallow `==` in favor of `===` (also see the JSLint site for the reason for that). PleaseStand (talk) 12:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it looks like the MediaWiki coding conventions also cover that latter thing, although the specific details are different. PleaseStand (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Currently there is a specific sectin about JavaScript, and it is recommended the use of JSHint. Helder 13:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Account creation tests

Hello,

As some of you may know, we are going to test various options of the account creation pages. You can read more about the tests here, where you can also suggest other pages to test. These tests will be short-term, for a week or so, depending on the number of messages that people create on that page, and after that we will analyse the results to see which pages are the most effective in getting newcomers to start and keep editing. Eventually, these changes will be rolled out on a more long-term basis.

So, in summing up: I will change the confirmation page once a day for the upcoming days. I will start in a few hours with the first change, to give anyone the chance to comment on this. If you have any questions about these tests or about specific changes, don't hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes, SvHannibal (talk) 17:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I've now started doing the first test.//SvHannibal (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I've now started test page nr 5.//Hannibal (talk) 15:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Warning sign on Mediawiki:Signupend

During my work with the Account Creation Improvement Project, I plan to test various things with the aim of increasing participation. One of the things that have struck me for a long time is the fact that we actually warn people not to get an account. There is a exclamatation sign in a red triangle (template:fmbox-warning). Sure, I can understand that we want to tell people that they still can read Wikipedia without an account, but don't have to warn them against getting accounts. When people see that warning sign (along with no less than four angry red phrases), they are likely to think they have done something wrong.

In fact, most of the information on Mediawiki:Signupend is the same as the text on MediaWiki:Fancycaptcha-createaccount which is transcluded on the very same page in the account creation process. You can read the entire text on this page.

So I propose that we rework that page to become more welcoming. How about something like this:

If you have difficulty creating an account, please request an account.

Notes   

  • Username – The first letter of your username will automatically be capitalized because of technical restrictions (e.g. "john doe" will be displayed as "John doe").
  • IP address – Your IP address (when logged in) and e-mail address will generally be private, but may be made available to a very small number of users under tightly controlled circumstances related to control of vandalism and other disruption.
  • Email address – Your e-mail address is not normally displayed or given to anyone, with one exception: if you e-mail another user through Wikipedia, your e-mail address is included in the email, to enable them to reply.
  • Public record – All edits to the encyclopedia are permanently recorded and publicly visible forever in the history of any page that you edit, as well as on all discussion pages. If you use your real name or a name you use elsewhere, people seeking information about you may see your username and others' comments on your editing. If your editing happens to cause concern, there may be discussion linked to your username.

Logging in and out:

Already have an account? If you simply wish to change your username, you can do so by requesting a username change.

Let me know what you think. Best wishes//Hannibal (talk) 14:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

That would be wonderful. I will wait two days more and then remove it if noone objects.//Hannibal (talk) 13:42, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Either your change, or an outright removal both sound fine. I'm glad you're looking at this stuff, it's too easy to forget about the nitty-gritty of newbie's experiences once you've been here for a while.--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Done. Thanks for the support.//Hannibal (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
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