Wikinews:Water cooler/technical/archives/2018/April

Edittools not properly working?
Sometimes the scroll menu below the big buttons appears; other times it doesn't. It has been happening to all WikiEditor versions, including the 2003 and 2010 WikiEditor, which has the newer Toolbar. I wonder what can be done about either MediaWiki:Edittools and/or MediaWiki:Edittools.js. --George Ho (talk) 18:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Further details: I went to the latest version of Firefox on Windows 7 and found the menu working there. Not so for Google Chrome or IE11. --George Ho (talk) 20:22, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

On the other hand, I went to Windows 8 and 10, and the menu works on various browsers. Then I went to macOS High Sierra (10.13.3). The menu works on Safari and Firefox; sometimes, it doesn't work on Chrome v65. --George Ho (talk) 20:50, 4 April 2018 (UTC); edited, 04:43, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh I remember using it when I was a noob. One day it stopped working and I’m an off-wiki discussion, if I recall correctly, I was told most of the JS was “broken”. 103.254.128.130 (talk) 21:00, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I think I know how to reproduce the problems (if not a bug): --George Ho (talk) 00:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) Go to the (wiki)editor.
 * 2) The menu does not appear until you click either "Show preview", "Show changes", or reload button five, six, or ten times.
 * 3) If the menu appears, and you click one of the buttons from the lower editing tool, the script does not load the insertion of any option that you choose, like source.
 * 4) Rather the page scrolls up either one part or to the top of the page.
 * 5) When the menu does not appear, and you click one of the buttons from the lower editing tool, the script loads the insertion of any option that you choose.

Block messages
We're placing block on user's talk pages by hand to ensure they know how to request an unblock. Perhaps this goal could be achieved by editing the block messages and adding the unblock instructions to these? I think they support wiki markup. This could make it easier to block spam bots as we would not have to spend time clicking the link to their user pages and then edit and then add the block notice and click save. (I understand we have a tracking category for users who are blocked with various settings, but I think Special:Log/block already allows to search blocks.) Gryllida (talk) 22:38, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I suppose it would be easier, but would the user see the message unless they look at their Special:Contributions page? I don't actually know what a user sees when they are blocked and attempt to edit, but that's the only place I see them. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:46, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * They see "This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference: " when viewing their talk page or contributions, but not when viewing their user page. When trying to edit any page they see "You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:" with more details below it in several paragraphs. I am not sure how often they visit their user page to check this information. I thought they would also receive an echo notification but I tested it on another wiki and I do not see it. Gryllida (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In that case I am all for it. Adding a block notification is always the most time-consuming part. Blocking and deleting/rolling-back their edits is always much quicker. I had no idea that we could customize them; always assumed it was a global message. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have some doubts. Seems to me the instructions for unblocking don't even apply to everyone.  --Pi zero (talk) 02:31, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

HotCat
Why does HotCat show categories that Wikinews doesn't actually have? Today, it was Category:Censorship. I typed in the first few letters and Hotcat auto-completed with "Censorship" and added a red-linked category. See diff. Why? Cheers, --SVTCobra 17:36, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've noticed this behavior (possibly for years?). I've a theory it's basing its "guesses" on some internal permanent record of every category page that ever has existed, regardless of whether it has been deleted (unless it's just using Wikipedia, but I'm inclined to the permanent-record theory).  To avoid accidentally adding redlinked categories, what I do is tell HotCat to add a second category as well (using "+", but don't actually enter a second category name), then click "okay" for the one I'm actually adding.  HocCat then shows an actual link to the category I've requested, so if it doesn't exist I'll see the redlink without having committed to it yet. I'm testing ping-via-edit-summary, on this.  --Pi zero (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
 * At the bottom of suggestions list change 'Combined search' to 'Page list', does that work better?
 * [[File:HotCat suggestions 2.png]]
 * --Gryllida (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that does work. Sadly, it doesn't remember the setting for next time one uses HotCat, it just goes right back to the combined list. Thanks for the tip. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:06, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Could be solved by copying c:MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js to MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js and editing the line, instead, put.
 * Or if we don't want to keep a local copy of the entire script then add  to our existing local page for the gadget and see if it takes effect in time. --Gryllida (talk) 01:01, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * OK ... but I am probably the wrong person to play around with javascripts I don't know which solution is better, but I do know a lot of people add categories which don't exist and I think it is because of the default list is the "combined" list. --SVTCobra 01:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * This diff works for me, but I reverted it, I would like someone else to decide on making the switch. I rarely use HotCat and would be unable to easily notice if it breaks. Gryllida (talk) 01:14, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess we can wait and let a few other people look at this discussion before implementing. As long as a few of us know what and where the change is, it should be as simple as undoing the edit to fix it in case it breaks. Cheers, --SVTCobra 01:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

afaict,, it lists all the redirects to CAT page. •–• 20:56, 11 April 2018 (UTC)