Forum Talk:Technical Issues: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 13:37, 18 October 2024

Cannot yet create articles with subpages

It is not yet possible to create a new article with subpages automatically. It requires code from an ancient extension that no longer works with the upgraded software. If we cannot get that going in the near future, we could look into a new way of grouping the subpages for articles in the future. For now, please just wait until we figure out what to do. Sorry for the inconvenience. And it is possible to create new articles now without subpages, or create the subpages structure manually (see below). Pat Palmer (talk) 11:09, 18 March 2022 (CDT)

I like the new software. Keep up the good work. David MacQuigg (talk) 11:42, 20 March 2022 (CDT)

Thank you, David! Sergei Chekanov led the effort, and John Stephenson helped with testing. I'm so grateful to them both. Pat Palmer (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2022 (CDT)

Logging in: underscores required in username

When I log in, I cannot use a space character but must use an underscore in my username: "Mark_Widmer" The old site used to allow the space character. Mark Widmer (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2022 (CDT)

This is probably fixable by someone more expert than I but we'll need to live with it for now, sorry. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:06, 24 March 2022 (CDT)

images from the wikimedia commons

I found, recently, that the Citizendium will directly use images from the wikimedia commons. They don't have to be downloaded and then uploaded here. Has this always worked, or is this an improvement coming from the recent software upgrade? Should I worry about images I did import? Cheers! George Swan (talk) 07:02, 23 March 2022 (CDT)

Until now I hadn't been aware that this was possible. It turns out to be a default setting on more recent versions of the wiki software. It's called 'InstantCommons' and you can read more here. We have no rule for or against this. See also this thread. John Stephenson (talk) 07:29, 23 March 2022 (CDT)

To do it, add code like this to a page: [[File:Wikimedia-Commons-filename.jpg|thumb|Caption of a picture from Wikimedia Commons embedded in this Wiki]] Pat Palmer (talk) 09:33, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Here is an argument in favour of porting images... I believe instances of File usage, like the following, will only point to citizendium-local uses of the image when the image has been explicitly ported.

File:The PM-15, a Defiant class patrol vessel the USA gave to El Salvador, in 2021.jpg#File usage.

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2022 (CDT)

Currently, if I am not mistaken, the Citizendium has a more modest cap to the maximum size of images than the commons. This would be an advantage when accessing a large image, still hosted on the commons, over accessing a modest sized copy, hosted here.... I think this changes my mind to favouring keeping the instant commons feature turned on. Cheers! George Swan (talk) 16:45, 3 April 2022 (CDT)

George, the size cap was raised a bit on the new server.Pat Palmer (talk) 12:10, 17 April 2022 (CDT)

Issues with existing subpages articles

Much of the code from the old wiki for subpages is kaput. If you want create a subpage which is currently empty, DO NOT click on the subpages header to open it. Instead, explicitly put the subpage title onto the end of the browser's the URL, like this (a link to a Related Articles subpage): https://citizendium.org/wiki/FC-MSR_nuclear_reactor/Related_Articles . I hope we'll eventually get this fixed, but please be careful in the meantime. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:04, 24 March 2022 (CDT)

https://citizendium.org/wiki/FC-MSR_nuclear_reactor/Related_Articles or Template:FC-MSR_nuclear_reactor/Related_Articles ? I did experiment with this, and I couldn't always get it to work, and wasn't sure what I was doing wrong.

As I said before - thanks to everyone who has worked hard on the upgrade!

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 10:29, 24 March 2022 (CDT)

We have found it is possible to add subpages to an article manually, but it's cumbersome. Unless you know all about that, just ask me to do it for you in the meantime. Pat Palmer (talk) 11:23, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

SubPageList3 extension enabled

You can place a list of all subpages into an article which has them. This code does it: <splist sortby=title liststyle=ordered showpath=no />. See the test article Doggie for an example. More details are at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SubPageList3#Usage. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:00, 24 March 2022 (CDT)

save your User Contributions (offline) from the old server

In case people haven't noticed, User contributions from before the software upgrade in Mar 2022 are now lost. This was unavoidable since we had to re-create user accounts. See the item below for how to save your User Contributions list offline for future reference. Pat Palmer (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2022 (CDT)

old server available for a limited time

The old server is up and running again, and will be available for you to look back in for a limited time at https://czold.org/. It will die on May 20 of this year. Note that the certificate is wrong, so you will need to click past the browser warnings and tell the browser to accept the risk and continue. The one thing you might want to look at in the old server is your past user contributions. To do that, go to your User page and then look in menus at the lower left for "User Contributions". Set it to show 500 items, then save each page on your desktop. For those articles you are interested in, to get them back on your watchlist, you'll need to make a tiny edit on each article here in the new server. The old server will only be up for a few more weeks. Also, watch out--certain links on the old server will send you to this new server. Pat Palmer (talk) 07:44, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

I've been going through my contribution history on the old server, to verify and complete a list of all the articles I started. One of the articles I started Huzaifa Parhat, was deleted, when an editor claimed he was adequately covered in other articles. George Swan (talk) 12:15, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Well, the Detainee Treatment Act closed off habeas corpus appeals for guantanamo captives. It substituted a narrow and complicated alternate appeal process. Nevertheless, some captives, including Parhat, started to have their cases reviewed under this process. Parhat was the only individual to complete this process, and so I don't think he can be adequately covered in Uighur detainees in Guantanamo as that editor claimed. George Swan (talk) 12:15, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Am I correct that deleted material, like this page, can only be restored by using the old server? George Swan (talk) 12:15, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

George, we did bring over the article histories, so I think you can find old article versions via that. But you can't find old User Contributions from the User's page that occurred from before the migration. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:57, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Okay. But it looks like that is the old article histories for existing articles. Huzaifa Parhat is in the deletion log on the old server. It doesn't seem to be in the deletion log on the new server.

I think this will mean that no articles deleted, prior to the upgrade, can be restored once the old server is retired. Have I got that right? George Swan (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Seems like. This is the kind of thing leading us to pay for the old server for a few weeks. You can restore it on the old server and copy it over--up until May 20. I hated losing anything but the software was so outdated, we are lucky to be able to upgrade at all. Pat Palmer (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

I know the upgrade cost people - you, John, and some other people, two or three weeks of late nights, and, I imagine, a bunch of unpredictable, stressful, problems. So, thanks for all that hard work. I know I said that before.

Because it was deleted I need to ask if someone who has administrator authority on the old server could restore it, there. I am probably the sole contributor, so if I cut and paste it to the new server there should be no attribution worries.

Thanks! George Swan (talk) 17:36, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

Restored on the old server. John Stephenson (talk) 18:17, 25 March 2022 (CDT)

John the email I got telling me the old server would be available said to look for it at. http://208.100.31.41/ That URL brings me to the new server. Is the old serve available, on 2022-03-28? Should I try a different IP address?

Thanks! George Swan (talk) 13:02, 28 March 2022 (CDT)

As stated in the original post, the OLD server is at https://czold.org/ until May 20 of this year. Note that the old server has a pink SiteNotice on every page. The IP address you had is for the new server, and that is a bad way to go it. Go in to the new server at https://citizendium.org/. Pat Palmer (talk) 16:30, 28 March 2022 (CDT)

session timeout while editting

I am repeatedly encountering an annoying timing problem when I edit pages. If it takes more than maybe 1 minute for me to compose my edit while the Editor is open, saving the edit fails with the following error message: Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. You might have been logged out. Please verify that you're still logged in and try again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in, and check that your browser allows cookies from this site. And then when I save the page again after this message (because the Editor is still open), the changes are lost. This is happening to me numerous times in an hour. Has anyone else experienced this? Pat Palmer (talk) 08:57, 28 March 2022 (CDT)

Yes, much the same. Fortunately, experience on Wikipedia long ago got me into the habit of copying the text onto the computer before trying to save it on the wiki. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:27, 1 April 2022 (CDT)

Actually, the same only in effect. I don't get the message. Instead it just logs me out. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:30, 1 April 2022 (CDT)

Well, I should say I didn't notice any such message. The system also seems to log me out if I don't do anything for a while, and/or go to another window. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:37, 2 April 2022 (CDT)

Or maybe sometimes if I just go to a different page here. It's hard to say without a lot of tedious controlled experiments what the actual determining factor(s) is/are. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:42, 2 April 2022 (CDT)

I remember we had this problem on Wikinfo. Maybe User:Fred Bauder would remember how it was solved. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:46, 4 April 2022 (CDT)

Now it's happened again I can confirm there's no message as above, just one saying restricted to Users. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:15, 5 April 2022 (CDT)

Peter, I will work on this when I can. Pat Palmer (talk) 11:56, 7 April 2022 (CDT)

For now, I am just living with this. It means I sometimes have to try to save my changes more than once. A bit of a nuisance but not a critical problem, nor one easy to track down. Still hoping to solve it eventually. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:10, 17 May 2022 (CDT)

Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but this seems to have been much better in the last few days. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:56, 15 June 2022 (CDT)

Seems to have got worse again. I've had to log in 4 times this morning. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:51, 14 October 2022 (CDT)

I made a stab at working on this today. Let me know if you see a change, for better or worse. Thanks! Pat Palmer (talk) 08:07, 14 October 2022 (CDT)

Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but the upgrade seems to have solved this. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:58, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

The awful session timeout issue does seem to be gone! Relieved! Pat Palmer (talk) 10:23, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

Seems to have started again. I'm often having to log in twice recently. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:48, 1 September 2023 (CDT)

Just noticed a comment I thought I'd made here some time ago hasn't gone through. Basically, it seems I can be logged in on some pages here but not others. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:02, 19 January 2024 (CST)

Creating_an_article_with_subpages

Because we've lost the automatic creation of articles with subpages, at least for now, I've tried to document how to do it manually. For those who try it out, please comment or improve this article: CZ:Creating_an_article_with_subpages

For the last couple of months I have been (1) copying; (2) pasting; and (3) modifying working Metadata subpages. I opened a new blank Metadata subpage by manually editing the URL in the address bar, adding a "Template:" prefix and "/Metadata" suffix to the actual articles name.
Today I was porting a bunch of related articles, that were all going to have identical "Related Articles" subpages. I created the identical Related Articles before I stated the Metadata subpages.
I noticed the warning this generated had a link to create a Metadata subpage. I clicked on that link, and it brought up a blank Metadata subpage, more of less like it was supposed to. Yeah!
However, it was missing one thing... <noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude>
That needs to be there. Maybe it needs to be the last line. George Swan (talk) 08:44, 14 July 2022 (CDT)

Template transclusion

At General election (UK) there's a table of parties headed as of 2017, but in fact I've been keeping the transcluded template pretty well up to date. I went to the source text to try to change the heading but can't find it there. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:24, 1 April 2022 (CDT)

Do you meant this page? Template:UKHouseofCommonsStateoftheParties-tablerows I needed to follow a couple of template calls to find it. I fixed the missing footnote link in it, and it looks like the headers can also be changed there. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:33, 2 April 2022 (CDT)

As it happens, it later occurred to me that that particular template is inappropriate to that article: we want a table of results for a general election, preferably the most recent one (figures at United Kingdom exit from the European Union/Timelines, but need formatting), not the state of the parties now. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:45, 4 April 2022 (CDT)

(Mostly) New Feature list

Here are some (mostly new) features available since the upgrade of the wiki in March 2022:

Help:Cite is a Help file for creating references on article pages.
Cite This Page shows you exactly all the ways to cite an article from this wiki.
Instant Commons lets you instantly use photos from Wikimedia Commons.
Link Suggest shows you possible local article links when you are editing and enter [[ .
Poem allows you to display and style verse.
Popups shows summaries or /Definition page when you mouse over live links.
SubPage List 3 will list all the subpages of an article.
Syntax High Light will add syntax coloring and line numbers to code snippets of most programming languages.
ZWI Export lets you submit your best articles to The Encyclosphere's experimental database of encyclopedia articles, which can be searched using either EncycloReader or EncycloSearch.

I've had a quick look at the last, which is interesting. A thought: nothing immediately visible about subpage clusters; as our subpage system will sometimes result in main articles that aren't self-contained, we might like to sit down and think about this once you've sorted out all these technical glitches. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:44, 6 April 2022 (CDT)

That's a content issue, to go in that forum in due course. But there are some technical questions here, which can be answered when someone's got time.

What is it that's exported:

a static copy of the page as it was at that moment
or a dynamic transcluded mirror which will follow subsequent changes here?

My previous experience of "export" suggests 1.

If we export 2 pages, one of which has a wikilink to the other, does the link in the resulting Encyclosphere go to

the 2nd page in ES,
the 2nd page here,
an ES search or disambiguation page,
or nowhere?

There's mention of passwords. Does each of us who wants to use this need their own, or will we have a collective one. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:18, 11 April 2022 (CDT)

Similarly, what does the system do with subpages templates? Peter Jackson (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2022 (CDT)

As far as I am aware, a one-time copy of the page contents gets sucked into the Encyclosphere experimental database (which is served by two experimental clients right now, EncycloReader and EncycloSearch). Any author who has made an edit on an article can submit that article, and it remains unchanged over on Encyclosphere until resubmitted. A later planned version of the extension will enable site administrators to export all articles, or all that meet certain conditions, in this way. There will likely also be an option to export articles automatically whenever they're updated. Note that Sergei Chekanov, the admin who did the bulk of the migration work, did the upgrade work for Citizendium in return for allowing us to test his ZWI plugin for Encyclosphere (so Larry helped set this collaboration up). For more details, please message Sergie directly (or leave a query on his Discussion page). Pat Palmer (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2022 (CDT)

There is a password for all of Citizendium which is embedded in its setup files on the server, and authors don't need to know that password to use the extension. It would be ideal to submit some articles, wait a few minutes, then look in the EncycloReader and EncycloSearch clients and report issues to Sergei. I know it grabs some text off the article to display in search results, and this was not being done in an ideal way a few weeks ago (i.e., they were reaching a few characters into the article, I guess to avoid any busywork we have at the top of articles, to grab text, and so the starting text displayed by searches was sometimes odd and not that helpful, as it mostly missed the opening sentence of the article itself. I report this once; but that's the KIND of thing they need to hear about so it can be improved. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:03, 12 April 2022 (CDT)

As for your other questions, I don't know the answers. Sergei would know. But he is not an active contributor on the wiki so it will be necessary to go to his user page and (probably) email him to get details. PS - Encyclosphere is Larry Sanger's current project. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:06, 12 April 2022 (CDT)

If they want us to contribute, they should come to a public forum and explain without needing to be asked privately.

I've just tried samples on the 2 search engines mentioned above. My impression without a thorough exploration is that they already have our articles without our having exported them. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:46, 14 April 2022 (CDT)

Just want to clarify that you can always RE-submit any article already submitted, and that will update the contents over on Encyclosphere within some reasonable period of time (allowing for caching to subside).Pat Palmer (talk) 12:13, 17 April 2022 (CDT)

That would seem to imply that, if WP signs up, only one version of their article can be on ES at a time. If there's feuding over there between different factions for control of an article, that might seem to defeat the objective of ES. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:43, 19 April 2022 (CDT)

EditTools

Are currently not displaying in clickable form (copy-paste?). Peter Jackson (talk) 04:14, 5 April 2022 (CDT)

This, however, has not been corrected by upgrade. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:59, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

I am going to repeat myself

I am going to repeat myself... Thanks to everyone who worked hard on the server upgrade! George Swan (talk) 19:54, 5 April 2022 (CDT)

Thanks, George! Kudos to Sergei Chekanov, John Stephenson, me and all of you "beta testers". Pat Palmer (talk) 17:11, 6 April 2022 (CDT)

On the bright side

the problem we had with "no information available" on Google Search seems to have been solved. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:20, 11 April 2022 (CDT)

Traffic to the wiki has also improved, no doubt as a result of the better searchability of the newer software. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:40, 11 April 2022 (CDT)

how to restore image file detailed descriptions, and what licenses are available

We recently noticed that all the images, while present on the new server, are missing their descriptive and license data. We are trying very hard to mass-retrieve this information, but in case we cannot, please take a look at images on articles that you care about and manually update the descriptions as per the following instructions. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:40, 11 April 2022 (CDT)

We have discovered that the old information IS present on the new server and can be retrieved with a copy-and-paste operation to re-insert the original license and description into the File: page for images where it's needed. Click on View history and click to view the first item listed (upon import in Mar 2022). If you go into Edit mode on the original page, its contains text looking something like this:

== Summary ==
{{Image_Details
|description =
|author = Ed Pheil
|copyright = Elysium Industries
|source = https://twitter.com/thjr19/status/1323420802679713799/photo/1
|date-created =
|pub-country =
|notes = Elysium Industries MCSFR (Molten Chloride Salt Fast Reactor) - Ed Pheil @ TEAC10
|versions =
}}
== Licensing ==
{{PD}}

It will be necessary to copy and paste this original text back into the latest File: page in order to restore the original description and license info for the image. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2022 (CDT)

We have been lax in enforcing image licensing due to lack of staff, but be aware that images lacking appropriate license information are subject to removal from the server. Also, not all available licenses are shown in the drop-down list during Upload. Authors can manually edit in (after upload) any one of the PD licenses from MediaWiki:Licenses by placing the license string in curly braces underneath the "Licensing" section. If permission was obtained from the copyright holder, it can be attached by putting a copy of the email or permission letter in a /Permission subpage of the File: page.Pat Palmer (talk) 08:46, 20 April 2022 (CDT)

the archiveurl field of the cite templates

I'm used to filling out an archiveurl field in {{cite}} templates. That didn't seem to be working here, so I fell back to putting the bare-url to the archive between the {{cite}} template and the closing </ref>.

But then, today, when I worked on Solomon_Islands#References, I saw some archive links were being rendered. Can someone explain this?

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2022 (CDT)

Old server dying on 5/20; go save your User Contributions

The old server is at https://czold.org/ but will die on May 20. If you have not yet saved your User Contributions from the old server, consider doing so. Just go to the old server, then your User page, and click on User Contributions. Save each page as a web page. User contributions did not make it to the new server because we had to start all the accounts over again. This is because the old server used PostGreSQL and the new one uses MariaDB (MySQL), which is more standard, but over the years, those two databases diverged in how user accounts were stored. Anyway, last call to save your User Contributions off-line. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2022 (CDT)

rpl template weird behavior

I am in the process of converting the r templates on Constellation/Related Articles to the rpl template so that we can see the status of each article. However, I notice that status on four of the articles near the end if not showing up as it should. I suspect that something is wrong with the Metadata page for those articles, such as, maybe it isn't in the Template namespace. I'm not sure yet. Just mentioning here that I'm investiaging that. If anyone has ideas, I'd like to hear them. I haven't seen this behavior before now. Pat Palmer (talk) 07:00, 14 June 2022 (CDT)

Changing the article's Metadata status from 2 (Developing, 3 red dots) to 3 (Stub, 2 red dots) seems to clear up the issue. But I don't understand why. Can the wiki tell that an article is a stub? Pat Palmer (talk) 07:05, 14 June 2022 (CDT)

"last updated"

I've just updated one of these: [1]. If we're going to have these at all, shouldn't they be automated? Peter Jackson (talk) 04:49, 30 June 2022 (CDT)

It seems that the last edit date for every article is now available in the fine print of the page footer. Thus, I suggest removing these manually added lines when possible.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2022 (CST)

Watchlist notifications

The automated email notice to me of [2] linked to the wrong page, Talk:Bug, which doesn't even exist. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:55, 7 July 2022 (CDT)

I know little about these technical matters, but I'm wondering whether the system might not be programmed to replace spaces with underscores. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:37, 8 July 2022 (CDT)

Peter, I noticed that the comment you left was on a Talk page for a definition. Since definitions don't usually *have* Talk pages, I am not too concerned, as I assume that is why the wiki software got a little confused. If someone creates the main article later, we can move these comments there and everything will act as it should.Pat Palmer (talk) 09:45, 9 July 2022 (CDT)

provenance

I had been putting a section named "provenance" on the talk page of articles I first drafted elsewhere. When elsewhere was the wikipedia, and I think I was the sole author of the intellectual content of the wikipedia version, I should have been using Template:WPauthor2. I am going to go back and fix that.

I figure that template is still appropriate if I copy over a version where later wikipedia contributors have merely edited or added metadata - like references. My understand of the SCOTUS ruling in Fiest v Rural is that metadata is not intellectual content and only intellectual content merits copyright protection, and so doesn't require attribution.

Similarly, in my opinion, trivial changes to spelling, punctuation, capitalization, do not require attribution. And, minor corrections to word order do not require attribution.

In my opinion the addition of at least one new sentence of intellectual content would require attribution of other wikipedia contributors. When there is a wikipedia article I copied, for which I was the primary author of its intellectual content, I have copied the last version for which I think I was the sole author of its intellectual content, when I didn't think the subsequent additions by others were of particular value.

On those occasions I port a wikipedia article for which I am not the sole author of its intellectual content I know there is another template I should use. I can't remember what it was, and I would appreciate a reminder.

Some of the content I ported over was first published not on the wikipedia, but on wikialpha, which is not a WMF project. I don't think a separate template is required there, because, in those cases, I was always, unambiguously, the sole author. George Swan (talk) 08:04, 12 July 2022 (CDT)

Your opinion on the legal position agrees with what I remember reading somewhere in WP itself. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:41, 13 July 2022 (CDT)

There are two commonly used templates: Template:WPAttribution for partial WP content (see Acupuncture point or how it looks), and Template:WPExternalAttribution if fully from WP. You can also go to Special:SpecialPages and look at Lists of Pages and see templates starting with WP under "All Pages starting with Prefix". I have trouble remembering these also, so I go to the special page and look them up with I need them. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:05, 14 July 2022 (CDT)

to include or noinclude...

I've caught myself being inconsistent. Should subpages start with: <noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude>? Or is a mere {{subpages}} okay? George Swan (talk) 08:48, 14 July 2022 (CDT)

The subpages template (surrounded only by curly braces and no tags) is needed in main articles and any pages that appear in the tabs, such as the standard ones Discussion (Talk:), Related_Articles, Bibliography, and External_Links. It is NOT needed on /Definition pages, and I believe it is also NOT needed in /Metadata pages. But neither does it hurt anything as long as it's surrounded by tags such as <nowiki> or <noinclude>. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:57, 14 July 2022 (CDT)

Tweet widget now working

Not that I'm a huge fan of Twitter, but if you want to include a Tweet in an article, the widget for that is now working. An older "tweet" template does not work. An example of an article using this template is Hilary_Davidson_(historian). The code, and link to the documentation for how to use the widget, is at Widget:Tweet, or you can go directly to the documentation at https://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/Tweet . Pat Palmer (talk) 09:39, 8 October 2022 (CDT)

And now I'm finding that it intermittently fails to work, probably due to something going on over at Twitter. I recommend not relying solely on the widget for now. Either quote (and reference) the Tweet, or maybe post a screen shot of it (if you really need to display it) with Fair Use as the rationale.Pat Palmer (talk) 14:05, 27 January 2023 (CST)

YouTube widget also now available

With code like this: {{#widget:YouTube|id=Ukytqe9pwDM}} you can also display a YouTube video's link. Pat Palmer (talk) 11:19, 8 October 2022 (CDT)

the server should be able to send to Gmail users now

Some people have had trouble getting Citizendium to send them emails. This was especially true with authors using Gmail. Recently, we updated the DNS records so that Gmail should now accept messages from citizendium.org. If you use Gmail and the server still cannot message you, please drop a note on my Talk page so that I can look into it. Or if you have any other issues with the server not sending messages when it should. Before yesterday, the DNS record was definitely not set up correctly so that some services might see the Citizendium email messages as suspected spam. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:16, 11 November 2022 (CST)

software version upgrade as of 12/6/2022

This morning, the wiki has been upgraded to MediaWiki 1.38 (from 1.37). Please be sure to log out and then in again, and report any *new* issues here. If things really go South, you can communicate with me via manager A T citizendium.org Pat Palmer (talk) 08:12, 6 December 2022 (CST)

Does your emphasis on the word "new" imply you're aware that the 2 problems discussed above (logout & non-clickable EditTools) have not been fixed by the upgrade? Peter Jackson (talk) 04:47, 9 December 2022 (CST)

Peter, yes, exactly. I have a list of nuisances we've already been living with. The upgrade seems to have changed the skins; I may try adding some more options for skins soon. If you encounter a problem we didn't already know about, please let us know. Pat Palmer (talk) 10:49, 9 December 2022 (CST)

Some gadgets now available in User Preferences

In your preferences, there are now a few gadgets which might be useful to you. Click on Preferences, then select the Gadgets tab, then select any of the options you want.Pat Palmer (talk) 09:08, 24 January 2023 (CST)

ISBN category

I see we have the redlinked Category:Pages using ISBN magic links with 4,289 entries. I'll be happy to create the category, as its page requests, but I'm not at all sure how it should be categorised itself. Can anyone help? Are there similar categories I could use as a guideline? John (talk) 05:11, 20 April 2023 (CDT)

The fact that the category shows up red is some sort of technical glitch, because it's actually live and if you click on it, you'll see the list of all articles that have an ISBN anywhere in them. You don't need to do anything; just include ISBNs where you can because they live-link now to external search databases, which can be useful. Pat Palmer (talk) 08:52, 20 April 2023 (CDT)

And, you're reminding me that I need to dig around in the (probably) subpages template code to try and fix that red category link. It's opening the list of ISBN articles in Edit mode, and maybe I can find the code that does that and fix it. I'll add it to my endless to-do list. Pat Palmer (talk) 08:55, 20 April 2023 (CDT)

Thanks, Pat. Let me know if I can help. John (talk) 09:17, 20 April 2023 (CDT)

Solved it! How stupid--no one had ever actually created the page for that Category, so it always showed up as needing to be edited. Creating the page now makes it not show up red! Thanks for nudging me on this, John. Pat Palmer (talk) 11:15, 20 April 2023 (CDT)

Thanks, Pat. Looks fine now. John (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2023 (CDT)

Template loops

I came across Category:Pages with template loops, which had not been fully created, after I found a loop issue in one of the talk pages I'm working on. I realised that talk pages with the problem need to have the subpage tags in their definitions wrapped between noinclude tags, so I've fixed most of the talk pages impacted. There are several other pages, mostly incomplete templates, in the category but these need further investigation and I would guess some should be deleted but I can't offer more than that at present. John (talk) 05:54, 30 April 2023 (CDT)

Thanks, John! Working on them. Pat Palmer (talk) 09:14, 30 April 2023 (CDT)

Magnocellular and Magnocellular neurosecretory cell

Magnocellular seems to be a very brief summary of Magnocellular neurosecretory cell and may have been created without knowing the main article was already there. I'm not sure if it will be useful as a standalone. John (talk) 17:49, 13 May 2023 (CDT)

Thanks, John. I zapped it. You can put this kind of thing on my Talk page in the future. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2023 (CDT)

Okay, Pat. Will do. I enjoy housekeeping so I'll probably spot more in future. Thanks and all the best. John (talk) 15:26, 14 May 2023 (CDT)

Need help reporting issues after upgrade

Sometime possible as early as tomorrow or Friday, my developer hopes to start upgrading the server software. We're going to try to go from PHP 7.x to 8.x (always a crap shoot) and also upgrade the MediaWiki software from 1.38.x to 1.39.x. I'll need people to report any "new" issues here after the upgrade--and there may be a period of a few hours where access will be locked or not work. The SiteNotice will indicate when the upgrade is about to start. Pat Palmer (talk) 14:18, 7 June 2023 (CDT)

Hi, Pat. Sounds good. I intend to introduce two new history articles in the next few days so I'll see if anything arises while I'm working on those. This probably won't be today, though. John (talk) 02:31, 8 June 2023 (CDT)

And it's done as of 2 pm EDT on June 8--both PHP and Mediawiki on the latest versions. Please report any new issues here. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:08, 8 June 2023 (CDT)

I've created a large new article plus subpages and had no problems at all. Looking good. John (talk) 01:22, 10 June 2023 (CDT)

I clicked on Janet_Hamlin_(artist)/Related_Articles, and, while it took me to that page, it also seemed to have logged me out, and wouldn't let me log back in. George Swan (talk) 10:10, 13 October 2023 (CDT)

Subtopic section in Sport/Related Articles

This contains a long list of individual sports but only the first 18 display definitions. Having moved one or two around and then temporarily removed the top 18, I found that it then displays definitions of the next 17. These definitions appear to be longer than those in the 18 so it would seem that we have a section size limit (Kb) on pages of this type.

As far as the Sport page goes, I don't think a long list is needed so I'll reduce it to generics and the major sports. John (talk) 00:21, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

I've noticed this issue before, and unfortunately, I don't know a quick fix for it. That rpl template is complicated! And templates and their size limits in general are complicated, and I don't know nearly enough right now to improve it. Sorry !Pat Palmer (talk) 08:00, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

I'd leave it be, Pat. I've replaced the individual sports with generics and it's displaying all their definitions. Thanks. John (talk) 10:47, 21 June 2023 (CDT)

Template:Checklist22 Unused

I found this template in Category:Articles with Ambiguous Status. It looks like something that was started and aborted. I can't see any use for it so should we delete it? Thanks. John (talk) 01:53, 12 July 2023 (CDT)

In a similar vein, I found Template:Checklist in the External Articles category. It was deprecated years ago and carries a warning notice, so I think it should definitely go.

Software upgrades on Oct 12, 2023

Please post in this forum if you find and new behavioral issues with wiki software since yesterday, when we performed a variety of minor version upgrades. Updated were all system packages, PHP, MariaDB, MediaWiki, and these MediaWiki extensions: CheckUser, Widgets, HeadScript, Popups, and SubPageList3. Pat Palmer (talk) 08:51, 13 October 2023 (CDT)

Metadata awk program...

I wrote a quick and dirty awk program, that generates metadata templates... User:Pat Palmer, User:John Leach Please confirm this is a correct template...

It is invoked as follows...

awk -f metadata.awk pagename="Jackson Creek (Toronto)" variant=CE abc="Jackson Creek (Toronto)" cat_check=yes status=2 underlinked=no cleanup=yes cat1=cat cat2=cat cat3=cat > outputfile

Yes, awkward, but workable with the latest shell's history mechanism.

possibly correct metadata template for Jackson Creek (Toronto)
{{#switch: {{{info}}} <!--general article properties--> \| pagename = Jackson Creek (Toronto) \| variant = CE <!--required for checklist--> \| abc = Jackson Creek (Toronto) \| cat_check = yes <!--yes if someone should check the categories--> \| status = 3 <!--1 developed, 2 developing, 3 stub, 4 external--> \| underlinked = no <!--yes if orphan--> \| cleanup = no <!--yes if basic cleanup has been done--> \| by = \| cat1 = Geography \| cat2 = History \| cat3 = \| sub1 = \| sub2 = \| sub3 = \| tab1 = \| tab2 = \| tab3 = <!--required for ToApprove template--> \| article url = \| subpage url = \| cluster = \| now = \| ToA editor = \| ToA editor2 = \| ToA editor3 = \| date = <!--required for Approved template--> \| A editor = \| A editor2 = \| A editor3 = <!--End: do NOT use a break after the closing braces--> }}<noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude>

Something in the code messes up the line ends, even with the insertion of a couple of nowikis... George Swan (talk) 14:49, 17 January 2024 (CST)

metadata.awk
function CheckArgs( ) { status_good ["0"] = status_good ["1"] = status_good ["2"] = status_good ["3"] = status_good ["4"] = 1 yesnogood ["yes"] = yesnogood ["no"] = 1 variant_good ["AE"] = variant_good ["CE"] = variant_good ["BE"] = 1 if (pagename == "") { printf "pagename='%s' -- Have to set a pagename value\n", pagename return 0 } else if (variant == "") { printf "Have to set a variant value\n" return 0 } else if (!(variant in variant_good)) { printf "variant has to be one of AE, CE or BE" return 0 } else if (abc == "") { printf "Have to set a abc value\n" return 0 } else if (cat_check == "") { printf "Have to set a cat_check value\n" return 0 } else if (!(cat_check in yesnogood)) { printf "cat_check has to be either 'yes' or 'no'\n" return 0 } else if (status == "") { printf "Have to set a status value\n" return 0 } else if (!(status in status_good)) { printf "status has to be either '0', '1', '2', '3' or '4'..\n" return 0 } else if (underlinked == "") { printf "Have to set a underlinked value\n" return 0 } else if (!(underlinked in yesnogood)) { printf "underlinked has to be either 'yes' or 'no'\n" return 0 } else if (cleanup == "") { printf "Have to set a cleanup value\n" return 0 } else if (!(cleanup in yesnogood)) { printf "cleanup has to be either 'yes' or 'no'\n" return 0 } else if (cat1 == "") { printf "Have to set a cat1 value\n" return 0 } else if (cat2 == "") { printf "Have to set a cat2 value\n" return 0 } else return 1 } BEGIN {{ if (CheckArgs() == 0) { printf "metadata.awk: '%s -v pagename=foo -v variant=AE -v abc=foo -v cat_check=yes -v status=2 -v underlinked=no -v cleanup=yes -v cat1=cat -v cat2=cat -v cat3=cat\n", ARGV [0] exit( 0 ) } printf "{{#switch: {{{info}}}\n" printf "<!--general article properties--> \n" printf "\| pagename = %s\n", pagename printf "\| variant = %s\n", variant printf "<!--required for checklist--> \n" printf "\| abc = %s\n", abc printf "\| cat_check = %s <!--yes if someone should check the categories-->\n", cat_check printf "\| status = %s <!--1 developed, 2 developing, 3 stub, 4 external-->\n", status printf "\| underlinked = %s <!--yes if orphan-->\n", underlinked printf "\| cleanup = %s <!--yes if basic cleanup has been done-->\n", cleanup printf "\| by = \n" printf "\| cat1 = %s \n", cat1 printf "\| cat2 = %s \n", cat2 printf "\| cat3 = %s \n", cat3 printf "\| sub1 = \n" printf "\| sub2 = \n" printf "\| sub3 = \n" printf "\| tab1 = \n" printf "\| tab2 = \n" printf "\| tab3 = \n" printf "<!--required for ToApprove template--> \n" printf "\| article url = \n" printf "\| subpage url = \n" printf "\| cluster = \n" printf "\| now = \n" printf "\| ToA editor = \n" printf "\| ToA editor2 = \n" printf "\| ToA editor3 = \n" printf "\| date = \n" printf "<!--required for Approved template--> \n" printf "\| A editor = \n" printf "\| A editor2 = \n" printf "\| A editor3 = \n" printf "<!--End: do NOT use a break after the closing braces-->\n" printf "}}<noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude>\n" }}

If the other two dozen fields in the metadata template could usefully be set at when the template is first instantiated this program could be set up to fill those fields, as well. George Swan (talk) 17:45, 17 January 2024 (CST)
It could also be set to fill fields like cat4, through catN, when the template is instatiated.
I don't know which categories are supposed to be chosen for cat1 through cat3. Back when the setup script still worked I was routinely frustrated as the categories I thought should be cat1 were not included in the list of recommended top level templates. Am I correct that existing categories, that are not on that list of recommended top level categories, would still be accepted? George Swan (talk) 17:52, 17 January 2024 (CST)

Hi, George. The metadata for Jackson Creek seems to be fine. It successfully links to article and discussion, which tends to fail if the template is in any way incorrect. As for new workgroups (cats), I don't know but I expect it would redlink them somehow as it does with new subcats. Creating a new subcat is easy but I suspect a new workgroup might be problematic. Do you have any in mind?

It is easiest to keep a model of the metadata template which has everything in place except for the pagename, abc, catx, and subx parameters. You just need to type those in each time, plus any changes to variant or status. My advice would always be to keep things as simple as possible. The big problem with the template has always been that it expects everything to be absolutely in place, especially at the end where it will not allow you to place a line break after printf "}}. Also, from memory, I think it insists on a space immediately before and after = in each parameter line. It really is that touchy! Anyway, well done, Jackson Creek is up and running. John (talk) 01:18, 18 January 2024 (CST)

Thanks for the prompt reply.
As for adding new workgroup cats... Well, it has been years since the script that used to generate the metadata templates, so I don't remember which specific categories I wanted to add, but which were not on that scripts list. IIRC, I hadn't wanted to add brand new categories, merely existing categories that weren't on the recommended list. From what you haven't written above there is a distinction between regular categories, and "workgroup categories". In don't know what a "workgroup category" is and how it differs from a regular category. Is there a document that clarifies this? Is there a list of the "workgroup categories" that are currently recommended?
Yes, cutting and pasting from an earlier metadata template, that was known to work properly, and modifying a few of its fields would be more convenient. But, apparently, the minor modifications I was making rendered the new metadata templates I was creating broken in some way I did not understand. So, if when I run this awk program, on my computer, if it generates properly working templates, I'll continue to use it, even though it requires multiple sets of cutting and pasting, to get its output from my computer to Citizendium.

Would a template that had fields for cat4, cat5, etc, be broken, so it actually didn't work?
Would a template that had fields for cat4, cat5, work, in that it wouldn't break anything, but those new fields being ignored? Or would cat4, cat5, be rendered onto the article?
Are the two dozen fields we aren't using now superceded? Would metadata template where those fields were left out be broken? I only ask because I would like to understand what distinguishes a working metadata template from a broken one.
Are there documents, discussions, that explain more fully how the metadata templates are supposed to work?

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 04:56, 18 January 2024 (CST)

Wow, George, that awk program is an impressive feat. CZ:Metadata explains what all the fields are in a Metadata file. The basic Metadata you are created has unneeded comments, but it is syntactically correct and parseable. Here's the method I use to create the Metadata for a New Article. The actual page would be named "Template:New Article/Metadata":Pat Palmer (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (CST)

Go to Template:Blank_metadata and open this template in Edit mode
Copy its contents into the new Metadata page; this is the basic pattern to use when creating a new Metadata page.
For each new article, change the following fields: (1) pagename (must be identical to New Article title); (2) abc (same as page name); (3) adjust the cat1, cat2 and cat3 fields (use 1-3 existing Workgroup names as listed on the wiki landing page, and blank the cat2 and cat3 fields if only one Workgroup)
that's the minimum to make subpages work; save the Metadata file and include {{subpages}} in the top of the article

new workgroup(s)...

I am just looking at Category:Citizendium_Workgroups.

What is missing? I don't know, except I notice there is no Maritime or Nautical workgroup. There is no workgroup devoted to transportation. I've worked on a lot of articles that would fit in one or both of these workgroups, if they existed.

I don't know if the first workgroup I am suggesting should be Maritime or Nautical...

What preparation, if any, is required, prior to adding a new workgroup?

Cheers! George Swan (talk) 08:20, 21 January 2024 (CST)

redirects, redlinks, and the strange case of boatnerd and boat nerd

Pat, you and John have been deleting redirects. You seem to think that there exist mechanisms with the WMF software that make them pointless. I won't claim to fully understand the software changes that make them less useful now.

But I just had an experience that reminded me how useful they remain.

I did some work on MV Hiawatha today, and noticed it had a redlink to Boatnerd. That was odd and annoying, because I cite this important resource, all the time, and I was surprised I hadn't already ported it.

So, I spent 20 minutes:

porting the version I prepared on wikialpha;
creating the basic Talk:Boatnerd
updating Talk:Boatnerd with a Provenance section
starting Template:Boatnerd/Metadata
starting Boatnerd/Definition

It would have been extremely useful if Boatnerd had already redirected to Boat nerd. Now there are two articles, identical, but with slightly different subpages. I like the Provenance and Definition I created today a bit more than those I created on 2022-12-22.

So, yes, I do see redirects as quite useful.

I don't think I fully understand the new innovations you guys think make redirects. Is this feature where the editor starts to guess at the eventual link I intend, when I type in two opening brackets, and some text? Is this the only feature? I find this feature helpful, but not on every occasion. I mentioned the VPOTUS redirect somewhere recently. VPOTUS is widely used by Washington insiders, along with POTUS, FLOTUS and SCOTUS, where FLOTUS is the First Lady and SCOTUS is the Supreme Court. The name completion feature isn't really useful here, because its guessess are only useful when you start right. The article on the USA's Vice President could be at

I would much rather only have to remember POTUS, VPOTUS, FLOTUS and SCOTUS, rather than the much longer names, which have undergone unpredictable name changes. George Swan (talk) 12:13, 21 January 2024 (CST)

I am not against all Redirects. Some make sense, such as from "Great Lakes" to "North American Great Lakes", because people are not used to saying the longer name. Complaining about a specific redirect being deleted is okay. Complaining in general that I am deleting unused, double and obviously unhelpful Redirects is a waste of your time and mine, in my opinion. George, you need to learn how the Autosearch works. Please try typing Boat into the Search box and PAUSE FOR A SECOND to let the drop-down list of suggestions populate. If you do, you'll see that there is no reason for you not to have seen that "Boat nerd" existed already. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2024 (CST)

I tend to delete only Redirects that nothing points at, and especially, Redirects that point to another Redirect. That's what I was doing yesterday, and unless I deleted a specific Redirect that causes you concern, this post was not justified and ended up wasting a bunch of my time and energy. Please give me a little credit for common sense. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2024 (CST)

In the past, you also created these duplicates: Bright Leaves and Bright Leaves (documentary); could you merge those alsoj, while you are cleaning up the "Boat nerd" and "Boatnerd" conflict? Please do not just leave those lying around for someone like me to deal with in the future. You did it; you get to merge them and delete the one you like least. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2024 (CST)

Please do not create redirects to articles that do not exist yet. There may be some reason to do so, but I don't know what it is right now, and since we're obviously trying to clean up Redirects, your creating these seems like some kind of in your face challenge. Maybe not what you intended, but that how it looks right now. Please discuss on my Talk page if you wish, not here. Pat Palmer (talk) 13:34, 21 January 2024 (CST)

Some new articles, containing only material I wrote, nevertheless assert they are brand new ports of material from the wikipedia

Some new articles, like the stub I created for Alan Greenspan, which only contain material I wrote, nevertheless assert they are brand new ports of material from the wikipedia. What is up with that? I thought it might be just articles that bear a {{PropDel}} template. But some other new articles also incorrectly bear this claim.

It is not the end of the world, but it is annoying. The last thing I want is wikipedians incorrectly accusing me of plagiarism, for not including the list of wikipedia contributors, on material I ported, when that material was written here, or was written entirely by me. George Swan (talk) 04:54, 5 February 2024 (CST)

technical issues being actively worked on

FYI everyone, there are three different software developers/sysadmins working in the wiki at present. Their testing efforts *may* be seamless, but there is always the possibility of brief service disruptions. Please save your work often. The issues being worked on are:

the Session Timeout problem; possibly, the fix may involve upgrading portions of the software, leading to brief disruptions
the automation of /Metadata template subpages when creating new articles; the old extension died years ago and I'm paying someone to try to get it working again
"Suggestion Bot" that leaves a list of suggested topics at the bottom of each article's /Related Articles subpage (we had an old one that died years ago, and I thought it worth resurrecting if possible)

I am now guardedly hopeful that the Session Timeout issue has been solved. Please let me know if you experience an improvement. The developer also may have helped us fix DNS so that server emails less likely to end up in Spam. This means if we message each other via the server now, it is more likely to succeed. Again, try it by messaging me if you'd like to test this. I will let you know if the message reached me. Pat Palmer (talk) 15:17, 1 March 2024 (CST)

Hi, Pat. I just deliberately took a good ninety seconds or so adding a new row to one of my tables and the save was effective immediately without a timeout. It works!! That is great. The developer can have a virtual drink on me. John (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2024 (CST)

And I've just done a very slow text replace with an even slower delete. Result? No problems at all. Brilliant. John (talk) 16:06, 1 March 2024 (CST)

Automatic creation of articles with subpages now working (after being broken for MANY years!)

Anthony Messana has provided Citizendium with a Metadata Form extension which allows the creation of a new, empty article that uses subpages. The Metadata Form he created can be found on Special Pages under "Other Special Pages". It asks the user for only the essential information needed to start an article (title, status, and 1-3 Workgroups), then creates an empty article with subpages, including the Metadata subpage template. The form is linked from the Citizendium landing page as Start an Article.

The Metadata Form has another useful ability; it can also be used to create the minimal Metadata subpages for existing articles not yet using subpages; you'll then need to add the {{subpages}} template to the top of the article, and it will begin using subpages. Just fill out the form and provide an existing article (lacking a metadata template/subpage) as the "new" article title.

The default Metadata Form created by the extension shows every article as being written in American English (and a few other defaults), but all these default values can easily be edited manually once the starter template subpage for metadata has been created. I (and others) had tried more than once to get other programmers to work on the old, broken extension for metadata, so many thanks to Anthony for this work.Pat Palmer (talk) 13:34, 18 October 2024 (CDT)

@@ Line 586: / Line 586: @@
 And I've just done a very slow text replace with an even slower delete. Result? No problems at all. Brilliant. [[User:John Leach|John]] ([[User talk:John Leach|talk]]) 16:06, 1 March 2024 (CST)
+== Automatic creation of articles with subpages now working (after being broken for MANY years!) ==
+[[User:Anthony Messana|Anthony Messana]] has provided Citizendium with a Metadata Form extension which allows the creation of a new, empty article that uses [[CZ:Creating_an_article_with_subpages|subpages]].  The Metadata Form he created can be found on [[Special:SpecialPages|Special Pages]] under "Other Special Pages".  It asks the user for only the essential information needed to start an article (title, status, and 1-3 Workgroups), then creates an empty article with subpages, including the Metadata subpage template.  The form is linked from the Citizendium landing page as '''[[CZ:Start_Article|Start an Article]]'''.
+The Metadata Form has another useful ability; it can ''also'' be used to create the minimal Metadata subpages for existing articles not yet using subpages; you'll then need to add the <nowiki>{{subpages}}</nowiki> template to the top of the article, and it will begin using subpages.  Just fill out the form and provide an existing article (lacking a metadata template/subpage) as the "new" article title.
+The default Metadata Form created by the extension shows every article as being written in American English (and a few other defaults), but all these default values can easily be edited manually once the starter template subpage for metadata has been created.  I (and others) had tried more than once to get other programmers to work on the old, broken extension for metadata, so many thanks to Anthony for this work.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] ([[User talk:Pat Palmer|talk]]) 13:34, 18 October 2024 (CDT)