Project:Forum

Forum | Current issues __NEWSECTIONLINK__

Category:Manual vs Category:MediaWiki Manual
I propose we use Category:Manual instead of Category:MediaWiki Manual to categorize all the Manual pages. Nothing on the site is about anything except MediaWiki. So "MediaWiki" is redundant in any category name and complicates things unnecessarily. Using Category:Manual keeps it easier for people to type it the same every time. If no one objects, I will make this change next week. --Rogerhc 05:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I decided not to do it. It feel it is redundant to use prefix "MediaWiki " on navigational labels on this site, even on pagenames and category names, I feel. However, I will defer to the preference of Bdk and HappyDog who I think created the category and subcategories prefixed with "MediaWiki " because I sense the consensus among the three of us is (two to one) to use it. I can adapt to it. Thanks for all the work everyone is doing. :-) Rogerhc 22:29, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I am in favor of removal of "MediaWiki" in the cat name. But would like to here why it is there. After 3 month nobody showed up, it maybe should just be done. Tobias Conradi 23:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree but I am too burned out to do it, myself. I'm pleased to see how this wiki has developed while I've been gone however. --Rogerhc 05:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

New template "languages"
See Template:Languages for use on this site.

Transwiki from meta.wikimedia.org
I'm interested in helping with moving the mediawiki specific help/FAQ etc. pages from http://meta.wikimedia.org/ but couldn't find much along the lines of a guide to the process. Project:Help wasn't much help. Anyone have pointers? --Swift 09:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Movement will be done by server admins. But you may ask HappyDog or me for details. Help is welcomed, but there are still some tricky issues ... but read meta:Meta:MetaProject to transfer content to MediaWiki.org and join the discussion there :-) -- :Bdk: 03:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've enabled transwiki imports from meta via Special:Import. Any admin here can now slurp a page over from meta, with history intact, via Special:Import. Please replace the page there with so there's a link from the old location to the new one. --Brion VIBBER 14:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Cheers Brion - do you think it's worth creating a special transwiki namespace to handle this, or just to import the pages directly and move them afterwards? I'm assuming that pages retain their name when transferring across (the interface allows you to change the namespace). --HappyDog 03:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to help during the transfer of pages by being an admin and importing + fixing up the new pages, I have done a lot of work tagging pages that need to be moved on meta-wiki and would like to see the project through. Also (I have already posted this on meta) I think it would be a good idea to, rather than create a special import namespace, import pages in small batches - or indivdually - and sort them out, then do some more. That method would allow us to see what is changing and not be overwhelmed by the incoming pages. Lcarsdata (Talk) 19:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * ...hm, this is not very likely to happen. -- :Bdk: 22:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Which idea? Lcarsdata (Talk) 18:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Project:Current issues
I created Project:Current issues to deal with 'current issues' regarding MW.org. I'm sure there are more issues that I haven't thought of. I look forward to your input. --HappyDog 23:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That is similar in purpose to Project:Forum. So I put a link to both pages at the very top of both. Leadership and action are needed so that MW.org can become an effective MW documentation wiki. Thanks for your help! --Rogerhc 22:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * What exactly is the difference between the two? --Swift 19:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * None; I suggest they be merged into one page. However, leadership in resolving the matters discussed on both pages (or a merged page) is needed so that they do not turn into a hope drain. Who will lead? Please step forward. :-) Rogerhc 01:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree. Let's merge them if there are no objections within a week.
 * I don't think lack of leadership will be a detrimental factor. Anarchy will work as long as people don't abandon pages. Pick what you want to work on and stick with it &mdash; we can then coordinate on the interfaces. --Swift 01:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi - sorry about the lack of response. Have been away for the last couple of weeks.  Hopefully I'll be able to make up for my absence now by littering the wiki with responses to recent dialog (which I was so keen to open up before I vanished into thin air!).  The main reason for starting a new page was that the issues I raised there were things I considered fundamental issues that are holding up a lot of our other work, in particular the organisation of the site and transferral of content from meta.  I considered this page to be more for the day-to-day running of the wiki and didn't want this important content to be lost.  I'm sorry that wasn't spelled out more clearly.
 * I agree with Swift, in that leadership is not the issue here, but whilst anarchy normally works there are some big issues that cannot be handled in this manner, namely those that relate to the PD/GFDL split (as we must not break the PD license, and we do not want to create GFDL material that we later find out should have been PD) and the moving of material from meta (as it is a large and technical job that we can't afford to mess up). Most other stuff, e.g. navigation, would be good to reach a concensus on so that we don't waste or duplicate effort, but can equally be handled by people being bold. --HappyDog 01:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Thick blue border
MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning, Project:Copyrights and possibly other pages refer to a thick blue border for pages in the Help namespace. This border isn’t visible with the Skins Classic, Nostalgia, and Cologne Blue. Someone might want to fix that. – Schnargel 12:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point - I hadn't noticed this. Upon investigation, it appears that this is due to a bug in MW which means namespace specific CSS customisations do not work in these skins.  I have logged the bug at 6976 --HappyDog 00:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This bug has been fixed, and these pages now have the blue border - what do you think? I'm not sure they are particularly elegant... --HappyDog 01:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:Languages
Just wanted to bring a comment I made to Template talk:Languages to the attention of the community in request for comments. If I get none, I'll probably go on a mass edit spree... --Swift 01:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Help
Category:Help is for MediaWiki generic site user help. See Project:PD Help for discussion of this and or the Help front door: Help:Contents

Category:PD Help was also created by somebody. Category:Help however (no "PD ") is simpler, more maintainable and keep this wiki navigable. Furthermore, other sites using MediaWiki who will want to import the "Help:" namespace probably wont license it public domain. Therefor Category:PD Help is an undesirable label on those pages. So let's use Category:Help.

To fix this I propose to re-categorize all Category:PD Help pages to Category:Help next week by manually delete the "PD " from the category labels of respective pages to update them to Category:Help --Rogerhc 00:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

_Please comment_


 * I admire your enthusiasm to kick some order into the wiki, but I think there are some important things that need sorting out first, which are the items being discussed on Project:Current issues. I would recommend holding back slightly until we have established how the content will be organised, otherwise you may find you need to do it all twice! --HappyDog 01:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Licensing
Would there be any specific reason for using GFDL rather than PD on the rest of the site (as opposed to just on the PD help)? I understand the reason for wanting attribution in the case of the Wikimedia projects, but here I doupt we have to worry about anyone giving Mediawiki documentation without referencing MW.org as the source.

I know there will hardly be a change in licensing without a great incentive given the hassle involved in reissuing the content, but being more of a BSD than a GPL type guy, I'm interested in the reasoning (if ther is any). --Swift 05:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You're talking about all contents in general (including images, talk and user pages)? -- :Bdk: 07:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. Only one site license: anything posted would be in the public domain unless otherwise specified. Images on Commons are sometimes multi-licensed, that isn't a feature of the GFDL, right? --Swift 08:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The main problem is that a lot of content will (and to a certain extent, already is) from GDFL sources, for example meta or the docs included with the MediaWiki code.  Also, any contributions already made to the wiki would need relicensing or rewriting.  In my view, a less-restricitve CC license (though not a PD license) would be the best bet, but I think it is too late to change to that too.  Bear in mind that there is a lot of content on meta that will ultimately end up here.  If we license as anything other than GFDL then we will have to rewrite that from scratch too.  Finally, extension writers are posting their extension code here, and I'm not sure they would be particularly happy to release this under a PD license. --HappyDog 12:34, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I was aware of the problems with importing content from Meta and that changing the license is definately a little late. I was just interested seeing if there was some licensing issues that made GFDL more appropriate than something else (I find the restriction that derivative work must have the same licese too overly strict &mdash; and the source of some of our problems now). It's a good point that the extensions authors would like different licenses.
 * Thanks for your comments. --Swift 16:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Searching the site
Currently searching MW.org does not give the search result we would ultimatly want. Ultimatly we should be able to search using the search box in the nav bar for any $wg, any hook, etc, and see the page on that $wg or hook. Currently searching for $wgAntiLockFlags gives zero results, because all $wg's are in Manual:, and the search defaults to only searching Main:. Confusingly enough, even searching in the manual namespace results in zero results (Strangly, a search including the Help: namespace does give a result of Help:$wgAntiLockFlags, which has no text). I suggest we should investigate defaulting searches to include the Manual, Help (and project?) namespace, and obviously make it so it does actually search those namespaces. --Rick 22:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Just a quick answer: This is mainly because of sloooooow indexing. You may have experienced this for new or moved pages on other Wikimedia projects ... (the config files were moved from help to manual recently).
 * To include the help and manual namespaces into the default search should be possible. -- :Bdk: 23:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think we need to pester a developer for this. I suggest we do it at the same time as we ask for the 'extension' namespace, and to rename 'project' to 'site'.  I don't think the second of these options has been agreed between us yet (see Project:Current issues), so perhaps we can get a concensus on that?  Oh yeah, and Bdk is right about the indexing.  I don't know if there's a way we can force a refresh - perhaps another thing to ask the devs? --HappyDog 23:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * A possible fix for setting the default search namespaces; I was just looking through my Special:Prefences Misc and noticed a user can choose which namespaces to search by default :-), IIRC when creating a user we can set default preferences, we'd still need to do something for current users. (And yes searching for $wg's in Manual: does work now) --Rick 17:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes - that is the setting we would need to change. You're right - it may not affect existing users.  I will raise these points when we speak to the devs. --HappyDog 12:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * $wgNamespacesToBeSearchedDefault in LocalSettings.php Lcarsdata (Talk) 12:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This issue is now fixed. New users have search enabled for the main, help:, manual: and extension: namespaces by default. Unfortunately there is no easy way to update this setting for existing users, so you will have to modify your preferences manually if you registered before this was switched on (some time last month). --HappyDog 02:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Extension demo wiki
There are lots of the extensions that don't have links to an example wiki where you can see it working. a mate told me about awardspace and it gives anyone 200mb and 5gig bandwidth free. Maybe we could set up an "extensions demo wiki" there, and since its free, and that account won't be used for anything else, we don't have to worry about 1)dodgy extensions accidently screwing it up 2)dodgy extensions deliberatly screwing it up. There would be some admining involved in installing the extensions and reinstalling when it buggers up, I'd be willing to help. (I'm sure other extensible OSS organisations have faced the same situation of an extension demo platform, I don't know what they're solution was, but it would be relevent if anyone knows)

Comments?

PS. Just thought, it could also demo skins anyone has added to User_Styles

--Rick 02:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I was going to suggest 100webspace.com which IMO is better than awardspace but both 100WS and awardspace only run PHP 4.?.? which will not run most extensions. Lcarsdata (Talk) 12:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I am setting up a personal web server with various different mediawiki installations on it. Coming soon to http://82.7.33.28 . Because it is a personal web server it will not be able to be on constantly - but will most of the time - and may have a few outages. But hopefully it will be good enough. Lcarsdata (Talk) 17:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Error on MediaWiki main page and I can't fix it!
Moved from Project:Current issues

The front page for the MediaWiki project says:

"Download MediaWiki right away, or use the navigation on the right side to explore the basic site contents. You'll find the fundamental introduction translated into some other languages, but the reference language on the whole site is English. Please read more about this site."

The navigation bar is on the left side. Can someone with access fix this? It's terribly frustrating. Severnjc 19:21, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. --HappyDog 01:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Categorizing dated information
Because MediaWiki is released on a quarterly schedule, the version number tends to get bumped up quite fast: in one year, the version has jumped from 1.4 to 1.8. It's often difficult to gauge exactly how much backwards compatibility is broken from each release: 1.5 saw massive database restructuring, 1.7 saw PHP 4 support removed, 1.8 only made minor database changes, but an extensive list of bugfixes. Future versions will have major backend architectural changes implemented.

Combine this with a penchant for customization and you've got a crash course for incompatibility. I actively maintain a hacky extension of my own, and upgrading to a new branch always makes me nervous. There are scores of information on this wiki as well as Meta that have text like "For MediaWiki 1.5.2" tacked on hastily, users browsing by these pages can only think: "Hmm... that looks outdated. Does it work on the latest version?"

Referencing English Wikipedia's method of updating outdated information, I'd like to propose similar infrastructure for the MediaWiki wiki, using version numbers rather than dates. This way, MediaWiki hackers who have time to test out methods can quickly find out what statements have not been tested for later versions.

Comments? &mdash; Edward Z. Yang (Talk) 01:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmm.... I'm not sure whether this wiki is large enough yet to warrant this extra burden of administration. I think that a simpler set of rules could cover this situation:
 * If a reference is made to an old version of MediaWiki, it is either an obsolete feature or it is still available in the latest version.
 * If it is obsolete then mark it with the (where version is the version of MW in which it was deprecated).
 * If it is not obsolete then update the version number(s) in the article.
 * If you see an old version no. without an tag then it is out-of-date information.
 * If you can fix it, please do so.
 * If you can't or don't want to then don't, but treat the information with a pinch of salt.
 * --HappyDog 01:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The trouble with the simpler set of rules is there's no way to aggregate a list of all pages that need updating. Furthermore, some notes aren't as cut-and-dry as extant or obsolete: behavior can change subtly over versions.
 * Personally, I like simplicity and detest the abuse of templates with overly complex logic, but I think the functionality offered by "Updating information" is applicable to our situation. 02:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I do not think that we currently have enough active editors to make such categorisation worthwhile. If someone wants to go ahead and implement it I won't object, but I also wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of 'needs updating' tags scattered across the wiki which never get fixed.  Bear in mind, that fixing requires testing the appropriate feature/setting/extension on the new version - it is not a trivial task! --HappyDog 19:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, which we should make it as easy as possible for people who want to do so to do it. I'll go off and implement it. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang (Talk) 01:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)


 * You can probably use any of the templates, which I copied over from meta. I tagged  to the right, so you see how it works... Titoxd (?!?) 09:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

AuthPlugin.php
Moved from AuthPlugin.php (which has now been deleted)

http://wiki.blitzed.org/Blitzed_MediaWiki_modifications

Seems to be pretty helpful, will someone please supply an example?


 * I wouldn't use it because: 1. It's on an ancient version of MediaWiki and 2. It modifies core files. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang (Talk) 22:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Manual categorisation
Taking a look at the list of pages in the Manual namespace, I notice an overwhelming amount of titles commencing with $wg. I suspect these configuration setting pages would be better off in their own subcategory; perhaps Category:Configuration settings, which could then be subcategorised.

Thoughts? robchurch | talk 01:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Good morning, Rob. Hm, this is the expected behaviour of Special:Allpages. And all these pages are already in Category:MediaWiki configuration settings and subcategories. But anyway, categorization does not change the general alphabetical listing in Allpages, Prefixindex or such ... (sorry to point that out so clearly, I assume you know that quite well normally ... maybe a lack of coffee, or being awake too long? *eeek* Please just remove this section, if you think it's better). -- :Bdk:  10:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Quite right, I shall have to do the blatant idiot dance again. robchurch | talk 10:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

My Userpage
Please could someone delete my userpage. Lcarsdata (Talk) 06:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * For what reason? Is there something confidential in the history that I need to duplicate across the Internet? robchurch | talk 10:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've deleted it now as it was a user page (we don't really need a reason for such requests imo). Anyway, whatever the reason is, good luck on your way, Lcarsdata, and thanks for your help, especially on Meta. -- :Bdk: 12:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed - see Project:Deletion. --HappyDog 13:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Main page reprogramming
I have modified MediaWiki to make it completely template based. The base template is Template:Main page which takes one (optional) argument: the name of the language, and spits out the page in that language. This requires creation of a number of pages in the appropriate language (see Project:Main page templates) but makes it a lot easier to keep styling, etc. up to date. If a particular translation does not exist for the current language then the page gracefully falls back on the English translation, so feel free to do partial translations. I would suggest that the minimum amount to translate before using the template is 'welcome' and 'intro'. --HappyDog 01:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * btw - I have done the French translation (by copying from the existing version) as a test. All other languages still need doing. --HappyDog 01:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Help pages
I can't see any problem with having the help-pages under GFDL, could anyone please define the (for me non-existing) problem with that and the need to have them under PD. AzaToth 15:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at Project:PD help. -- :Bdk: 20:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * +1 -- :Bdk: 21:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The GFDL is a disgusting, shit and downright viral licence. The conditions for reuse require laborious reproduction of the licence text. If end-users importing the pages into their wiki want to use a more or less restrictive licence, then they may have difficulty doing so. robchurch | talk 12:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * To expand on what Rob said, it would mean that the help pages could not be reasonably used on a private wiki. It would also mean a commitment to all users of the help content to make any of their local modifications available to the public - an unreasonable requirement, particularly as the public won't be interested. It would also require the inclusion of the full page history, or at least a list of all prior contributors. --HappyDog 13:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Bug in Template:Languages in categories
See Category:MediaWiki Introduction/es. – rotemliss – Talk 19:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes - this is due to a bug in ParserFunctions. See 8199 and meta:Talk:ParserFunctions. Any suggestions for fixing this would be welcome! --HappyDog 19:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I have put the links inside, that seems to work.--Patrick 00:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well done Patrick - your fix seems to work a treat! --HappyDog 00:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for new Sidebar structure
Following a request on the mailing list to add a link to Download from SVN to the navigation bar, I did so; however, I ended up cramming it into the resources section. This isn't really an appropriate place for it to my mind, but in fact, there isn't an appropriate place for it.

I'm proposing a new structure for the sidebar at User:Robchurch/Sidebar which separates resources into "navigation", "get MediaWiki", "get support", "development" and "communicate", and would like to solicit feedback before anything actually changes on the site. I don't mind where discussion takes place, as long as it all happens in the same place - it might not be a bad idea to hold it on the proposal page itself. robchurch | talk 10:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for new Hooks
I have installed the [|NamespacePermissions] extension, and added a small extension (as yet unpublished, written on the clock, seeking permission, long process) to allow categories within these protected namespaces to be protected as well. The purpose for this on the intranet wiki it is installed on is to limit access to highly sensitive information on the wiki. Works well!

There are some images that I need to likewise protect. This isn't going to be as easy. I am going to have to modify ImagePage.php directly to hide the images. It would be nice to have some hooks in ImagePage::view like in CategoryPage::view. --Genidiot 20:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This is the wrong place to ask. Please try http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/.  --HappyDog 02:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Presenting http://82.7.33.28/mediawiki_tests - the (mostly offline) MediaWiki testing resource
I have just created a mediawiki testing resource with versions 1.2.? to 1.9.3 unfortunately I am unable to host it constantly but it will be online 16:00 - 22:00 most weekdays, off line all of some weekends and online all of some weekends - all times in GMT. So my step father will allow me to keep it on all the time I will need to generate enough money from it to balance the power and hardware costs (low however). I also soon hope to purchase a domain name. Versions 1.2 - 1.5 may have accounts restricted and only available on request and later deleted, as robchurch says they have massive vulnerabilities. SVN releases may come soon too. Lcarsdata (Talk) 22:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)