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)
 * If it can be done manually, I see no reason why you think it can't be done automatically. -79.182.0.62 11:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That is what I just said sometimes it can't be done manually, as far as that term goes. For instance, in this case manually would be a user pressing the "undo" button, but sometimes the undo button doesn't work. Some edits vandals do have to be rewritten. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  00:47, 31 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
 * i Alex  15:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ahhhh I didn't notice I had done that until after I started screwing around with Manual:Short URL, forgetting that a couple days before I copied Wikipedia's monobook.css. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  15:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Deleting users

 * MediaWiki: 1.6.10
 * PHP: 4.4.4
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * Database:
 * URL: http://imsaw.com/mediawiki/
 * Know how to block users but how do i delete users?
 * By using Extension:User Merge and Delete or running the removedUnusedAccounts maintenance script (think that's what it's called). --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to say, the UserMergeAndDelete extension just saved my butt from some early bogus test-users that were plaguing my wiki. It's a great extension! --Töff 02:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) CrossNamespaceLinks Extension

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.1
 * PHP: 5.2.3
 * MySQL: 4.1.22-standard
 * URL: Vibe Entertainment

I am having trouble installing Cross Namespace Links extension as there is no documentation for it. What to I place in my LocalSettings.php to make it work

—210.1.216.73 14:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In your LocalSettings.php, you should put the line:


 * That's assuming you've put the extension's files into the extensions/CrossNamespaceLinks folder. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 09:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've tried that however when doing it I get a blank page and no wiki 210.1.216.73
 * I manage to fix it I ended up using

210.1.216.73

(RESOLVED) Force Preview in 1.10

 * MediaWiki: 1.10.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.24-community-nt
 * URL: (internal company wiki)

I want to enable Force Preview in MediaWiki 1.10. When I copy the information from MediaWiki:Common.js into my wiki's Common.js, it only appears as text. The parts between the { and } appears as text in div boxes. (UseSiteJS is set to true in DefaultSettings.php)

I tried to locate the EditPage.php code mentioned in the FAQ ( How can I force users to preview before they save  ), but using my Wordpad's Find function doesn't locate the text recommended to be replaced.

Am I missing something from Common.js that isn't showing in the above links?

—Fmmarianicolon 15:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * see Manual:Force preview for an overview of various ways to implement this. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  18:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I added the first set of code from Manual:Force preview. The result does not look like the Common.js from the French or English Wikipedias.  Here is a screenshot. Am I missing a Javascript tag that I need to place before it?  --Fmmarianicolon 18:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The appearance of it is due to the fact that the Wikipedias are running a newer version of MediaWiki than you are (and they have the GeSHi highlighter extension). It should work as expected regardless. resolving again because appearance of Common.js was not the intent of this thread. If you want to discuss ways to get your Common.js to look better, start a new topic. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  19:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not explaining myself very well, sorry about the confusion. The code that I added from Manual:Force preview did not enable Force Preview.  I saved common.js with the code, then logged into a regular user account.  On both the sysop and regular user account, I can Save the page without being required to preview first.
 * The reason for the above screenshot: I thought the different look of my common.js would provide a clue as to what its missing to get Force Preview working. If the screenshot does not show that I am missing something from common.js, what else should I check to get Force Preview working? Thanks, --Fmmarianicolon 20:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This js only forces preview for anonymous users. All logged-in users can still save without previewing with that javascript. Change the part way at the top from  to   if you want to force it for all non-sysops. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It's working now. Thanks much, you help is very appreciated! --207.114.205.130 15:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * (Oops, forgot to log in, but that was from me!) --Fmmarianicolon 15:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) mp4 quicktime crashes videolan player

 * MediaWiki: (Reported by your Wiki's Special:Version page)
 * PHP:
 * MySQL:
 * URL:

I have a Sanyo Xacti 1000 HD camera. The Quicktimes are mp4. Quicktime 7.1 plays it back but very choppy. Newer quicktime releases do not play the file back, only a green screen. I tried to play the clips back in the Videolan player but it immediately crashes. What vieo editing program will support and be stable. Please help anyone.

The system is xp pro, lots of ram, raid 0 satas, with a g force 7200 512mb card.

steven@rudeanimation.com

—Steven Rude 23:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Does this have something to do with MediaWiki? I don't think anyone here will help you if it's not. Did you mean to post this on the Wikipedia Reference Desk? Smaug 02:08, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Not relevant to MediaWiki. Closed. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) How can I add an INTERNAL LINK WITH A NAME-VALUE PAIR?
Q. How can I add an INTERNAL LINK WITH A NAME-VALUE PAIR?

I would like to use, for example, Special:Listusers&group=Writer to list only the users within the 'Writer' group, or Special:Userlogin&type=signup to jump directly to the account creation (not login) screen.

I can make an EXTERNAL link with a name-value pair, and use my site's own URL, but that's just kinda silly (and deceptively marks the link with the "external" icon).

The INTERNAL link parser doesn't seem to pick up the name-value pair appended to the link. I just get a "No such special page" error. Grr.

... I tried to come up with a clever #REDIRECT, but redirects use internal links, also, don't they. Dead end.

Thanks in advance, —Töff 02:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * MediaWiki=1.11.0 / PHP=5.1.6 / MySQL=5.0.37 / URL=Pale Ravens.
 * p.s. I am a new MediaWiki admin and I am loving the software so far! Cheers to all the developers!
 * For Listusers, using Special:Listusers/writers would work (internal link). As for account creation, unfortunately there is no current way to do this. You can use CSS to prevent it from looking like an external link, but that's about it for the moment. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  04:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "using Special:Listusers/writers would work (internal link)." -- That's cool! Is that kind of switch documented anywhere? I never saw that before! Too bad there's not one for the login page. --Töff
 * THAT WORKS GREAT! ... but again, is that switch, and more importantly other switches like it, documented anywhere? I looked, really.--Töff
 * How about using the fullurl parser function e.g. [ Signup] ( [ Signup] ), and use CSS to remove the external icon. One way would be to make a new template with its own span class wrapper and create the CSS rule --Zven 04:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "use CSS to remove the external icon" -- I could, but the external link icon is a nice thing, a wiki standard, and I won't want to train my users to expect something different from our MediaWiki than they do from the thousands of other installations. It's just a conformity thing, I guess. I like the wiki system and I want to break it as little as possible, in the name of suiting my needs. --Töff
 * You can remove the icon on a case-by-case basis by wrapping the link in . Ex: [ Support desk page history] . Works like a charm on every (recent - goes without saying) MediaWiki installation I've come across. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 07:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "remove the icon on a case-by-case basis" -- Thought of that some time after I posted. I bet it's what Zven meant, and I didn't listen carefully enough ... and yeh, a template would be the way to go. Zven was way ahead of me. Imma try it, then I'll mark this resolved if I can actually make it work. Thanks! --Töff
 * OMG, I've spent an hour trying every combination I could think of, and I cannot get to the proper result. Embarrassingly, I must ask somebody PLEASE just to show me how it must be done. I can't even post what I tried, because I tried so many different things. Here, just a sample, I know it doesn't work, but neither do any of the other things I tried. Grr! ... Ampersands and Curlybrackets and Pipes, oh my! (Not to mention the spaces, or omission of spaces, before and/or after. Is this classic newbie floundering, or what?) Help! Please!


 * Template:Plainlink ...
 * [ ]
 * Wiki markup for use on my page ...
 * }
 * I'll add FYI, one of the problems seems to be using a pipe in the URL in place of the net-standard ampersand, e.g., |type=signup ... it confuses the template parsing, I think, maybe, I dunno, I am without a clue. But I did try pipe instead of ampersand, lots of different ways.
 * The reason your example above doesn't work is because the fullurl parser function must specify query string arguments as a separate parameter e.g.  fails (due to the[Manual:Short URL|short url] of entire argument and uuencoding expansion), and   succeeds. As your've indicated that you are a new user this may be useful to remember;
 * Link syntax -associations between articles
 * [ - external links
 * [[ - internal links
 * Transclusion -embedding within articles
 * {{ - templates / variables/parser functions
 * {{{ - parameters in articles such as templates
 * Skizzerz mentions below that pipes can confuse the parser as they are supposed to separate key=value pairs so Template:! is used to stop that happening. Now his example appears to be failing aswell, and I think it is due to a problem being caused by the {{#if ... }} statement, we need to make a simpler template so it will work. --Zven 23:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * {{ - templates / variables/parser functions
 * {{{ - parameters in articles such as templates
 * Skizzerz mentions below that pipes can confuse the parser as they are supposed to separate key=value pairs so Template:! is used to stop that happening. Now his example appears to be failing aswell, and I think it is due to a problem being caused by the {{#if ... }} statement, we need to make a simpler template so it will work. --Zven 23:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Try this: Template:Plainlink  Template:!   (yes, just a single pipe) Wiki markup on the page  . You'll need ParserFunctions for this btw. --Skizzerz talk - contribs [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  20:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fantastic, thanks so much, that code is beyond my level and I never woulda figured it myself ... I'll try it! ... btw please see my question above about the Listusers switch. --Töff
 * It totally didn't work. I give up. It's not worth any more effort. THANK YOU, though, for the help! It's generosity like that, that makes the web go 'round.--Töff
 * there appears to be two issues, problems with the {{#if: ...}} parser function, and mixing of named and unnamed parameters such that unnamed parameters after named parameters should be explicitly refered by their index e.g. 2=second parameter. Template:Plainlink;

{{#if: {{{params|}}} | [{{fullurl:{{{target}}}{{!}}{{{params}}}}} {{{label}}}] | [{{fullurl:{{{target}}}}} {{{label}}}] }} ''
 * called with;

{{Plainlink|target=Special:Userlogin|params=type=signup|label=create a new account}} {{Plainlink|target=Special:Userlogin|label=create a new account}} ''
 * should work. --Zven 00:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Zven baby you rock my world :) This was a lot more trouble that it was worth for the one little icon, so I think we will call this a wonderful learning experience for future problem solving. Amazing how unforgiving some syntaxes and parsers can be, eh!? BIG THANX to Zven and Skizzerz and V'gerfan. Imma call this resolved! w00h00! (but Imma also stick on a new Q about the Listerusers switch).--Töff 01:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Rendering of too-complex pages breaks: How to fix?
MediaWiki: (Your version)

PHP: (Your version)

MySQL: (Your version)

Database: (Your version)

URL: [LINK Title]

(How does one find out the MediaWiki/PHP/MySQL/Database versions?)

On the French Wiktionary, we make heavy use of sometimes fairly complex templates. The rendering of some pages currently breaks (e.g. : in the "Traductions" box), the key symptom being that templates suddenly stop being resolved (in the example, this shows as "Modèle:trad" strings). We know this has someething to do with the complexity or size of the page, but in order to fix this, we need to know exactly what is the cause. Is it the gross size of the page (number of bytes "sucked in", excluding the &lt;noinclude> bits?), the number of template calls (counting recursions, if any), or something else?

—Urhixidur 18:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You can find out your MediaWiki, PHP, and MySQL from Special:Version, as to your type of database I don't know. -PatPeter, MedaiWiki Support Team  02:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't read French that well, but it looks like the templates -verb-|fr, -drv- and -trad- are each being called twice. My guess is that one of the templates is calling something it shouldn't. one or more of the templates is broken. -Barista 14:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, the templates are all fine, it's just that there are either too many raw template calls (including sub-calls), or too many bytes of page to process once all the calls are resolved. The page just stops processing template calls midway through. We need to know which of these two cases (number of calls or total number of bytes invoked) matters before we can correct the situation. Is the mediawiki limitation expressed in terms of number of template calls and sub-calls, or in terms of total bytes to process?
 * The key culprit is the trad template, which is called repeatedly within the translation tables. As for -verb-, -drv-, and -trad-, they do appear twice, because there are two major meanings for the word. Multiple calls of this sort work just fine in other contexts. Urhixidur 20:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Is it possible to place parts of the pages in subpages to minimize the limit? You would probably have to bring it up at your village pump though. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  15:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Static images
Hi, how does one make an image that is non-clickable? &mdash; PM Poon 06:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * A few of us have had problems with that - not only non-clickable, but also needing them to link somewhere else instead of the image page. OrganicDesign:User:Rob was going to make a quick extension for that, so maybe ask him about it - he may have already done it and be using it on his work's wikis --Nad 10:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You could also install Extension:ImageMap and add a default link to the page name itself. — color probe (talk | contribs) 18:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Search completely dead

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.1.4 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 4.1.20
 * URL: Botdom Wiki

Hey all,

Search seems to have died completely on my wiki, and no matter what I search for, no results are returned. Search results page is always a page with only a sentence at the top and search field at the bottom, with only a space inbetween. I've been working with MediaWiki for almost one and a half year now, and customize it a lot on code level, but I just can't seem to get out of this problem. I tried running  and it succeeded, I tried clearing my cache and then searching again, yet the search still acts the same way. Any ideas? Thanks! —87.61.161.59 12:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I should perhaps add, not even MediaWiki:Nonefound is being displayed -- it's completely blank except the search form at the bottom and the "For more information about searching on ..." introduction header. --87.61.161.59 12:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Reupload SpecialSearch.php to your /includes/ directory. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  19:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Heh, not even that works. I assume that it's something I've done when editing parts of the code (even though I only recall editing MonoBook.php and main.css). Unless you have any other suggestions, I can understand how it's a bit hard to find out what's happening. I think I'll just wait until the next MediaWiki update by replacing all files with those versions to start fresh. Thanks for your help nevertheless! --87.61.161.59 06:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This is probably a shot in the dark, but you didn't set  did you? If not, why not try backing up the files you changed and overwriting them with the ones from the 1.11 release? That might work... Could be you took something out of MonoBook.php that was necessary for the search results to display. Just guessing here! :) Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 09:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) How can I change the location of the database?

 * MediaWiki: 1.10.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5
 * MySQL: 5.0.51
 * Database:
 * URL:

Hello,

I want to build a mediawiki on a intranet system. On each PC apache is still running.

I've installed the mediawiki on one pc (for testing resons). What I want to do - and that's my problem - I want to store the database (the brain of the wiki, so to say) on a USB - device, which is plugged on a fritz!box.

Why do I want so? In this intranet is no PC running all the time, and I don't want to install a special server for the wiki only. So I thought, I can run the mediawiki on each PC and store the database centraly on the usb-device.

Is there a possibility to solve this problem?

—84.171.172.226 21:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Have you taken a look at Manual:Wiki on a stick or (better for Windows PCs) Wiki on a stick yet? That could prove workable, perhaps better than having Apache always running on every computer. Just bring the USB stick to one of the computers that's running. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 23:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I read this article after I'd installed the wiki on the test PC. The problem is, that there is none of the computeres running the hole time... The apache is needed for a chemical database, based on php, which is running on each of this PC. This small network is installed in a fire department, so I can't say, which PC is the first who is running. Another advantage over plugging the usb-device directly on one of the pc is, that I can make maintainence from extranet (I hope so ;-)). Unfortunately is there no support of the fritz!box for a server running on the usb-device.
 * this doesn't solve any of your issues really, but is worth checking out http://www.mediawikilite.org/, Extension:MediaWikiLite extends the Database class to provide SQLLite support allowing MediaWiki installs independent of MySQL. It is likely to go Beta soon --Zven 00:44, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Extension:MediaWikiLite has gone from unstable to Beta --Zven 02:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) I'm guessing installation errors (section inserted without heading; Tuvok guesses ;-)

 * MediaWiki: (Reported by your Wiki's Special:Version page)
 * PHP: 3.01
 * MySQL: 5.0
 * Database: 1
 * URL: password protected, sorry

A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "Article::insertOn". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry '0-Main' for key 2 (localhost)".

—128.138.224.216 02:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you be more specific as to your problem? -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) how do I add a network link?
I might be using the wrong term, but I could not find any reference to adding an internal network link. We use the wiki internally, but have pdf docs that we need to maintain for distribution to customers. I would like to add a link to the internal documentation that points to the collateral. it is a shared drive, so all users would have access to the file in the same location.

is this possible?

Thanks!


 * It is possible, but there are some security issues you need to address - see M:MediaWiki FAQ for details --Nad 20:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess, you are talking about file:///-protocol. If you want to use this kind of protocol you have to do just a small change in code: MediaWiki FAQ. If you like, you can also change the css-definitions to mark links to your file-system with an icon. I'll post this in a minute. Last you might want to use the Extension:FileLink. --WIKImaniac 20:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You can also achieve this by adding a value to the $wgUrlProtocols variable in you LocalSettings.php. You probably have to add something like the following, somewhere before the end of LocalSettings.php:

$wgUrlProtocols[] = "file:";
 * — color probe (talk | contribs | [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]]Support team) 16:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Empty transfered mediawiki after disk crash
- Hi, I got a hard disk crash one year ago and I just realized that some important information from my wiki was on that disk. I managed to mount the disk, got the whole mediawiki directory, got the databases files (not a dump but direct .frm, .MYI and .MYD) I put all the files on a new server, changed the settings and my wiki appears back, but empty :-( (the new server maybe have newer versions of servers)
 * MediaWiki: 1.5.7
 * PHP: 5.1.6-1~bpo.1 (apache2handler)
 * MySQL: 4.0.24_Debian-10sarge2-log
 * URL: http://elearning.itinet.fr/wikibibi/index.php/

I made a dump of the searchindex table in the database and it all contains my important text but in a non easyly readable view.

I try to find information on but it didn't help.

The only error I get is when I try to see the tables directly in mysql. I log in mysql, use my database, but most of the tables are empty. When I try to see the tables I got this error: Didn't find any fields in table 'validate' And when I try to select * in the table I get: mysql> select * from validate; ERROR 1016: Can't open file: 'validate.InnoDB'. (errno: 1) I restarted mysql server but got the same error.

I can see the information in searchindex table, but not in the wiki. Any idea would be appreciated :-)

—82.239.166.248 22:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I assume your .MYI and .MYD files are all the correct filesize, if so you probably need to match all the software dependancies of the version you had a year ago, including an old version of MediaWiki, PHP and the MySQL version. Once it is going you can upgrade MediaWiki using the maintenance script Update.php . --Zven 22:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that the files have a correct filesize, mysql don't moan. But is it normal that most of them are empty when I try to select * in mysql ?
 * I'm going to put a vmware on and try to get the same software versions. Thanks.
 * 82.239.166.248 07:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Special char Box
How do i turn this on? Picture On my Wiki this isnt ther.

And why are there ? on my page behind non existing artikels? EDIT// here is a screenshot, what you see is my links to some articels witch are not writen yet. Picture


 * MediaWiki: (Reported by your Wiki's Special:Version page)
 * PHP: 5
 * MySQL: 5
 * Database: MySql
 * URL: AAO Wiki

—NaTaS 01:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The box is made via the CharInsert extension plus some CSS, as for the non-existant articles, I cannot reproduce that problem? Could you get a screenshot? --Skizzerz talk [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  02:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The ? is a display preference. Check Special:Preferences' Misc tab for an option to "Format broken links like this (alternative: like this?)." Check that box. Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 05:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Search

 * MediaWiki (1.11.0)
 * PHP 5.2.0
 * MySQL 5.0.27

Hi,

How do I hide search namespaces with checkbox (in Special:Search page) for example talk, or image_talk, discussion..., and in user page (Special:Preferences - search options)?

Thanks, 84.3.164.136 12:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia is the worst thing ever created in this world. I do not want to create Uncyclopedia. I want to hide certain search options, that not needed for the web page. 84.3.164.136 15:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Trust me, there are much worse things. But anyway if you want to take off those checkboxes I don't think that is possible. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  03:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Restrict new user accounts by domain of email address

 * MediaWiki 1.11 (latest)
 * PHP 5.2.0
 * MySQL 5.0.27
 * Database:
 * URL: (under construction)

I need to find a practical way to only allow .mil email addresses to be accepted when registering a new user. If it's too much trouble to properly sort this out, any quick and dirty solution would be greatly appreciated. This is the only thing that's stopping my wiki from going live. I'm not a php programmer, so I'd rather leave this task to people who know what they're doing. If there is some php code I could insert into a config file that would look cause emails to only be sent to a .mil address, that would be fine. Even if the default confirmation message still appears that states that an email has been sent to a (non .mil) address, again that's fine. I can fine tune everything later. The site is only in english so there's no need to edit any of the alternate language files.

—Akira128 23:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm I think there is a way to do this, I will leave it up to another member of the MST. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  01:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been able to solve this myself, after taking a crash course in php and using some unix scripts to locate where the mail function was located. I simply edited includes/User.php

I changed the function isValidEmailAddr to read: return (eregi('^[A-Z0-9._%-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.mil$', $addr)) !== false ;

Now it only identifies .mil addresses as being a valid email address.

I also did some minor edits to includes/templates/Userlogin.php and languages/messages/MessagesEn.php -- to inform users that only .mil addresses will be accepted. If someone has a better solution, please post it.

(RESOLVED) Help! searchengine needed for media wiki to improve the search results!

 * MediaWiki: (Reported by your Wiki's Special:Version page)
 * PHP:
 * MySQL:
 * Database:
 * URL:

Hi there i made a wiki and i dont like the default search engine i cant search phrases like "it" "re..." or sth, i find only artikels when i search for the correct name. I red alot of atricels and extensions stuff but im not a php/mysql master, i had my first contact with these things when i started my wiki. My server is working under Windows and i use the XAMPP package. So the problem is how can i replace the old search engine with a good one? So the Questions/needs i have is/are: - how can i do to provide a good search with mediawiki (simpel)? - what do i need for it? - is it running under windows? - a short install guide when its not on the search engine page

—62.225.191.42 07:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You could try Extension:LuceneSearch, that is what Wikipedia uses. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  01:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Mediawiki as a Weblog: Preview of Articles with "more"-Link

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0 (r30009)
 * PHP: 5.2.0-8+etch9 (apache2handler)
 * MySQL: 5.0.32-Debian_7etch4-log
 * Database: InnoDB

I want to migrate my Weblog (Wordpress) to Mediawiki. I know that these are different concepts but I feel much more confortable editing Mediawiki pages.

My question is: Is there an automatic way to link a page and provide a "preview", i.e. the first part of an article followed by a "more..." link?

For example, in a weblog there is a list with all articles but not only the title with link but also some content of the article itself followed by a "more"-link.

I've found a similar thing in Wikipedia "Article of the day".

Thank you very much!

—193.154.229.55 09:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * We use a template for that on our wiki which is at OrganicDesign:Template:More, the functional part of the template is the following wikitext:

|(more...)
 * It takes two parameters, the first is the article title to embed, and the second is the number of characters to render before the "more" link. It requires both Extension:ParserFunctions and Extension:StringFunctions --Nad 10:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Nad, thank you very much for your answer, I tried it out but it would be great if I could add a separator or something in my articles directly (as in Wordpress) so that I can include images.
 * Another great thing would be to just mark articles (i.e. give them a category like "Weblog") and they are all displayed that way... --193.154.229.55
 * You can use the DPL extension to select items from a category and render each result through a template. I'm not sure what you mean about including separator and image though... --Nad 20:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) dif MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2 per namespace and more

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0

I have two questions:

You know how MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning or MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2 appears on the edit-page below the editing box?


 * 1) Is it possible to add a second chunk of text above the editing box?
 * 2) Is it possible to have a different MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning type of message appear depending on the namespace (i.e. for namespace specific copyrights)?  Do I have to hack the code?  If I do, should I try to write an extension instead?

Thanks. Smaug 23:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * For the first question, the only message which you can officially manipulate which appears above an edit form is the site notice, so you could add the following code to your LocalSettings which would allow a MediaWiki:EditMessage to render by transclusing it after the other messages:


 * I found time today to try out the above, and it does add it to the edit page, but there are two problems I am encountering.
 * 1. The message appears above the title of the edit page, so if the page is "Main Page" it appears above the words "Main Page." Is there a way to get it to appear between the title words and the text box, like where, if one is not logged in, the text "Warning: You are not logged in." appears?  This is not really a problem, and if it cannot be done it is okay.
 * 2. There is a legit problem though, and that is that the message repeats itself three times. I do not know why this occurs.  I put the code into my LocalSettings.php just as you wrote it, though changing "MediaWiki:EditMessage" to the name of a new message I had already created.  Any ideas on what could be causing this?
 * Thanks Smaug 04:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In answer to the second question, the message content is wikitext, so you can do a normal parser function condition on the namespace such as:


 * --Nad 01:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the thorough response! Smaug 03:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This second item, the parser functions, work great and are very useful. Smaug 04:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Permissions limited as Bureaucrat...cannot create new users

 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.45-community-log
 * Database:
 * URL:

I am receiving this message when I am logged in as bureaucrat and try to use the special:userrights page: "The action you have requested is limited to users in the group Bureaucrats." I also cannot create new users and if I look at the special:userlist and limit the search to sysops (or bureaucrats) no sysops (or bureaucrats) are shown in the return display even though I have 3 sysops including myself. I have looked at the buglist and support pages but cannot find anything like this. Here is my LocalSettings.php :

//Disable account creation by anonymous visitors $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['sysop ']['createaccount'] = true; //Must be logged in to edit $wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['user']['edit'] = true; $wgShowIPinHeader = false; $wgWhitelistRead = array( "Main Page", "Special:Userlogin", "-", "MediaWiki:Monobook.css" ); $wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false; $wgGroupPermissions['user']['read'] = true;

—75.45.216.205 03:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If the special:userlist doesn't show any sysops, then on what basis are you saying that you have 3 sysops? It seems to me there are no sysops if none are showing in the list, and therefore you'll need to add sysop rights to at least one with a database query and then use that one to set the userrights of the others --Nad 05:53, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for asking this. There is a Group box on special:userlist to limit the list to a specific group. Here is the list that shows if I don't limit the Group list on special:userlist * xonlixxert ‎(sysop ) * Lpaxx * Xfitz ‎(sysop ) * WikiSysop ‎(bureaucrat, sysop ) Here is the list that shows if I do special:userlist and limit the Group list to sysops: "No user found." Additionally here is the list in the dropdown for the Groups: (all), Bots, Sysops, Bureaucrats, sysops The last sysops is not capitalized and has an extra space at the end????Seems like I made an error, but I don't know how to correct it? And I'm logged in as bureaucrat WikiSysop but am not listed when the Group is Bureaucrats...still get the 'No user found' message.
 * You can see the typo in your LocalSettings above where the sysop with extra space is coming from. Maybe fix that and also try adding $wgGroupPermissions['*']['userrights'] = true temporarily, so that you can then adjust the user rights without being a proper sysop first. --Nad 15:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried removing the space and no change. Then tried the userrights true in the LocalSettings and I was able to add the groups from the dropdown but now here is what the results look like for user WikiSysop (me): (bureaucrat, bureaucrat������, sysop , sysop�����������)

I did a hex transaltion of the user table and the invalid characters are nulls? '00000000'. They are supposed to be spaces '20202020'?

One more note: The user_group field is defined as varbinary(16). Does anyone know if this was a change since 1.9? All the documentation indicates its supposed to be a varchar(16) but the last version reference is 1.9.

This is now fixed...(still not sure how it happened in the first place) but (in phpmyadmin) I renamed the field ug_group to ug_group_bakup and added a new ug_group with the definition of varchar(16). Then updated the values to bureaucrat and sysop. Things seem fine now. Thanks for your help!
 * I'm glad it's fixed, but it's a bit of a worry which could cause further issues if you don't know what went wrong - the ug_group field is supposed to be a varbinary (since 1.10) so the problem is not the column type, but how the values got munged. --Nad 20:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) search results Relevance config parameter?

 * MediaWiki: 1.9.1
 * PHP: 5.2.0 (cgi-fcgi)
 * MySQL: 5.0.27-community-nt
 * Database:
 * URL: inranet only

Been going round and round trying to find out how the "Relevance" ranking is turned on. Our mediawiki does not have it displaying.

Just basically trying to get our mediawiki search results to look similar/same to wikipedia and all other wikimedia projects.

Please help

—203.202.43.48 04:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia projects use the Lucene search software, implemented using the LuceneSearch extension. Even more installing help is at Installing lucene search. — color probe (talk | contribs | [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]]Support team) 11:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed. —203.202.43.48 23 January 2008

(RESOLVED) Problems with editing LocalSettings.php
I have a problem with editing the LocalSettings.php. Everytime when I change something in the LocalSettings.php there is an error, when I try to go to wiki main page. You can see it here: http://test50528.test-account.com/wiki/index.php5?title=Hauptseite Where is the mistake? --212.183.70.91 11:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * LocalSettings.php seems to not be interpreted by php (note also the error a the end of the output). For me, there is two possibilities, or you removed the  at the beginning of LocalSettings.php, or you added a   inside the comment. i Alex  15:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added now "" at the end of the LocalSettings.php and now I can go to the main site. But now there are some other errors: http://test50528.test-account.com/wiki/index.php5?title=Hauptseite --212.183.70.91 15:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Try to remove the ?> (not needed, about all other files don't have it). <font color="#66A7CC">i <font color="#9966CC">Alex  15:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Now it works! Thanks alot --212.183.70.91 15:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Internal Use of MediaWiki
Hello, our company would like to introduce an internal wiki for knowledge management and we thought about installing a wiki for this. Unfortunately, we don't have an intranet or own webserver, we are only hosting on a bigger one. So the wiki has to be installed on this webserver, I suppose. The problem is: we would like to restrict the access to the wiki so that only members of our company can visit the site. Could this be realized with wikis in general and mediawiki in particular or do we have to look for a completely different solution?


 * In theory, you could set it up and then configure the server to block access from IP addresses that aren't coming from your company's network. If your company's ISP has given you a dynamic IP address, it will definitely be harder (not to mention even farther out of my knowledge realm), but it should be possible with .htaccess (I'm assuming an Apache server). Tuvok[Talk/en.wp] 15:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You can just lock the wiki down so that no pages are accessible at all unless logged in, and accounts can only be created by sysop. See Manual:Preventing access --Nad 20:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) MediaWiki 1.12 download

 * MediaWiki: 1.11
 * PHP:
 * MySQL:
 * URL:

OK, so where do I get MediaWiki 1.12 from as a download?? I'm currently using MW 1.11 now, and want to upgrade to the development version. Thanks,

—82.42.237.84 11:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I should add I'm using 1.12alpha from SVN now, hopefully that will work... --82.42.237.84 12:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1.12 hasn't been released yet, if you downloaded it from SVN, you have the latest version. <font color="#66A7CC">i <font color="#9966CC">Alex  15:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Man 1.12 is going to be amazing once it goes gold. -PatPeter, [[Image:Tournesol.png|20px]] MediaWiki Support Team  16:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(RESOLVED) Templates opening html tag
I posted a question about a strange difference in templates between my new install of mediawiki 1.11.0 and http://en.wikipedia.org/ last week, but did not get an answer. I hope this is the appropriate place to ask, or that someone can direct me there. Here is the old post:
 * MediaWiki: 1.11.0
 * PHP: 5.2.5 (apache2handler)
 * MySQL: 5.0.37

I would like to use a template that only includes the opening html tag, and I would like to do this on my own mediawiki 1.11.0. On http://en.wikipedia.org/, w:Template:Div_col is a template which only includes the opening html tag of a div. This appears to just work as expected on wikipedia. In my own mediawiki 1.11.0 the tag is automatically closed when the template is transcluded. So in Wikipedia  becomes , but in my mediawiki it becomes   even though the templates are the same.

Do I need to configure something? Is this a mediawiki-current feature? If this is not the right place to ask, where is? —JackSchmidt 19:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The parser has always had trouble handling unmatched tags in templates or parser functions, but I think this has been solved in 1.12 which the wikimedia projects are using. You could try upgrading to 1.12alpha which should fix the problem --Nad 20:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is a change in 1.12, detailed in RELEASE-NOTES under "Parser changes in 1.12". Thanks for the help. JackSchmidt 21:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)