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I've run into an oddity over on Wikisource that has puzzled me, and asking here since you all are rather knowledgeable about a lot of things and have dabbled elsewhere and seen some things. ShakespeareFan00 and I have cleared all Obsolete tags from the Index namespace, but for some reason, the 76 pages that were affected are all still listed on their Special:Lint report. LintHint's clean after the edits, and I've tried purging, hard purging, and null editing, but they remain listed. Wondered if I was overlooking something, or if it was just a wait it out situation. Do any of you happen to know? Thanks, Zinnober9 (talk) 16:01, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Zinnober9 I made some test edits to one of those index pages (removed the entire TOC the error had been in, introduced a different error) and they had no effect on its lint error status. It seems unlikely to be a wait it out situation, since it's been more than a month since the original fixing edit there. Introducing an error to an index that previously had none didn't register either. A wild goose chase of purging not just the Index but also the corresponding File and the template (and its module) that indexes go through also failed to trigger the Linter.

So, maybe the Index namespace there just isn't being linted at this time for whatever reason? Gamapamani (talk) 21:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing a few new pages in our Linter error lists today, including Template:Arbitration case implementation notes (fostered content), Template:List of oxidation states of the elements/sandbox (fostered content), and Template:Tick (bogus image option).

I do not see any recent changes to these pages or to pages that they transclude. This usually means either that a stale page with an error has been null-edited by the job queue and finally brought to the surface (highly unlikely, given how long these pages have been error-free and how recently they have been edited), or something has changed in the MediaWiki code. I'm suspecting the latter. I know for certain that Template:Tick had no Linter errors, because I fixed a bogus image error there on 26 June 2023.

To my eye, these all appear to be false positives, but I could be wrong. When I expand them at Special:ExpandTemplates, they appear to be fine. Does anyone have any insight on these new errors? If we can't figure it out, I'll file a bug and ask the developers to investigate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:55, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was seeing similar (stripped tr/td with {{bar percent}} for "[year] New South Wales state election" articles). I have no insight, and none (page/template) were edited recently. Zinnober9 (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that additional data point. I have reported T380638. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:00, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This situation has been acknowledged as a bug and has a fix on the way (maybe next Thursday). No action is needed on these pages until then. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:35, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Thanks! Zinnober9 (talk) 04:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the fix has gone through. Noted pages (and a few others I spotted after we talked) are all clear. Happy Thanksgiving. Zinnober9 (talk) 15:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Others may have already figured this out, but I thought I would share what I have learned about Multiline table in list lint errors in the Portal namespace. These errors are usually coming from {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-2 ...}} and one of the articles being transcluded having a table-bearing template near the top, not on its own line, and the fix is to put the table-bearing template on its own line. I fixed Portal:Banks by editing Banq, changing

{{redirect|Banc|the Welsh bank branded as simply "Banc"|Development Bank of Wales}}'Banq' and 'banc' are alternative spellings used in company names to evade legal restrictions on the use of the word 'bank' while maintaining a similar pronunciation. This practice is common in the financial services industry, particularly in the United States.{{Banking |banks}}

to

{{redirect|Banc|the Welsh bank branded as simply "Banc"|Development Bank of Wales}}'Banq' and 'banc' are alternative spellings used in company names to evade legal restrictions on the use of the word 'bank' while maintaining a similar pronunciation. This practice is common in the financial services industry, particularly in the United States.
{{Banking |banks}}

I fixed User:Cactus.man/Sandbox/P-Sco/Selected3 by editing Scotland during the Roman Empire, changing

{{History of Scotland}}'''Scotland during the Roman Empire''' refers to the [[protohistory|protohistorical]] period during which the [[Roman Empire]] interacted within the area of modern [[Scotland]]. Despite sporadic attempts at conquest and government between the first and fourth centuries AD, most of modern Scotland, inhabited by the [[Caledonians]] and the [[Maeatae]], was not incorporated into the Roman Empire with Roman control over the area fluctuating.

to

{{History of Scotland}}
'''Scotland during the Roman Empire''' refers to the [[protohistory|protohistorical]] period during which the [[Roman Empire]] interacted within the area of modern [[Scotland]]. Despite sporadic attempts at conquest and government between the first and fourth centuries AD, most of modern Scotland, inhabited by the [[Caledonians]] and the [[Maeatae]], was not incorporated into the Roman Empire with Roman control over the area fluctuating.

The first step is to determine which transclusion is bringing in the offending template, and the second step is to put the template on its own line, so that it doesn't get brought in by {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}. —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this information! Finally I now know how to fix these. Gonnym (talk) 21:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for figuring this out! I have been ignoring these transient, frustrating errors for a long time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page User:The Transhumanist frequently shows up with this lint error for the same reason. Just now I fixed templates-not-their-own-line in Resource depletion, Biodiversity loss and Gray goo. It was tedious finding them, but the job is done for now. (The Transumanist: No action is needed on your part, but if you are interested in fixing lint errors, we welcome your support.) —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:13, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to know there's a way to hunt these. I'm still seeing T's page reappearing, so there's still something related to their page/that portal? that remains in a connected page, or something has returned. With far less frequency though, and that's surely due to your findings and fixings. I'm also seeing Portal:Japan with a similar error statement, but as reporting as a bogus image, and it's reappearing a few times a day. I'd assume its a similar kind of issue? Zinnober9 (talk) 17:47, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Portal:Japan bogus file options may be caused by code referred to in this discussion or in this subsequent discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping it was something as easy as dropping a template to a new line somewhere. That doesn't seem as nice. Oh well. At least it isn't as annoying as some other portal errors that exist. Thanks for the background on these. Zinnober9 (talk) 05:52, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if a search or SQL query can made to search for templates starting right after other templates end (so search for }}{{) while having an exception list of templates not to look for, so any citation or inline maintenance templates. Gonnym (talk) 11:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That might need to happen. Not sure what sort of hit rate and false flag rates we'd run into, but worth looking into at some point. {{pb}} can likely be ignored as the primary search for this query as I don't recall ever seeing any crazy happening to that template. If it's neighboring something, I wouldn't discount it as a neighbor to another template in case the {{pb}} puts the other in an unhappy scenario. Zinnober9 (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For those of you interested in possibly tedious, possibly scriptable Linter fixes that will take care of 30+ errors with a single edit, please feel free to look at the top of the list at User:Jonesey95/Linter tags in AFDs. Each of the pages at the top of the list, and some farther down, has a pile of missing italic markup, and each page is transcluded, so if you fix a page with 20 errors, the count in the Linter table will go down by 40. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It sometimes doesn't occur to me for a surprisingly long time that I can take care of a particular UI annoyance myself, but here's a couple I've fixed recently that have been quite useful for my own lint error gnoming, so I thought they might be worth sharing here.

• The need to constantly switch cross-screen between the lintHint button on the right and the results box on the left could get pretty tiring in longer sessions. (This moves the entire indicators box with GA/FA markers, etc., but I've found that doesn't bother me at all.)

/* lintHint on the left on normal pages */
.vector-body-before-content .mw-indicators { float: none !important; }
/* lintHint on the left on ExpandTemplates */
.mw-body-header { display:block !important; }
.mw-body-header .mw-indicators { float:none !important; }

• I can't count how many times I've scrolled up from the preview on Special:ExpandTemplates and started typing, without realizing I was inside the Result box... (The cursor change is purely visual and doesn't prevent text selection.)

/* make ExpandTemplates Result box obviously uneditable */
textarea[readonly="readonly"] {
    background-color: var(--background-color-disabled-subtle, #eaecf0) !important;
    cursor: not-allowed !important;
}

Gamapamani (talk) 13:59, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my sandbox I have markup that should generate a div-span-flip, but isn't detected as such. The markup is

:<span style="background-color: yellow;">Text in yellow span ... <div style="background-color: orange;">Text in orange div, inside the span</div> ... more text in yellow span</span>

Any thoughts? —Anomalocaris (talk) 22:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see this sometimes, and I just ignore it. I suspect a bug in the Linter, but I haven't bothered to report it. Feel free to create a bug report on Phabricator, with a permalink to that version of your sandbox page. If the bug gets fixed, look forward to a bunch more HTML5 misnesting errors, just as we are almost done (under 4,000) getting the known ones fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the ongoing trickle, as of right now only missing italics end tags are left in mainspace. Gamapamani (talk) 06:02, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. I made a big push over the last week to fix the last couple thousand missing bold tags, and then someone else cleaned up behind me as new ones came in. Just 45,000 missing italic tags left, one by one by one by one by one .... – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice! While 45k is not a small quantity, I'm feeling optimistic that we'll squash the backlog of these in Main before this time next year. While I don't think that Main will ever be null for long due to the frequency of new popups, I look forward to it regularly being a low and manageable count (guessing it will be like image options has been over the last few months).

I'm a bit surprised that italics far outnumbered bolding to be eliminated now with 45k italics remaining. Would have thought they'd be a bit closer in number, but it's possible editors were targeting the bolds for a while before Jonesey95's final push last week.(?)

Anyway happy holidays to everyone! Zinnober9 (talk) 03:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Zinnober9 They were around 1:7 In July and it looks like twice as many italics have been done since then. I've been targeting bolds almost exclusively but that doesn't mean I've done the bulk of them, I'm not as high volume as some others here. Gamapamani (talk) 04:09, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From my experience (mostly working from the "Articles by lint errors" report in big batches every now and then), almost all of them are italics. It's very often related to either citations or lists of albums/books/songs/other works. Side note: I would recommend most editors here to occasionally take a look at that report, and at least try and fix everything at the top, because they are recent additions and most likely to actually break something in an article. Or it's vandalism. Right now those recent additions are everything before the "2018..." articles. Merry Christmas everyone! --rchard2scout (talk) 09:09, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not surprising that unclosed italics was more common than unclosed bold, as italics are used a lot, including emphasis; genus and species; names of books, films, musical compositions, plays, periodicals; foreign words, and words as words. Bold markup isn't needed much in Wikipedia except for the topic in the lead sentence. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:24, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the discussion at Template talk:WikiProject banner shell#It should be possible to use this template on its own talk page, the last three Multiline table in list errors are fixed! —Anomalocaris (talk) 12:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]