Talk:Reading/Web

Page previews
Page Previews feature needs a rethink.

Please disable page previews for logged-out users by default. Showing pop-ups on hover actually breaks "accessibility" for normal people when it is unintended. There are certain natural semantics attached with the use of mouse pointer. Causing pop-ups on hover is like causing a click on the links every time the mouse pointer hovers over them. —2401:4900:1B1B:6E30:494C:49BD:104F:56FB 15:54, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this comment. I'll inform the team about your idea. Soon, we'll be asking volunteers to share their opinions on the Foundation's annual plan. Announcements will be sent across the wikis and other community communication channels. You're welcome to join that discussion, too! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Bug with Haiti's page preview
I am not sure if this is the place to report bugs, but the page preview for Haiti's wikipedia page seems to display its coordinates instead of the lead section. It may be an issue with the article instead of Page Previews, but I am just guessing.

Some of technical info (if needed)- I am on a laptop (16:9, 1080p); using the latest version of Firefox, although the preview didn't work on Google Chrome and MS Edge as well. I haven't checked if the bug is present on other devices. Bluejet007 (talk) 11:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Bluejet007, thanks for writing here. What do you mean by "display its coordinates instead of the lead section"? Could you provide a screenshot perhaps? If you add ?safemode=1 to the URL, does the issue exist, too? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The issue was with the article not following MOS:ORDER. It has been fixed by another editor and the preview is now functioning. I would consider this issue closed. In case you still want to know how the preview looked before the fix, it was a blank preview without an image and the article text. Only the coordinate values were displayed in simple text formatting.
 * Also, the preview for a Regional Meteorological Centre in India doesn't display its text (screenshot in my sandbox), but I think it is again an issue with the page rather than with the gadget.
 * PS If I made any minor mistakes, please bring it up. I am still learning how edit and contribute. Bluejet007 (talk) 04:42, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * . See en:User talk:DB1729. Moving the coords to the bottom per MOS:ORDER is apparently not a valid fix. For an example, go to English WP and hover over the link to Rosario Strait and it displays "There was an issue displaying this preview" instead of giving the preview. It has been suggested to me that I report this behavior as a bug. --DB1729 (talk) 00:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Use AMP as default
I have a question about advanced mobile contributions: are there plans to make AMP the default option for mobile web soon? And if not, would it be possible to make it default on select projects per community consensus? We get more and more questions about missing features in mobile web on dewiki and I keep pointing users at AMP. Many people are not even aware of the option. I believe it would be really useful to have it enabled as default (at least for registered users, but I would also recommend it for unregistered ones). XanonymusX (talk) 08:05, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Please prevent a bug were we get automatically switched to advanced mode when editing or viewing
Any fix to this would be greatly appreciated. I'm tired of having to see the message saying "Please reload the page to enable hotcat", which I never wanted to enable. 2601:206:8580:6F10:25DA:8BB8:2738:3C9C 23:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Unification/standardization problem
Some sister projects usually do not use coordinates, so the presence of a button Nearby in mobile site (press ☰) is not clear. Proeksad (talk) 21:53, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you @Proeksad for telling us about this problem. I've filed a Phabricator task. Now, we need to wait for decisions who and when would be working on it. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The same feature is in Wikispecies and non-content wikis such as .wikimedia.org (meta., foundation.,  fi., pt., ru., wikimania., ...) But I don't know enough about all these wikis. Perhaps this is maybe usefull for testing Proeksad (talk) 20:32, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Great, issue resolved! Proeksad (talk) 20:25, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Reading/Web/Advanced mobile contributions
Hi. I need help, because the mentioned page is restricted to edit.

In English wikipedia mobile version, the "Advanced mode" keeps enabling automatically after some recent updates, and it gives some annoying features which I do not want currently.

Please stop it, one should enable it themselve if they want. It shouldn't turn on automatically, just like it was few days back. Hope for your kind response please, thank you! M.Billoo2000 (talk) 18:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello @M.Billoo2000, thanks for coming here to write about those issues. We’ll discuss them, and I’ll let you know what the next steps would be. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Enable globale settings for Special:MobileOptions
Hi @SGrabarczuk (WMF) I've raised this question a couple of months ago and noticed it got archived unanswered : Is it possible to add an option to Special:GlobalPreferences and/or Special:MobileOptions to enable advanced mode globally? As a global sysop I'm fighting crosswiki spam/vandalism across many wikis using both mobile and desktop devices. It's very annoying that I need to enable the advance mode for every project individually instead of having the option to enable it globally. Thanks! Johannnes89 (talk) 16:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello @Johannnes89! I'm happy to give you the answer. The rationale for this change has been known, and personally, I do see clearly who would benefit and why. You may take a look at the Phabricator task to see discussions we've had about it.
 * Unfortunately, it's not in our plans to add this option. This year, our team is focusing on building something like preferences for logged-out users, dark mode, and readability.
 * I wholeheartedly encourage you to put this idea into Community Wishlist Survey/Sandbox, though. If this idea is submitted and supported by more people (it doesn't need to be at the top of the charts) we will be more likely to do this. Granting Community Wishlist Survey wishes is becoming a shared effort across the technical teams of the Foundation. So, 🤞! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll keep this in mind for next years Community Wishlist Survey! :) Johannnes89 (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Adding "simple english"option before beginning of an article
The true power of Wikipedia, I think, in its delivery of knowledge. Simple English Wikipedia will open more Avenue for people to learn things with plain language and it also allow the simple English Wikipedia to expand in usage and development. The "open in simple English Wikipedia "link can be placed at the top so that people can choose to read in plain language. When more attention is given to this very underrated project, I suppose many more people will take part in creating more articles. Also, simple English Wikipedia allows access of knowledge to people with learning difficulties and intellectual disability. Kaveinthran (talk) 08:17, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi and thanks for this idea, @Kaveinthran. If I understand correctly, this is a proposal for a new project. Although it seems to be a small and therefore easy task, I doubt if we could spend any time on it, unfortunately. This is because we work on projects where all the wikis may benefit, like Desktop Improvements or Accessibility for reading. I guess that in the meantime, English Wikipedians might write a gadget addressing this.
 * It is possible that at some point, we'll make a similar change on all the wikis. We were thinking on allowing a one-click access to one or two language versions, but it will most likely depend on the user preferences and behavior (like recently read wikis), not on the hard wiki-wide settings, so the impact on Simple English Wikipedia would be smaller than the one you're hoping for.
 * Thanks, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:06, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Issue with State-sponsored terrorism Wikipedia page
The page preview for the Wikipedia page State-sponsored terrorism shows some sort of gory surgery picture as the page preview. Looking through the page, I don't see the image in question and as such I don't know why the image shows up in the page preview. Can anyone explain why this is, or otherwise fix it? Thanks! --Paulie 27 (talk) 14:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Hey @Paulie 27, thanks for letting me know. It was because of a vandalism on a template used in that page. Now it should be gone, and if the image is visible, this is because of cache. It will be gone soon anyway. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Page preview for Mosque article showing unrelated country flag
Hi, an editor noticed that the page previews for Mosque and Waqf (and perhaps others we haven't noticed) are currently showing an Israeli country flag, which has no relation to the articles in question (example screenshot here). As far as we can see, the flag isn't used in the articles or in their Wikidata items, etc, so I'm wondering if anyone here has an idea of where this is coming from? (We haven't tried overriding it by adding lead images to the articles, I figured it would be good to know what's causing this first.) Thanks for any help, R Prazeres (talk) 22:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)