Topic on Project:Support desk

I suspect that the problem is in MediaWiki:Vector.css- I think what happens is that it gets flipped depending on user language set.

Hi. Not sure if this is the right place to ask this.

When I'm signed in, images display on the opposite side of the page than the 'left' or 'right' that I put in. But images in boxes set as 'float left/right' display properly. When I sign out, all images display properly. I don't have any local CSS.

I was recently asked on WP-yi to stop putting images on the right side of the page, when I'd been trying to place them on the left.

This isn't a problem on WP-he or WP-ar. I've noticed the same problem on a few other RTL-script wikis, but most display correctly.

MediaWiki: 1.40.0-wmf.2 (e31f436), 2022-09-20T00:35:53

PHP: 7.4.30 (fpm-fcgi)

MariaDB: 10.4.25-MariaDB-log

Please ping, Kwamikagami (talk) 19:03, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

ping @Amire80 who may be able to help.

@Amire80: Any ideas? Thanks. Kwamikagami (talk) 20:42, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

To clarify what language do you have set in your user preferences?

Does this still happen with the ?safemode=1 at end of url? E.g. https://yi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%98_%D7%96%D7%99%D7%99%D7%98?safemode=1

My default language is English, and that's the language the WP-yi tabs and tools menu display in. The odd thing is that the same is true of WP-he, which uses the same Hebrew script: my tabs and tool menu are in English, but left and right work properly.

Yes, safe mode fixes the problem. Kwamikagami (talk) 22:27, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

So safemode fixing the issue means its most likely an issue with a gadget. Could you try dusabling all gadgets you have enabled in your preferences?

I don't have any gadgets enabled on WP-yi. I tried one I found there, "Directional editing control script", but it didn't help. Maybe it's something in my universal CSS? I commented out the one line I had active on my common.css (to get rid of some of the flood of pop-up messages), but it seemed to have no effect.

I wish I'd kept track of problematic sites. I can run through all RTL sites and check, if that would help. And it's not by language: WP may display one way, and WK the other, for the same language. But it does seem to be the smaller sites that are affected, so perhaps this has been fixed by more recent software running on major sites like WP-he and WP-ar?

Also, is this the place I should ask about how to stay logged in? This past year, I've been finding myself repeatedly logged out. Not constantly, but several times a week, or even daily -- often enough that I sometimes can't find pages I edited because I was logged out when I edited them, and didn't notice. I'll be logged in on WP, then go to WK and find I'm logged out. Or go to another language WP and be logged out. This despite the fact that I hit 'remember me' whenever I log in. This didn't use to be a problem: logging in was robust until maybe a year ago. Don't know if it has anything to do with trying to block Wiki's flood of pop-up ads, which I started doing at about the same time (though I think more recently, if I remember correctly).

I did some digging, I suspect that the problem is in https://yi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%B0%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99:Vector.css#L-110 - I think what happens is that it gets flipped depending on user language set.

I don't think the line does anything useful, so it maybe should just be deleted from common.css, but if it is important, it should be annotated with /* @noflip */ to prevent flipping based on directionality ( https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader/Architecture#Flipping has more information ).

As for logging in - yes this is the right place, but I don't really have any good answers for that. Check to make sure you don't have any "privacy" extensions enabled that might make cookies have a shorter length.

I also suspect that these lines are not really useful, and should probably be removed. Poylisher (פוילישער) added them in 2010, and he's still an active sysop so I'll leave the decision to him and the Yiddish Wikipedia community.

Which lines do think should be deleted? (פוילישער)

line 110 to 130

@Redaktor / @פוילישער, can you please do it?

To test, see this page: https://yi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%90%D6%B7%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%A2%D7%A8:Amire80/left?uselang=en&useskin=vector

Currently, it shows the first two images on the right and the last two images on the left. It's supposed to be the other way around.

I am barred from editing that page

@Redaktor

@Redaktor, if I understand correctly, you are the same person as @פוילישער, and פוילישער has administrator rights. With that account, you are supposed to be allowed to edit that page.

True, but on some wikis even those with administrator rights are blocked from editing certain pages It is quite frustrating!

@Redaktor / @פוילישער , this is quite strange. You are supposed to have a permission to edit it from an account that has administrator (sysop) rights. You should ask a separate question about this on Project:Support desk.

I've used my global sysop permissions to make this change. If this is wrong in any way, please let me know, and I'll revert it.

Thank you. We shall see whether this works now

It does. Thanks!

That would only affect WP-yi. Shall I collect the other sites that have the same issue? I'm checking specifically 'frameless' images with 'left' and 'right' specified. The following are reversed:

• Farsi wikibooks, wikinews, wikiquote, wikisource & wikivoyage (but WP-fa and WK-fa are okay)
• Hebrew wikiquote
• Mazanderani WP-mzn (the only -mzn site)
• Punjabi WP-pnb (but WK is okay)
• Urdu WP and WB (but WK and WQ are okay)
• Yiddish WP (but WK and WS are okay)

On the Kurdish sites, switching between Latin and Arabic script has no effect on placement if 'left' and 'right' are specified. But at least on WP-ku (I haven't checked the others), default frameless switches back and forth, but default thumb stays on the right. That strikes me as potentially problematic, as the orientation would only display well in the script it was designed for. (Note I'm not checking thumbs on other-language wikis, nor the default behaviour of frameless.)

Kashmiri also has alt RTL and LTR scripts, but they're written on separate pages and linked, so placement presumably isn't a problem even though the default doesn't accommodate script direction. Ladino may be similar; I've only looked at it briefly.

I'm connected to 750 wikis, and I believe I've checked all the WP, WK, WS, WQ, but probably not all of the WB, WN, WV or wikiversity. Certainly not the various country WM's, where I'm not connected to any that use RTL scripts.

Thanks. Can you please give a link to an example page in each of them?

I cannot reproduce it at q:he:User:Amire80/left, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the instructions.

Amire80, on your WQ-he test page, I see the top two images on the right, and the bottom two on the left, the opposite of where they're supposed to be. If I tack "?safemode=1" onto the URL, they swap places. But you speak Hebrew, so perhaps your local user language is set to Hebrew? Mine is set to English for all RTL wikis. But it is interesting that WQ is the only Hebrew wiki where this happens, so perhaps that will confirm what the problem is.

For the list above, I previewed frameless images with 'left' and 'right' in them, mostly on my (blank) talk page. I didn't save anything, except early on as a test to be sure that the preview would reflect what would happen. There's some discussion on my talk on WP-yi about this, where User פוילישער first brought it to my attention (and on their talk).

But if you want to see the kind of problem, on WP-mzn I made this edit with the maps set to 'left', then saw that they displayed on the right, so I "fixed" it with this edit, by changing 'left' to 'right' so that they would display on the left. But now, if I tack "?safemode=1" to the URL, they display on the right, which is correct but the opposite of what I intended.

Either I misunderstand something, or this problem is unique to your account. I see them on the right when it's frameless|right and I see them on the left when it's frameless|left. I see the same both logged in and logged out, and I see the same with and without uselang=en.

Do you also experience this problem when you are logged out?

No, if I log out they display correctly, same as in safe mode.

However, this is not something "unique" to my account. I've made a few tweeks, but they're all shared by other people (nothing I developed myself), and I haven't customized my WQ-he acct at all. And as I noted above, when I disable the single customization in my common.css, it makes no difference. There may be something buggy in a customization somewhere, but if so it's going to be more than just me who's affected.

@Amire80: I can reproduce both logged in and logged out:

https://he.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%A9:Amire80/left?safemode=0&uselang=en with safemode off but interface langauge set to en: the first image appears on the right

vs

https://he.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%A9:Amire80/left?safemode=1&uselang=en

safemode on, interface set to english: first image appears on the left.

Bawolff, just to confirm, what I see on those two links matches your description, and logging out makes no difference.

Thanks, I see it now, and I think I know the reason. I'll try to see what I can do—maybe I'll use my global sysop rights or contact local admins.

Status update:

• Hebrew wikiquote - fixed after notification from me on the talk page
• Mazanderani WP-mzn - I went bold, fixed it myself, and notified on the talk page
• Punjabi WP-pnb (but WK is okay) - I notified on the talk page
• Urdu WP - I notified on the talk page
• Urdu WB - I went bold, fixed it myself, and notified on the talk page
• Yiddish WP (but WK and WS are okay) - notified here above

Persian (probably) still needs action.

@Kwamikagami, can you please test?

Yes, everything you fixed displays correctly for me now:

• WQ-he: correct
• WP-mzn: correct
• WP-pnb: still broken
• WP-ur: still broken
• WB-ur: correct
• WP-yi: still broken

That's for both 'frameless' and 'thumb', which haven't always been in sync.

Another update: The Persian projects are supposed to be fixed.

• For me, Persian W-news, quote, source & voyage all appear to be fixed. Test frameless and thumbnails display to the left or right as instructed.
• Persian W-books is still broken: it works for frameless, but is reversed for thumbnails.
• WP-yi is reversed for both thumbs and frameless.
• WP-pnb and WP-ur are reversed for frameless; thumbs always display on the right, regardless of whether they're set for left or right.

I did a follow-up fix in Persian Wikibooks.

If I understand correctly, all that's left are sites where I notified admins, but they haven't fixed it yet.

Yes, WB-fa now working properly. Thanks. That leaves our original WP-yi, plus pnb and Urdu. (Not counting a couple biscriptal sites, which have their own complications.)

Follow up: WP-yi now displaying properly. Pnb and ur left.