RationalWiki:Technical support

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Herein goeth anything regarding the technicalities of the wiki

FAQs & Problems:

• Problems with accessing the wiki
• Queries about extensions
• Javascript Help
• CSS Help
• Wikitalk Help

If you've written, or are using, some extension or script that either might give others problems or is giving you a problem, then either describe it or link to it on this page.

If you've written some piece of code that you want help with, ask here with linkage.

If your browser acts up with some code,ask here.

In short, anything techy, ask, tell or link on this page.

If you think it is a server-type issue, feel free to email the goat at ttoulouse@gmail.com or touloutm@mcmaster.ca for best results.

Ogg files

Why can't I upload .ogg sound files? Harmonic cubic Hoover! 04:16, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I think the wiki needs to install special software for it. ~Ttony21^{(talk, contribs)} 11:00, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Chalkboard

When I open a page (TWIGO e.g.) that has the chalkboard @ the top at a subheader (i.e. I'm opening it at the bottom) the chalkboard appears there overwriting existing text and won't go 'til I've scrolled it off-screeen & back (Firefox) . _and marmite 09:14, 1 March 2009 (EST)

It works fine for me - shows the top of the page (including the chalkboard) very briefly while opening the page, then jumps to the relevant section. Are you using monobooks? It might could be something in that interfering with it, although I don't know what, not knowing anything about scripts. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 16:44, 1 March 2009 (EST)

nothing in my monobooks. It's now just a blank (or white, I suppose) rectangle that overwrites that section of the page & won't go away until I scroll it off screen & back again. Strange. _and marmite 20:26, 1 March 2009 (EST)

Pi's archived and the effect has gone, so either there was something on the upper half or it's the page length. _and marmite 21:28, 1 March 2009 (EST)

Editing talk pages

I think that since the email feature does not work for RW, we should allow blocked users to edit their own talk page a la wikipedia. ĵ₳¥ášÇ♠ʘ sysop and 'crat! (does it matter?) 12:56, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Why, did someone go nuts and actually block someone? ħuman 15:43, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Rw and Rww images

Is it technically possible to transclude pictures between RW and RWW? that is, could a picture uploaded to one be shown on both sites without having to upload it twice? Now we're on the same server it might be possible. Rrose selavy 06:16, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

This seems to indicate you could; I haven't read it in detail but it looks like what you want. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 06:28, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

It's not my area of expertise, but from what I can make out, the best way would be a third wiki for file hosting, similar to wikimedia commons. Would there be much denmand for a RationalCommons? Apart from LArron's graphs I am not struck by the wealth of obvious candidates. Rrose selavy 08:37, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

Does RWW user pictures? Unless a user put one up of themselves here it is not much use to RWW. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 08:40, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

Hardly anybody - the only one I recall doing so is Carptrash. Rrose selavy 08:47, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

Java

Say that I was to write a program, say a game or something. How could I procede with allowing users of RationalWiki to access it? I understand Java programs can be embedded into websites, but of course it raises issues of permission and the fact that Java program would need to be tested. ĵ₳¥ášÇ♠ʘ sysop and 'crat! (does it matter?) 19:22, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

Assuming you are writing an applet it is just a matter of hosting the applet code at an assessable point and a few lines of html. 216.221.87.112 18:12, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

DPL extension upgraded

I've upgraded DPL to the latest version, if you see anything broken, let me now. --  Nx/talk  08:27, 23 March 2009 (EDT)

Dante's Hell Image

Help. I've got a image/template problem. In the metafiles of Image:Hell - simonists.jpg, a deleted page Dante's Hell 1 has been referenced creating a dreaded "redlink". I am not sure how to fix that, without breaking any redirects or whatever might be in the image. Can anyone help? --En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 10:19, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

It's the fair use template on the image. The image isn't used, and Dante's Hell 1 doesn't show up in the deletion log. --  Nx/talk  11:57, 31 March 2009 (EDT)

The image is PD, so I've removed the fair use template and the offending redlink. --  Nx/talk  15:14, 4 April 2009 (EDT)

Editing tab wording

Does anyone else think that the oh-so-clever rewording of the editing tabs up top have become stupid and make it impossible to know what the hell is what? Did they change again recently? Can we not just have them say 'edit', 'talk', etc? 'Mutate' is not very obvious to any new editors who would come here, and what the hell is 'capture' or 'peer review'? It's just too cleverclogs, and frankly, pretty stupid. DogP 11:50, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

Without endorsing or condemning the new tab names, you can put your mouse over them to tell you what they do. Z3ro^talk 11:53, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

Yes, but tooltips are there to provide names for icons or extended information on buttons, not to actually tell you what they are because the actual title or icon is too abstract. It's fine when people know their way around wikis or have been here for a while, but mostly they're confusing if people just browse onto the site randomly. ArmondikoV^theist 12:07, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

Not condemning or endorsing, just trying to help. Z3ro^talk 12:08, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

ec I think they are great, though I did like "vaporize" better than euthanize. We are a snark filled wiki. that just proves it! :-)--En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 12:09, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

FWIW, I'm kinda Meh on the new tabs.... I think most people are reasonably experienced with the wiki format to figure out what they mean, but I liked the old ones better. That said, it's not life changing or anything.... But I do agree that Vaporize is much better. SirChuckB^{Penguin Knight, First Class} 12:28, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

I am neutral on most of the changes, but like "vaporize" better than "euthanize." ListenerX^TalkerX 12:32, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

I suppose it depends. Sometimes articles are best off being "euthanised" other's are best off "vapourised" but you can't really tell until the last moment when it has to be done. :p ArmondikoV^theist 12:44, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

I know most of us here are 'reasonably experienced with the wiki format', but to expect any new editors to figure it out is a bit of a stretch, no? I don't think it's helpful, myself. But let's let the mob decide. DogP 12:58, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

When I first got here there was; release, fossil record, observe, ignore and vaporise. I changed lock to capture because of the release (a capture/release experiment being where capture, tag and release an animal to study it behaviour). Edit has been various thing I think at one point Ames had it as evolve, I like the mutate because by looking though the fossil record you can see the mutations (a bit clever). The only one I am really keen on is peer review. The simple reason is that I don't think enough reviewing of our material takes place. Most articles do not have citation or have grossly inadequate citations, it seems to me that people write stuff largely of the top of their head with nothing to support. This is what the peer review process suppose to examine, we should all be on the talkpages questioning the content of the articles to make them better. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 22:52, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

I like our absolutely insane and difficult to follow wikiways. I also think that some of these things are getting a bit user-unfriendly. Can we adopt some fairly user-friendly compromise? Like "edit/mutate"? So we get the joke, but noobs with wiki experience see the word they expect? I think we might be in danger of outsmarting ourselves into, well, extinction? ħuman 00:10, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

We could just add a table to the noobs guide explaining what they mean. Adding slashes sometimes causes problems, I don't know how it affect messages. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 00:12, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

But that would not help when BoNs turned up. ListenerX^TalkerX 00:15, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

As to the current tab titles, I think they are mostly intuitive, with the exception of "capture," which only makes sense if the lock feature is used the way Ken uses it over at Conservapedia. ListenerX^TalkerX 00:20, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

@Pi, well, let's try it (the slash)? What's the worst that will happen, we break the wiki for three minutes? & @ LX, yeah, exactly (EC'd but yeah, to both your comments). ħuman 00:21, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

@Human give it a try, however it kind of ruins the point of a in-joke name. I might just write a javascript to change it my satisfaction, that might also be more trouble then it is worth. @X capture is in the sysop guide I changed it at the time. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 00:25, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

It works, tried it out. Not sure if I really like it, but it does help the noobs? At least on the main tabs, we might try to be noob friendly? ħuman 00:34, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I also mucked with "talk" - what looks better, a slash or parens? ħuman 00:36, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

The top edit-bar is now so wide that I have a horizontal scroll-bar on my browser window. (I think the parentheses are better than the slash.) ListenerX^TalkerX 00:38, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I like the parentheses, it kind of says making it easier for newbies. What do you have your screen set at? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 00:39, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

My browser window is 935 pixels in width. The font size is the default. ListenerX^TalkerX 00:43, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I dont like the (talk) at all to be honest. Peer Review on its own looks good. Ace McWicked^Revolt 00:44, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

My general feeling is that if you haven't used a wiki before RationalWiki is not really the place to start. How many people's first interaction with a wiki was RW? I think anyone familiarly with the layout at say WP will work out what it means quick enough. I would like them with just our sciencie names, it sets a tone for the place. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 00:47, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Sing it, Pi. Ace McWicked^Revolt 00:49, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I agree with Pi on that. ListenerX^TalkerX 00:54, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Edit MediaWiki space is weird, after you click save everything looks different. Everyone happyish? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 00:59, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I'm so happy I came in my girlfriends pants. Ace McWicked^Revolt 01:03, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I see you (Pi) didn't like either of my experiments. How can we get feedback if no one sees them? And I disagree with the logic above. Many people come here with "some but not much" wiki familiarity, and our little egopants tabs make life very complicated the first time they want to chime in. Peer Reveiw is totally non-user friendly, and non-intuitive. I think we should just change it back to "talk" and keep the fancy stuff for the the "higher functions". ħuman 01:13, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I looked a little messy in brackets and I also agree most who come here have "a little" exprience with wikis and would soon figure it out. Ace McWicked^Revolt 01:17, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I added "argue" but have to go and hide the whisky before girl gets home so your on your own. Ace McWicked^Revolt 01:22, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

@Pi - I'm more than happy to admit that I had never used a wiki before RW. I've learned everything I know about wikis here. So it's not as strange as you might think that newbies might also be wiki-novices. DogP 01:30, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Me too at Dog, except what I learned at CP. @ Pi, elsewhere we are complaining about new sysops who don't know how to link... how does that square? Let's just keep changing them every few hours until someone says "brilliang" at the Saloon Bar? ħuman 01:32, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I cut my teeth at CP. But I gotta say I loved "Mutate" and aint so happy with "complain". Ace McWicked^Revolt 01:33, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

@Human. I was about to suggest we dedicate a project page to sorting this out with a poll/argument/HCM. How about RationalWiki:Editing tabs afterwards we can make it a help page. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 01:34, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Sounds like a good idea to me - wherever we put it, let's chalkboard and intercom it to attract maximum argumentation. Let the mob decide. ħuman 01:40, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

Earth hour

Would someone more technically savvy than me, fix this... unless it's an intentional RW joke. Earth hour. --En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 17:24, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

It's intentional, but you can edit the article with this link: https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Earth_hour&action=edit --  Nx/talk  17:29, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

And if you hover down just a bit you'll "see" a link to Earth hour/article. It's nice to see that image exploit used for good instead of evil! ħuman 17:35, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

That's just the underline feature of the template, I think that was unintentional, so I've removed it. The actual imagelink is another, smaller black square --  Nx/talk  17:44, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Eh, the link is good, it gets you to the article. Someone used the imagelink template, right? Most of the page links to /article. ħuman 18:55, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

HOws this for single minded practicality. "ok, well it's gone from the orphan pages, thanks to whomever, so I no longer care." ;-)--En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 17:45, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Works for me... ħuman 23:27, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Yes, I did use the imagelink template to provide a link to the earth hour article. I suppose I did make it a bit hard to edit, but if need be, we could add an edit link on the /article. JĀvąṢ₡ä₰ hi there 11:50, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Performance?

Is it me, or has RW become really slow in recent days? DogP 22:55, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Is you. _and marmite 22:57, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

(earlier comment retracted by the Cabal) Cut Trent a check, hell make it faster. Preferrably a big check. The Emperor_{Kneel before Zod!} 23:00, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Yeah, it's not me- the rest of the web loads fine. Already sent loads money to Trent, Mr.Star Trek. Are we overloading the server with scripts, or is the server Confickered? DogP 23:03, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

(That was rude Emperor) I'm noticing no difference, but my connection's slow anyhoo. Could the scripts do it? _and marmite 23:09, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Sometimes RW gets "lumpy". I think Trent pushed the potted plant over and the internets got confused? ħuman 23:31, 9 April 2009 (EDT)

Processor load was at 100% and memory consumption was also almost 100% during the last few days. Javascript is run at the client level, so that at least doesn't impact the server, except when it does extra xmlhttprequests, but your browsers cache should help there.

The root of the problem is that the parser cache is completely disabled. This means that every time anyone loads WIGO CP, RW has to regenerate the entire page from wikitext, so it has to look up if the images are present on the server (to display red or blue links), write the wigo entries into the database, read the votes from the database, etc. From my testing the image lookup has the most severe performance impact, doubling the time required to load the page (you can open up the source and scroll to the bottom, you'll see a comment which tells you how long it took). If we enabled the parser cache, loading WIGO:CP would be almost instant, but the votes displayed would be incorrect. The solution I've decided to use for this is to send an invalidation request to the server via javascript when you send in a vote (and only if the server reports back that the sum changed, so if you click the up arrow 1000 times, it won't invalidate the page 1000 times), essentially voting will have the same effect on caching as editing the page.

So the bottom line is that I plan to try reenabling the parser cache once we upgrade. What you have to keep in mind is that using the random extension disables the cache, but fortunately only on the page it's used, not the whole wiki. I might even change the extension so it doesn't disable the cache by default, only when a parameter is present. --  Nx/talk  03:30, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

Unfortunately, Firefox's caching is a little bit too aggressive, but you can see this in effect in other browsers by going to RationalBeta. When the page is loaded from cache, serving time is ~ 0.1 seconds. When it has to be reparsed (after submitting a vote), it's ~ 2.8 seconds. (there's comment at the bottom in the html which tells you this) --  Nx/talk  04:06, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

Nice answer, Nx. Thanks for working so hard to help improve things. DogP 10:29, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

I'm not good at writing articles, I have to do something :) --  Nx/talk  20:00, 11 April 2009 (EDT)

Ogg Handler

Trent, I know that this has been brought up before, but can you install the extention ogghandler? Thanks. The Emperor_{Kneel before Zod!} 16:13, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

Intercom

Seems to be interfering with the top tabs. _and marmite 17:55, 10 April 2009 (EDT)

Looks like it's purely cosmetic, so it's not worth fixing it now. --  Nx/talk  20:00, 11 April 2009 (EDT)

Upgrade

Have we considered or discussed an upgrade to the MediaWiki version? There are many features and extensions we could use if we do upgrade.--Ipatrol 22:31, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

We are currently planning an upgrade to 1.14. Nx is rewriting the custom extensions so that we can upgrade more smoothly in the future. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 23:11, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

Here it is. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 23:14, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

Only 1.14? Whh not use the 1.15 that Wikimedia wikis use?--Ipatrol 23:41, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

Where do we get it from? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 23:42, 16 April 2009 (EDT)

Because 1.14 is the current stable release. We don't have the manpower to use trunk. It should be easier to upgrade in the future however. --  Nx/talk  02:42, 17 April 2009 (EDT)

1.15 is still alpha isn't it? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 02:44, 17 April 2009 (EDT)

It comes out in May, however the development version of MediaWiki is a bit different than other software. After someone commits a change, they check it on a test wiki, and if everything is ok, it goes live on Wikimedia's servers, so essentially the code is always ready to run. However we cannot afford to do that, obviously, fortunately they make snapshot releases every 6 months, and they backport bugfixes and release them as bugfix releases (e.g. we have 1.11.1, a bugfix release). --  Nx/talk  02:57, 17 April 2009 (EDT)

So even the Wikimedia software is constructed a bit like the content of a wiki?</re-reads for eighth time an finally thinks they understands>- User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 09:43, 18 April 2009 (EDT)

They're both broadly speaking open source projects, so they have their CURs as well to deal with I guess. ħuman 21:28, 18 April 2009 (EDT)

Everyplace has a CUR. There is no way out, so please stop endlessly bitching about it. --<choose>

<option>^Input The Resistor^Output</option> <option>Coyote^{Over 450 pages watched NOT including talk pages}</option> <option>The Trickster</option> <option>Acionyx</option> 15:49, 20 April 2009 (EDT)

Hey, Nx, I hope you catch this here - when you decide to pull the switch, can you give us, say, 24 hours advance notice on the intercom and saloon bar? Then there's less confusion if the site is down for a bit. Thankies. ħuman 21:28, 18 April 2009 (EDT)

Well, that depends more on Trent, but I promise I'll tell you at least 5 minutes before. :) --  Nx/talk  05:48, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

Bandwidth

Is there any reason why we are going at a snail pace around here tonight? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 09:01, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Dunno, but I'm noticing it so it must be really bad with my slow connection. _and marmite 09:21, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Your PDA holding up alright? - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 09:25, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Not on PDA: on wireless broadband (3G); We & British Telecom had a disagreement: they said we owed them for time without connection - long story but upshot is: no landline! _and marmite 09:57, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I'm on a 10 mbit connection, and I've started opening all links in separate windows because of the extreme slowness. Each page takes several minutes to load. - Nasreddin 10:40, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Speeded up now! _and marmite 10:54, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Nice to all our discussion of our connection speeds fixed the problem. This technical support stuff is clever. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 19:33, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Fine here all evening. I'm been enjoying some popcorn while watching my trial... ħuman 20:53, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Well, we were talking about eleven hours ago, H. _and marmite 20:56, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Ah, ok, yeah. It was pi's bump that brought me here so I thought it was fresh. Oh well. ħuman 21:40, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

It's at it again. _and marmite 08:48, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

Not as bad as last time. - User $\scriptstyle -i\ln(-1)$ 08:51, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

It's fluctuating, for me anyway. _and marmite 08:54, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

Perhaps Trent's ISP is very busy at that time of day? ħuman 15:25, 23 April 2009 (EDT)

Intercom 2

I'm getting "an error has occured" when I click "mark as read". (FF) Totnesmartin 19:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm getting it too. Have no idea why, it worked on RationalBeta before the upgrade, and now it's broken there too. {{SUBST:User:Nx/sig}} 19:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the fast work, TMT and NX. Totnesmartin 19:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)