Project:Support desk/Archive 17

= Resolved Topics = Feel free to browse these for ways to make articles better.

[RESOLVED] new wiki: two directories (akin to /w/ and /wiki/ here)
I'm going to install a new wiki soon.

I know that Wikipedia and MediaWiki have some articles in a directory "wiki" and other pages in a directory "w". I've heard this helps with writing robots.txt, so I would like to know how to do this for my own wiki.

How do I do this? Thank you.

(Also, as a side note, is there any purpose for this practice other than robots.txt?)

Smaug 04:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * All the files for these wikis are in /w/ (the pages themselves are in the database, and are retrieved through index.php). They then used an alias in apache to redirect /w/index.php?title=xxx to /wiki/xxx (see Manual:Short URL). The two main purposes of this are 1) to have prettier URLs, and 2) the ability to prevent robots from using any actions (like action=edit) which revert to the ugly URLs. Please note that if you want to set this up in your wiki, make sure that there is no folder named /wiki/, it WILL mess things up if there is. As for the Robots.txt they use, the basic one is for the user agent *, you disallow /w/, /wiki/Special:Random and /wiki/Special:Search (as those two special pages should'nt be indexed). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  21:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Smaug 17:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Vertical Scroll Bars
I've been trying to find code that limits the height of formatted text areas and then add vertical scroll bars. I've seen it created elsewhere on the Gentoo Wiki (http : // tiny url com / 2fv3gx), but for the life of me I just can't figure it out myself. I've searched the MediaWiki help sections to no avail.

Could someone please lend me a helping hand!!!

Cheers,

ak.


 * From that site's MediaWiki:Monobook.css:


 * and they have a template to generate that box. You can tweak it as you like. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 02:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply:

Thanks so much for that. I now have my Box File template working. Is it possible to do this for all formatted text without having to "Box" it in?

You should be able to do that by using:

That makes it so you don't have to wrap the &lt;pre&gt; sections in &lt;div&gt;s. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 04:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Custom namespaces and orphaned pages

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.4 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard-log

I created a custom namespace called Manual:, and since then a few pages have been added. One of these pages has now become orphaned (no links pointing to it). I checked the page's 'what links here' to make sure nothing linked to it. But when I went to Special:Lonelypages, the page wasn't listed. What's the catch? Something I forgot to configure?

—CodeCat 21:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as Special:Lonelypages. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  23:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Huh its a special redirect, you really meant Special:Orphanedpages. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  23:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess, but both links lead to the same place, and the link in Special:Specialpages says Lonelypages. --CodeCat 01:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * PatPeter: It's Lonelypages. Special:Orphanedpages redirects to Special:Lonelypages. See MediaWiki 1.11 release notes.


 * CodeCat: I have a hunch that "orphaned pages" only counts pages that fall within the criteria of $wgContentNamespaces. Try tweaking your settings so Manual: is considered a content space and see if it shows up. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 05:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I was wondering the same thing, but I just checked and it already has  $wgContentNamespaces[] = NS_MANUAL; , with NS_MANUAL defined as 100. So that can't be it. --CodeCat 12:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, there's not a lot of documentation on that special page (that I can find) either. Maybe "it's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature." :P


 * Seriously, though, I'm out of ideas. :( Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 00:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I looked in the source files, and found this in includes/SpecialLonelypages.php:
 * So it seems that the whole thing is in fact hardcoded into the source. Worth fixing in a next release? --CodeCat 01:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * So it seems that the whole thing is in fact hardcoded into the source. Worth fixing in a next release? --CodeCat 01:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You got a Bugzilla account? I think this page is a good candidate for the namespace picker such as seen on Special:Contributions. I hope that thing's just a reusable module. It would take some tweaking, but it would make a good enhancement request. Or perhaps it should just use ; I think the chooser is better, personally. If you don't have a Bugzilla account I'll be happy to report the bug for you (unless you want to do it yourself). Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 04:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Posted it myself: link. Thanks for the help though. :) --CodeCat 13:17, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Wikipedia
How is it that on some non-English editions of Wikipedia talk pages have a colored background and rounded "article", "discussion", "edit" and "history" buttons. Is this a feature of older versions of MediaWiki or is it a customization (if that's the case, how would I go about doing it?). Also, some Wikipedias have a feature that when one replies on a talk page using the colon indent the text appears in a box like on [this http://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversa:Portada] page. Can anyone help? --58.169.232.209 09:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The coloring, rounded corners, and boxes are all tweaks to the site CSS. I've rounded corners in my own account on en.wp (see w:en:User:Voyagerfan5761/monobook.css), and you should be able to easily find the code that does it -- I've commented it well. Of course, it looks kind of bad (frankly) in Internet Explorer 6, so perhaps the WPs you've seen are using different code. (Can you post the language of one that has rounding? I'd like to make it so my account doesn't blow up at the library. ;-) )


 * The backgrounds on the responses are generated by this rather lengthy code in MediaWiki:Monobook.css:


 * All talk spaces are odd-numbered, which is why the  selectors don't affect articles. Does that help? Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 09:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that helped quite a lot. Excuse my poor English. A few Wikipedias have the rounded feature, these include the Bosnian, Italian, Romanian, and Esperanto Wikipedias. --58.169.232.209 10:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, how would I view the monobook "main.css" file of different language editions? I am trying to steal the code for rounding from the Spanish Wikipedia. I have tried "es.wikipedia.org/skins/monobook/main.css" but this gives me the standard file that comes with a fresh MediaWiki installation. The above code adds the feature nicely, but does not change the background color. Thank you so much for your help and patience so far. --58.169.232.209 10:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about your English; I've seen much worse writing from English Wikipedia newbies who write from India or another Asian country. Sometimes I can't even figure out what they mean. :D Your writing, I'm not having trouble with.


 * So, I found the code for rounded corners on Pagina principală:


 * I'm guessing the header means "corner rounding", but I don't know Romanian. If you want the corners to be smaller, just adjust the em values to be smaller (like 0.5, for instance); making them bigger is similar.


 * The different styles you see aren't in main.css; they're located in either MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Common.css. In the corners' case, the styles are probably in Monobook.css, since not all skins have the same elements whose corners would be rounded. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 00:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Automatically undoing everything a vandalist has done
If a vandalist has written in dozens of articles, can an admin block its user and also automatically undo the relevant changes in dozens of articles? In other words, can blocking be retroactive?

If not, it's a huge issue. Imagine if you have even just 10 such vandalists. You'd have to manually revert hundreds (not to mention thousands) of articles! I know it's easier to revert for an admin, but it's still not feasible.

—79.176.153.180 17:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the vandle's contributions there is a button for each edit called "rollback." Hold down shift when you click on it and it will do it in a new window.  100 clicks to do 100 reverts. Not so hard.  also, if the vandel makes a bunch of pages you can use Extension:Nuke. J.smith 18:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, why not just allow block + revert in 1 click instead of 100? -79.178.93.100 23:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Extension:NukeDPL will allow mass nuking based on DPL queries, however you need to use with caution. --Zven 21:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That has nothing to do with reverting. -79.182.0.62 00:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No your right, I was thinking of the case where bots are creating lots of articles --Zven 00:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there no bot that can revert everything a certain user has changed? -79.182.0.62 15:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Its impossible because even normal user can't undo vandalism with conflicting edits. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  15:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Installation Error in 1.6.10

 * MediaWiki: 1.6.10
 * PHP: 4.3.3
 * MySQL: 3.23.58
 * Database:
 * URL: (not live since i'm having trouble installing)

When trying to install the software i keep getting an undefined function error in the parser. the following is the error page the software throws out. Additionally i cannot upgrade the MySQL or PHP, i tried the older 1.5x version of the software and it didn't work either. Same type of error; undefined function.

MediaWiki 1.6.10 Installation

Checking environment...

Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.

* PHP 4.3.3 installed *     Warning: PHP's register_globals option is enabled. Disable it if you can. MediaWiki will work, but your server is more exposed to PHP-based security vulnerabilities. * PHP server API is cgi; using ugly URLs (index.php?title=Page_Title) * Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support. * PHP's memory_limit is 8M. If this is too low, installation may fail! Attempting to raise limit to 20M... ok. * Have zlib support; enabling output compression. * Neither Turck MMCache nor eAccelerator are installed, can't use object caching functions * GNU diff3 not found. * Found GD graphics library built-in, image thumbnailing will be enabled if you enable uploads. * Installation directory: /home/wiki/public_html * Script URI path: * Environment checked. You can install MediaWiki.

Generating configuration file... * Database type: mysql

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wfurlprotocols in /home/wiki/public_html/includes/Parser.php on line 55

—24.251.242.131 06:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Try one of the newer versions. It could be a typo in the program (or maybe not). Did you edit anything? --NorthStar 17:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't edited a thing. And i was using this version because of the php and mysql limitations.


 * Wait what do you mean? You can't use the current versions? -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  17:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Changes not taking effect after editing Localsettings.php
After editing and saving localsettings.php, none of my changes take effect. Am I missing some obvious (and unspecified!) step, such as stopping services before editing, or running a script after editing? If so, which service(s) need to be stopped and/or what script needs to be run? Bastun 10:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.4
 * MySQL: 5.0.45


 * You need to use a program to download LocalSettings.php like Filezilla, then edit it with Wordpad (NOT NOTEPAD), then press the button of the floppy disk (lol), then reupload and rewrite it. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  18:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No offence, but you don't appear to have read what I have written. Bastun 10:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No I did read what you wrote, you said you edited it and saved it, I told you how I edited it and saved it as you most likely did it wrong. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Changes made to LocalSettings.php should take effect straight away, I recall some have had problems with whitespace after the closing ?>, some people by convention remove it. What changes specifically were you making? --Zven 18:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It may be a caching issue with the server or browser, but that is highly unlikely. Anyway, you can try adding &action=purge to the end of the URL (or ?action=purge if using "pretty" URLs) and/or resetting your browser cache and see if that affects anything. Another possibility is that PHP is having some error with what you added, so it just skipped those lines (also unlikely, but anything can happen). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Another way to purge is to select edit, then the show preview button. --Zven 03:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Zven and Skizzerz: at this stage I'm trying anything to make localsettings display changes I've effected to it on the wiki :P My initial reason for editing was to include some extensions and to create custom namespaces (I'll then be setting grouppermissions on the new namespaces). As the new namespaces don't appear to have been created (not showing up in search, etc) I've done some things as basic as changing the logo and sitenotice in localsettings - no changes have any effect. I get the same logo and sitenotice as from when I made initial changes over a month ago when I first set up the wiki. My localsettings file has no closing "?>". Adding &action=purge, clearing browser cache and using edit preview don't show any changes either. Bastun 10:56, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Changing Manual:$wgSiteNotice is a good test. Your LocalSettings.php file should be in $IP, (something like, or  ). Are you editing a copy of LocalSettings.php that is in a different location by accident e.g. in  ?
 * If this is not the case you could try backing up your LocalSettings.php taking note of database passwords etc, then delete it. Rerun the process of configuring MediaWiki from the web browser url which will reconstruct a default LocalSettings.php in . Move the file and add a site notice message at the end again e.g.


 * You could then use a difference engine to examine the differences between your new version and your current one to see if there might be anything causing the issue. --Zven 19:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've encountered this same problem on another wiki, and we've fixed it by restarting apache, so try doing that and see if that works (of course, we had to re-restart apache every time we had to change the config files... but that's because of our overly-agressive server-side caching). --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Zven and Skizzerz - I'll try your suggestions out today and report back. Bastun 10:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Searching for singular words vs. plurals

 * MediaWiki: 1.10.0
 * PHP: 5.0.5 (cgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.27-standard-log
 * Database: not sure
 * URL: http://siteground187.com/~mommypl1/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Is there a way to alter the search to include singular and plural forms of words? For ex: When I search for the term 'coughs' I get no results, but I do get results searching for 'cough.'

Similarly, when I search 'cough and cold medicine' I get no results, but I do get results for 'cough and cold medicines' that include        the full term, and results of just the word cough and just the word cold.

It seems like there is some disparity in the search results and the way to go about achieving those results.

If there is no way to alter the search, it would be great to understand how to best articulate this disparity to users.

—24.9.162.3 20:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Create a page, Coughs, that says:


 * 1) REDIRECT Cough


 * -PatPeter, MediaWiki Support Team  21:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. While this addresses this one specific situation, is there a solution that will work site wide, not relying on specific terms, like cough?


 * No you will have to make a redirect for every page that has plurals. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Is WildCard Search possible?
The search in Mediawiki does not search for partial words. for eg if the name of the document title is "VoyagerTesting", and I give a search of "Voyager", it wont find the page by the title."Voyager" and "testing" are both dictionary words. I need to work on this and try to see if I can bring tis functionality in our wiki page.

Even if I give the wildcard serach, I am not able to find the page. For eg giving serach "voyager*" wont find the page titled "voyagetTesting".

Can you let me know if I Media wiki has this functionality??If yes, can you let me know how this can be done ?? If No, Can you give me some other alternative of bringing this functionality??

Thanks
 * You could try the Lucene Search extension, which is what Wikipedia uses. --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  21:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] How do I add new categories to the wiki?
How do I add new categories to the wiki?
 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (apache2handler)
 * MySQL: 5.0.45-5-log
 * Database: (sorry I couldn't find this but I dont think it is relevent anyway)
 * URL: http://www.tbsracing.freezoka.com/Wiki/

—79.68.198.170 19:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at m:Help:Category. --WIKImaniac 20:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Rename a user
How do I rename a users in Media wiki (v1.10) —12.146.131.5 20:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Extension:Renameuser --Nad 20:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] Powered by MediaWiki -- GNU License
Am I required by the license that comes with MediaWiki to keep the little box in the lower-right corner of my site that says "Powered by MediaWiki" on there? Smaug 02:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No, you are not required to keep anything down there. If you need help removing it, see this entry in the FAQ. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Smaug 03:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[RESOLVED] What Extensions are you running

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.3 (apache)
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * Database:
 * URL: http://www.vibe-ent.com/w/index.php

I was wondering what extensions this site is running as I have copied the Help Pages and a couple of pages are not showing correctly. Also the export template needs to be updated as there are now a couple of extra templates on the help pages

—210.1.216.73 12:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * See here. This extension will allow you to use the tag which should fix up your help pages. --Chris  12:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Special:Version next time. --WIKImaniac 18:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)