User:Useight/RFA Subjects/Technical problems

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Note for new sysops who find they are not sysops (Archive 3)

Our software stores user information not only in the database but also in memcached. If a developer makes someone a sysop in the database but doesn't clear the memcached key, the user can be spontaneously de-sysopped. This occurs because if a change is made to the user data, the script loads it from memcached and then saves it to the database. If anyone finds that they are not a sysop when they have been told they are, they should report it immediately. Fixed in this case [DavidLevinson]. -- Tim Starling 00:25, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

Software system? (Archive 10)

Hi have a look at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-February/014199.html -- Optim 21:50, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

and http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-February/010259.html -- Optim 21:52, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Note to Developers (Archive 10)

I know you're busy, but RfA is getting crowded. It looks to me like at least Meelar, CatherineMunro, Roadrunner, and Seglea have made it in, if not a few more. (Depending on how long they need to be here before advancing.) Could you promote a few of these excellent people? I appreciate it, Jwrosenzweig 16:38, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My god, Roadrunner has been here since December 23! And I thought the 2 weeks (IIRC) I was here was a long time. →Raul654 20:47, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)
That's because he didn't accept it until just the other day Sarge Baldy 20:51, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

Counting edits (Archive 21)

Not really sure what the best place for this is, but since it's mostly an issue here, this'll do :-)

Developers can now check the number of edits from a user very quickly, without loading the database - if possible, it's helpful to ask a developer to do this rather than going back to the start in a user's contribution history, which puts a lot of strain on the database and sometimes doesn't work anyway (due to timeouts from it taking too long). Thanks — Kate Turner | Talk 06:19, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Edit issue (Archive 25)

Just added a vote to PMC's request for adminship. It shows in the subpage but isnt showing on the main page. Can anyone shed light on this? Thanks. FT2 21:54, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

  1. Purge the page with the link near the top. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 21:55, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Figured it was a cache issue, didn't know how. Thanks :) FT2 22:15, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Notice: Admin promotions suspended (Archive 31)

Please note: A bug in the system is preventing bureaucrats from setting admin rights. This does not affect a candidate's RFA, or the RFA process. All sucessful RFA candidates will be added to wikipedia:Recently created admins but not wikipedia:List of administrators till the bug is sorted out. Developers have already been notified.

Special:makesysop is used to set admin rights. Currently an error: "page not recognized by Wikipedia" is being displayed. If this is rectified, a message "you do not have permission to access..." will be displayed. Bureaucrats will be checking this page periodically, but if you notice the page up before a bureaucrat does, please feel to contact any one of them ([1]). =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Does this effect only makesysop or other flags as well? Like bot flags for example? Just waiting on one atm so just wondering. ∞Who?¿? 06:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well bot flags are the responsibility of stewards. I really don't know about the bot situation. As of now, bureaucrats have little power. They can't rename users, or set admin rights. They can only close RFAs. :( =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
That I didn't know. One would think that a bureaucrat would be able to at least rename, but that a different discssion :) Thanks for the info. ∞Who?¿? 06:47, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you are basically impotent right now, maybe we should start calling you lambies.  :-) Dragons flight 15:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well I just came from meta, and bot tags are suspended too, same bug. Figured I would answer my own question here in case anyone else wondered. And I wonder wonder.. Who who who.. And I was more partial to the title Big Kahuna, makes me feel like we're at the beach. ∞Who?¿? 19:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Stopping nominations (Archive 31)

Well, the makesysop function has still not been sorted out. (See story above). I strongly feel that we should pause all new nominations till the bug is sorted out. IMO its unfair to give the candidate a licence but not the keys to adminship. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:24, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess it's a moot point, now, but it didn't bug me in the slightest to get the license with the keys only promised later. I would've voted for continuing nominations. Jdavidb 20:40, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I certainly agree. Until makesysop is fixed, there should be a moratorium on promotions and new nominations. — Dan | Talk 05:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Just don't stop the ones running already. Titoxd 05:37, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I meant new noms. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, so did I. Sorry if it was unclear. — Dan | Talk 05:41, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I knew you meant that, only that I wanted to make sure of it. By the way, I was BOLD and posted a notice about the problem at the top of the page. Feel free to revert if necessary. Titoxd 05:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the notice. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I've also been bold and amended the notice slightly so that people know they can still vote on the nominations currently listed. Grutness...wha? 05:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

A developer weighs in

That's silly. Tim can just promote them with a SQL query. 

UPDATE user SET rights = 'sysop' 
WHERE username='Graft'

That will still work, regardless of any bug in the makesysop function. Uncle Ed, Developer Emeritus 13:21, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I see no reason to not continue with business as usual. Friday (talk) 15:04, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
That's true. However, I don't know how often we should be bugging Tim Starling to do this, after all, he's got better things to do than to do bureaucrats' jobs. But I'm pretty sure that he can "mass promote" the nominations that are on the holding bin already. Titoxd 18:20, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, the situation is the same in meta I heard. (see the related post above). We have a backlog of 8 at this very moment, and the rate of new noms keep on increasing. If Tim can mass promote, good enough, but as Tito mentions above, Tim must be having more pressing tasks. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:29, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I just checked Special:Makesysop, and it says "Permission denied." From what Nichalp said earlier, I think that means that it is fixed, so I've gone ahead and removed the big red notice tag and presume that RfA will operate normally now. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 20:03, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Confirmed by Tim Starling. It's fixed! Many thanks to him for fixing it. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 20:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
Yipeee! =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

"Vote here" link (Archive 33)

Sorry to bring up something serious but the Vote here link isn't working for candidates Denelson83 and Rd232. Anyone know how to fix? The code looks good. --hydnjo talk 01:35, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

AHA! As the writer for Template:RfA I see my mistake. Allow me to fix it. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

OK - Thanks. --hydnjo talk 01:38, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Fixed. Here was the problem: I said /{{{user}}}, so users who have been nominated more than once would get their first nom. Now I made it {{PAGENAMEE}}, so it'll work on all future RfA's. But as the ones there were subst:'d they won't be affected. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Hope anyone wanting to vote for them knows enough to work around (or shouldn't be voting anyway). --hydnjo talk 02:35, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate's tool... (Archive 34)

...again is not working for me (at the new link BDAb passed along). It gives a long caveat about edit count not being important and does not provide a count. My general thought on the issue, incidentally, is that the overall number is indeed over-rated but comparisons between namespaces are not. It's handy to be able to see if people make edits in the Wiki namespace often and also if they use talk (or over-use it at the expense of actual editing). Marskell 15:30, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I looked at it this afternoon - it gave a long caveat, but also a button to press to generate the count, which looked fine to me... Shimgray | talk | 17:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I done tried the button and it don't work for me. *shrug* Marskell 18:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
..."if you're checking your own edit count… well, do you really care?" Um, yes, I care - now can I see my numbers?  BD2412 talk 18:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Works fine for me in Opera and IE. Try in a different browser? Shimgray | talk | 18:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Firefox here, all is fine. --Sebastian Kessel Talk 18:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
It's a little different now. You have to get to the I understand, show me the edit count prompt. --hydnjo talk 23:04, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I have gotten there and it still only works about one out of eight attempts. I tried with Opera, as suggested, and it worked with the first two tries and then ceased to. Dunno. Marskell 23:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I too use Opera. It works ok. Note, if the spelling of the candidate is incorrect, you'll get a blank page. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
And that "spelling", in this case, requires the initial capital. If it's still glitching, might be worth dropping Kate a message. Shimgray | talk | 14:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I must say, I love it! Good job Kate, keep the editcontitis epidemic down! gkhan 17:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Good job how? Creating and helping popularize something and then creating a glitch? As stated above, it is a very convenient way to check relative contributions across name spaces which, I'd say, isn't editcountitis as such. Marskell 17:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
When you get to the page with the I understand, show me the edit count you must click on that and not the go prompt. --hydnjo talk 19:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
As stated, I have tried that. So it goes. Marskell 19:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Look, I'm sorry you can't check the edit-counts that easily, but what does it really matter? If you're seriously wondering if a guy has enough edits in a particular namespace, go to the contriutions, select a namespace, select an appropriate limit, if there's more than say 100-200 edits, what more do you need to know? If you want to know your own edits......why do you care? gkhan 10:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Click Kate's tools, type in user name, see all the namespaces neatly laid out, versus type in username, click user contribs, select a namespace, do a quick count up, select the next namespace, do a quick count up, select the next namespace, do a quick count up, select... it should be obvious why people want Kate's tools to work and work simply. Grutness...wha? 14:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying it isn't convienient, it's just that, you only really need to know if a user has a substantial number of edits, and you can find that out pretty quickly from just looking at the contributions. That is, if Kate's tool go down, it's not the end of the world! Calm down! Try to rethink why you are accessing it in the first place. gkhan 15:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
To see if someone is admin-worthy, you don't "only really need to know if a user has a substantial number of edits". You need to see that they have contributed to a wide range of different namespaces. it's by far the best way of judging whether they know enough about the intrnal workings of the wiki to make a good admin. Actual editcount is irrelevant to a large extent. But If an editor has contributed almost entirely to article space, they won't know enough about how to interact with the community or deal with problems that an admin would have to deal with. Clicking once on Kate's tools was the perfect way to see this. Clicking on user contribs is messy and time consuming. As to "calm down", I am calm. I'm just annoyed. Grutness...wha? 22:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I use the tools for other things - checking to see whether an AfD voter has enough experience to know what he's talking about; quickly checking to see if a dubious edit was made by a possible vandal; moving editors up on the Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. All of these tasks are now more difficult.  BD2412 talk 23:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Its driving me nuts! I cant even check my own edit count. I'm starting to feel hypo and my hands are quivering, I need to see my edit count. On a more serious note, I want to see someones edit count, and by namespace, and, it only works about 1 in 10 times. My problem is identical to Marskell's. Who is Kate anyway, can someone have a word with her?:-) Banes 07:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate is apparently User:Kate, a former Wikipedia admin who gave up her AdministrativePower because she didn't have enough time for it. But I find it strange that not being able to check your own edit counts makes your hands quiver... — JIP | Talk 07:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Kate Turner is also a he, or so I've heard. encephalon 10:37, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Blimey, these confusing first names Anglosaxons use. I'll never get the hang of them. — JIP | Talk 10:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll see your Blimey! and raise you a Bugger!, i was sure Kate was a woman. gkhan 14:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
That would be serious editcontitis, and the only known cure is pure cold turkey. gkhan 10:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Erggg, that new message is annoying. Yes, I understand. Why do I care? Because I'm anal retentive, OK? Why do I want to know about other people's edit count? Because I want to nominate them as admin, but I know that if they haven't reached a certain number, a, lot of people will vote against. Yes, I know that's not the way it should be done, but it is the way that it is done, and until that changes, I need to... OH JUST SHOW ME THE ÐING EDITCOUNT, OK? Grutness...wha? 14:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC) (who has just passed the 50,000 edit mark!)
Look, you don't have to feel alone in this. Many of us has gone through this and has come out on the other side. If we can work together we can break through that barrier. Sure there'll be relapses, the occasional RfA-candidate you never heard off and people keep talking about their edit-count, but let's not let that dissuade you from the uniting goal. We can fight this! There are some programs....... gkhan 15:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh good grief. I'm entirely with SqueakBox on this one. It's a form of political correctness gone mad. There are only two reasons for wanting to use an edit counter - personal curoisity (which is perfectly OK... the sort of people who would contribute to a project like this will be naturally curious people anyway), or to get statistics that will help them to reach a decision. I don't think anyone regards editcounts as the be-all and end-all for adminship (have a look at the standard requirement page - almost everyone there lists it as just one part of their specifications,usually with a note saying that it is hardly a particularly important one). I do think, however, that editors checking Kate's tools should not be insulted by a message that makes it sound like they shouldn't be there and don't know what they're doing. Grutness...wha? 22:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I think Kate's tool is very, very valuable. I'm concerned that the recent disruptions in service to it, and now the warnings about it and having to press another button, are headed towards the possibility of removing it as a resource entirely. The community has come to depend on this resource for a variety of reasons. Some of these are:

  • Quick determination about the experience level of a user who's recent edits are questionable. This is useful in vandal fighting. A long time user is unlikely to have a meltdown and suddenly become a surreptitious vandal. Knowing the edit count (and distribution) for an editor helps ascertain good faith. While WP:AGF is a Wikipedia guideline, the reality is that vandal fighters frequently assume bad faith of new editors, and good faith for experienced editors. Kate's tool helps to at least encourage good faith for experienced editors. The tool does not apply to inexperienced editors, as seeing their contributions at less than 50 quickly shows the lack of experience of the new user. Without Kate's tool, it is more ponderous to determine the experience level of a user.
  • While edit counts should not be used to determine the acceptability of an admin nominee, the distribution of edits is a very valid basis on which to evaluate an admin nominee. Kate's tool provides a very easy way of gaining this information. Without the tool, gathering such information is quite time consuming in comparison. If Kate's tool went away, there'd be a greater chance people would revert to relying on edit counts.
  • Users using Kate's tool to see other people's edits can and do become aware of other namespaces in which they can contribute. If you're a relative newcomer, your own distribution of edits is probably mostly in the main namespace. When you do an edit count on a long time experienced user, you see quite a few other namespaces. This creates exposure to those namespaces and can get people asking questions about how they can get their edit counts (read: contributions) in those areas.

I think Kate's tool should continue to improve. For example, it could show how often, by percentage, the editor uses edit summaries, average # of edits per day overall and for contributing days, and more. I do think it is bad for people to become obsessed with edit counts. But, Kate's tool is about a LOT more than edit counts. --Durin 14:43, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Um-hm. And I don't understand this sudden implication that to look at edit counts is something to be ashamed of. Why do people care about their own? Because they spend time here and want to see how much editing they've done—so fucking what? It's quick and it's easy with the tool. People do it anyway with contribs and it just saves time. And indeed without the tool, as Durin suggests, you actually spend more time edit counting rather than evaluating edits themselves. I'm not going to cease doing it—say what you like but it will always be one part, if not the primary part, of RfA voting. Marskell 14:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Well stated, Durin. And don't forget also that it is by a country mile the easiest way to see whether an editor is active, and how active they are, on other language wikis. Grutness...wha? 14:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it only shows you the namespaces to which you've contributed, it doesn't the others. --TimPope 16:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed. I implied that above. It is however a way in which Kate's tool could improve. --Durin 18:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to change the subject, but I'm somewhat of an edit count junkie. Are there any other dealers (swap "dealers" with "versions of Kate's tool") I can get my coke (count) from:-)? Banes 18:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


The glitch is politically correct madness. Once is fine, but a deliberate nasty spamming message like that should never be used except for security reasons (avoiding bots etc) which can't apply here. Someone has seriously lost it which is very sad as a useful tool has been sabotaged in the name of treating us all like we are 12 years old. God help us if this is the way the internet is going, SqueakBox 19:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well Kate has obviously been aware of criticisms of his spammy note, but as he says, it is his webpage so he can pxss off people as much as he likes. One does wonder how he gets the info and whether an alternative message free one could be set up. Creating a monopoly on anything is always a disaster. In this case a bit of healthy competition would force to Kate to change, meanwhile he displays the arrogance of a typical monopolist. I have no idea how he gets hios info, whether he has an exclusive deal with the wiki media foundation or not, SqueakBox 16:11, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Kate has no monopoly on information. Everybody has access to the edit information- just view the contribs! What kate's tool does is to count information that is availlable to everybody. You can write your own program if you want. (In fact, User:Durin apparently has one that graphs the edit history.) Borisblue 14:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, I do. But, it takes several minutes for me to produce. I do it almost exclusively for admin nominees with less than 2,000 edits to help pull people away from editcountitis. Kate's tool has direct database access. I do not. I think Kate's tool is very important. See my rationale above.--Durin 14:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
    • And now it works for me, no disclaimer shown. Titoxd(?!?) 22:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

"Vote here" links are breaking again (Archive 34)

All the recent nominations have had broken "Vote here" links. --Durin 04:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems so. --hydnjo talk 05:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I fixed {{RfA}}. Please report any bugs to me at my talk page as I'll probably know how to fix bugs (I created it knowing there may be a problem or two, but I think I got all the kinks out now.) Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 03:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Replication Lags on Interiot's edit counting tool (Archive 51)

I use Interiot's tool for counting a Requesting User's edits (I don't have editcountitis, just so you know) but now that the Replication Lag is up to 2 days (and keeps on rising), how will we be able to see the progress of the User's edits if Wikipedia data is no longer updated? Funnybunny 14:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing unusual about the current replication lag - it's been known to lag for a few days at times. The time will eventually decrease. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
No, the toolserver is no longer receiving updates from enwiki. The replication lag will get ever-longer until that problem is fixed. -Splashtalk 14:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's a little more serious than a general lag at this point - see User_talk:Interiot for details. -- MarcoTolo 15:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the details - I didn't realize that the toolsever wasn't receiving updates. Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
You could try Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters/Flcelloguy's Tool or Interiot's Tool2. -Splashtalk 14:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This is one of the primary reasons that I started the tool. Although I haven't been working on it recently due to a lack of time and technical prowess, thanks to the great skills and efforts of the members of the WikiProject, the tool is now better than ever and serves as an adequate backup when the toolserver is down. Because it is independent of the toolserver, it is not affected by any technical issues - all it requires is that Wikipedia is up and running. :-) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Will they be able to fix this? Funnybunny 15:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Brion has commented on this [2] RicDod 15:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

To be totally cynical, what effect is the lack of an edit counter actually having on RfA's? Can some frequent voters share how their voting pattern may have changed? :) Stevage 15:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Can some people just stop saying that sort of thing because it's been said many times before? :) -Splashtalk 15:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Dunno if I am a "frequent voter" or not but if it's permanently gone I probably will vote less. When I can't make up my mind, either I do research, or I don't vote. One class of research I do is to look in various namespaces to judge the candidate's contributions. Not looking for absolute percentages but am looking for signs the candidate does/does not understand policy, does/does not help shape policy, does/does not engage in constructive discussion with users, does/does not help resolve contention in articlespace, and so forth. Just looking at their contributions the raw/onwiki way is a way but the contribution tree helps a lot as it is more efficient. Note that since the recent change to contribution to allow filtering by namespace, using the onwiki way is certainly easier than it was previously (and bravo to whatever developer *cough* Robchurch *cough* did it). If I can't satisfy myself in a certain time spent, I won't vote. More efficient tools mean a greater fraction of "satisfy in a certain time spent". Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 15:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Heh, ok. Actually for what it's worth, I miss the edit counter, I like seeing *my* edits. Stevage 15:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Heh back, because I bet you were expecting a bunch of people to admit they have editcountitis and won't vote for people unless they have x% this and y% that and a contribution pattern that isn't a bell curve and etc. Right? Smile. ++Lar: t/c 16:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the down toolserver will affect RfA for at least a couple of weeks -- not for me anyway. I don't really care what a nominee has done yesterday or last week (unless it's truly exceptional, therefore not a countable thing). I want to see overall editing for the last several months and this is still available. When the lag grows to an appreciable fraction of the minimum length of membership I'll consider (currently 3 mo), then I'll worry about the toolserver. John Reid 22:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
General agreement, but I would be highly annoyed to be missing oh say the last month of a user's edits then I'll be pretty concerned. JoshuaZ 00:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

This tool is not essential, although it is ok to have around. I just hate seeing all that blue/purple/orange when I look myself up ;). NoSeptember talk 23:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Interiot's Tool (Archive 54)

As Interiot's Tool no longer updates en.wikipedia.org user edits, should it still be linked to in all the RFAs? The only reliable tool I currently know of is Interiot's Second Tool (I think) here. drumguy8800 - speak 04:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I removed the link to Interiot's tool from my bot's message for now. By the way, anybody knows when the toolserver will come back into shape? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC

I would just have the bot's message point to the edit count using Interiot's second tool. It works perfectly after waiting for only about 3 seconds. --Mets501talk 03:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I was just looking through the toolserver mailing list, and it is replicating, but the database for enwiki is corrupt beginning with records April 12. Therefore, it is usable for data before then, but it is worthless for data after the db server split. If editcounters are absolutely required, I recommend Interiot's javascript, or downloading Flcelloguy's Tool on your local machine. Remember: Editcountitis can be fatal. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 05:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
If you want edit summary usage, just click here [3]. I hope interiot's tool get fixed though.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 07:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
And what about Kate's tool? Maybe it's working again? I'm not certain, there seems to be a lag in the edit count there. Any confirmation? Redux 12:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Both tools need to contact the server to work, and they can't, so probably not. _-M o P-_ 12:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Kate's tool and Interiot's tool both run on the tool server, so the database corruption issue extends to both (as well as any other report from there). Titoxd(?!? - help us) 18:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, dear. Where will I get my fix for editcountitis now?? I hear the symptoms for withdrawal include short-term memory loss and repetitiveness. Have I asked about Kate's tool already ;)??? Redux 00:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I hope that this is just a temporary problem. For the record, has this happened before or is this the first time that the editcountitis are not updated? --Siva1979Talk to me 03:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about Interiot's tool, but I do know that Kate's tool had had problems before. I don't know what was the nature of those problems, but they did get resolved eventually. Then everything was just fine, until this time around. Redux 03:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Are we sure the data after April 12 is totally worthless? For me, it's counted about 150 of 350 since then but there seems to be nothing particularly wrong with the data that has "leaked" through to it. Marskell 13:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Did you click on the diffs for the data? For example, the tool says that you have 80 contributions to Extraterrestrial life. If you click on contributions for that, you'll see the top one, dated 24 April, has an edit summary of "rv". We'll assume you did revert on 24 April, so the edits that have "leaked through" can be assumed to be correct. However, if you click on the diff for that, you'll find that it takes you, not to an edit Marskell made to Extraterrestrial life, but to an edit that Unyoyega made to Alfonsina Storni, Extraterrestrial life. Interestingly, there seems to be no such article; the link is red. But if you go to that diff, and then click on article link at the top left, you'll be taken to Extraterrestrial life. I found the same thing for my own contributions, which is why I checked yours. For example, I looked at my contributions for Christianity from Interiot's tool, and saw that the last one it gave was one on 21 April where I said in the edit summary "Reverting Kecik's twenty-sixth revert out of twenty-eight article edits" Okay, I really did make that edit. (There's a problem of sock-and-meat-puppetry at that article.) But if I click on the diff, although it says "Christianity" at the top, I get taken to a message that Katefan0 sent to User_talk:144.26.146.133. It's the same with lots of other recent diffs from my contributions on Interiot's tool. AnnH ♫ 13:54, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
You do your homework better. I just looked at summaries which seemed fine. So I guess worthless it is then. Maybe I'll get around to making Alfonsina Storni, Extraterrestrial life... Marskell 13:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, what happens is that you were comparing a diff from the Alfonsina Storni page with an edit from Extraterrestrial life. The comma at the top indicates that you were using the diff feature with two different articles. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 17:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Code problems (Archive 58)

I just noticed a few minuutes ago that all of a sudden, an unknown force (can't find anyone in the history) nowikied the "Discuss Here" edit link so that it wouldn't work. I was wondering if I'm just going crazy or if some new software or something is being implemented. Thanks, Master of Puppets That's hot. 13:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It's working fine now. I'm not aware of any reason that could have caused a temporary problem. Maybe your browser is rebelling against you? ;) Redux 13:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
No, because all of them had mysterious <nowiki>s in the edit link. When I edited that out, it went away. Strange. Master of Puppets That's hot. 13:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. I had thought that whatever it was had gone away on its own. Now, going through the histories, I see you fixed it. Very strange indeed. If it was a transcluded template, I'd say someone had edited it, but that's not the case. It's as if someone had edited each RfA to add the nowiki code, but the history doesn't show it. I'll have to ponder a bit more about this one. But it is odd. Redux 14:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Didn't you know, Wikipedia is haunted. you just had a sighting ;-). NoSeptember talk 14:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Spooky. <8O Redux 15:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe the code Wikipedia runs on changed or something, and it just did that involuntarily. I'm no programming whiz, but as all of them changed at the same time and there is no history of it, I'm thinking something internal. Notified Rob Church to see what he thinks. Master of Puppets That's hot. 16:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
It's not odd, it just appears that people are forgetting to follow step 2 as per WP:RFA/N. So, it's not that the <nowiki>'s were put in, it's that the nominator forgot to take them out in the first place. (And I don't think you can take them out in the original {{rfa}} template, as if you do, the subst's for date/time/and name will be done at that point, which isn't what we want) Regards, MartinRe 16:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe that that's what happened here, though. If the nominators/candidates had forgotten to adapt the code, the links would have been missing from the start. But they weren't. It was all fine until all the links were disabled at once, it seems. As Master of Puppets said, this was most likely something internal that inserted the code in all the links simultaneously — or it's the ghosts of Wikipedia playing a trick on us *shivers* ;) Redux 17:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Very curious. I did notice something when I was glancing through the histories, namely that {{fullurl: acts differently in depending on if it's in called in /w or /wiki (e.g. [4] vs {{Rfa}}, even though they are the same version. I'm guessing from the examples in m:Help:Variable that a {{fullurl: with parameters will adjust the url from /wiki to /w in order to edit, so I don't know what it's supposed to do on a page that's already /w. (it currently breaks the link, which is what was reported here, so I wonder if they are connected. I must keep an eye on the technical list archives, I hate unsolved riddles! :) Regards, MartinRe 00:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
It's most likely this. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, yes. Brion explains it all. Again. Thanks Titoxd, for solving the mistery. Seems Wikipedia is not haunted after all. Or is it?? Redux 23:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Not showing up? (Archive 59)

As of now, neither Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/9cds 2 nor Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Terence Ong 2 show up in User:Dragons flight/RFA summary. What's the reason? Misza13 T C 16:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The discuss here link is the usual culprit one way or the other (missing, malformed, etc.). NoSeptember 17:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I fixed Terence's (I guess we'll know in 20 minutes) but I'm not sure what's wrong with 9Cds'. --JoanneB 17:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I found the error in the other one as well, I'll wait till the bot updates and check if they're both in the list now. --JoanneB 17:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The discuss here url did not have the action=edit clause. The easiest way to fix these is to closely compare the url to another subpage that is working properly. NoSeptember 18:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Should have spotted that, thanks :) --JoanneB 18:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
That missing link caused my hide/show link system to say "(RfA malformed)".Voice-of-AllTalk 20:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/9cds 2 (Archive 60)

Something seems to be wrong with the formatting of this RFA. When I run the RFA Analysis tool on it, it gives the following error:

There was an error parsing the RfA. It has 1 sections, even though 5 are expected.

I can't figure out what's wrong with it & Tangotango doesn't seem to be around. Due to the error it seems to be screwing up the display of the Reporting bot. Can someone help out? --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 05:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Reviewing the tool source code, I think the problem lies with the sub sections. The tool expects '''Support''', while the RFA has ; Support. I will be bold and try doing the replacement by hand. -- ReyBrujo 05:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Apparently it worked. Since this is the latest added RFA, I am now worried that the generator is creating ; support sections instead of the expected '''Support''' one, breaking the tool. Can anyone with skills (and access if needed) check the autogenerating thing (if it exists, mind you) is generating the correct section headings? -- ReyBrujo 05:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
It hasn't been changed. The whole RfA was probably created malformed by hand. --Rory096 07:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I changed those headers - I've always preferred that style - it's less boated and generally nicer. I didn't realise that it would be a problem, but I'll know in future. Regards, —Celestianpower háblame 10:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
If possible, sometime in the future the parser should actually probably be changed to generate ;Comments, etc. rather than '''Comments''', etc. It is a much cleaner and simpler style, yet has the exact same appearance. -Silence 10:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Easy enough. Just have to make sure Tangotango's tool can support it before it's done. --Rory096 20:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The semicolon syntax was already partially supported, but not one with spaces. I've updated the regex to handle this - it should work fine in the current version (RfALib 1.09d). Cheers, Tangotango 09:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted the change, as Mathbot doesn't support this format yet. --Rory096 21:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, Mathbot works. --Rory096 04:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Doktorbuk (Archive 60)

This RFA has some formatting problems & this is messing with the RFA Analysis Report's display. Can someone fix it? --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 08:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it. It was someone using a different font face for their oppose vote. --Lord Deskana I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS 10:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Deskana. --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 10:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
No problem. --Lord Deskana I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS 10:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

URL not working (Archive 64)

The "vote here" icon in my RFA is not showing up as a link, and I don't know why.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. They have nowiki tags around it by default, I can't say I know why (someone who's familiar with {{rfa}} might be able to answer that one}}. Good luck with it, hope it doesn't end up being a too stressful experience :) Petros471 15:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Don't worry, I'm not too worried either way....after all, adminship is no big deal ;).--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah right. I'm off to oppose his RfA... "Malformed RfA! Clearly not admin material." (it would be funny if stuff like that actually hadn't been done in seriousness) --W.marsh 00:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, if he doesn't even provide a working "vote here" link, then he clearly doesn't us voting to support and therefore lacks enthusiasm and committment. :P RandyWang (raves/review me!) 05:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The technical guy comes to answer questions! The reason for the nowikis is there, in their absence, the link to the pagename would subst: in the template to Template:RfA, and , as it's subst'ed, would not change. fetofs Hello! 01:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Haha, well, I'd just give a person an FYI for a restart on their talkpage if they had built a corrupt one. Better to help someone improve then slap them on the wrist w/o any advice. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Phaedriel's RfA not parsing correctly in report (Archive 64)

I think it may be because the neutral section was not bolded, so I fixed that, but I won't know if that solved it for another 15 minutes, and my 2nd guess is that there's a whole "nominations" section that the bot isn't expecting. Someone who knows how it works may want to make sure it'll be ok for the next update. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 01:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the strange formatting caused by the "co-nom"s? Jkelly 01:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, no one else changed any formatting since my neutral bolding, and it's working now, so I guess that was it. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 02:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Indeed... Michael 06:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

New RfA template makes parsing think supports are opposes (Archive 64)

Not much else to say. Sorry if I'm missing discussion on this somewhere else. -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 00:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There was no discussion. Michael 04:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
That's not entirely true. It was discussed a month ago: Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 60#Moving around stuff in RfA. Dragons flight 05:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, if you refer to the below discussion, not many people saw this. Michael 08:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I did indeed see that discussion, but wasn't expecting sudden implementation a month later. Anyway, my bot is fixed. Cheers, Tangotango 09:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit counter (Archive 65)

Just noting, since it was mentioned above on the page, that the kinks that necessitated the edit counter to go offline have been ironed out and it is back online. It can be found at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~essjay/edit_count/Count.php. Essjay (Talk) 06:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this link. :) Michael 08:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Very sweet, thank you essjay! Themindset 18:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Question (Archive 67)

How is the new RfA format (with the show/hide) done? I can't see any wikicode that would do that...and it only works on Firefox (not IE) —Mets501 (talk) 03:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

You have a personal script in included that includes the script (via SRC). Actually, I noticed that that and another script were should not be in the package and just removed them. The script, made for bureaucrats (hence why it doesn't belong in the /admin package) at User:Voice of All/Bureaucrat/monobook.js, will now abort if the browser is IE, rather than through an error. I am amazed that getElementById() is not well supported by JScript (not JavaScript), and am now convinced that no broswer shittier than IE exists.Voice-of-All 02:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
LOL. My mistake. I should have thought of that :-). Thanks. —Mets501 (talk) 02:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Small Problem (Archive 67)

Under Winhunter's RfA, 25th support, the numbers totaling how many supports there are has sort of restarted. It's back to 5 when it should be at 30. Maybe if everyone voting support for Winhunter just put the number of votes so far instead of #. -- Legolost EVIL, EVIL! 07:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing major. Just a minor formatting issue with indents and/or line breaks I'm assuming. – Chacor 07:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
t'is fixed. -- I@n 08:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

RfA page not transcluding properly (Archive 69)

Is anyone getting the top RfA to be doing weird stuff to the page? JoshuaZ 22:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Technical Proposal: add RfA listings to a separate subpage (Archive 70)

Would anyone yell at me if I would move the admin listings into a subpage, let's say Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Current nominations for adminship and transclude that into Wikipedia:Requests for adminship? (example content: [5].) I could then put Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Current nominations for adminship onto my watchlist and unwatch Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. This way only the listing/delisting of noms would pop up on my watchlist, not the discussions here. Thoughts? --Ligulem 23:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

New listings should appear on your watchlist, but that does seem like a good idea. --Alex (Talk) 23:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
What he's saying is that he wants to watch the project page, but not the talk page, which isn't supported by Mediawiki, so he intends to make them seperate pages. I can't see any significant disadvantage, and as this must be one of the busiest talk pages on wikipedia (at least, that's attached to a frequently edited page), it's probably quite a good idea. The other option is to create a Wikipedia_talk:Requests for adminship/Current talk page and make this talk page a simple redirect to it - probably less work and less confusing. --Tango 23:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Hey, good idea. Can we do this? This wouldn't change the status quo of the instruction creep (Um, How do I have to list my RfA? :). Also this would change zilch for the crats. Yummy. --Ligulem 23:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I moved this talk page to Wikipedia:Village pump (RfA) as a proposal. --Ligulem 09:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't know. Seems more instruction creep to me. We already have well meaning, experienced editors tripping up trying to get their noms posted as it is. This change has the effect of removing a single line from someone's watchlist. I don't see the big deal. If your watchlist was mostly populated with multiple, multiple lines indicating many changes to this page I could see it. But, for the removal of one line? Doesn't seem strong case to me. --Durin 23:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Please don't move this page as there a large number of the diffs on it being used in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giano/Workshop. Fred Bauder 12:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC) A new page could be created at Wikipedia:Village pump (RfA), but please don't move the page as it causes all links to the history of edits to be bad. Fred Bauder 13:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree very much with Durin. This proposal will make it impossible to add new nominations by using the "Edit" tab on top and it is not worth the trouble given the sole goal of not wanting the RfA talk page on one's watchist.
If you really want to see only the nominations, try putting my bot's page, User:Mathbot/Most recent admin on your watchlist (you'll get the additional bonus of edit summary usage for each candidate in its history). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:23, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Too bad. I'm taking the whole thing off my watchlist now. After all, I am already an admin :]. There is way too much noise on this talk page for me. And even in the periods when I had it on my watchlist, I missed some Wikipedians RFA's in the past despite this. As a developer (not MediaWiki) I also do not understand what's the purpose of having a frequently changing section inside a page which is otherwise rarely changed. This stores the whole text of the page on the server each time a candidate is listed or delisted. Ok, it's compressed. And we shouldn't care about server load (that's why we have so many bots... :). Thanks for the pointer to User:Mathbot/Most recent admin, though. As usual: no consensus :/. Bye. --Ligulem 08:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean? Almost all the static text on WP:RFA is transcluded from a subpage. There's one paragraph of introduction and a couple of individual lines on that page itself - everything else is the noms. --Tango 15:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I struck the part about server thinking. You're right. I forgot we already do have the inverted situation. Almost all of the static parts are transcluded from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Front matter. Anyway, I think your proposal is the better anyway. That's why I would favor to move this page to another location (my proposal was Wikipedia:Village pump (RfA)). Complete moving doesn't work, as Fred needs the diffs into the history of the page. --Ligulem 16:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Please don't move this page as there a large number of the diffs on it being used in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giano/Workshop. Fred Bauder 12:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC) A new page could be created at Wikipedia:Village pump (RfA), but please don't move the page as it causes all links to the history of edits to be bad. Fred Bauder 13:04, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for that. I didn't know that there are diffs from ArbCom cases into this page. Too bad that diffs aren't redirected too when moving a page. If there would be consensus for partially moving this page here to Wikipedia:Village pump (RfA) (or wherever else), we could move just a part of the history (I tested the procedure for that in my sandbox). But that is too complicated to do per WP:BOLD and you already reverted me, so that's it for now :) --Ligulem 16:05, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
In case anyone is interested: A test for a partial-history move of a page can be seen at User:Ligulem/work/testdiffs. --Ligulem 16:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Is it necessary to move this page? Can't we just archive the latest discussions, put in the redirect, and create a new page for the new discussions? We don't need the history for the old discussions to be with the new discussions. --Tango 23:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree with that. The move is not needed (although technically it would have been nice, because users wouldn't have had to adapt their watchlists — but the diff problem is a no go for the move). --Ligulem 23:17, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I may be beating a dead horse here, but for what it's worth, I don't think the move (even without the difficulty of fixing diffs) would be beneficial; it ruins the traditional structure of page and then talk page simply to gain a benefit of not watching the talk page. A more appropriate solution would be to enable watching of just a page without the talk page, something we could push for, if there's enough demand, in other venues. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

As we already found out here: a move is not needed. And the devs won't "fix" the software because it can technically be perfectly solved by following Tango's proposal. The "structure" wouln't be damaged by a redirect. And yes, this is a dead horse. Deader than dead. --Ligulem 13:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I forgot to mention: we have the same brain dead problem at WP:PP, just the other way round: noisy project page (several edits per day by bots). Seldom edited talk page. It's impossible to watch this talk page there nearly the same as it is impossible to watch new RfA candidacies here. Signal to noise ratio is generally a problem on this "blog". --Ligulem 14:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we are dancing around a dead horse here. But let me clarify what I meant: even if we did archive the page and create a redirect, it's still going against the idea that discussions for a page should go on the "Talk:" + pagename page. Even though it works technically, it would be a sloppy fix to an issue that would be better served with allowing talk pages to be watchlisted separately. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Tariqabjotu's RfA - questions and nominations split (Archive 74)

Seeing that the combined size of the nominations and questions in Tariqabjotu's RfA is more than 20KB (I saved it to a text file and Explorer said it was 24KB!), I have split the nominations and questions into their own pages. Please revert if the bots break. Kavadi carrier 13:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Voting pages over 30 kilobytes (Archive 76)

Some RfA pages are over 30 kilobytes in size, such that text cannot be added to them in the edit screen. How can a user vote on such candidates? HalfOfElement29 05:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You can add text to the edit screen of pages more than 30 kb. Have you seen WP:ANI, at like 400 kb? -Amarkov blahedits 05:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

That only works when there are sections (marked by equals signs which create large bold section titles) which are smaller than 30 kilobytes, such that a user can edit a particular section. RfA pages are composed of a single section. HalfOfElement29 05:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It's only some browsers that are a problem. I know that IE has real problems at around the 32k mark whereas Safari and Mozilla don't. I must admit that I've often thought that making the three voting sections (Support/Oppose/Neutral) into proper subheadings rather than simply bold text would be a very useful move. Not only would it make it far easier to vote on larger pages, but there'd be some indication of the way the vote is going if it's listed in your watchlist, simply from noting which is the edited section each time. Grutness...wha? 06:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
How old a version of IE are you talking about? This hasn't been a problem for quite a while. Half, you might want to try a more recent browser, which should provide an immediate solution to your problem. The possiblity of adding section headers has been discussed in the past and generally disliked because it quadruples the size of the table of contents. Dragons flight 08:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It happens to me on some versions (but not all) of IE6; I have to switch to the https interface to edit WT:CSD, often (where the sections often get above 30 KiB). --ais523 17:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't work with netscape either. I second your recommendation. What is the procedure for making such a change? HalfOfElement29 06:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately the bots that monitor RfA may require the layout to remain as is for the time being. I would recommend talking to the bot's creators before making any changes. Canadian-Bacon 06:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

What bots are those? And who are their creators? HalfOfElement29 06:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The only one I know of is User:Tangobot which produces This report. It's run by User:Tangotango. There may be other bots im not aware of though. Canadian-Bacon 07:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
There is also User:DFBot which produces User:Dragons flight/RFA summary. Agathoclea 08:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Bots? Tough. Most people using AfD don't refer to bots. We don't create pages for the benefit of bells and whistles. Splitting the support/oppose/neutral sections makes perfect sense. Let's do it. The bots can catch up when they can.--Docg 14:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Unless someone comes up with a reeealy good reason why we need automatic RfA summaries, yeah, the bots can deal. It would hardly be a big tweak for them. Don't split it up until at least the discussion section, though; there's no reason to kill off Mathbot. -Amarkov blahedits 15:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Mind clarifying which browsers are not working? I don't think IE is currently having problem or we would have spotted it very long ago (since majority of users use IE), and Netscape usage is ~0.5% according to the statistics in Usage share of web browsers. Are we going to make such major change for this?
As for the bots, currently bureaucrats use them to perform tasks such as detecting duplicate votes, so their readability have to be taken care of for any changes. --WinHunter (talk) 15:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, well then inform the bots. It can't be that big of a change, can it? -Amarkov blahedits 15:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed before and there is a problem that splitting the individual RfAs makes the table of contents on the main page far too long. I came up with a solution, which various people improved upon, I'm not sure why it wasn't implemented in the end. It should be in the archives somewhere. --Tango 15:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I was digging through the archives and I found this Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_70#Technical_Proposal:_add_RfA_listings_to_a_separate_subpage if it was what you were referring to?Canadian-Bacon 20:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't we change the headings to this: 

<includeonly>
'''Support'''
</includeonly><noinclude>
=====Support=====
</noinclude>

That would make them editable headings on the sub-page itself but not on the main page. -- Renesis (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't the bots work off of the source code? -Amarkov blahedits 01:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The bots parse the page searching for determined lines like ; Support. I am not against adding subsections for usability matters, although that is a step backwards in my own eyes. I am sure if we move the discussions and long explanations for opinions to the talk page, the pages would hardly ever reach 20kb. -- ReyBrujo 02:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I have an idea for an interim solution. Add a warning to the top of the main RfA page, that states:

WARNING: If a candidate voting page grows over 30 kilobytes in size, then it can not be editted by many browser types.

That way, at least people will be aware of the problem.

HalfOfElement29 05:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Half, what browser version are you actually using? Most versions of browsers actually suffering this problem have long since become obsolete and have very low market share, so I don't really think a specific warning is necessary. Dragons flight 10:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The bots make the RfA process so much easier. Who wants to load WP:RFA or the RFA subpages just to see if there are any new candidates or to see how they are proceeding? Using the bot summaries and having them work properly is important. NoSeptember 10:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Lateral thought as the majority of the text occurs due to the number of questions and the size of the responses wouldnt it be more logical to put the "optional questions" on a subpage and transclude them into the nomination. That would also make it easier to identify when a question or response has been added. This option wouldnt disturb the bots and is a simple enough action that any admin or potential adimn should be able to do. Gnangarra 16:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The code suggested above is pretty much what was come up with last time this was discussed (I think it was shortened slightly, but the same basic idea). The issue with bots is a non-issue, the programmers in question can simply alter the bots to understand the new format, as they've done in the past when changes have been made to the template. Oh, and that's not the right archive, try looking under July 2006 - that's when I made my sample page during the discussion. --Tango 17:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

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