MediaWiki reviews

2006-04-18
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2006-04-18 – (version not recorded) ∞

This date is a guess based on the overall date of this post.

Comments ∞

Although this engine is the host of some huge projects, it itself seems to be lacking in a number of areas. Documentation had ‘tbd’ in a number of interesting places, and it appears that a lot of the skins delivered with a download are unfinished.

Questions ∞

A lot of this stuff is self-solvable and should be researched.

  • Can I modify the skin so that sections are displayed with their content indented? Things look so much better that way.

    • CSS? doubtful.

  • How do I get rid of that external link picture?

    • I could just nuke that picture.. or replace it with a 1×1 transparent pic.
  • How do I make proper nowiki+code blocks?

  • How do I remove the “powered by mediawiki” at the bottom-right?

    • /stylesheets/images/poweredby_mediawiki_88x31.png
    • It’s not too tough.

  • How do I remove the copyright picture at the bottom-left?

    • Not tough.

  • How do I remove the various icons from the edit bar, and replace them with text?

2005-09-24 – (version not recorded) ∞

  • I think MediaWiki is also plagued by a database bug similar to an earlier wiki. I noticed that a sidebar template had the content of a second template in it. The only two dates of editing were a while back, and the content was a recent duplicate of the second template. Umm.. crap.

2005-08-17 – (version not recorded) ∞

  • ?action=purge is possible on the URL.

    • Also, if a page has a template and that template is edited or purged.. then the page which uses it is also purged.
    • This means that I can tag multiple pages with a template and then purge the template to “bulk-purge” multiple pages. This could be very handy in the future.

  • I have made the sidebars ([[Template:sidebar]]) style=noprint. I was going to make quotes ([[Template:quote]]) the same, but I decided against it.

    • It’s too bad that I can’t have a template inside of a parameter to another template.. that would make my life so much easier. I started moving [[fixme]] and [[do]] into templates ([[template:fixme]] and [[template:do]]) and now I’m regretting it. Sigh. Maybe I should have a separate fixme/do backlink link.. and redo things as I go.
    • Well.. it’s not like I’m using either of them much. I just “walk the wiki” and fix things as I go.

(date not recorded) – 1.15.0 ∞

An upgrade to XAMPP 1.7.2 gave me some odd issues.

1) The top of all pages would give:

Warning: Parameter 1 to Language::getMagic() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/lampp/htdocs/includes/StubObject.php on line 58

2) [[Special:UserLogin]] would give:

Warning: Unknown: open(/root/tmp/sess_161t3v10ffsam04vsvd8hbf814, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in Unknown on line 0

Warning: Unknown: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct () in Unknown on line 0

Interesting features:

  • (bug 17002) Add &minor= and &summary= as parameters in the url when editing, to automatically add a summary or a minor edit.
  • (bug 11644) Add $wgMaxRedirects variable to control how many redirects are recursed through until the “destination” page is reached.

  • Add $wgInvalidRedirectTargets variable to prevent redirects to certain special pages.

    • I could use this to hide recent changes better.
  • (bug 16762) Special:Movepage now shows a list of subpages when possible
  • $wgSummarySpamRegex added to handle edit summary spam. This is used instead of $wgSpamRegex for edit summary checks. Text checks still use $wgSpamRegex
  • (bug 17886) Special:Export now allows you to export a whole namespace (limited to 5000 pages)
  • (bug 17714) Limited TIFF upload support now built in if ‘tif’ extension is enabled. Image width and height are now recognized, and when using ImageMagick, optional flattening to PNG or JPEG for inline display can be enabled by setting $wgTiffThumbnailType
  • Added $wgUseTwoButtonsSearchForm to choose the Search form behavior/look

  • Added $wgNoFollowDomainExceptions to allow exempting particular domain names from rel="nofollow" on external links

(date not recorded) – 1.7+ ∞

They switched to requiring PHP5 without any discussion from the community. Thanks guys!

Before, you wouldn’t support PHP5 if we begged, and now you switch and stop updating for PHP4. How nice.

  • I don’t know of any functionality to be able to create subpage [[/bar]] links which will point to /rootpage/bar instead of /rootpage/subpages/bar

    • Fixed after 1.6 when things transitioned to PHP5. Probably in 1.9 or thereabouts.

(date not recorded) – 1.6.10 ∞

Well, these days it seems that if I edit two different sections in two tabs at one time it’ll give me a conflict. It’s better than it used to be, which was to silently overwrite my changes. But it’s still really stupid. The entire point of editing sections is to avoid edit conflicts.

(date not recorded) – 1.6.5 ∞

  • solved from 1.3.10 — [[Recent changes]] should be maskable.. so I can eliminate changes from myself, or from specific users or whatever.

    • Resolved in 1.6.x

  • Why is this displayed strangely?

    • [http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html RFC 1855 - Netiquette Guidelines]
    • Resolved in 1.15.0 or earlier.

(date not recorded) – 1.5.7 ∞

Why doesn’t a URL to https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=123383&cid=10366123 work when passed to a template for display?

{{template|http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=123383&cid=10366123}}

A long time ago I noticed that when editing an item, at the bottom of the page was a GNU FDL phrase. This has since been corrected and displays the appropriate information.

  • [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2FArticleNews%2FTPStory%2FLAC%2F20041016%2FRUSSIAN16%2FTPEntertainment%2F%3Fquery%3Dfoo this link breaks]

    • It was later fixed.

(date not recorded) – 1.5 beta 1 ∞

  • I can search for “css” and transparently get “CSS”! Yay! Unfortunately linking is still case-sensitive.

    • Doesn’t seem to work in the same way I’ve seen it work elsewhere.

  • Be able to search with a term like "Template:{{CURRENTYEAR}}" where various variables are expanded..

  • If I have a master page which is filled with templates. And those templates have =header= entries. Then the master page will have all those headers. However, the master page’s non-template-generated headers will not be properly editable, because the header count will be wrong.. and the [edit] links will be confused.
  • The title of a page is missing when editing it.

  • Backlinks do not reveal any use of that page within a template.

resolved:
  • Adds a better MediaWiki:Sidebar editing function.

  • Adds a print tab, which needs work but at least it removes the extra crap.

  • I do not have accesskeys for the sidebar anymore. alt-z doesn’t go home. Everything else is working fine (alt-f, alt-e, etc)
  • Editing a regular page does not show the title of that page in the titlebar or header. They both just read “Editing”.

  • I can no longer protect a page.

(date not recorded) – 1.4.4 ∞

  • Cannot have one picture cleanly redirect to another. So if I have a small picture redirect to a larger one, the smaller picture is displayed even after redirecting.

  • Sometimes previews instead of saving.

    • The proper preferences have been set so it doesn’t preview every time.

  • Cannot make a link to a URL which has square brackets in it

(date not recorded) – 1.4.2 ∞

  • Cannot have an article name which begins with a lowercase letter (while case insensitivity is on)

    • There needs to be some sort of in-article command to adjust its title.. so that [[Main Page]] and [[main Page]] both go to the same place, but that place is displayed as “main Page”.
  • [[Google:multiple words]] are spewed out with underscores between the words ([[Google:multiple words]], [[Google:multiple%20words]] (%20), [[Google:Two+words]] does nothing)

  • quoted text in a URL appears in the link name: Cannot link to [http://example.org/something"quotes" test]. URLs must have %22 instead of " [http://example.org/something%22quotes%22 test]

I use an extension to let me use google thusly:

<google>two words</google>
resolved
  • 1.3.10: Could not create [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://example.com a link whose URL has an asterisk]

  • 1.3.10: [[Special:Blockip]] didn’t work vs usernames.

(date not recorded) – 1.4.0 ∞

  • Cannot have an article name which ends with a period.
  • customizing $wgUploadDirectory in LocalSettings.php does not work.

  • MediaWiki and PHP5 is now mostly obsolete.

(date not recorded) – 1.3.10 ∞

This list needs to be sorted through to see what’s still valid in 1.4.0, and I especially need to report this stuff.. something can’t be fixed if it’s not known.

Unfortunately, some earlier revision notes are also mixed in. 1.3.9 and 1.3.10 I believe.

  • Cannot upload a file with an apostrophe in the name.

  • Links to an image which don’t show it or its thumbnail are not picked up in its backlinks. For example [[:Image:kara1.jpg]]

    • 2017-07-15 – editor’s note – this did link to an actual image.
  • A colon at the beginning of a redirect to a category will allow redirection but the resulting page won’t display its category links.
  • There is no redirection notice if redirecting to a special page.
  • Create a ‘special’ page which lists all pages which redirect to an external link. Also provide an ‘edit’ button next to each page link.
  • If AA is a redirect to BB, then AA/Foo should go to BB/Foo.
  • Missing *bold* _underline_ /italics/ -strikethrough- =monospace= and more.
  • There doesn’t appear to be a block command which allows me to post text as-is, without the auto paragraphing butchering everything. I want to have a newline honoured instead of requiring two.

  • Superscript in a title does not appear superscripted in the table of contents.

    • More advanced TOC functionality would resolve this.. allowing one to not display superscripted elements, etc.
  • Cannot put square brackets around a link: [[[Name|1]]]
  • the watchlist is pathetic. God.
  • An ‘edit’ link should exist at the very top of a page, not just starting with the first section.
  • should come with a /favicon.ico
  • [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2FArticleNews%2FTPStory%2FLAC%2F20041016%2FRUSSIAN16%2FTPEntertainment%2F%3Fquery%3Dfoo this link breaks]
  • How do I get rid of the stupid graphic next to external links? Green text is good enough! [http://www.google.ca external]

  • Links should be case-insensitive! thislink = ThisLink. this link = This Link = this Link

  • When editing a new page, there is descriptive text which should be altered to include a JavaScript back command on the word “back”
  • When editing a page, hop the cursor into the edit window.
  • If I edit a bunch of stuff before logging in, and then I log in.. it should be as though all changes were made by my login name.
  • A space between two paragraphs is only rendered as a half-space. That’s sad. (template issue)
  • When editing a page/section which uses templates, provide a handy list of links on that edit page which point to all the edit pages for all the templates used. This makes life much easier for editors.

  • Can’t roll back if I’m the only author. How retarded is that?! “Rollback failed — Cannot revert edit; last contributor is only author of this page.”

    • .. and that’s bad grammarzorz!!!!11
  • Create [[Special:Templates]], just like how [[Special:Categories]] exists.

  • what interwiki links exist?

    • [[Google:Search Term]]
  • Be able to add sub-templates, as with {{/name}} for organization.
  • There should be a master-list of available templates.
  • ‘unprotect’ doesn’t have mouseover text.
  • As a preference, be able to protect new pages.
  • The various ‘lists’, such as the list of users, should only show the “next 100” etc.. if there are in fact enough entries in that list.
  • The bottom of a page displays the date/time it was last edited, but should also display the person who did the edit.

  • [[Special:Recent changes]] should be maskable.. so I can eliminate changes from myself, or from specific users or whatever.

    • Resolved in 1.6.x

  • The access counter should be administrator-configurable:

    • on/off
    • all/unique hits
    • hits in a certain time period
  • Be able to edit ‘special’ pages, such as [[Special:Recent changes]] to do such things as describe them in better detail.. the same way that categories are editable to allow that.
  • Blank spaces between sections are automatically chopped down to one after a section is edited.
  • There should be a show/hide minor changes button in the history of a page.

  • Be able to customize a copyright notice per-page.

    • Or customize the footer per-page.
  • Multiple edits within a certain timeframe should all be merged together in a page’s changelog. It’s pointless to do otherwise.

  • If I’m editing a page edit at the top should not be a link.

    • alt-e should not work.

  • The setup script should begin with the copyright selection, so the user isn’t forced to re-type all the junk if they switch to creative commons.

PHP5 ∞

See MediaWiki and PHP5

broken pages ∞

  • The text at the bottom of a page being edited is WRONG, and should be easily administrator-edited (i.e. online).

  • [[Special:Upload]] references [[Special:Image_use_policy]], which doesn’t exist.

    • It also references [[NAME:Copyrights]] as NAME:Copyright which is wrong, and [[NAME:Copyrights]] doesn’t exist.
    • It also has a Fixme link in it. Sigh.
  • the sidebar of the Classic skin references [[NAME:Bug reports]], which doesn’t exist.
  • editing a page references [[NAME:Copyrights]], which doesn’t exist.
  • editing a page gives an invalid message. See [[NAME:Copyrights]].

  • editing a protected page references [[NAME:Protected page guidelines]], which doesn’t exist.

comment templates ∞

Comment templates are useful for invisible Wiki badges.

If a page links a template which consists of only a comment, a note is displayed on the page:

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in g:\easyphp\www\includes\Parser.php on line 1851

That line of code is:

if ($matches[$i] == "" && $matches[$i + 1] == "") break;

The workaround is to have the template in question contain not a comment, but an item coloured to match the default template, as with:

<font color=white>.</font>

2006-07-07 – (version not recorded) ∞

The MediaWiki team just fucked me in the ass. They migrated to PHP5 without any previous discussion to be seen on the supposed developer mailing list. This leaves me and presumably bunches of other people out in the cold.

The only other discussion I’ve seen on PHP5 has all been very very terribly negative, so it looks like MediaWiki is going to spiral down towards its doom.

Hrmph.

Followup: I might be ok. There seem to be solutions. Well, the MediaWiki guys chose this route at the drop of a hat, without real discussion it seems. Yes, they chose this route and locked out the open source audience.. what a terrible thing to do. Well, I’m going to find a way to jump ship.

Fundamental shortcomings ∞

There are a number of fundamental shortcomings of MediaWiki which will NEVER be resolved because of its ties to the Wikipedia and its foundation.

In Wikipedia, but not in MediaWiki

Lots of stuff is available in the wikipedia and not packaged into MediaWiki itself because they don’t care about any user but Wikipedia. Packaging useful templates etc is not done because they don’t have to.

No user management

User management is an afterthought at best in MediaWiki because this functionality goes against the Wikipedia philosophies. Users must be maintained indefinitely in order to track edits.

Edits must be tracked for licensing and other reasons.

  • How can I remove users who have been inactive for a certain period (based on logins, edits)?
  • People remove entries from the database, and this has been reported as working fine with 1.5. A tool has been created for this, in the maintenance directory.

  • It’s not designed to allow this to happen, since this isn’t something they want with the wikipedia.

No revision management

  • Cannot merge revisions made by the same author (even revisions that happen within seconds of oneanother)

  • Cannot purge deletion history (all, or before a particular date)

MediaWiki shortcomings ∞

  • No way to manipulate the meta tags within a page. Perhaps an extension could do this.

  • Cannot actually permanently delete. Deleting only hides from non-administrators.

    • So for editors like myself who have many thousands of minor edits there are many thousands of revisions.
    • It took a while for mediawiki to stop keeping a complete page for every edit. This meant that I had really mindboggling bloat on my database, with no safe way to remove it. This made backing up my system extraordinarily tedious.
    • This was resolved by new functionality and a cleanup script in the maintenance directory.

  • Cannot nuke edits by a particular user (some alpha code exists but isn’t done)

  • All of one’s user page and its sub-pages ought to be automatically watchlisted. Heck, a separate watchlist just for that stuff would be useful..

    • There is functionality to customize the view of the watchlist, but it’s not really done yet.

  • A redirected redirect should be automatically corrected. If foo -> bar -> baz, then foo -> baz

    • [[Special:Double Redirects]]
    • and delete bar. I’d like to see auto-corrected links, where a link pointing to a redirect is itself automatically updated.

  • Links should not be case-sensitive. God that’s pathetic.

  • No inline backup/restore functionality.

  • There should be a proper way to remove the left sidebar.. a template has to be made.

MediaWiki security:

  • No complete spam protection. There is regex stuff but nothing serious.

    • Regex protection isn’t inline-editable. So it obliterates your edit instead of giving you a warning. Besides, an admin should be able to circumvent that protection at will.

  • No user/group fine-grained permissions structure.

    • Many many hackish attempts exist, few of which are kept updated and none of which are smiled upon by the developers.

Pages which should be included by MediaWiki by default ∞

  • [[MediaWiki:Uploadtext]] has several plain-text items which should be wiki links. This description looks like it’s from the mediawiki site too..
  • [[NAME:Help]] — editing a new page
  • [[Help:Editing]]
  • [[NAME:Copyrights]]

  • [[NAME:Book sources]] should be some sort of useful alteration of [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Book sources]]

4 comments

4 comments on “MediaWiki reviews”

  3. – Added notes from a 2005-08-17 journal entry
    – I assumed an earlier two blocks of notes are from 2006-04-18 and put them in their own section.

    Reply

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