From RationalWiki





Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!



Herein goeth anything regarding the technicalities of the wiki

Problems with accessing/editing the wiki

Problems with MediaWiki/HTML/CSS/Javascript/etc.

Questions about RW's configuration/extensions/servers/etc.

In short, anything tech-y goes here

External links

Semi-frequent updates about RW's technical status are available at RationalWiki's blogspot.

To view or suggest changes to configuration files and MediaWiki extensions, see RationalWiki's GitHub.

Users

If your IP is blocked from editing as an open proxy

You need to go to your provider about it. The lists we use are xbl.spamhaus.org, dnsbl.tornevall.org, all.s5h.net. If your IP is on one of these lists, then your provider has a serious problem they need to resolve. We cannot get your ISP out of the blacklist.

Subsection link (sticky) [ edit ]

What extension does Wikipedia use to get the subsection links next to each subsection title? Cømяade FυzzчCαтPøтαтø (talk/stalk) 13:39, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

What r u talking about? ClickerClock (talk) 04:45, 10 September 2017 (UTC) I think Fuzzy means the "§" link that appears next to the headings, that links to the anchor for that heading. (once again, memorising the ASCII code for section signs comes in handy!) —Kazitor, pending 08:28, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

@FuzzyCatPotato, yall happy now?

Encyclopedia § Etymology See the Wikipedia article on Encyclopedia § Ancient times. —ClickerClock (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Not what I meant... I mean, that's really good :) But I recall there once being a § link next to the actual sections on a page. I'm not sure where it went. —Kazitor, pending 05:35, 17 November 2017 (UTC) I have no idea what you mean. —ClickerClock (talk) 05:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC) Like, on the page there is a heading that says "Subsection link (sticky)". Next to it, either before or after the "edit" link, there was a single, grey "§" link that appended the appropriate anchor to the URL, e.g. §. —Kazitor, pending 06:13, 17 November 2017 (UTC) Screenshot? —ClickerClock (talk) 12:34, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Subsections playing up (sticky) [ edit ]

I've seen this a few times, it was this revision and the wikitext seems normal. Christopher (talk) 09:33, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Content dumps (sticky) [ edit ]

All of the internal links to backups on RationalWiki:Content dumps fail. Also, what is the status of @David Gerard's archive.org port? Bongolian (talk) 02:15, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I made some dumps and uploaded them to archive.org. -- Tim Starling (talk) 12:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Tim Starling Bongolian (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

2019 software upgrade (sticky) [ edit ]

Idea:

Modernize Rationalwiki with things invented since 2017 (MediaWiki 1.27).

Method:

Upgrade to MediaWiki 1.31. (not the latest version, but it is the latest LTS version).

Upgrade various existing extensions.

Install various extensions and skins bundled with the newer Mediawiki. (including the Timeless Skin, and exensions; CategoryTree, CodeEditor, MultimediaViewer, Replace Text, and OATHAuth.)

n.b. OATHAuth gives users the option of using two-factor authentication.

Other things to do at the same time:

Install Scribunto

Install MobileFrontend (and the Minerva Neue skin)

Install TemplateStyles

Install Thanks

Install WikiSEO

And

Setup a template to enable WikiSEO descriptors and an edit filter to avoid direct use.

Check that everything we already have won't break.

Rationale:

Wikis, specifically Wikipedia, have several new features that weren't around when the site was last upgraded. The notable upgrades include Scribunto, a Lua template engine which is supposedly faster and easier to use (it allows for some advanced templates to be copied from the wikipedians who know how it works anyway). MobileFrontend and it's skin, which switches the sites reading view on mobile devices to a "mobile compatible" mode (users can switch back), it does make pages significantly easier to read on mobile devices. TemplateStyles allows per-page or per-template css styles, it uses a sanitized set of css rules to avoid security issues, this can be used to enable @media queries for templates to display differently on different devices. 'Thanks' is the extension which gives you the option to ping people for an edit, it is kinda optional but practically all other wikis have it. And finally, WikiSeo allows for a template which invisibly controls how a page displays when shared on social media, you can specify a description and image which, using semantic meta markup will be used by facebook/google/etc instead of a pretty random looking link.

Comments, feedback, ideas and support/oppose of the proposed thingys welcome. — Dysk (contribs) 15:54, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm all for modernizing our infrastructure, as long as what we already have do not break. I really like the "Thanks" template. I first saw it on Wikipedia a couple years ago (when someone thanked me) and have used it occasionally ever since. The "Timeless Skin" looks like something the gods would approve. The Multimedia Viewer is something I almost always forget we don't have because it is so intuitive.

Sorry if this is implied, but most of it is too technical for me. Will this upgrade include the visual edit gadget? I have been using it on Wikipedia for a quite some time now, and I love it! Finding the appropriate templates, citing sources, editing equations, changing photographs or illustrations. Amazing!

While we are at it, does this proposed upgrade include the template that automatically converts units for you? It looks like this on Wikipedia. If you typed {{convert|1|mi|km}}, the output would be 1 mile (1.6 km). I find this template very convenient. Nerd (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The list I presented doesn't include Visual Editor. Although to be clear the main reason I left the Visual Editor thing out, is because it requires a very complicated additional setup so may be better suited as another task. However, the convert template would be made possible with Scribunto which I have listed up there, so that is included. — Dysk ( contribs Dysklyver Nerd (talk) 03:01, 8 February 2019 (UTC) I hope sometime this year, if everyone agrees and it gets organised properly. — Dysk ( contribs It's only February, but there is no harm in getting started early. How to get organize ourselves for it? Nerd (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2019 (UTC) We need to finalize a set of things we want, get general agreement for it, and ideally test it all works on a test wiki, before then asking for it to be deployed, bearing in mind that Tmtoulouse/David Gerard are the operations people. The main thing is not to break the wiki, and the other thing is not to add things that will be there by default that everyone hates. — Dysk ( contribs

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ How about setting up a sub-page, "2019 upgrade" for bullet point items, etc. for the implementation. – Dbz (talk) 00:30, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I hate the "visual edit gadget". Palaeonictis Fossil beds

@Dysklyver Last time I check Trent Toulouse was a university professor. (David Gerard appears to be a programmer and book author.) This means we can potentially get this done before summer is out. Nerd (talk) 22:47, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Dysklyver Black White Speak 22:39, 15 May 2019 (UTC) A combination of laziness and procrastination. Somebody needs to figure out if certain existing extensions would work nicely with the proposed new software. — Dysk ( contribs

The visual editor is amazing for doing proper citations, which is a big problem on RW from what I can see (too many bare URLS). However I understand it is a large task. Debunky (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The time approaches [ edit ]

I did the last MW upgrade, and I expect I'll do the next one too, some time in the near future. MW 1.27 is EOL so it needs to be done so that we can continue to receive security upgrades. I'd be comfortable installing the WMF-deployed extensions Dysklyver proposed above, specifically CategoryTree, CodeEditor, MultimediaViewer, OATHAuth, Scribunto, MobileFrontend, TemplateStyles, Thanks and the skin Timeless. I think VisualEditor is a reasonable stretch goal, if you want that.

Instead of WikiSEO, which is unmaintained and not in Gerrit, I would suggest OpenGraphMeta, which is in Gerrit and is written by a well-known author, or PageImages, which is simple but WMF-deployed.

The servers also need to be upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04. I'm thinking about the order of operations. Traditionally you do the OS upgrade first, so that you're more likely to have the dependencies needed by the new MW version. Linode's volume feature is now out of beta and available in Newark, which opens up some new possibilities for the kind and number of instances.

If anyone wants to help, the number one thing that needs to be done is to test the RationalWiki-specific extensions against MW 1.31 and to update them as needed. They are all in RationalWiki's GitHub, but nobody has ever submitted a pull request against them despite their comically bad state. Note that I moved Wigo3 to Gerrit, so the GitHub version is outdated and non-canonical. Wigo3 is the best of RationalWiki's extensions. -- Tim Starling (talk) 11:22, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

This is great. I won't specifically comment on the OS and how the load balancing works since I don't deal with that here, but as far as the extensions are concerned; The rationale for WikiSEO was to generate descriptions for Google Search, and to get our articles to display previews on social media and chat applications, as a Wikipedia article would do if linked. Now it seems to me that OpenGraphMeta will generate previews for Facebook and presumably most social media sites, however it occurs to me that we could benefit from also installing Description2 from the same author to get the Google Search descriptions which are currently rather lacklustre. I am not personally bothered about VisualEditor either way, since from a technical viewpoint it needs that additional Parsoid service I think it would be an optional thing to do if you think that isn't too hard to setup and maintain. I don't know how the mob would consider it, I believe it is still generally a good extension but older editors hate using it, heh. :) Otherwise, all good. :) — Dysk ( contribs Just think about how you want to spend my time, in priority order, and I'll think about how far down the list I want to go. What do you want more: VisualEditor or, say, analytics? Apparently Robert Lazar is the most popular article on this wiki. Is that something you want to know? Does that make you want to improve it? -- Tim Starling (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2019 (UTC) Most important things on this list would be MobileFrontend and it's associated skin. And in my personal opinion analytics is better than the Visual Editor. The rest is good to have but also easy-ish to install so not a huge concern I suppose. — Dysk ( contribs Hell no to Visual Editor. Oxyaena Harass I'm with Oxyaena on that. — Jeff G. ツ 12:19, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the main thing we can be said to need is something that works on mobile without looking like a web page for ants. I realise this is not a tiny thing of course - David Gerard (talk) 14:37, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to second Dysklyver and David Gerard on prioritizing MobileFrontend. The main reason I created an account here (which I just now finally got around to doing) is to request a proper mobile view. I'm not picky. I just want *something*! (I don't particularly care either way about any of the other MediaWiki extensions under discussion.) TMqWQfNP9zx2FbrA (talk) 11:59, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Making time [ edit ]

Evidently the time for upgrading MediaWiki was not approaching as rapidly as I anticipated. I haven't had much free time, so I was considering just taking annual leave. I spoke to my manager at WMF about this, and he said that upgrading MediaWiki at RationalWiki could be a 10% time project, i.e. he would support me doing it during work time. The project would start in early February after our all staff meeting, and I'd have about one day a week to work on it. -- Tim Starling (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

That sounds nice that you'll get paid for it! Bongolian (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC) nice to hear EK (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Trying to create custom CSS getting caught by the "Blackhat SEO Spammer" filter [ edit ]

I tried adding custom CSS for myself at User:Sangv/common.css because the default MediaWiki theme and all the extra available themes give me headaches due to being black text on a white background. When I tried to submit the page, it was flagged with "Blackhat SEO Spammer". I guess part of the issue here might be that I literally just signed up and immediately went to go and create that page? Sangv (talk) 05:21, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm so sad no one helped you. All you needed was to keep posting a few times and get autopatrolled. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Drafts in search results [ edit ]

Just got a draft I was working on coming up at the top of a Google search results list. Do we want drafts to appear in Google, based on the fact that they may not be reliable? I know it's possible to exclude pages from search results but is it technically possible to do this automatically for all drafts? I'm not demanding you fix this, I just thought I'd flag it up. --Annanoon (talk) 13:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that that would be a good idea. Bongolian (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2020 (UTC) Just checked, and my drafts show up in Google too. This should definitely be disabled with the potential liabilities it poses. Debunky (talk) 08:58, 28 March 2020 (UTC) Someone with access to the backend would need to insert no-robots/no-indexing code into draft page code. I think that limits this to small number people who can do this. Am I right Oxyaena Bongolian (talk) 17:05, 28 March 2020 (UTC) Only David Gerard Tim Starling Oxyaena Harass

You could simply put the noindex function in the draft template and add that template to every draft. EK (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, EK. Done. Bongolian (talk) 07:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

How will side by side work in mobile format? [ edit ]

Considering RW will eventually shift to a responsive mobile layout, how will side by side templates display? It almost seems like the format needs to change to a red box / green box approach, so that they will display on top of each other in clear form rather than shrinking to SBS on mobile. If they were just stacked without colour boxes it would be hard to see which is a response and which is a claim/original quote. Debunky (talk) 00:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

SEO spammer edit filter [ edit ]

User:Breeze got blocked by the SEO editfilter. Just reporting this here as I saw it on recent changes and they're blocked so of course they can't report it. We really should have something like Wikipedia's w:Template:Unblock. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I have removed the block. There actually is an unblock command on RationalWiki (Special:Unblock). — Unsigned, by: Bongolian / talk / contribs Don't take this personally but I know my way around MediaWiki. Follow the link. That template is for placing on your talk page if you're blocked to ping admins for an unblock request. Every stock MediaWiki wiki has Special:Unblock because it's part of core. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC) OK. Bongolian (talk) 07:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Redirection404 [ edit ]

I'm not sure this is an issue but say somebody types out https://rationalwiki.org/blahblahblah instead of https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/blahblahblah it ends up sending the user to a blank 404 page rather than redirecting to a 404 page within the wiki? Is there anyway it could instead send it to a useful page that encourages them to search within RW? Maybe the home or search page? For example take a look at how Wikipedia handles it: https://en.wikipedia.org/blahblahblahblah they are encouraging the user to search in the wiki instead. --Debunky (talk) 08:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

this should be possible ye, I'll look into it. EK (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Quotebox issue [ edit ]

Maybe somebody could update the Quotebox template? It appears to always extend out under the navigation template on pages. For example take a look at Nick Fuentes and you can see the blue box is actually extended full width under the sidebar, however the text remains placed ok. --Debunky (talk) 16:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Debunky width parameter. In the Nick Fuentes article, I updated the first two quote boxes to specify width=70% so that these boxes do not extend under the navigation boxes. This isn't a perfect solution but it works without jacking around with the template itself. Cosmikdebris (talk) 14:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC) Thanks cosmikdebris. Of course when things go mobile optimized this may not be ideal. Hopefully we can get some new standardized templates similar to Wikipedia's to ensure consistency. --Debunky (talk) 00:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

"Phantom of Liberty" filter [ edit ]

Several users have been blocked as false positives by this filter, I recommend disabling it until it can be fixed. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 15:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Bongolian GrammarCommie Cosmikdebris (talk) 16:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC) OK Bongolian (talk) 17:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC) I removed a 'not' (!). That should fix it. Have a look and reactivate if you think it's OK. Bongolian (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC) OK, I re-enabled it and will keep a watch. Cosmikdebris (talk) 19:58, 24 April 2020 (UTC) i think it was just a little wide to include all contents rather than just added contents. EK (talk) 21:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

It got fixed. [ edit ]

Who woke up the Elder One @David Gerard? — Oxyaena Harass 18:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

duce pinged me. I won't go into details, but someone was showing their deep appreciation for the site - David Gerard (talk) 10:06, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

How do I force the capturebot to screengrab CP? [ edit ]

That would be useful to know.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 17:56, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

There used to be a functioning capturebot that would do this sort of thing automatically. You're basically on your own, but we have instructions for the manual methods here: Help:Screenshots. Bongolian (talk) 20:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

SEO Spammer False Positive [ edit ]

Hello,

I'm trying to create a page in User:DamnYouDaria/sandbox/Gavin Seim as I want to work on a page about libertarian wing-nut Gavin Seim. I was creating a rough draft and got the error message

Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful and you will be blocked from editing you if you click submit. Your action matched the edit filter: Blackhat SEO Spammer Unconstructive edits such as spam are unwelcome, however there are occasional false positives, if this is a false positive, please report it at RationalWiki:Technical support. Do not try to make the edit again even if making minor changes, as you will be blocked and then unable to report the error. If you believe this edit to be constructive, please contact an administrator. If you ignore this notice and get blocked, you should let us know on your talkpage."

However, since it doesn't say what admin I should contact or where I can contact an admin and since I was directed here, I wanted to post here about this error message.

--DamnYouDaria (talk) 04:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

DamnYouDaria Bongolian (talk) 07:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

So my IP is blocked. [ edit ]

I just tried to edit by IP by accident and found it was blocked. The last time I did an IP edit must have been years ago and with a different provider. I get "Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the DNSBL used by RationalWiki. 08:25, 1 June 2020 and will end at infinite. You may contact DNSBL"

I use a my mobile data plan in Spain So if that IP is blocked I'm sure it won't be the only one. It's in this range. But I guess that's a mistake unless someone can tell me what's up. It's not really a problem for me but it could be for others.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:38, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

It's likely because someone using that IP before it was assigned to you had a virus infection, causing it to send spam (assuming your own device doesn't have a virus). 71.208.115.25 (talk) 17:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Subject. I get delightful PHP errors and I can't even open its editor to see what could be causing them. Zero (talk - contributions) 12:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It works for me. Anyone else? Bongolian (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC) Dunno if it was causing the problem but I've removed some stuff from the first para. Is OK now? Scream!! (talk) 17:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

SEO Spammer false positive #2 [ edit ]

I've been trying to create a page on DRM and Silicons valleys war on software ownership with the public denies, it has huge political implications if every device is spying on us (our phones, windows 10, etc). It's technology that is building a turnkey dictatorship before our eyes because we didn't get any property rights to own software. I got an error message below... mon333.

Warning: This action has been automatically identified as harmful and you will be blocked from editing you if you click submit. Your action matched the edit filter: Blackhat SEO Spammer Unconstructive edits such as spam are unwelcome, however there are occasional false positives, if this is a false positive, please report it at RationalWiki:Technical support. Do not try :to make the edit again even if making minor changes, as you will be blocked and then unable to report the error. If you believe this edit to be constructive, please contact an administrator. If you ignore this notice and get blocked, you should let us know on your talkpage."

— Unsigned, by: Mon333 / talk / contribs

try again now. EK (talk) 16:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC) You've been autopatrolled and should be able to create the page now. Bongolian (talk) 17:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Automated spam filter blocking page creation [ edit ]

I attempted to make a new page and the edit was blocked by the spam filter. From reading previous threads, I think that autopatrolling me should fix the issue. CausticAnalysis (talk) 18:06, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Having tried a couple of other edits, that's almost definitely the issue. Would an admin be able to autopatrol me? CausticAnalysis (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2020 (UTC) I added you to autopatrolled, although it's no solution to dealing with a bloated, incoherent, and likely broken edit filter. Nutty Roux (talk) 18:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC) Eh, this could be worked on I'm seeing a few avoidable false positives. — Dysk ( contribs

503 and database failure [ edit ]

Is there something going on with the database? I keep getting errors off and on when I try to use the site. ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 23:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

The above report is probably unrelated, but the site was down for an hour just now due to "emergency maintenance" by Linode. db1 failed to come back up after Linode rebooted the host. After an hour, I initiated a reboot via the Linode dashboard, which worked. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

There is an ongoing issue which I'm trying to resolve. -- Tim Starling (talk) 03:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Linode reports that there was a DoS attack against another instance on the same physical host. This is now resolved. I started a backup restoration, and it's only 23% done after almost 2 hours, so I was a long way from bringing the site up that way. I might do a test restore of an SQL dump, that's probably faster than using Linode's backup system.- -- Tim Starling (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

We also suffered a really obnoxious wiki crawler that was hammering the system (looks like an amateur), and a less obnoxious crawler that was still running at a few hits per second (PetalBot, run by Huawei) - both are blocked in Varnish now - David Gerard (talk) 11:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

That wiki markup has some serious issues, I tried using an online latex editor and I still get errors. — Godless Raven talk stalk walk balk 🌹 14:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

<math>2B=B</math> <math>3B=B</math>

yields:

Failed to parse (PNG conversion failed; check for correct installation of latex and dvipng (or dvips + gs + convert)): 3B=B

And my suspicion is that the server/database whatever knows how to render previously made latex png's (or saved these and just re-renders them whenever called) while it blocks any effort of making new PNG conversions. Not sure if this helps, but it surely can't be syntax related (if 2B=B works, why shouldn't 3B=B? silly). — Godless Raven talk stalk walk balk 🌹 14:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Law Enforcement Requests [ edit ]

I’m not going to get into specifics for obvious reasons, but since this site doesn’t have checkuser, if I suspect a specific user on this wiki is stalking me, would this wiki be able to cooperate with law enforcement in any way to identify the person beyond his anonymous wiki handle? 2607:FB90:930F:3E96:1D45:4829:C33B:EAC0 (talk) 03:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey, can someone update MediaWiki:Edittools to change the PiBot template to the one used by User:Inferno Bot? Just replace TalkPage/PiBot with User:InfernoBot/config . The result should look a bit like this (copy from inbetween the nowiki tags in source mode if you just want to copypaste, there are hidden newline characters that need to be copied into the Edittools page):

{{User:Inferno Bot/config |algo=old(30d) |archive={{subst:NAMESPACE}}:{{subst:PAGENAME}}/Archive%(counter)d |maxarchivesize=100K |search=yes }}

Asking since PiBot is dead. Sirius (dog star) 15:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I could but that wouldn't update all the pages already using the pibot code and would make it inconsistent, the options would be to either usurp the pibot name and replace it with your bot, or to simply continue using it as is but recognising the pibot template, which is what kazitor always did I think. — Z 20:51, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for name change due to off-wiki abuse [ edit ]

Can a user with tech rights please change my username to Johns. My username John66 is repeatedly spammed around multiple forums and websites by Abd Lomax with misinformation spread about my account, this same insane old man and someone associated with him (his friend mikemikev?) has also been spamming me with abusive emails a few times this week. I have not had a name change before, but I would only request it once. Thanks John66 (talk) 10:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

You aren't the only one lol, tho I have personally found "Oliver D. Smith" to be more abusive to me personally than the others you mentioned they are all a big problem and you should consider setting up email filters because Mikemikev and Smith particularly are known to send death/rape threats etc for months using throwaway emails, at least that's what they did to me. I have renamed your account as you asked, there are edit filters here which prevent these people directly mentioning their favourite targets (such as you) to some extent, it should be fine. Generally DNFTT applies to the whole circus of them. — Z 11:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the name change. Smith/Mikemikev/Abd Lomax all have legit email addresses on public record and Smith and Mikemikev have denied sending these emails. I have never spoken to Lomax but he seems to write a lot of bad things about RationalWiki users. The behavior is odd. In regard to these emails when you try and reply to some of them they have already been deleted, so these are are throwaway emails as you say that seem to be created and deleted in a single day. I started to think it might be Lomax trying to frame the other two, then I thought no, what if it is somebody else associated with Lomax or somebody who hates all them of them or vise versa? Nathan Larson is a new name I came across, he is associated with Lomax. I don't know if he is behind the rape emails but look that guy up he's been in prison for sending people threats. He may qualify for an article on this website. Do you know the history of the Lomax/Smith/Mikemikev feud? It seems to have been going on for more than 3 years. Why do all these guys hate each other so much and why do other people seem to get innocently sucked into it? Hopefully it will end soon. Johns (talk) 12:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC) I mean Oliver basically admitted it was him sending some of the ones I got by sending me weird DMs on twitter from his account afterwards, and Mikemikev is incredibly obvious and used to hangout on my Discord server and Stormfront and say the same things so I know he was personally involved too. Lomax has ironically always been fine to me but others are less than pleased with his verbose writings. The Nathan Larson guy is new but he floated in because he's a pedophile and the other people might be or not but were certainly talking about it and that attracted his attention, Larson then proceeded to get involved on telegram and be a nuisance by posting child pornography and claiming this was somehow ok due to free speech, he has a Wikipedia page but nothing here yet. The dispute itself goes way back to when Oliver and Mikemikev were both admins on Metapedia and had a dispute, which was followed by 7 years of drama across multiple websites, but mostly Kiwifarms (which Oliver temporarily shut down) Wikipedia (where both Oliver and Mikemikev are banned for massive sockpuppetry) RationalWikiWiki (Which Oliver got shut down) and RationalWiki (where both are banned) Abd somehow got involved in the affair when they were on Wikipedia and Oliver got him banned from there, after which he followed Oliver here and was banned too, and then this went off onto reddit and other places before having a stroke recently and becoming largely inactive. RationalWiki is involved mainly because it's Olivers favorite place to write "hit peices" on people he doesn't like, most of whom are far right cranks but you got to watch out because he will target anyone, he's got no filter. Mikemikev is just insane and thinks we are all evil Jews, he has no angle except uncontrolled hatred. Lomax just writes thousands of pages of content about this stuff, literally book length write ups, its not clear why exactly but I think he just likes doing it. If you get emails that in any way describe you as a Jewish cultural Marxist traitor to Western civilisation and the white race, that's probably Mikemikev, if it's more focused then it's probably Oliver, and if it's over 5000 words long then it's probably Abd. But really the distinction is pretty irrelevant at this point since they all probably hate your guts, Oliver has tried to dox you before, Mikemikev thinks you are Jewish, and Abd thinks you are a sock account of an evil mastermind soooo you are screwed with all of them. — Z 13:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the history lesson on these 3 stooges. I will remove my email address and delete it, that's the best way I think, I don't need any off-site communication from now on with anyone. I am tired of these guys drama. I suggested a ban list for this website to name and shame banned users but it was not allowed. Its get boring reading these guys nonsense. Johns (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Template request [ edit ]

Hi, I wanted to check if anyone could copy the template Template:Su from WP? It requires the Module:Su from Wikipedia:Lua . — Godless Raven talk stalk walk balk 🌹 00:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Probably not a good idea because of the warning in the Template:Su documentation, "these templates use all kinds of hacky tricks…" Bongolian (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Images not working [ edit ]

File:Social Democrats (Denmark) logo.svg does not work in here; it works in my wikipedia sandbox (same code). This applies to multiple images, too. This isn't an exception. Any resolution? — Godless Raven talk stalk walk balk 🌹 13:49, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Trump's Page [ edit ]

The image seems to be broken or something? Gunther1987 (talk) 14:23, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Yankeestan [ edit ]

Worth adding to the edit filter? Or is it better dealing with this particular vandal the old-fashioned way?-Hastur! (talk) 01:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

This BoN seems to be figuring out lame ways to vandalize pages as it goes. I'm not opposed to adding "Yankeestan" to the edit filter, but it's not going to stop then from being a nuisance. With him either having a VPN or using proxies, I think the only way to deal with him is tire him down with protects and blocks. Coigreach (talk) 01:10, 31 July 2020 (UTC) yeah we outnumber him-Hastur! (talk) 01:18, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Hammered server? [ edit ]

I've had repeated failure to load error messages & slow server response since last night. Are we getting hammered by a DDOS attack? Bongolian (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Looking now. Apache server is under minimal load, if I hit edit it's not very fast ... - David Gerard (talk) 20:12, 1 August 2020 (UTC) If it helps (probably not, but it can't hurt either), I get the following error:

(Cannot access the database: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution (db1.rationalwiki.org))

🌹

I believe the connection speeds have improved. I'll let you know if I get problems again. --It's-a me, Lefty Green Mario ! 20:40, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Is this the error others are getting? I added the IP directly to /etc/hosts so it shouldn't have lookup errors now... - David Gerard (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC) That sounds like the one that I got. Reloading the page right away has cleared the error in my experience. Bongolian (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2020 (UTC) Forgetting DNS for its own DB server? That's frickin bizarre. Still, nailing it into place works so far ... - David Gerard (talk) 22:13, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

503 and 500 errors [ edit ]

20:25, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Got these messages

Error 503 Backend fetch failed

Backend fetch failed Guru Meditation:

XID: 483328064

and also

500 Internal Server Error

Wiki was pretty much inacessible for ten to 15 minutes-Hastur! (talk) 13:03, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I only got the 503 error a few hours ago. Gunther1987 (talk) 15:09, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Rollback [ edit ]

Could we please have a little warning before we press the rollback button? Thanks. Fowler (talk) 13:45, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I think rollback is useful. If you don't like it, use the 'undo' command instead. Bongolian (talk) 16:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Rollback to me has been useful more or less exactly once, when I had to clean up and restore edits of a LANCBing user who removed all their edits (and even then it's usefulness was a little bit limited since it only worked on pages that someone else had edited in the meantime). I wouldn't neccessarily mind seeing it changed, but from what I know it's a built-in feature that doesn't have much in the way of configuration (but seriously, at least having a prompt to enter a reason would be awesome, right now it produces the exact same response as pressing undo without entering a reason). Sirius (dog star) 17:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC) Rollback is definitely overused. Good faith edits and even ambiguous edits shouldn't be reverted without a reason being provided. It's convenient, definitely, but we need to curtail its abuse. We ought to be welcoming and constructive, not repressive.-Hastur! (talk) 17:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Notification not working... [ edit ]

Pinging someone is supposed to notify them, right? Then why isn't it working for me?! pls fix The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk stalk 09:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

How to a remove in image [ edit ]

Can someone explain how to remove an offensive image that does not have a vaporize option (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Koohanaru.jpg). Someone copied or transcluded it from Creative Commons. Bongolian (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The other way is to create a local image of the same name (e.g. a 1x1 transparent pixel PNG) - so the wiki pulls that instead of the Commons version - David Gerard (talk) 14:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC) Excellent! Scream!! (talk) 16:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Why are BoN's allowed to create pages? [ edit ]

I am curious-Hastur! (talk) 03:55, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

BoN is not inherently bad. Some people just don't want to create an account. We have one quality Sysop who started as a BoN and decided to then create an account using their relatively permanent BoN as their user name. What's the guy's 'name', damned if I can remember. Bongolian (talk) 04:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC) Does this really fit in technical, anyway? — G o d l e s s R a v e n talk stalk walk balk 🌹 No. It goes either into the Bar on the Community Standards talkpage. 𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 ( 𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰 ) ( 𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞 ) 14:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC) Hmm seems like it's not broken, better get to fixin. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:14, 17 August 2020 (UTC) I brought it here because the people who would be able to disable such a function follow this page. I question the wisdom of allowing unregistered users to create new pages but so be it-Hastur! (talk) 11:47, 19 August 2020 (UTC) There are various restrictions based on namespace, age of account, certain content, etc. Historically, public policy on this wiki has favored as few constraints on editing as possible. These restrictions are why you see very little ad spam or those weird SEO posts. Given how obsessively people refresh Recent Changes here, it seems to me that deleting nonsense that makes its way past the edit filters is trivially easy. But while you see very little spam, you also get no insight into the bigger problem that very few brand new good faith editors bother spending time following up on: the filters are too zealous and make serious editing using an IP or brand new account infuriating when you attempt certain things. Basically, the filters force a decision about balancing openness and protecting the site that only techs have ever been able to participate in. You're asking a good question. Nutty Roux (talk) 14:17, 19 August 2020 (UTC) Eh. I recall that nobody was really interested in deleting spam pages, BoNs never made legitimate pages, created a situation where I heavily curbed new page creation for anyone who has less than 1 edit logged. Or that was the plan, I was high. It may be broken and I never noticed. — Dysk ( contribs

Image not updating [ edit ]

File:Icon_paganism.svg is not updating. What can I do?

History merges disabled [ edit ]

See RationalWiki:Saloon_bar#History_merges_disabled - David Gerard (talk) 23:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

You might want to link to the revision of that post being made since once the Saloon bar gets archived, it'll be more difficult to access that section as time goes by. --It's-a me, Lefty Green Mario ! 23:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Firefox/Android phone [ edit ]

Formatting of RW by the latest version of Firefox on my Android phone is buggered up. It doesn't seem to handle multi-column well + other issues. Firefox claimed that they're working on upgrades already because of complaints. WP seems to format OK. Bongolian (talk) 01:33, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Add Inferno Bot to Echo blacklist [ edit ]

Could someone add User:Inferno Bot to the Echo blacklist on MediaWiki:Echo-blacklist. All that needs to be done is add a single line that's just "Inferno Bot" (no user link needed). It stops people from getting mentioned when a talkpage is archived, which could clog up the notifications list. Sirius (dog star) 15:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. Nerd. Nutty Roux (talk) 19:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC) Thanks. Came across it while messing with notifs in MW and testing how the system works. Sirius (dog star) 19:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The other WIGOs (e.g. WIGOW) have more padding around the fancy title box. Specifically, the CSS rule is "padding: 0.2em 0.6em". Could someone with access to the site CSS make it so WIGOE has the same padding? — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. Sirius (dog star) 22:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Site notice requested [ edit ]

Somebody is trying to change the community standards. The community ought to be made aware of it-Hastur! (talk) 21:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

There should be a sitenotice, yes. Sirius (dog star) 21:37, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Sidebar [ edit ]

I think we can probably get rid of the Telegram link on the sidebar. To my knowledge it was set up without the approval of the mob, and is now largely inactive. Also someone on Discord was saying they joined it and they saw homophobic videos and coronavirus conspiracy theories there (I joined it and saw the same). --RWRW (talk) 11:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

since I have admin on the telegram I just removed the insane german who posted it. and ye it could use some more mods if anyone is interested. Afaik all the social media was setup independently of the wiki itself but that doesn't mean it isn't useful in increasing ratwikis Internet profile. — Z 11:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC) Personally I have no real interest in being a member there (Discord is more than enough for me frankly) but yeah, finding other people to keep an eye on it would be another potential solution. --RWRW (talk) 12:04, 6 September 2020 (UTC) Indeed, this works vice-versa of course. Not everybody on Telegram uses Discord, or wishes to use it. — Dysk ( contribs

The Saloon Bar is apparently indexed [ edit ]

Would anybody mind it if I added __NOINDEX__?-Hastur! (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned fork pages [ edit ]

Something should be done about fork pages appearing in the list of orphaned pages. Tulpa001 (talk) 03:59, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Checkuser/IP checking [ edit ]

As discussed on the moderator noticeboard (RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation#Checkuser/IP checking), it has been requested that someone with root access remove the capability of techs to have a workaround for checkuser. The elimination of this capability would remove some drama and suspicion, at least going forward. Bongolian (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2020 (UTC)