User talk:Robchurch

To contact me regarding this wiki, please [ leave me a message]. To contact me regarding development, either leave a message here, or email me; the latter is quicker.

Sysop rights
Hi, can you give me sysop rights on this site. I'm often/sometimes here for making translation into french and vandalism fighting. It would serve that you, Bdk and HappyDog don't delete what I put in the speedy deletion category, and perhaps some maintenance on protected pages.

I ask now because I just put ten article in the deletion category and I would prefer delete them. I'm yet sysop on the french Wikipedia. Thank you ~ Seb35 09:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Explain to me how MediaWiki.org will benefit aside from "vandalism reversion". Your activities on other Wikimedia wikis are of no interest to me with respect to this one, although I should clarify that I don't mean I don't think they're worth something; they're just not relevant here. :) robchurch | talk 01:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Nothing else. Sysop status is mainly for that (particularly in small wiki like here). Apart translations into french of Help namespace, as I already made (whitout the sysop status of course), and perhaps answer to some question when I can in the support desk. I said I'm sysop on french WP only for saying I know the tools. ~ Seb35 13:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You don't need to be a sysop to revert vandalism, though. I'm confused as to what you need sysop rights for and am therefore reluctant to promote you. This isn't bloody Wikipedia; we don't necessarily just give it out like rock candy. Sorry. robchurch | talk 14:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry of having disturb you. But it's not like you said that I requested that. I wanted just help a bit, but it's no more important. Good development for you :) ~ Seb35 15:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Support
Rob, I moved Dto1's Cannot_log_in_to_mediawiki.org help request from Forum to Support desk because it is a user support matter rather than a site architecture matter. I think you can help resolve this matter for Dto1. If not, please guide him to someone who can. I have notified him of this move to Support desk, too. Thanks for everything you do to keep this volunteer stuff working! :-) --Rogerhc 18:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for resolving this matter, which nobody else seemed to care about. —Dto 01:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

questions
Rob, I tried to find sections on how to customize toolbar on my wiki, but I couldn't - do you know any good link with short tutorial?

Do you know whom to ask regarding 3rd party extensions in general and code around extensions? thx in advance Aretai 13:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:sidebar
Hi Rob, I left a question for you at MediaWiki talk:Sidebar, but it occurs to you that you may not have seen it. Thnx --HappyDog 14:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

short note
Hi Rob, just a short note fyi :-/ -- :Bdk: 01:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Branch/release level
Hi Rob,

You modified Template:MW quick download and replaced   with the hard-coded string 1.8. I understand your reasons for doing this - the upgrade is for the branch, not the individual release. However it now means that this is another page that needs updating whenever a new release comes out.

I don't see the problem with listing a point release here. If someone is upgrading to 1.8, they should always upgrade to the latest 1.8.x, so the text makes sense. The link itself always goes to the most recent upgrade page, so they click on the 1.8.2 link and go to Manual:Upgrading to 1.8, which is what they want. Do you object strongly to my changing it back?

--HappyDog 00:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No, go ahead. robchurch | talk 05:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Have done - thanks. :) --HappyDog 03:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

upgrade stuff
Hi Rob, do you have any ideas for ? Also note the talk page. Greetings -- :Bdk: 10:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Index.php
Hi. Can I please have the text of Index.php, the last version I edited? This article is currently deleted, and I did not keep a copy of it. I'd like to have it for personal use, I will not repost if you think it is not appropriate. Tizio 13:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Rob. I'm not sure why you deleted this page, however I agree that it was in an inappropriate location.  I have restored the page to Manual:URL_parameters and notified the user, as I think it has useful content.  If you have any objections to the restoration then please let me know! --HappyDog 03:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for restoring. Yes, the original title I choose made no sense (the article is about the parameters of index.php, not about index.php itself). I already planned to move the page when I was autoconfirmed. My idea was to move to Parameters to index.php for uniformity with Parameters to Special:Export. As I said, however, if a developer thinks that the page does more harm than good, I have no objection to its deletion. Tizio 13:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Persistent 1.8.2 Install Problem On MySQL 5.x / PHP 5.x
Hello Rob,

I am new to Wikis and am just learning to navigate the interactive options (such as "Talk"). In the result, I posted several items on the same issue which remains unresolved. Apologies, the superfluous should be deleted.

In the interim, we have modified all instances of "NULL default" to "NULL", as recommended in http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Support_desk#Installation_problem_with_mw_1.8.2.

We searched all files in the Wiki 1.8.2 folder and changed "NULL default" to "NULL" in each case, assuming the same fix is required.

Set-up now returns following error list:

Creating tables... using MySQL 4 table defs...Query "CREATE TABLE `osaw_user` ( user_id int(5) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, user_name varchar(255) binary NOT NULL, user_real_name varchar(255) binary NOT NULL , user_password tinyblob NOT NULL , user_newpassword tinyblob NOT NULL , user_email tinytext NOT NULL , user_options blob NOT NULL , user_touched char(14) binary NOT NULL , user_token char(32) binary NOT NULL , user_email_authenticated char(14) binary, user_email_token char(32) binary, user_email_token_expires char(14) binary, user_registration char(14) binary, PRIMARY KEY user_id (user_id), UNIQUE INDEX user_name (user_name), INDEX (user_email_token) ) TYPE=InnoDB " failed with error code "You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ', user_real_name varchar(255) binary NOT NULL , user_password tinyblob NOT' at line 3

Kindly advise whether this is a MySQL / PHP version issue (to be directed at our ISP Support) or a Wiki code issue and, if the latter, how it may be resolved.


 * The correct place for this is the support forum. In fact, I answered the same question there. 164.11.204.56 00:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Moving from meta
Hi Rob - Just to let you know that there is a template on meta which should be used to tag pages that have been moved here. It is used like this:. pagename is the location of the page at MW.org, and can be omitted if it is the same as it was on meta. I also tend to add a little note that the page was moved with it's full history, to prevent any confusion in the future (e.g. if someone comes along and starts copying pages without history and adding the tag). I've updated MakeBot for you. --HappyDog 17:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you get my note
Rob, just wondering if you got my note on the talk page for your RandomImage extension before it was moved over here and the talk page cleared? I have since worked out those that it is actually not directly related to your extension, it is a displaying image in general problem, so probably not something you can help with now. --Dr DBW 00:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Moving from meta redux
Yep, this is me, just confirming as requested. Titoxd 04:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Preloader nopreload
I noticed that the Preloader extension does not allow newlines between the nopreload and /nopreload tags. It'd be nice if it did allow them; you can enable this by adding the "s" option to the end of the regexp in translate, so: preg_replace( '/ .*<\/nopreload>/s', '', $text ); Maarten.


 * Oops, good catch. Fixed, thanks! robchurch | talk 01:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

RandomImage caching
Hi Rob,

Been using your excellent extension quite successfully but wanted to get a better understanding on how the caching works. Noticed it behaves different in various browsers, notably IE7 has a high refresh whereas IE6 + FF are more static.

Thanks Cocjh1 23:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Random Image extension deliberately doesn't disable the built-in parser cache, so MediaWiki is allowed to cache the output for as long as it normally would. I don't actually know offhand why the caching would be different in different browsers. robchurch | talk 05:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Trouble staying logged in
Robchurch,

I read your rely about trouble staying logged in.

"Check the PHP configuration is set so that session.save_path is pointing to a valid path under Windows, and make sure that the web server can read and write to it."

I have checked my php.ini file for the session.save_path setting. Is this the place you are referring too? There are several references to this variable and I am unsure which to modify. I found one that is set to my local drive. Should it be to a folder in my php install or wwwroot folder on the web server? If so what would the syntax be?

My problem is that I get a successful log in message but when I click on any link after the log in it will tell me I need to log in.

I have never asked a question via 'talk'. If you need my email address, it is gsales@stgarchitects.com.

I am running Mediawiki under IIS on a Win2k box.

Thank you.

gbs


 * Yes, that's the configuration variable I am referring to. You want to find and alter the line which starts with that variable name; the one which actually sets the value. As to what it should point to; under Windows, something like the temp directory, e.g. C:\Windows\Temp should do. robchurch | talk 05:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

ISO 8601
It is not possible without altering the source to setup MediaWiki ISO 8601 conform. I suggest creating ISO_8601 and collect reasons why this is important and where changes need to be done.

What do you think?

I also aproached w3c which recommends using ISO 8601 but are themself not conforming, partly due to the software. (On the recomendation page itself they do not conform due to CVS)

I also aproached the linux foundation http://www.linux-foundation.org/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&diff=7332&oldid=7330

Tobias Conradi 19:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

RandomImage Code Messed up by Tidy
I had to enable $wgUseTidy, see Further HTML Tables Problems, to solve an issue was having. Which is fine, as it does solve the problem. However, it introduces another one, that impacts on code inserted by RandomImage (plus also images within the gallery tags). More details are here Manual_talk:%24wgUseTidy. Images inserted "normally" within the pages are fine.

It appears to me (with rather limited knowledge of this stuff too ;-)) that there is something about the code being generated by RandomImage and the gallery tag that Tidy falls over dealing with. I looked into if it was a configuration issue with Tidy, but couldn't find anything in the  configuration of it that would be of any assistance.  Any suggestions? --Dr DBW 23:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Any ideas on this at all Rob? FYI, just upgrading to 1.9.3 and will do the same with the RandomImage extension, will see if it is still an issue after that. --Dr DBW 01:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Upgraded to 1.9.3 and the problem still occurs --Dr DBW 23:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Solved, due to no configuration file or incorrectly configured file, not sure which, but solution is noted here: Manual_talk:%24wgUseTidy

New idea: modifying groups like user rights
Hey there!

Since you're a MediaWiki developer, I deciced to come over to talk to you. I had this "great" idea today: could user groups be created, deleted and modified in the same way as user rights are set with Special:Userrights?

The screenshot could probably tell more than me. Excuse me for those Finnish texts (and my username, "Feenix") and for the lame Times New Roman font.

I mean, this way i.e "oversight" right could be given to Stewards or similiar users without needing to modify the LocalSettings.php if you, for some reason, are unable to do so. :) -- Sayuri 21:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sysop
Would it be possible to get sysop access here? I'd like to transwiki pages from Meta to here. Obligatory diff showing that I'm not an impostor. Ral315 22:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

User:DuesenBot
Please stick a bot flag on this one -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 21:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. robchurch | talk 21:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

sort extension ->sorting links
Hi. i found nothing about my little problem, so finally i come to you. Thanks for your extension anyway. I want to sort links inside a wikipage, mainly wikilinks. But SORT seems to remove the ':' from the link. some:thing --> something Do you have any ideas about this or did I get something wrong inside the documentation or the code. In your neighborproject sort2 it is the same thing. Greetings Micc

LDAP authentication page move
Noticed you moved these pages, but http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Extension_talk:LDAP_Authentication is missing a week or so worth of edits, and attempts to update it at its new home are failing.

Miken32 22:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

RandomImage Exclusion?
Rob, any chance of having a feature with the RandomImage that it either selects images from a particular category, or excludes those from a particular category? --Dr DBW 05:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll see what I can come up with. Bit busy at the moment, but I might have something done after Easter. robchurch | talk 20:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Friendly reminder incase has slipped your mind ;-) --Dr DBW 06:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Friendly reminder incase has slipped your mind ;-) --Dr DBW 02:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Sysop
I was wondering if I might get sysop permissions here, I would like to import some pages from meta. (The import log shows that it has not been done in a while.) Cbrown1023 14:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This diff shows that I am not an impostor. Cbrown1023 14:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

What pages? We don't want a lot of the, er, crap that's on Meta coming across here; and a lot of it needs to be checked and updated. There are also various licence ambiguities and the fact I've never heard of you obviously makes me less inclined to trust you off the bat. robchurch | talk 23:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * meta:Category:Pages to be exported to MediaWiki.org is the lot of "crap that's on Meta" (about 511 pages). If you see the diff that I mentioned, it shows that I am an administrator on about three projects... I don't know what else to tell you... is there anything you would like to know? Cbrown1023 00:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Cbrown1023 00:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Sidebar
Hi Rob. As it was you who instigated the discussion at User:Robchurch/Sidebar, I wonder if you have anything to add before we make the changes live? There hasn't been much activity there for a while, and I for one am happy with what we've come up with. Cheers. --HappyDog 00:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool - the changes are live! --HappyDog 02:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC) ...awaiting the inevitable backlash... :-)

Rationale for avoiding read-access restrictions
Might it be possible to add an FAQ explaining the reasoning behind MediaWiki's decision not to permit the addition of read-access restrictions? It seems like it's certainly asked enough, but in researching the topic I was unable to locate a solid explanation.

The impression that I was left with was that the explanation would likely run along the following lines:

Q: Will MediaWiki add the ability to restrict read access to particular pages?

A: No. The developers of MediaWiki (insert names if desired) are philosophically committed to the principle of open access to information. As such, they do not want to support any effort which might run counter to that principle. Even if a flawless technical solution were to be developed and submitted, it would not be permitted into MediaWiki's code base. If you require this feature, you are encouraged to use some other software. There are independent extensions and patches to MediaWiki which attempt to fulfill this purpose, but MediaWiki's developers take no responsibility for them.

If this impression is inaccurate, then the benefits of posting a clarification only increase.

FYI: check out Extension:AuthorRestriction Jean-Lou Dupont 17:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Extension Talk:LDAP Authentication
Hi Rob. You imported this page from meta earlier this month (along with some others, which are fine). It seems like you've managed to lose some of the history. I notice that you deleted some edits with the reason 'Incomplete import', but I can't quite tell what exactly happened, or what your intention was. I suspect that there was a problem with the import so you deleted everything and started again, and that MediaWiki 'cleverly' decided that the deleted revisions were already in the DB so didn't import them the second time. Or maybe not - I remember a bug about import history sometimes being in the wrong order, so maybe I'm just not looking in the wrong place. Can you fill me in with the current state-of-play for this page. For GFDL compliance we probably need to ensure that the full history is retained. --HappyDog 12:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I remember when I messed up an import once and redid it, MediaWiki was intelligent enough to skip over existing revisions. Here's the code from SpecialImport.php at line 323, where the import of a revision is done:

$article = new Article( $this->title ); $pageId = $article->getId; if( $pageId == 0 ) { # must create the page... $pageId = $article->insertOn( $dbw ); $created = true; } else { $created = false;

$prior = Revision::loadFromTimestamp( $dbw, $this->title, $this->timestamp ); if( !is_null( $prior ) ) { // FIXME: this could fail slightly for multiple matches :P wfDebug( __METHOD__ . ": skipping existing revision for " .					$this->title->getPrefixedText . ", timestamp " .					$this->timestamp . "\n" ); return false; }		}
 * You can see that if the page already exists, it checks to see if there is a revision for this page that matches the timestamp, and if so ignores the import. I am assuming that loadFromTimestamp also returns deleted pages, which would explain why your second import didn't work properly.
 * This looks pretty buggy, if you ask me... and also (it appears) if you ask the author! The code is clever enough to ignore repeated imports, BUT it fails if there happens to be an edit at the same time as an existing import, or if there is more than one imported revision with the same timestamp, or if you are importing over deleted revisions due to a failed import (your case).
 * I'll log this on Bugzilla soon - any feedback before I do that?
 * --HappyDog 23:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Usernameblacklist
Hi Rob - what was the point of adding this regex? As far as I can see it will block usernames like JimBob, or JonMan. Also, it doesn't seem to be working anyway, as I was able to create User:BigBoy without any difficulty. Have I misunderstood something here? --HappyDog 14:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It was intended as a pre-emptive strike against a then-current spam bot attack, although I realised afterwards that our captcha would prevent the accounts being created. Your account was able to create the account because, by default, sysop users are able to bypass the username blacklist. robchurch | talk 23:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... I'm pretty sure I logged out before creating the account. Oh well, doesn't matter now. --HappyDog 01:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Whenever I try access the SVN through http access I get page cannot be found. I try going to http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/ and it never works. I have tried with firefox, IE, Subversion and TortoiseSVN. Any ideas?

Error
I've another problem. With the super user it give me this

You can answer here. Thank you --87.5.122.135 16:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Error in RandomImage
There is an error in your programm. The problem is in function setOptions (startline 65).

if( isset( $options['float'] ) ) { $f = strtolower( $options['float'] ); # FIXME: Get the real magic words if( in_array( $float, array( 'left', 'right', 'centre' ) ) ) $this->float = $f; }

You read the $options ['float'] in variable $f but in the function in_array you use $float. The code must look like this:

if( isset( $options['float'] ) ) { $float = strtolower( $options['float'] ); # FIXME: Get the real magic words if( in_array( $float, array( 'left', 'right', 'centre' ) ) ) $this->float = $float; }

Testet with MediaWiki 1.10.0. After this change the extensions works fine in Stargate-Wiki.de.

Talk:René (Admin Stargate-Wiki)


 * Fixed. robchurch | talk 02:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT and sort keys in general
I saw from w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-02/Technology report that you implemented the DEFAULTSORT magic word, and I thought you might be interested in the discussions at w:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 3 and w:User:Polbot/ideas/defaultsort. Also, is there any easy way to detect how many articles are now using the DEFAULTSORT magic word? Or rather, to generate a list of biographical articles (ones with w:Template:WPBiography on their talk pages) that are not using DEFAULTSORT yet? Thanks. Carcharoth 17:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there a specific part of the discussion that I should be looking at?
 * No, magic word usage is not tracked as template usage is.
 * robchurch | talk 06:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I was hoping that, as the guy who implemented the function, you might have some insight into a quick way to detect how many articles are using the DEFAULTSORT magic word. Is there someone who might know more about magic words? Might it be possible at some future date to track magic word usage? If not, then I suppose that bot proposal is the best way to find out the scale of usage. I did find something called API, which sounds promising. I've commented over at Talk:API, in case you have anything to add. Specific part of the discussion other than my stuff about a quick method to detect this stuff? Not really! :-) Thanks. Carcharoth 10:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * "Might know more about magic words" in what sense?
 * I'm not sure if tracking magic words in the same vein we do links, template inclusions, etc. would have much purpose except to determine usage, and there isn't much need for that, per se.
 * I doubt the API would be able to do much better. A sort key is provided for every category entry; if not specified explicitly, and if not taken from the default sort key, then it will be the same as the page title. As far as I can remember, there is always a value in the cl_sortkey column.
 * robchurch | talk 10:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Such as whether PAGENAME over-rides DEFAULTSORT. See the discussion at w:Wikipedia talk:Categorization. Some templated categories use PAGENAME. Later on the DEFAULTSORT magic word is used. I think the PAGENAME is just a case of any pipe-sorted key (regardless of whether it is a magic word) over-riding the DEFAULTSORT key, but as I said, I could be totally wrong. The reason I asked if anyone else could help was in case you are busy doing other stuff. As for why I want to track DEFAULTSORT usage, well, it is mainly to try and massively increase its usage in biographical articles. There are many that don't use it, and I wanted some way to identify those without DEFAULTSORT (or indeed any sort key) so that a taskforce could start to remedy the situation (most sort keys are trivially easy to form, but some need human input). Hope that makes things clearer. From what you've said, it looks like that bot might be the best way to do things (ie. someone is doing something so I'll take that for now!). Unfortunately, I have no idea how to handle a database dump, which is probably the best way to analyse for data like this. Carcharoth 15:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Providing a specific sort key will always override the per-page default, so   will override   . robchurch | talk 16:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something's not quite right yet; make sure everything below is filled out correctly.
Hi Rob,

I had a problem about installing MediaWiki. Also you answered :

''I configured everything. And I'm sure that they're all correct. But I got this error while trying to install MediaWiki.

Something's not quite right yet; make sure everything below is filled out correctly.

What would be the problem ?

Thanks.''

'Scroll down the page and look for red error messages next to options and input boxes. The most common problems are a bad sysop username and password, or a bad database username and password.'

But I looked down and couldn't see any error message. So, I ask to please run an installation with this link : http://www.rafaellomilano.com/wiki/config/index.php

host : localhost db name : rafaello_db user name : rafaello_usr password : 123456

Everything is OK. But can't install the script. And also using PHP 5.0.4 and MySQL 4.1.22-standard

Regarding blogs in Mediawiki
hi rob,

can u help me out on how to delete blogs which are created using mediawiki..i have created a special function of blog using mediawiki extensions and i am able to post blogs. i jus wanted to know on how to delete blogs which are posted and update them to. your help would be of good use to all the members of my wiki. thanks. regards deepak arvind--125.16.138.136 10:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Stupid question
Would it be possible to become an admin over here, or do you have enough sysops for now? I mean, since some people have trouble reading English language and there's a lot of new "test" pages created every day (+sometimes hacked spam aswell)? Anyway, sorry to bother you about this. -- Sayuri 22:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * /me pokes robchurch ;) -- Sayuri 17:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd also like to depopulate m:Category:MediaWiki extensions, do speedy deletions and reverting blanking/tests. Perhaps that'll keep me busy so I don't get to bug you about every minor bug. :P -- Sayuri 12:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Import questions
Hi Rob, thanks for the sysop powers. :)

After some inital mistakes, I think I've learned how to use this transwiki import. I tried to transwiki m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php, but I keep getting the following error:

Importing pages...

Import failed: XML import parse failure at line 66857, col 283 (byte 7189860; ""): Invalid document end
 * No pages to import.

What would be the correct solution to this? Should I leave it to you or another expert, or copy it by hand (i.e. copypasting)? Thank you. -- Sayuri 17:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Import Group
Hey, I am wanting to start out transwikiying from Meta, however I need support from at least one local sysop, and I know you are a developer so I thought I should ask you. If you are wondering, I am TheFearow from enwiki, and I put through a RFP at meta, see this post. I was wondering if you could comment there, as a steward wants permission from a local sysop. I am not going for full sysop powers, only import rights.

Thanks! TheFearow 21:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)