On the cy: wikipedia we have noticed that user "MediaWiki default" (a bot?) seems to run every 6 months or so and repeatedly resets many of the MediaWiki strings either to an older version which has been corrected or (even worse) to English. I've just had to edit :cy:MediaWiki:Go from "mynd" (travel) to "ewch" (imperative) again!
It is intensely annoying to have to repeatedly go through Special:Allmessages trying to find out what has been screwed up (our users usually notice when the labels of the editing tabs or the sidebar go crazy). I know you need to create new strings for new features in MediaWiki but for goodness' sake can the bot be altered so that it doesn't interfere with pre-existing strings?
Arwel Parry wrote:
On the cy: wikipedia we have noticed that user "MediaWiki default" (a bot?) seems to run every 6 months or so and repeatedly resets many of the MediaWiki strings either to an older version which has been corrected or (even worse) to English. I've just had to edit :cy:MediaWiki:Go from "mynd" (travel) to "ewch" (imperative) again!
It is intensely annoying to have to repeatedly go through Special:Allmessages trying to find out what has been screwed up (our users usually notice when the labels of the editing tabs or the sidebar go crazy). I know you need to create new strings for new features in MediaWiki but for goodness' sake can the bot be altered so that it doesn't interfere with pre-existing strings?
Unless someone's requested an explicit overwrite run, only messages either not present or last edited by 'MediaWiki default' (ie those created by the installer or periodic upgrades and refreshes) are automatically updated. If something's been auto-updated that shouldn't have, perhaps either it's a bug (in which case details always help to track it down!) or the language file has changed that way and it's a legitimate update from the software's point of view.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
Unless someone's requested an explicit overwrite run, only messages either not present or last edited by 'MediaWiki default' (ie those created by the installer or periodic upgrades and refreshes) are automatically updated. If something's been auto-updated that shouldn't have, perhaps either it's a bug (in which case details always help to track it down!) or the language file has changed that way and it's a legitimate update from the software's point of view.
Avar recently ran it with --rebuild on ruwiki in order to fix a few blank messages. This drew complaints, and from what I know of the facts, rightly so. Maybe he did it on cy as well.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Avar recently ran it with --rebuild on ruwiki in order to fix a few blank messages. This drew complaints, and from what I know of the facts, rightly so. Maybe he did it on cy as well.
Basically --rebuild should never be used unless you _want_ to wipe out *every* customized message and replace it with the default. So hopefully that's not happening too often. :)
If we have a general problem with blank messages, another way should be devised to clear them.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
2005/9/13, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au:
Avar recently ran it with --rebuild on ruwiki in order to fix a few blank messages. This drew complaints, and from what I know of the facts, rightly so. Maybe he did it on cy as well.
I just did it on ruwiki and shoudln't have, it was done to fix a problem with msg:linkprefix being empty and I didn't realise the implications it would have, sorry;(
Arwel Parry wrote:
On the cy: wikipedia we have noticed that user "MediaWiki default" (a bot?) seems to run every 6 months or so and repeatedly resets many of the MediaWiki strings either to an older version which has been corrected or (even worse) to English. I've just had to edit :cy:MediaWiki:Go from "mynd" (travel) to "ewch" (imperative) again!
There was only one edit by "MediaWiki default" that changed "ewch" to "mynd" and that was in May 2004. I don't call that "every 6 months". :)
Although I can't give specific examples (I know, I know), I have seen bad behaviour of this user as well.
In the situations I've observed, it blanks mainpages or changes them to some sort of message that says "Mediawiki installation successful!" or something like that.
Usually, though, I just revert vandalism rather than keep a log of it. I probably should keep a log of vandalism, because I know that some of it comes from the same IP over and over, but it'd be a bit of a hassle (I mean, I don't even log in to revert most of the time, it's already work enough to wait for pages to load, revert them, etc, especially when quite a few pages have been vandalised across the over 300 wikimedia wikis I monitor).
Mark
On 13/09/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Arwel Parry wrote:
On the cy: wikipedia we have noticed that user "MediaWiki default" (a bot?) seems to run every 6 months or so and repeatedly resets many of the MediaWiki strings either to an older version which has been corrected or (even worse) to English. I've just had to edit :cy:MediaWiki:Go from "mynd" (travel) to "ewch" (imperative) again!
There was only one edit by "MediaWiki default" that changed "ewch" to "mynd" and that was in May 2004. I don't call that "every 6 months". :)
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