User:Najevi/Contact Wikia

 Since Special:Contact only generates email it may be handy to have a faithfully rendered wiki page for each contact sent to Wikia staff.

Test existence of source page before displaying WikiPage widget in sidebar
A user's custom setting for the Monaco sidebar include the list of widgets a user has chosen to be displayed. However, when a custom WikiPage widget defined at Wiki1 is specified and then the user browses to Wiki2 (where that same named source page does not exist) then the current behavior is that a copy of the default MediaWiki:Widgetwikipage get's displayed inside a widget box that is mislabeled with whatever the custom widget name had been at Wiki1.
 * So long as a user chooses only standard widgets then there is no problem


 * TEST CASE: w:c:vsk:MediaWiki:Widgetwikipage and w:c:vsk:DemoWidget - specify that both of these appear in your sidebar then browse away to w:c:central and note the mislabeled copy of the default MediaWiki:Widgetwikipage is displayed when the source page (w:c:central:DemoWidget) does not exist.


 * The correct behavior ought to be to:
 * Test whether the source page exists or not.
 * If it does not exist then do not attempt to render the widget in the side bar.


 * ROOT CAUSE: Not known.


 * WORKAROUND: None known. I don't think it either practical or desirable for a user to copy the same source page to each wiki they regularly visit. See [] for an interim workaround and watch for the special error class going live soon. This behavior is not going to change any time soon so the workaround will be semi-permanent.

-- najevi 23:03, November 26, 2009 (UTC) -- najevi 06:53, December 8, 2009 (UTC)

Special:Contact does not recognize wiki markup
user:uberfuzzy pointed out that wikilinks are recognizable but not easy to work with in email. Those creep in to "email" because the Special:Contact page is being used to contact Wikia staff.

At Special:Contact it is not made clear that the form will generate an email message. A user might read the instructions suggesting an alternative email method of contact and conclude that this form must not be email and therefore imagine the recipient will see it as any other piece of wiki markup rendered at a wiki.

-- najevi 20:52, November 26, 2009 (UTC)

There is no plan to add clarifying text at Special:Contact. -- najevi 06:55, December 8, 2009 (UTC)

WikiPage widget source page parameter DOES NOT recognize an interwiki link



 * (Wikia Support Request #28842) begs the question/feature request: ''Should it be possible for a user to specify any wiki page (i.e. across all Wikia communities) as the source page for a WikiPage widget?
 * Alternatively: Should a user be able to define one (or more) custom WikiPage widget(s) at central.wikia.com and then be able to see those "global" widget(s) rendered in their Monaco sidebar at any wiki community they visit?'' (i.e. in much the same way that global.css and global.js are handled today)

I can certainly think of a custom widget that I would love to have access to at every wiki I visit. After all, each of the "standard" widgets are accessible at every wiki I visit so why not allow the Source page parameter (that one that is confusingly mislabeled "title" in the PHP code) to recognize inter-wiki links?

but, predictably, that interwiki link syntax was not recognized regardless of whether I was currently at vsk.wikia.com or at central.wikia.com.
 * I did try specifying as the source page for a wikipage widget:
 * w:c:vsk:DemoWidget and
 * http://vsk.wikia.com/wiki/DemoWidget

It would be super-convenient if it was recognized!

If implemented it would allow User001 to source User002's custom widget regardless of whichever wiki that "CoolWidget" has been defined. viz, w:c:central:User:User002/CoolWidget4u

This will encourage reuse of other user's widgets as opposed to people copying cool widgets to specific wikis then missing out on any update made by the original widget author. The "copy and innovate" strategy is always available but it ought not be the default.

-- najevi 23:18, November 26, 2009 (UTC)

"There are no plans to support interwiki links for page source."

That being the case the best we can hope for is that Wikia wide, users voluntarily use same named custom widgets to do the same job. Otherwise similar named widgets will begin to accumulate in some users' "store" of widgets. We had better hope there is no limit to the number of widgets an individual user can have "stored" in the user table.

-- najevi 08:16, December 12, 2009 (UTC)