Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

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Upcoming migration to Parsoid

Hello everyone, I'm following up on the April announcement about the Parsoid migration as a heads-up about the completion of this work ahead of next week.

Parsoid has been the default parser on the English Wikipedia mobile web for the past month, serving nearly two-thirds of traffic, and many users have opted in since the April announcement. That, combined with our confidence framework, makes us confident that Parsoid is ready for the next phase for English Wikipedia and will be generally available soon.

Before we complete the transition to Parsoid for desktop, we encourage you to opt in, if you haven't already, and test your workflows to raise your concerns or issues you might have found that haven't surfaced in our tests and previous user feedback. To report bugs and issues, please look at our known issues documentation, and if you found a new bug, please report it through the "Report Visual Bug" link in the right sidebar, or create a Phabricator ticket and tag the Content Transform Team in Phabricator.

The documented known issues were considered non-blockers to the rollout due to their severity or impact and are being prioritized by our team for resolution as soon as possible once rollouts are complete.

There are also known differences between Parsoid and the legacy parser, and we have compiled instructions to help editors navigate these changes. MSantos (WMF) (talk) 09:29, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

I think PageAssessments which is primarily used on enwiki, isn't compatible with Parsoid. You might want to have that fixed first. – SD0001 (talk) 16:07, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. We are reviewing that extension behavior with/without Parsoid. If you have any test cases identified that point to an error, please let us know. After an initial analysis, the code represented by the comment does work with Parsoid in its current state but would prevent features we are planning for the future. Also, that type of issue would surface in the visual diff test so it doesn't seem to be a blocker to the roll-out. If it's a quick fix, though, we will do it before the roll-out. MSantos (WMF) (talk) 07:10, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I find it strange that phab:T221028 is not even mentioned in the known issues list or in the instructions page even though it's a change that breaks the links to many pages (like /) outside the main namespace. To me, such an issue should be enough to delay the migration until it is fixed but I guess we move fast and break things in these parts. Warudo (talk) 10:38, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I was confused by your "outside the main namespace". Apparently what this breaks is links to mainspace articles like //Khara Hais Local Municipality or /dev/zero, when the link appears in a space that allows subpages, like Wikipedia: or User talk: . —David Eppstein (talk) 19:40, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. We lost track of it over the years, and it's a very subtle change that can be tricky on visual diff testing. An initial analysis identified that this is not broken on the main namespace, so our sample didn't catch this type of behavior in the other namespaces. Either way, we are prioritizing this, but considering it not a blocker to the roll-out.

Our curated list of known issues is based on severity and impact that surfaced over visual diff testing in the past year or so. In case you believe this list is missing an important issue, please let us know. MSantos (WMF) (talk) 07:15, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with SD0001 that extensions in use on Wikipedia need to get a review for support in Parsoid (PageAssessments may not be the only one).

Section editing transcluded things is one of the biggest pain points remaining. There are some other bad display things as well, like how on mobile captions are display flex. There are existing tasks for these. English Wikipedia could use a round or two of visual delta testing for the N most-popular pages.

As I think I have said elsewhere, please make a dedicated location for English Wikipedia feedback when this goes live. We tend to be very noisy and I don't want VPT being swamped with all the potential issues.... Izno (talk) 23:29, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

The dedicated location for English Wikipedia feedback is a great idea and I haven't seen it before. I'll soon let you know where we can transfer that discussion to. Thanks for the suggestions and feedback.

Regarding the extension support audit: we have this tracking task for extensions support on Parsoid. However, Parsoid support legacy extensions as well and for some extensions we are working around the parser hooks and re-targeting the legacy parser while the extension doesn't use the Parsoid extension API, that means that these extensions, despite not converted to Parsoid yet will work normally with Parsoid during the roll-out.

That being said, the visual diff testing is another way we validate there's not something broken with the extensions. Of the test sample, 5% come from top-ranked pages, 10% come from the RC stream, 85% from the dump. For enwiki, we have run tests multiple times over the last year. The most recent run tested against about 39K titles across all namespaces. About ~14K from article namespace, and ~25K from everywhere else (10K user talk, ~5.5K talk, 2.5K user, and so on).

These tests would have surfaced issues with extensions, global gadgets, and scripts. What we can't test is specific user workflows with personal gadgets, scripts, etc. MSantos (WMF) (talk) 07:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Maybe advertise at WP:VPM too. I think I also suggested requesting a WP:Watchlist notice (and maybe WP:CENT but it's not a conversation right now I suppose). Izno (talk) 21:04, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Edit button is wonky

The "view | edit | history | purge" links on template documentation look incorrect, like [ | history ]. See Template:Template link for an example. It persists across Vector 2022, Vector legacy, and Monobook, but looks fine in Timeless. I'm guessing this is a WP:THURSDAY issue? Any help would be appreciated :) Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 20:10, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it's a Thursday issue, and one that I am to be blamed for (at least for requesting it, I didn't do the work). Izno (talk) 20:15, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

The relevant implementation task is phab:T268900. We will need to adjust onwiki. Izno (talk) 20:17, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Which actually doesn't have that many adjustment points, modulo whatever is happening in user space. [1] Izno (talk) 20:27, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Is the change from T268900 stable-ish? As in, should I start updating the userscripts that were affected, or would you recommend waiting a bit? I don't see any linked tickets/tasks on Phabricator and nothing pointing to future changes in comments, but maybe there's relevant discussion elsewhere that you know about. —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:49, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

phab:T268900#12045614. I suppose you can read the bit of chatter about list elements as potentially interesting. Izno (talk) 19:11, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Made an update to Module:Documentation that should fix the immediate impact for page-related actions for docs. (Personally I think it would look more consistent like this, too.) stjn 22:41, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Odd behaviour of tm:Reflist

I don't know if this is just me, but over the last week or so {{reflist}} doesn't put references into columns. The odd behaviour is that setting a column width of 30em causes the references to be in columns, but 30em is meant to be the default so it shouldn't cause a change. This is a problem that used to plague the use of references/ tags but I thought that was fixed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:10, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I just checked a few random articles and see no issues. Can you give an example of where you see it, also what skin do you use? KylieTastic (talk) 10:16, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I use the desktop site on mobile (Chrome on Android), using the vector 2010 skin. The odd part is the split behaviour, setting the default shouldn't change how it works. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:28, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I checked on desktop site on mobile Chrome on iPhone with vector 2010 skin and I don't get the issue. I guess wait and see if anyone else is experiencing the same issue. KylieTastic (talk) 13:34, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Im wondering if something upstream has made a change that is checking my screen aspect ratio when formatting the references in the page, and is overriding my request for the desktop site when it comes to how references are displayed. I know they've been working in that area. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:39, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Are there more than 10 references in the reference list you're looking at? The default behavior doesn't add columns until after that. Otherwise, giving specific details as to what page you're looking at, and any other details that might be relevant, would help people look. Anomie⚔ 11:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Thousands of reference, I'm well aware of the default behaviour. Any, and all, pages. This isn't an isolated incidence but every page I've look at over the last week or so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:25, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Hmm. You said that {{reflist|30em}} makes columns for you, but how about {{reflist|33.3333em}}? For hysterical raisins, the column width passed to {{reflist}} is multiplied by 0.9. OTOH, if you're using Vector 2022 in "Standard" width or Minerva, the default column width is actually 27em (gerrit:1185300→gerrit:1238682→gerrit:1238683) which does correspond to {{reflist|30em}}. Anomie⚔ 12:56, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes {{reflist|30em}} makes columns but {{reflist}} doesn't. I was expecting these to have the same behaviour. I remember a discussion about the use of <reference>...</reference> and that it doesn't apply sizing using the same method as {{reflist}}, but I think that was fixed. That used to produce the same inability to produce columns correctly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

You are probably thinking of WP:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 223#c-DLynch (WMF)-20250907014600-Anomie-20250904114700 / phab:T334941 (which got fixed indeed). Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, you have a much memory (or searching skills) than me. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:50, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

phab:T334941 got fixed by having Vector 2022 set 27em rather than 30em. Later, {{reflist}} was changed to apply the font size in the same way that <references /> does, but it intentionally handles specified widths like {{reflist|30em}} in a way that gives the same column width that it did previously. That's in part to not break 2-columns on Vector 2022 where {{reflist|30em}} had worked before but wouldn't with the new method (i.e. the same reason that phab:T334941 was fixed by lowering it to 27em for Vector 2022). Anomie⚔ 00:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

So reflist was changed to match reference tags rather than the other way round, and then only vector 2022 was changed to fix the issue? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:27, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I think you have that backwards, Vector 2022 was changed first. Anomie⚔ 11:52, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

But still why was Vector 2022 changed and not the incorrect behaviour of reflist, it seems like a weird bodge. Any chance this can be fixed by some personal CSS? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

In Vector 2022 with its default settings, <references /> would display only one column when people expected two. That's why things were changed for that skin. {{reflist}} was changed because people were complaining about differences between it and <references /> that were holding up implementation of this RFC; reducing the differences was a way to resolve that. As for personal CSS, you might try something along the lines of .mw-references-columns { column-width: 27em !important; }. Anomie⚔ 23:15, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

For an extreme example, see User:Jonesey95/vector-2022.css#L-432. Use at your own risk. No warranty is offered or implied. No motorcycles after 3 pm. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks Jonesey95, I'll fiddle about with it to see if I can get the reference section to work correctly again. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 06:52, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I tried 27em, and it seems to be working for my purposes. Thanks again. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 06:58, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes but it's not only Vector 2022 where reference tags didn't always produce correct columns, the issue was with reference tags not Vector 2022. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 06:51, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: You shouldn't need the !important annotation, and since the declaration-blocks are identical the three rules at lines 433-443 may be reduced to one:

.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2,
.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns,
.mw-references-columns {
    column-width: 23em;
}

--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Tha KS, just tested it out and it's working the same for me. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Proposal to refactor the way Template:Location map works in Infoboxes

Moved to Module talk:Location map § Proposal to refactor the way Template:Location map works in Infoboxes

 – Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:56, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Email??

Why are we getting a 'email confirmation notice', for signing in? GoodDay (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Was it because it was a "Login from an unfamiliar device" which is a notification option Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo which you can turn off if you want. KylieTastic (talk) 19:20, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

It's a message for setting up your account. GoodDay (talk) 19:27, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

You may be seeing a banner we recently added that specifically shows to users who have not confirmed the email address on their account. If that's what you are seeing, then it means you likely never clicked on the link to confirm your email address that was sent when you first created your account. In that case, you should follow the link to confirm your email address.

Wikipedia has a high rate of users in this situation, as we haven't historically required users to complete email confirmation before allowing them to edit. But it's not a good situation for those users to be in, since they're going to be more likely to get locked out of their account if the email isn't something they actually control, and the day ever comes where they lose their credentials or get challenged to paste in a code from their email to log in. EMill-WMF (talk) 02:32, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

A little background in case you are still unsure what it's about: At some time you gave an email address which is stored at Special:Preferences. At the time Wikipedia automatically sent a mail to that address and asked you to click a link to confirm you have access to mail sent to the address, but the link was never clicked. If you don't receive a mail after using Special:ConfirmEmail then try setting another address at Special:Preferences. It's optional to set an email address. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:20, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't use my email at all & never have. Just want the banner removed. GoodDay (talk) 09:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Either confirm or remove the email address to get the banner removed. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:20, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Tried to remove email, but all I get is "verify your identity". GoodDay (talk) 18:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Doesn't it ask you to log in when it says that? I get a login page saying "You must log in again to verify that you are PrimeHunter." PrimeHunter (talk) 20:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't logged out, in days. GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@GoodDay: You aren't asked to log out and it doesn't work if you do. Just enter your username and password to confirm you are GoodDay. It's a security measure so somebody else cannot change your email address if they get access to a device where you are logged in. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I think I got it. Left blank & submitted. The banner is now gone. GoodDay (talk) 20:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm glad you resolved it for yourself. I do at least want to be on record here for the thread, that we strongly recommend you add a confirmed email, rather than remove it.

I mentioned above that accounts are at higher risk of lockout with an unconfirmed email. The risk is way, way higher with no email at all, as there's not even a way to reset your password. We also can't use email challenges to protect your account from takeover. So you are free to remove your email, but just know that there are risks and it is not recommended for most accounts. EMill-WMF (talk) 22:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes visual editor will undo my changes and other errors

See item posted to help desk --> Wikipedia:Help desk#Sometimes visual editor will undo my changes and other errors . --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:40, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Should also add this mainly happens when I'm using something like Quillbot to make ONLY changes to spelling and grammar. I NEVER use its generative AI. I tested it with a non-AI extension called Harper and had the same thing happen. Wolfcolallc (talk) 03:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Wolfcolallc those kinds of tools are known to work very badly with editable HTML (which is what Visual Editor is). There's a lot of browser dependent magic that is needed in these things and then on top of that there's even more magic needed to keep wikitext and html in sync. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

The top right of VisualEditor has a pencil icon which can switch to the source editor where some tools work better. I suggest to use both "Show preview" and "Show changes" before saving. The latter can reveal unwanted source code changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:39, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I’ll try that! I’m also just not using the auto-fix features anymore and noticed that I’m not having the same issue. Wish it worked but it is what it is. Wolfcolallc (talk) 20:03, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

My recent deleted contributions

On June 22 I marked some pages with speedy because I needed the respective titles to be cleared out for other pages to be moved to them. I didn't note down the pages where I added speedy. Would anyone be so kid to give me their list? Thanks! (Please ping.) Gikü (talk) 18:19, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Gikü: Your recent deleted contributions appear to be speedy tags on Nădăștia, Haiducești, and Pușcașu. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:41, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you @David Eppstein! And I am grateful to @KylieTastic for acting on my proposed rename operations. All the best! Gikü (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Android app isn't rendering a hyperlink in a hatnote

I added a disambiguation hatnote "For similarly named things, see Avant Gardener (disambiguation)" to Avant Gardner, but the Wikipedia Android app doesn't render the "Avant Gardener (disambiguation)" part as a hyperlink. Hence the user cannot click through to the disambiguation page.

The browser view of the page does render that as a hyperlink, so I'm wondering if there's a fault with the Wikipedia app. A bit iffy (talk) 10:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

It renders correctly in the app on my IPhone. Electricmemory (talk) In solidarity 11:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Now fixed? I asked a dev, and they purged (WP:PURGE) the cache for the page, and the link is now visible for me in the app. [The quote at the top of mw:Naming things is often true!]. Hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'd quite forgotten about PURGE. A bit iffy (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Images at top of page on mobile?

Since this morning, opening pages in a browser on my phone loads all images contained within in squares at the top of the page. Why on earth is this a thing? Electricmemory (talk) In solidarity 11:22, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

This also causes problems with pages like List of tallest buildings in New York City which contain a large number of images. That page just took nearly two minutes to load on a fully updated IPhone with a high-speed connection… Electricmemory (talk) In solidarity 11:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Where is the option to remove these images? Parcly Taxel 12:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't found a disable option. I have found several pages claiming it exists. Some claim it's under "Appearance" at Special:Preferences, at least if you are in mobile or Minerva. Some claim it's under "Beta". Some claim it's under "Settings" if you click the hamburger menu in mobile. Most places don't give a name of the alleged setting. One place claims it's called "Disable image carousel on the mobile site". Several posters at mw:Talk:Readers/Reader Growth/Image Browsing also want a way to disable it. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:14, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

You can hide it with this in your CSS:

.mmv-carousel {display:none;}

The feature will still be loaded and use resources. It will merely be hidden by the browser. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:23, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

A post 30 minutes ago at mw:Talk:Readers/Reader Growth/Image Browsing#Where's the setting to turn this off? says: "There was a bug in the release that prevented the user preference from displaying. We've deployed a fix and it should be available shortly via Preferences > Appearance." PrimeHunter (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

"Enable image carousel on the mobile site" has now been added to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering when you are viewing the mobile version. It's enabled by default. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:02, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

"Image carousel" has been changed back to an opt-in Beta feature at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:45, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

OK. When a reproducible means of disabling the carousel from preferences is available, please report it here. I have in the meantime added the magic word __NOMEDIAVIEWERCAROUSEL__ to Icosahedral symmetry and can confirm its validity. Parcly Taxel 13:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Full launch of the Image Carousel feature, and various previous discussions around the roll-out of that feature. TL;DR: WMF thinks it'll get more readers. Anomie⚔ 12:44, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Jesus Christ, all they do is add non requested features to justify their wages Yacàwotçã (talk) 15:12, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

+1 Alexcalamaro (talk) 06:24, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

RfC on Image Carousel started

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on the new Image Carousel feature. Fram (talk) 15:55, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Image?

Hi—on Brazilian football referee Romualdo Arppi Filho there's an image showing Costa Rican assistant referee Berny Ulloa in the centre, NOT Arppi Filho, but I cannot find it in the editing source nor visually. Is that a glitch? Can anyone remove the pic? CoryGlee 19:28, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

A disruptive editor added that image to Wikidata. I have removed it. It is unclear to me why this editor, who was blocked with the reason "user was already previously blocked indefinitely with several accounts", did not have their edits reverted. Maybe they do things differently at Wikidata. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Even we allow edits to remain here, whether due to laze or because the edits themselves are fine. Izno (talk) 20:11, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Unable to change email or log in on new sessions

My wikipedia account (9pfs) is tied to an email address that I no longer have access to, but I have the credentials for the account and even (as demonstrated by this) have an active session that I can edit with. I have tried to log in on new sessions or remove my email address, and every time am forced to attempt to get a verification code via email. Am I out of options for removing or changing the email address and therefore maintaining long-term access to my account? If not, what are my options? I am aware of Template:Committed_identity, which seems like it may work, but that seems like it would be misleading to attempt to use that, as my account is not in fact compromised, only somewhat inaccessible, as well as excessively time-consuming and complex. 9pfs (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Not misleading to use that, in fact it should be added before an account is suspected to be compromised for it to work, so you're having the right use case! Chaotic Enby (in solidarity · talk · contribs) 00:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

You might also try Special:AccountRecovery, which may need to be done from a new session. Anomie⚔ 01:16, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I had already tried that and gotten my attempt rejected by whoever reviews recovery requests, but I don't need to try at this time (the issue has been resolved, in other words), as my account had its email removed due to excessive email delivery failures 1 hour ago (unsure whether that was due to manual intervention or just a fun coincidence with an automated system)

on that note, I do wonder if doing multiple password reset attempts and hoping the email gets removed would be a valid method to regain access to my account if I have this issue in the future. 9pfs (talk) 01:22, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Can I double check... You were already logged in, went to Special:Preferences, Change or remove email, were asked to re-auth (effectively log in) at that point, but it was trying to get you to input a code it tried to send you? That would be understandable for new login attempts, but for a re-auth for an event like that, not so much... And yeah, we should also look at what happened with your account recovery request... Reedy (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Your description of events is correct, @Reedy. 9pfs (talk) 02:57, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

They are now experimenting with the "Tools" button?!

I just found out minutes ago again, and once again sorry if I place this here, but here's the story again. I was at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hirsch Bedner Associates and wrote my comment to delete the article. Once I wrote my comment, I went to CAPTCHA just because I wondered if the {{more citations needed}} template was there. And, guess what, the Tools button has been updated. Previously it said "Tools" with a dropdown button icon, and now it's three dots. This is also breaking the Twinkle tab buttons. What's going on to Wikipedia right now? – SimpleObjects-9ei 🏖️/☀️/🥵 (🌎 CentralAuth) 18:38, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

24 June (pre-update)

25 June (post-update)

I don't know where this "Tools" button is, but my Twinkle menu, which appears as "TW⌄" to the right of "Watch" or "Unwatch", is now about five pixels higher than the links in that Page/Talk/Read/Edit/View history/Watch bar (in Vector 2022). I have a lot of custom CSS for Vector 2022, so I can't tell what's broken, but it looks like some sort of Thursday change was pushed out that changed some CSS. Either Twinkle or my custom CSS will probably need to be adjusted. (Also, the new "Unwatch" text is a pixel or two higher than the other links, but I have reported Vector 2022 bugs like this in the past with limited results. Someone else is welcome to tilt at that windmill.)– Jonesey95 (talk) 19:08, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

I suspect this one is simply a bug and needs to be filed upstream. Izno (talk) 19:56, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

26 June

It looks normal to me. @Jonesey95, I'm guessing this is your custom CSS instead. --rchard2scout (talk) 07:02, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

@rchard2scout, this was likely some issue that WMF developers forgot to patch during the initial rollout of the update, just like how Mojang releases Minecraft snapshots (for Java) every Tuesday and there's always at least one issue (or critical issue, such as game crashes) in them. The same applies to Wikipedia; The new Tools button is part of the MediaWiki 1.47/wmf.8 update, which first rolled out on 23 June 2026, and technically broke the Twinkle buttons too... This new Tools bar change is likely:

git #7d0b4d29 - Use codex button styles on watchstar link in page toolbar and increase watchstar icon size (T429384) (T428519) by bernardwang

There's only fourteen more mentions of the word "tool" in the 1.47/wmf.8 release notes. The text mentions Codex, the thing the new Tools button is composed of, and of what I've talked about before. I have never used any other custom CSS in my life and still got the Twinkle bug. – SimpleObjects-9ei 🏖️/☀️/🥵 (🌎 CentralAuth) 14:07, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

FWIW, the TW menu is back in the right place for me. Maybe someone updated something, or maybe I just needed to be patient. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:11, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

IDK what caused the Tools bar change. Izno (talk) 19:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

phab:T429258 Izno (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

This is really poor. I use that Tools menu all the time as part of editing and using scripts etc, whereas the Watch / Unwatch star, which I press only rarely, now has a full word attached to it. This seems entirely the wrong way around. Why are WMF even tinkering with this anyway, did anyone think it was broken before? Obviously we can still click the hamburger thing, but having a big wide Tools menu made it that little bit easier. I know this will fall on deaf ears, but we should go back to the Watch button being just a star, and a full Tools menu. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:56, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

+1 to this. Physically easier to hit something I need to hit a lot. And when it's popped out to be visible in the sidebar, it's called "Tools" there. Best to have the same identifier regardless of location to clarify that it's the same thing. Simple check-box-like button for a simple on/off feature that is at least somewhat self-explanatory and consistent with other websites and apps for pinning/tagging. DMacks (talk) 16:15, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi all thanks for flagging these issues. We hadn't realize the recent changes to Vector 2022 would impact certain gadgets and we're working with the gadget developers to address the alignment issues. As with any breakage to gadget per the frontend stable policy please let us know if there are APIs we can prioritize to avoid issues like this happening again.

Regarding the switching of the tools menu to ellipsis, we are actively working to improve this area of the UI to balance various problems we are seeing there and would really appreciate any feedback you have on T428520. Jon (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

@Amakuru @DMacks @Izno @Jon (WMF) @Jonesey95 @Rchard2scout The TW button was also moved to the most "right" place (by direction) it can be, somewhere between the "☆ Watch" normal bar and the "Page" Twinkle bar. But this only happens when going to user or user talk pages, and I first noticed it when going to User talk:~2026-37048-80. Any thoughts on the, of what I could possibly call, "Wikimedia Foundation's secret update" or "1.47/wmf.8.5", or is this just unrelated to the new Vector changes? – SimpleObjects-9ei 🏖️/☀️/🥵 (🌎 CentralAuth) 14:23, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dashboard/Help noticeboards appears to be broken

This template appears to be broken, the Teahouse section appears to be missing a closing brace, I've tried to track down the problem but not really sure where to look, so hoping someone here has some idea. Giulio 18:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't like [[Wikipedia:Teahouse#What_does_"{{!}_}"_mean?]]. I've fixed that section heading slightly so it now only displays a broken link to that specific section rather than messing with the whole page. * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 19:03, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons why it's a bad idea to put braces into a section heading, even when they aren't actual template transclusions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:11, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Interface message to configure default block expiry for temporary accounts

MediaWiki's default block expiry for TAs is 3 months. I vaguely recall there's an interface message to change this; does anyone know what its name is? NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:41, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Found it: MediaWiki:Ipb-default-expiry-temporary-account. The default also isn't 3 months, but undefined. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:49, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

The default is in fact indefinite. Izno (talk) 23:51, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

@Izno: Are you sure about that? testwiki:Special:Block/~2026-10336-78 is set to "Preset duration" by default with no option selected. testwiki:MediaWiki:Ipb-default-expiry-temporary-account doesn't exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh (talk • contribs) 23:57, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I had thought this was a different option. Izno (talk) 00:18, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Template:Netflix title

Hello, I'd like to inquire about the use of Template:Netflix title. The template page states that it is only for Netflix original programs, original films, and original stand-up comedy specials. However, this template is often used for non-original shows as well. Should this documentation be updated, or should this template be removed from non-original show pages? Thank you. WillsonEP09 (talk) 09:22, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

This is ultimately a question about external link policy. Given that WP:ELYES#2 says that An article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a legally distributed copy of the work as long as WP:ELNO doesn't say otherwise we have a decent argument for inclusion. On the other hand we have ELNO#6 which says that we shouldn't link pages requiring registration in most cases which includes this making it so we shouldn't link Netflix in these cases. I think the guidance to only link Netflix for originals is sound given that those could conceivably count as official links although WP:ELOFFICIAL gives a more stringent definition of official that wouldn't include these shows. My feeling is that the template should be removed from non-originals when used in the external link section. Trialpears (talk) 10:37, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library not available

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T430155

Haven't been able to access this all day on any browser. Error page reads: "Wikimedia Cloud Services.This web service cannot be reached. Please contact a maintainer of this project." This doesn't seem to be a general issue because there's nothing on the WMF status page: "All Systems Operational." Any suggestions, please?--AntientNestor (talk) 09:58, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

See phab ticket T430155, it's being worked on. KylieTastic (talk) 10:37, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Grateful thanks for the update. Not my end, then! AntientNestor (talk) 10:48, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I was just coming to post about this. Simonm223 (talk) 11:19, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Up again. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:35, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Filtering profession categories for active editors

Many Category:Wikipedians by profession categories would be a lot more helpful if it was possible to filter them to editors who are active (and sometimes also to editors with certain user rights). Is there a gadget or other tool that'd make this possible? Sdkb ^talk 18:11, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a ready-made tool or gadget, but this is easy to query for if you're a bit more specific (which subcategory, how recent an edit qualifies an editor as active, which right(s) to filter for). Or I suppose I could throw together a fairly generic query if you think you'd be comfortable with cutting-pasting-modifying sql. —Cryptic 19:58, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

In this case I'm looking for something like Category:Wikipedian artists who have are at least extended-confirmed and have edited in the past month.

But I've been interested in a similar query for other categories, and think it could benefit other editors in other circumstances, so it'd be good to have a modifiable query that could perhaps be documented on the category page and adapted as needed.

Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 23:43, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

User:Sdkb/Wikipedians by profession. —Cryptic 15:49, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Appin (company)

I've recently answered a second opinion request on Appin (company) GAN, however, when I tried to update the GAN status on its Talk page then the entire GAN review disappeared. How can it be restored since it is still in progress for the nominator and reviewer there? ErnestKrause (talk) 00:41, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

ITN archives too big to properly render templates

Post-expand include size on these pages is 2,097,152 out of 2,097,152 bytes, what can be done about this? See e.g. Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/June 2025#(Closed) M23 campaign, or Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/July 2025#RD: James Carter Cathcart. sapphaline (talk) 09:10, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

The most wasteful template on them so far is template:ITN candidate. Removing it from the "(Closed) M23 campaign" section reduces its post-expand include size from 10,532 to 2,916 bytes (-7,616). sapphaline (talk) 09:26, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

It's a necessary template to follow the discussions so it cannot just be removed but would have to be optimized. Portal:Current events/2025 June 30 is both linked and transcluded at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/June 2025#June 30, and so on for the other days until the limit is broken. The 30 transclusions use 948,462 bytes in total, 45% of the limit for the whole page. Removing them would fix the problem. Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded currently shows 107 ITN archives at [2] so the issue is widespread. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:07, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Recently at Portal talk:Current events, there was a suggestion of switching per-day subpages from a wrapping template, which doubles PEIS, to a pair of templates, which wouldn't have this problem. The suggestion hasn't been implemented.

How much would this help with ITN archives? —⁠andrybak (talk) 12:50, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

There was a related discussion here a few months ago on WT:ITN:Usernamekiran (talk · contribs), who designed ITN's posting archiving system, said he was interested, but wanted more consensus. — Knightoftheswords 08:42, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Due to some personal reasons, I'm still at my native place, and not at my hometown (these two have different meaning here). I do not have a computer here, neither the time. I am hoping I will be back to my hometown in 5-7 days. I will definitely comment something concrete then. @Knightoftheswords281: thank you for the ping, it is genuinely appreciated. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:45, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

No problem, take your time! — Knightoftheswords 18:05, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Rewriting {{ITN candidate}} to Lua could probably remove much of the PEIS impact. Parser function soup gets counted exponentially for the purposes of PEIS while Lua could do as much as it wants and it’s only ×2 impact on PEIS. (There is also similarly strange situation in {{Main page image}} that has its code in wikitext but also has Module:Main page image doing only the barest minimum instead of all of it.) stjn 23:12, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Crimean Khans

Around 2025, someone changed the birth and death dates of several Crimean Tatar khans in several biographies. It would be worth reviewing these, there are good dates on the other-language wiki pages. For exapmle: Adil Giray. ~2026-37078-69. And: [3], [4] (talk) 14:11, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-37078-69: This is not a VPT matter. Try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Though this isn't the right venue, I've gone ahead and addressed this issue on your behalf. The changes were all made by the same unregistered editor who gave no edit summaries and provided no references for their changes. In a few cases their changes created contradictions with the article text or were blatantly absurd such as pushing back someone's birth by decades such that their father would have been only 3 years old at the time. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 23:15, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Geresh and gershayim render incorrectly on mobile app

I use a Samsung Galaxy S23 with Android 16. On the Wikipedia mobile app, the Hebrew punctuation characters geresh (׳‎) and gershayim (״) render incorrectly when used with the serif font setting. Specifically, they render as curly quotes, when they should always be rendering as straight quotes. MrSwedishMeatballs (talk) 13:53, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Weird issue when using incognito mode on mobile website without signing in

Hello.

Unfortunately I realize that the issue here is inherently difficult to demonstrate due to my inability to take screenshots on incognito mode, but I'll do my best to describe it.

I frequently browse using incognito mode because my phone has very little storage and this way I'm not clogging the chrome app's cache. I know that's a bit silly, but at this point it's a habit.

The last day or so, when logged out (and sometimes when logged in, although I can't recreate it at the moment) a white, unclickable bar appears at the bottom of the screen, blocking whatever content would be displayed there. It seems to mostly be triggered by scrolling, especially scrolling down, and can sometimes be dismissed by scrolling back up, but it's not at all consistent.

It's about the same size as the "add topic" ribbon that floats on the bottom of this page while scrolling up, it's a few pixels taller. I tried to recreate it outside of incognito mode to obtain a screenshot and it didn't occur. Thinking about it, this may have started around the same time as the photo carousel thing did? I'm not entirely certain.

It's not a huge problem but it is a bit of a usability issue, has this happened to anyone else?

EDIT: It is happening again now and I'm logged in. Moderately obnoxious. EllieDellie (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

This might be phab:T330386 again. I've seen some things flickering myself. @EllieDellie? Ponor (talk) 16:57, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Interesting! It's not literally the "add topic" button in my case; it's just completely white and blocks the clicking or viewing of anything below it. It also doesn't flicker like that, it comes and goes but not that rapidly. It might be a related error though. EllieDellie (talk) 18:09, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Faulty example for beginners?

Posting here for visibility. Does anyone know if there is something that is default autofilling for new users who create a new sandbox a standard (but faulty) script of

{{User sandbox}}
== <!-- EDIT BELOW THIS LINE --> ==

or where there is a guide written about creating a sandbox draft that would have this exact statement as an example? I ask because the second line violates MW:Help:Lint_errors/empty-heading and triggers an empty heading error, and I'm cleaning up a few cases of these each and every day going on for multiple months now. And despite my completely nulling out the backlog of these, they keep reappearing identically with consistency. Anyone know?

If there is an example case where this is displayed for new editors, it needs to remove the == header notation and be changed to the following to be error free:

{{User sandbox}}
<!-- EDIT BELOW THIS LINE -->

Thanks for reading, and hopeful for any insight or resolution on the culprit source of this reoccurrence. Zinnober9 (talk) 22:58, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

When I start the process to create my personal sandbox using the link in the drop down menu on the top right, the link specifies that the sandbox is prefilled with the contents of {{User sandbox/preload}}, which doesn't have any headings. Perhaps the new users are using Visual Editor, and with the cursor on the comment line (where it starts initially), they're changing the paragraph style to "Heading", which corresponds to a level 2 heading. isaacl (talk) 00:32, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

A search finds effectively none of such patterns except in Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing as an example of AI writing. Which is probably your answer. Izno (talk) 00:45, 29 June 2026 (UTC)