Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard

Welcome to the interface administrators' noticeboard
This is the interface administrator noticeboard, for discussion of interface administrators and coordination of edits to the interface. Currently only interface administrators can undelete JS/CSS pages, if you have an uncontroversial undelete or deleted version retrieval request, please list it below. Any administrator can delete JS/CSS/JSON pages, for speedy deletions just use a CSD template on the page or its talk page. Individual requests for edits to interface or user JavaScript/CSS pages should continue to be made on their respective talk pages.
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Updated as needed. Last updated: 15:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Redlinked category

Special:WantedCategories has, not for the first time, a redlinked category populated solely by a user's .js settings page. The category is Category:New Pages — but obviously .js pages aren't supposed to be categorized at all, and there'd be no call for "creating" that category to serve any other purpose. So the category needs to come off the page, but I don't have the necessary privileges to edit other people's .js pages, and the user is a brand-new editor who so far has only edited their own .js and .css pages with absolutely no edits to anything else.

So could somebody who does have the necessary privileges remove the category from the page? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 15:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done (I dealt with this via the WP:VPT post. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:35, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Category redirect populated by awkward pages

Can someone go through the category redirect Category:LGBT+ Wikipedians and fix the js and css pages in it (or transcluded on the entries) so they are now in Category:LGBTQ+ Wikipedians? Thanks in advance. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Izno (talk) 17:55, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Removal of javascript

Hello. Can an admin please remove the wikibreak enforcer on User:TNM101/common.js please?

Thank you, TNM202 (talk) 07:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much! TNM202 (talk) 14:43, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I ask for help

Hello, dear administrators! I have been writing and editing in the Russian-language section of Wikipedia for almost 4 years. I am learning English and I want to take part in the work in the English-language section. I'm faced with the fact that I can't save edits, even asking for help or asking a question here is very problematic. The service does not allow me to save edits. I have never used proxies or other anonymizers. In the Russian-language section, I have extended rights, we call it Patrolling. The statistics for my account are here. I haven't been able to send this message for 24 hours. Please remove the restrictions from me. With respect, Znatokgoroda77 (talk) 06:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Znatokgoroda77. What error message are you getting when you try to save an edit? –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

You've exceeded your rate limit. Please wait some time and try again. Znatokgoroda77 (talk) 10:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm on mobile right now so I can't easily look up your exact rate limit, but a rate limit error means that you're trying to make too many edits per minute. The solution to this problem may be just waiting one minute when you receive this error message, and then making your edit after the one minute. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:03, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Znatokgoroda77, you can check your rate limits by visiting this API link. – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

For example, if your rate limit is {"edit":{"user":{"hits":90,"seconds":60}}}, that means you can make up to 90 edits in a minute. – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, I'm back at a computer. According to this, it should be 8 edits per minute for a new user. I'm scratching my head at how this user could be hitting the rate limit with such a low, spaced out edit count. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:46, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

If you run into the same issue again, please take a screenshot and upload it to https://postimages.org/. Just share the link here, and we'll be glad to help you fix it. – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:57, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much, dear administrators! I am very pleased that I have met sympathetic, caring people here.

After the response at 14:06, I wanted to send a thank you. And again, this problem arose. https://postimg.cc/9zxM4g5T/3d4a7b00

Thanks for the help! With respect, Znatokgoroda77 (talk) 05:53, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae

Now it's even worse(. Now he writes that he uses a bot, but I'm already an older person and I don't even know what it is. I don't use any bots. Now, when answering you, it says this:

1. As an anti-abuse measure, you are limited from performing this action too many times in a short space of time, and you have exceeded this limit. Please try again in a few minutes. If you are attempting to run a bot or semi-automated script, please read and understand our bot policy, then request approval. Users who run unauthorized bot scripts may lose their editing privileges.

2. You've exceeded your rate limit. Please wait some time and try again. Znatokgoroda77 (talk) 14:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Znatokgoroda77: Please make two more edits, and you'll be promoted to autoconfirmed. This will increase your rate limit to 90 edits per minute, which should help with the rate limit issue. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:19, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

1) Are you rate limited on Russian Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, or both? 2) Now he writes that he uses a bot. Who is "he"? Are you the one having rate limit problems, or is a different editor having rate limit problems? 3) Are you still getting an error? 4) If you are still getting the error message, is the error message still a rate limit message? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:46, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

This is common translation error in Russian to English (as is dropping articles): "его" means "it" but also "him". jp×g🗯️ 18:22, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

And why is this a WP:IANB matter anyway? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:16, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Possible blackout of en.wikipedia

Interface administrators; there is a now open RfC at this location requesting community input on a blackout protest over the ANI case in India and the WMF's response to it. Should the RfC conclude in favor, Interface Administrators will need to implement the result. This RfC is likely following an WP:IAR route and will possibly conclude within 24-48 hours if it snowball closes. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Blackouts require the database to be locked, which is not something interface admins can bring about. Implementation via interface changes alone would be a terrible idea as it opens up the site to vandalism through mobile apps, people editing with CSS adjustments or with javascript disabled, and so on, while patrollers are unable to access the site or use any JS-powered anti-vandalism tools – SD0001 (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

^ This. I've been considering technical implementations we could potentially do on our end since seeing that RfC, but without a database lock there's fundamentally nothing we can do to actually prevent a determined bad actor from editing Wikipedia. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:59, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

An alternate option would be a "click-through" blackout where pages would still be accessible behind the banner. Would that be technically possible? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Is that what people are actually voting to support? Is the expectation that you have to click through on every page load, or just the first visit to Wikipedia in that session? we should not be solutioning this *after* people are voting on it. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Iff folx do go down this route, could we please ensure theres an ID/class assigned to the banner so it can be easily hidden via some user CSS and/or implement a cookie so you only have to hide it once? When the mass of vandals find out how they can easily bypass this, it'll be really annoying for the patrollers to deal with the fallout if they have to close the banner every time. TNTPublic (talk) 19:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if it's possible to determine user permissions via JS but if it is, could it just use that to determine if it loads the blackout js vs a banner? LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 19:15, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Any JS-based solution would be easily circumvented by simply disabling browser JS, or by editing via the API. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:26, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

While still allowing for people with the perms to edit without added effort LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 19:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

This is probably hopelessly naïve, and is definitely a plan of last resort, but could we run a bot that reverts all edits within the 48/72 hour period? I see no reason why a bot would need JS enabled. Sincerely, Dilettante 20:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Not naive at all. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:07, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Or an edit filter that blocks all edits (I believe such has accidentally been created before). Sincerely, Dilettante 21:03, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

The edit filter extension has some failsafes to automatically disable filters with a high rate of matches. They might (or might not) interfere here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I suppose one solution, should the motion pass, would be to formally request the WMF to lock the database? Requires a hell of a lot of gumption! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

There are several volunteers who have the technical ability to lock the database. It's probably best not to rely on them, though, and assume we can't do anything not accomplishable on-wiki. For comparison the SOPA/PIPA blackout involved both a config change to disable write access server-side and a centralnotice, but all the code (still available on Meta as m:MediaWiki:Centralnotice-template-blackout, although it's bitrotted enough to no longer work as written) actually did was add some CSS and JS, both of which Iadmins were capable of doing locally. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:50, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Just a note, from something that went very wrong on another project: we should absolutely not consider anything that "logs out" the user. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:36, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I, am morbidly curious. LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 19:55, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Short answer is that we don't have accounts here - if you log out here you log out across the entire WMF production system. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I think technically the global session is stored in a different cookie (centralauth_Session versus enwikiSession). So it is in theory possible to log out from here without logging out globally. But I'm not volunteering to write such a script (nor do I see it as necessary at all) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:01, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

That's why it was a short answer :) But in general, it can cause big problems in a sloppy way. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:25, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) m:Steward requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12#Arabic Wikipedia protest forced logout script. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)