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Accidental click on multi-notification's 'mark as read'

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That risky blue button

I clicked a little too fast and clicked on the blue mark as read button for notifications for some multi-notification item for Commons like the one on the right when on this Wikipedia.

I haven't noticed any loss of notifications so I don't know

  • if the marking failed fully or
  • if there is some safeguard to prevent multi-items being marked as read when on another project or when it's too many items or
  • whether it did successfully mark some notifications as read that I didn't mean to mark as read.

Is there any way to check if I did lose some notifications and see which? I only know of one way:

  1. comparing the numbers of a screenshot of Special:Notifications to the current numbers. However, the last screenshot I made of the left panel of that page is too old.

For example, what would be great is a way of seeing 'read' notifications sorted by datetime of them being marked as read, not by the datetime the notification was created. Maybe there is a tool for that or it's possible in principle but one would need to code something for it.

If you think the problem of accidental clicking on mark as read should be solved, see this wish – one can vote on it:

W472: Confirmation dialog to prevent accidental clicks on Mark All As Read for notifications.

Help with retrieving the notifications if some did get marked as read would be very appreciated. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:41, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And in regards to the wish: whether or not there are confirmation dialogs could be made a preference; eg with these possible values
  • Show confirmation dialog for all marking
  • Just for multi items (say 20 notifications from one page)
  • Just for mark all as read
  • Never
I've lost quite a few notification due to accidental clicks on the blue mark as read button and again if you know how to retrieve/see these, please let me know. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:37, 20 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. We can see all our local notifications (read and unread) on the local wiki they originated from. E.g. That example notification in your screenshot from Commons should be available to you at c:Special:Notifications. Also, coincidentally, next week's edition of Tech News has a related entry about a new notification-archive download tool. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I accidentally marked them as read here on English Wikipedia. I have many notifications on that other wiki and even if I were the wade through hundreds of notifications to try to find the ones I accidentally marked as read there is no way to see which I marked as read recently to identify the ones I lost. If I were to wade through hundreds of read notifications on that wiki, I can't retrieve them even with that time effort because I can't remember which of all of these I have actually read and which not. Interesting news about the notification archive tool. Hopefully, it will at least allow for backups if nobody is interested in preventing large data losses by the volunteers. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:15, 20 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A user on the wish page claimed clicking on the blue dot button on notifications like the one in the image (multi-item notifications from another project) would not actually mark these notifications as read (those 16 in the example) but instead just unroll them so they're not bundled anymore in some queue if I understood things correctly.
Does somebody know more – is that the case?
I think if there was no bug or safeguard when users mark lots of notifications as read from another project, then I think I must have lost those that I accidentally clicked and can't do anything about it assuming I don't just have very few notifications in which case I could just go through all read notifications and try to guess which of these I have not yet read (here one thing that would help would be some info on the 'read' items whether the item was clicked or just marked as read). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Sohom Datta: do you know if the notifications of the marked multi-item will still be in the notification dropdown and/or on Special:Notifications somehow (maybe they will show up once I clicked/marked more unread ones)?
@Quiddity (WMF): seems like one can only export older notifications with this tool. Maybe the development in it could be extended to enable seeing recently marked notifications or to separately see notifications marked as read without being clicked. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A problem here is that it can't be fixed with any gadgets since it requires a change on the server-side to for example store the date and way (click-to-read or mark-as-read) an item was marked as read.
A while ago I already lost quite many notifications because I tried to click on the popup in the top right and it happened to be right above the dangerous mark all as read button and disappeared right when I tried to click the popup to make the popup disappear. Maybe this info helps other users to avoid this data loss. In my humble opinion this is unacceptable – if I was to not know that now I would lose dozens upon dozens of important notifications that I intend to get to later – and other sites don't have such a risk of data loss as far as I'm aware. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:01, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Have the notification rules changed?

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This edit notified me, but judging by WP:MENTION it should not have done because Create a new comment; modifying an earlier comment does not work. Have the rules changed? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:50, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'd wager that it worked because the comment they were editing was unsigned, and they added a sig in the edit in which they added the ping. Schazjmd (talk) 21:59, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That didn't work in the past. Let's try it with my next edit. @Schazjmd: did you get a notification for this edit? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:25, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I did. :) Schazjmd (talk) 23:26, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Then they've changed for sure. Wonder what else? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:55, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
"modifying an earlier comment does not work" is false if the modification includes a re-signing of the comment. Example: User:Redrose64, with a new signature (manually typed four tildes). —⁠andrybak (talk) 11:06, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This edit did not notify me. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:41, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Logouts, again

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Having what happened a few weeks ago happening again - getting randomly logged out when I go to new pages and just had protecting a page fail "because you are no longer logged in", happened twice yesterday, and yeah, it happens sometimes, but so far it's happened about three times in an hour today and it's a bit annoying. Anyone else having issues? - The Bushranger One ping only 18:33, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This has been happening to me as well. ScalarFactor (talk) 18:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Reporting,Yes; multiple times today. Immediately after I added cite to unreferenced article, the click on "Edit" to go back in & change from "Unref." to "One source" tag. Sometimes if I hit brower "Back" arrow it will return back to "Logged in" but not always. JoeNMLC (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I am experiencing the same 5 times now in the last few minutes and it's dangerous because it is revealing my IP (not assigning a TA and just happened as I was typing this so had to log back in and start over). S0091 (talk) 18:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Me as well. Very frustrating.-- Ponyobons mots 19:54, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This is ridiculous. It's happening consistently. @Quiddity (WMF), any clue what's going on? S0091 (talk) 20:14, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Devs are investigating, with a potentially related task at phab:T421168 (still to be confirmed). I.e. The logouts might be related to the datacenter server switchover which happened earlier today. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I've also noticed (while noting this is still happening regularly) that sometimes pages seem a bit slow to load today. Possibly my connection, possibly connected? - The Bushranger One ping only 22:24, 24 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
If it helps (as this is still happening), I've also noticed on Wikidata that saving edits that add statements there has a noticable "pause" between clicking 'publish' and the edit going through. Seems like the same thing might be happening here - saving edits taking longer than it should. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:56, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I had this happen to me over on Wikidata two days ago and thought it was a one-time thing, but I've been repeatedly getting logged out on this project while performing an admin action today. ✗plicit 04:22, 25 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Just happened to me again. Pinging @Quiddity (WMF) so they are aware and also thanks for being responsive, even if you might not be the right person. S0091 (talk) 19:07, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And again, with also a "You have performed too many actions in a short period of time. You can try again in 43 minutes and 17 seconds." message. S0091 (talk) 19:18, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@DKinzler (WMF): ^^^^^^^^^^ Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 20:58, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And again. S0091 (talk) 19:33, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And again. S0091 (talk) 20:55, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This has been happening to me too. Unfortunately I don't have useful additional data to provide as I've just been going "argh, not again" and activating my password manager whenever it happens. I'll try to take better notes if it happens again. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 02:59, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Had a few days with everything fixed, but just now, random logout again. We'll see if it persists... - The Bushranger One ping only 19:22, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What browser are you using, and what are you cookie settings? Do you have any privacy extensions or adblockers installed? This problem doesn't seem to happen to everyone. For example, I am on Firefox (usually the latest stable version or close to it) on Linux. I have all third-party cookies blocked. I use uBlock Origin with the default lists. I am on a very unreliable connection. This problem has not happened to me in recent memory.
I have also done some minimal experimenting, dropping 50% of packets with tc. This caused the servers to freak out with a 503 error a few times, but still, I stayed logged in. So I suspect connection reliability isn't the issue. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I have the same settings as you (and CenturyLink DSL...which, enough said) on Win11 plus NoScript (set to allow everything here). It was just the one time today, so, presumably that was just a random thingy-dingy as opposed to the past issues! - The Bushranger One ping only 03:16, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

IFTTT

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Sorry, I'm not sure where the best place to discuss this is, but I am looking for discussion among people who may have informed opinions. I looked up IFTTT after reading an offsite article on AI, and while I think I should have gotten 'If this then that' which we explain at Conditional (computer programming), I get a company promotion, IFTTT. Should this be changed or addressed somehow, do you think? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Alanscottwalker This should be raised at Talk:IFTTT, but programming conditionals are rarely, if ever, abbreviated as IFTTT. I didn't see a single result in the first five pages of a google search for "IFTTT" that wasn't referring to the app. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:22, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that this behavior is as expected. The strings "IFTTT" or "if this then that" do not appear in the article Conditional (computer programming), so I don't see why it would come up in a search. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, "If this then that" is a name made up by IFTTT for themselves. The normal term is if-then-else (or sometimes if-then when there is no else part). The opening line of IFTTT has a link I have updated [1] to use the redirect from if-then-else to Conditional (computer programming)#conditional-statement instead of a broken section link to the same article. That seems enough unless it becomes a widely used general abbreviation. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:50, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Because "if this than that" is not what computer scientists and programmers refer to the conditional control flow. I feel the redirect is justified and suitable. MilkyDefer 16:07, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is no redirect, but I want to thank everyone for their informative answers. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Impact is not updating properly

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This is my impact page. Sometimes when I edit an article, on Impact only the previous article I edited appears as recent, and this can get rogue sometimes as when day switches, in the "Most viewed (since your edit)" section, it thinks I never edited YouTube (which is the most viewed article I edited, with 743,985 views as of reporting, or I'm somehow in the future) as Minecraft appears as most viewed with around 108,000 views as of the edit and reporting. Neither purging the page fixes the problem. Anything...? - SimpleObjects-9ei 🔥/🎰/😴 15:55, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@SimpleObjects-9ei - Thanks for reporting this. I’m not entirely sure what’s causing the issue. Some of the delay may be related to how the data is fetched and cached. Most metrics are refreshed every 24 hours, while the number of edits and thanks received update in real time.
You can find more details here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Growth/Tools/Impact_module
Have you been noticing this for a while, or did it start recently? I ask because the Growth team recently released an update to the Impact Module (T341599), although (hopefully) it should not have introduced any regressions. Thanks, - KStoller-WMF (talk) 19:45, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@KStoller-WMF I'm already an experienced user. However, I still like to keep the newcomer homepage for decoration. It was happening since I edited 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting (March 16), but the issue started on the 24th, when I edited List of filmed mass shootings and realized it was not appearing on Impact. Anyways, I don't have a Phabricator account to begin with (as I do not know the date of when T341599 happened, but it was likely after the last comment), but it has been recovering bit by bit. - SimpleObjects-9ei 🔥/🎰/😴 21:01, 27 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Some headings very broken on IOS and mildly broken on web and mobile web

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This is two different issues I noticed while looking at irregular heading formats (not ===Example===, but {{heading|Example|3}} and <h3>Example</h3>). In both of the irregular formats, the [edit source] (it is a pencil on mobile web and IOS) does not appear. I believe this can be seen on every single browser, web, mobile web, or IOS. On IOS, the irregular headings do not appear in the table of contents at all and sometimes they display wrongly. On the Trade Expansion Act article which partially uses {{heading|Example|3}}, for instance, here are screenshots of its table of contents and a portion of the article. On the Etika article, where Template:Primary sources references section is transcluded, the Primary sources heading made with <h3>Example</h3> is not shown in the table of contents. 1brianm7 (talk) 05:30, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that the whole point of using those instead of the regular syntax? Nardog (talk) 06:07, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Heading says nothing about the [edit section] not being present. I have no clue where the documentation of <h3> is, so I wouldn't know if it says [edit section] shouldn't appear. However, Template:Heading explicitly says it will appear in the table of contents, and it doesn't on IOS, while <h3> should either always appear in the table of contents or never appear on it, it definitely shouldn't be working differently between platforms. (I have been unable to figure out how to search for <h3> in main space, insource:"<h3>" doesn't work.) 1brianm7 (talk) 06:16, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
example Izno (talk) 06:47, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Jeez, I was never going to figure out that syntax. Thanks. So, <h3> isn't used directly in main space. 1brianm7 (talk) 07:16, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The {{heading}} template emits tags like <h3>...</h3> etc. These tags are not MediaWiki, they are straight HTML (they've been part of HTML since the very start way back in 1991), and the documentation for these is at HTML 5.2 (W3C) section 4.3.6. The h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 elements. They don't, of themselves, do anything except organise some text onto a line of its own and give it an appearance that is different from the plain text on the page. The MediaWiki software recognises them, and puts the text of these elements into the table of contents, and also adds anchors so that they may be linked directly.
When the ==Heading== syntax is used, the same things happen but in addition the section edit links are added to the headings by JavaScript, since these features vary considerably depending upon several factors (such as user prefs, page protection, use of __NOEDITSECTION__, etc.). I don't think that the operating system or browser are among those factors though. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
All of the direct uses of <h3>...</h3> in article space appear to be examples of code.
It is unclear why {{heading}} was created, and editors on its template talk page have questioned its functionality and the reason for its existence. The TemplateData section says that it is for cases where normal heading markup does not work, but no examples are given. If this template is broken in the mobile view and provides no benefits, we should probably not use it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:15, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The template has only about 200 transclusions. I would support general deprecation in main space at a minimum. Izno (talk) 16:09, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, although some articles use it in a different way than usual, that while still broken on IOS, doesn't work with the normal == heading. E.g., List of House members of the 45th Parliament of Canada.

Also, does anyone know how to make it so a header appears in the table of contents on IOS with Template:psrs. I can't even figure out a place to test possible solutions, since IOS formatting only works in main space. 1brianm7 (talk) 19:19, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Normal heading markup appears to work fine in preview at List of House members of the 45th Parliament of Canada. You need to insert a line break before the heading, as always. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:28, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Weirdness in contributions list

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Why is the contributions list for User:Admin saying that the account had made 0 edits yet has apparently edited? Rhinocratt
c 12:14, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This usually means that the account was created during UseModWiki era and later someone registered an account with the same name. sapphaline (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
even weirder, it was allegedly created in 2017 (23 December 2017) yet the edits are all before the alleged creation date Rhinocratt
c 15:10, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'd guess that the "A user with 0 edits" is reading from the user_editcount database field rather than actually counting the edits. For various reasons this may not match the number of revisions associated with the user. Considering the templates in this case seem to be specifically intended for a WMF-developed feature, and the early edits are attributed to WMF accounts, my first guess would be that in this case they ran some sort of server-side maintenance script that attributed the edits to "Admin" (which apparently didn't even exist on English Wikipedia at the time) rather than a real user. Anomie⚔ 17:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
oh Rhinocratt
c 18:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is where Special:Contribs pulls its value from. Izno (talk) 18:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't encountered this one before. NPF = New pages feed, a concept from the Page Curation feature (link to information page on Mediawiki.org), so it was done by the Page Triage extension; I've added it to the list at Wikipedia:Reserved usernames. As for the listed account creation date, it's thanks to the running of the maintenance script CleanupUsersWithNoId.php which was written by @Anomie: described at T181731, which in some cases created accounts when an edit had a user ID of 0 and an associated username but no matching account (which was rare but possible before the actor table database migration. Maintenance scripts uch as the Conversion script often ran with a user ID of 0, so I guess whoever wrote the Admin script got it to run that way too. When it ran in 2016 there was no user with the username "Admin"; such an account had existed but it was renamed to Admin~enwiki in 2015 as part of single User Login finalisation (see the page history at User talk:Admin and the listing at centralauth, which links to a user from the Albanian Wikipedia with that username). Most cases like this are indeed related to UseModWiki imports, because during the mass-import of these edits in September 2002, any edit with an associated username that hadn't been registered by then was imported with a user ID of 0. Any UseModWiki edit that was imported later (mostly by myself but also by others) was usually imported with a non-zero user ID, and some of those cases were also affected by the 2015 Single User Login finalisation for one reason or another, so sometimes we have edits split between, for example, Mike Dill (whose account is listed as having been created in 2017) and Mike Dill~enwiki (whose account I re-created in 2009). As for why Admin~enwiki has no listed account creation date, follow the links from this discussion. Graham87 (talk) 05:21, 29 March 2026 (UTC) Added a couple of links. Graham87 (talk) 06:59, 29 March 2026 (UTC) Fixed the extension name. Graham87 (talk) 13:06, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a user script to bring the old heading HTML back?

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In 2007-2013, the heading HTML was (see e.g. this Wayback Machine snapshot): 

<h2>
<span class="editsection">[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php..." title="Edit section: ...">edit</a>]</span>
<span class="mw-headline">...</span>
</h2>

Is there a user script to bring this structure back? I want the "[edit]" button to be right-floated. sapphaline (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Sapphaline Not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but there is a gadget for "Move section [edit] links to the right side of the screen" in Preferences. CMD (talk) 15:28, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately the button doesn't stay at top with this gadget when heading's length exceeds 1 line. sapphaline (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, it can't: the HTML for a very long heading (see Special:PermaLink/1345902961) with edit link is as follows: 
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2 ext-discussiontools-init-section"><h2 id="A_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_long_heading" data-mw-thread-id="h-A_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_ver"><span data-mw-comment-start="" id="h-A_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_ver"></span>A very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long heading<span data-mw-comment-end="h-A_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_very_ver"></span></h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&amp;action=edit&amp;section=1" title="Edit section: A very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long heading"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div>
Notice how the <span>...</span> that encloses the edit link is after the closing </h2> tag. Therefore it will be on the same vertical alignment as the last word in the <h2>...</h2>. All that "Move section [edit] links to the right side of the screen" does is apply the stylesheet from MediaWiki:Gadget-righteditlinks.css. There are five rules in there; four of them just set some margins, which may adjust spacing but can't move the edit link to align with the first word. So the only significant rule is this one: 
.mw-editsection,
.mw-editsection-like {
    float: right;
    line-height: inherit;
}
It's the float: right declaration that does the actual work. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:18, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There might be a way to do it using display:flex; layout on the <div> that is the parent for the <h2> element and <span> element holding the edit link. align-items: flex-start; will align the two child elements at the top. But I don't know if it can be done in a way that doesn't affect other layout rules. isaacl (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Done with user:DVRTed's help. sapphaline (talk) 08:06, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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Much of the recent edit history of Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem (a Good Article but one on a highly technical topic in mathematics) has involved the reversion of edits created by the "link suggestions feature" by editors who likely did not realize that merely matching a phrase in one article to a title of another article is not an adequate test for whether the proposed link is actually relevant. Is there any way this feature can be disabled, at least in the case of specific articles where it has been proven to be a problem, or for specific pieces of text where the proposed link has already been demonstrated to be bad? Searching the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk namespaces for "link suggestions feature" found nothing helpful. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:10, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Adding {{no newcomer task}} to an article should stop all edits from Newcomer Tasks (including link suggestions) * Pppery * it has begun... 00:15, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Query to find the articles that currently rely on archive.today the most

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Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance/high traffic pages report links the highest traffic articles that have links to archive.today, based on a Quarry SQL query. Is it possible to make a similar query to list the articles with the most archive.today links? Maybe the top 150 articles with the most links? I'm not familiar with SQL, so I wouldn't be able to make a query myself. I'd appreciate some help with this. I asked over at Wikipedia talk:archive.today guidance earlier, but got no replies. – Scyrme (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The only way to access page text is to use a WP:Database dump. It is not available in Quarry. Counting links will likely require something custom. Izno (talk) 21:58, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You can partially do it, by redefining "most links" as "most distinct links" and ignoring the suppressed links in CS1 templates: quarry:query/103791. Anomie⚔ 22:19, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I got to using the elinks table separately; probably looking for main space though quarry:query/103794. Izno (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And it's most valuable to ignore the suppressed links IMO, since what remains are the 'naked' links that haven't been suppressed. Izno (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, this is very helpful! – Scyrme (talk) 13:24, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

parser function help in template

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I'm trying to write a template that automatically adds categories to an article based on data in the template. Basically it's a series of opening and closing dates; |opening1=, |closing1=, |opening2=, |closing2=, |opening3= and |closing3= which add categories Opening1, Closing1, Opening2 etc. The exceptions being that any blank parameter is ignored and any that say Open e.g. |closing3=open add the category Still open

Statements like {{#if: {{{opened1|}}} |[[Category: {{{opened1}}} openings]] }} seem to work fine to catch the openings, but I'm not sure how to write the closing statements as the cases are

  • If Open then add category:Still open, else
  • If date then add category:date closings, else
  • If empty or blank whitespace do not add any category

I guess it requires #switch but simple as it appears I just can't get my head round it. Nthep (talk) 11:22, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Nthep: You can use #ifeq if you find #switch difficult but here is code:
{{#switch:{{{closing1|}}}
|Open|open=[[Category:Still open]]
|=
|#default=[[Category:{{{closing1}}} closings]]
}}
Repeat for closing2 and closing3. It doesn't test whether closing1 has a valid value. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:13, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Please be aware of WP:TEMPLATECAT. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:25, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@PrimeHunter Thanks. Nthep (talk) 18:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that something like fourteen or fifteen years ago, we had a template that did this. Fed with two years, like {{templatename|1850|1966}} it would emit two categories like 
[[Category:Railway stations opened in 1850]]
[[Category:Railway stations closed in 1966]]
It got taken to TfD, which was closed as subst and delete. The categories that it emitted - in this case Category:Railway stations opened in 1850 (11) and Category:Railway stations closed in 1966 (12) - were not part of the deletion request, and still exist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2026-14

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Weekly highlight

  • The Beta version of Abstract Wikipedia a new Wikimedia project which is language-independent, was launched last week. The project allows communities to build Wikipedia articles in their native language, which can be readily accessed by other users in their own languages. The wiki is powered by instructions from Wikifunctions and also based on structured content from Wikidata. Read more.

Updates for editors

  • The Growth team is running an A/B test to evaluate a clearer, more user-friendly message that promotes account creation on wikis. Currently when logged-out mobile users begin editing, they see a jarring warning message that can feel abrupt and discouraging. This also presents temporary account editing as the default rather than encouraging account creation. The test is running on ten Wikipedias, including Arabic, French, Spanish and German. Read more.
  • The Wikimedia Apps team is inviting feedback on how editing should work on the Wikipedia mobile apps. The discussion focuses on improving how users access editing tools when they tap "Edit". This is part of a broader effort to convert readers who develop an interest in editing, to access a more user-friendly pathway to start contributing.
  • Recurrent item View all 45 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, an issue where citation fetching from the large newspaper archive Newspapers.com was no longer working, due to a block in Citoid requests, has now been fixed. [2]

Updates for technical contributors

  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:23, 30 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How do I ask a question about temporary accounts?

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I'll just ask here until I know the specific place, if that's okay.

At the library, I am now required to go to my email address to sign in. Which I can't, because my email password is stored in my computer at home and I don't know it. So if I see something that needs editing and I fix it, I do it without signing in. I wanted to see a history of what I had done with the temporary account, and only the edit I did today was in the contributions list. Why? I just made my first edit there with a temporary account last week.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:48, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is the device you used for your first temporary account edit and your last temporary account edit the exact same device? (Yes, no, maybe is good enough of an answer). Snævar (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
When you edit without signing in, the Wikipedia server creates a temporary account, and your browser stores some data that lets you access the same temporary account later. If you use a shared computer in a library, the data in your browser is probably deleted when you stop using the computer. This means neither you nor anyone else will ever be able to access the same temporary account again. — Chrisahn (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You could make another account and follow WP:PUBLICSOCK. People doing that might add "alternate" or "alt" or "public" to their normal account name. Make the password simple to remember (use a phrase like "blue dog library"). Don't use it for anything other than editing in the library. Johnuniq (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And the info is at Wikipedia:Temporary accounts and questions can be asked at its talk. Johnuniq (talk) 03:35, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Expand

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Why is Template:Expand still linked from a gajillion talk pages when it was deprecated over a decade ago? Is some obscure talk page message box still linking to it? If so, this should be fixed, possibly by a bot. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 03:19, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Doing some spot checks these appear to be links in historic discussions, and as such any people following links to Template:Expand will still get the intended advice. The template was deprecated as template but the page exists now as advice. As there are over 40 listed modern alternatives I can't see how a bot could pick a suitable alternative. I don't think 1,115 mostly very historic links are anything to worry about. KylieTastic (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There are no transclusions and there are 735 pages with xpand} in the source, indicating some variation of {{tl|expand}} to make the link {{expand}}. I agree there is nothing to worry about. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:55, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Failed to fetch notifications"

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What's going on for me? ~2026-88134-7 (talk) 09:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Short descriptions

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Hello! Myself and @Organhaver have been discussing this on my talk page (discussion can be found here), but we were both unsure on the answer, so I thought that it would be a good idea to bring it up at the Teahouse discussion can be found here. @ColinFine recommended that I should bring my query here.

Firstly, I was wondering if there is any way where you can filter short descriptions so that articles such as list articles and year articles are not put there. For context, I was recently (on Tuesday 17th March) banned from editing short descriptions due to me editing these sort of articles, and the fact that several had to be reverted. I edited the articles because I thought that there was a need for more shortdescs on Wikipedia and because I was editing on mobile, I couldn't see the invisible comments (hence why I was editing all of those short descriptions in the first place). But as I mentioned on my talk page, I personally think that you shouldn't have those sort of articles on the suggested edits if they don't need a short description.

And my second question was that I was wondering if anyone knew how long I am going to be banned for? (if I am banned that it is). If I am not banned, then how do I fix my issue?

But although people have told me that it isn't a full ban, I just find it a bit of a coincidence that three days after I have a talk page message about how I could improve editing short descriptions and how lots of them have had to be reverted, I suddenly can't edit short descriptions from the Wikipedia Android app.

Many thanks in advance! Roads4117 (talk) 10:20, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Roads4117.
As I have repeatedly told you, you are not banned and never have been. You have hit a restriction in the mobile app that limits your editing. I'm not saying that isn't a problem, but if you go round saying you've been banned - especially after being told more than once that that is not the case - you are going to confuse and probably annoy people. ColinFine (talk) 13:43, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Inflation

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Hello! {{inflation}} needs an update, the GBP data is from 2023 so it differs from the calculator which is based on the latest ONS data. Can someone update it please? Thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 11:09, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Polygnotus  Done --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:38, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! That is much better! Polygnotus (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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