Hello,
I was directed to email this query here from Jimmy.
Hello,
All web sites are blocked by default from setting cookies on my system. Now the wikipedia is on the blocked list. Would it be possible to add the specific fully qualified host address of the computer which you require cookies to be enabled from please? Otherwise I get a bizarre error with no way of finding out which server you are requesting I remove from the blocked list!
Kind regards
JG
This is the present message:
The user account was created, but you are not logged in. Wikipedia uses cookies to log in users. You have cookies disabled. Please enable them, then log in with your new username and password. ==================================================
Would it be possible to add the specific fully qualified host address of the computer which you require cookies to be enabled from please?
The answer to this question is pretty simple - cookies can only be set for the domain that you're visiting, so the whitelist simply needs to include the same domain as is in your address bar (OK, that might not be true for sites using some cheapskate frame-based "forwarding", but that's not us) Moreover, only wikimedia's projects are hosted on the "wikipedia.org" domain, so you should be able to just whitelist ".wikipedia.org", and voilá you can log in happily.
Otherwise I get a bizarre error with no way of finding out which server you are requesting I remove from the blocked list!
Well, perhaps you need to either reconfigure, or get to know the interface of, your software, since you will find many login-based websites severely limited if you can't work out how to unblock their cookies. Recent versions of Mozilla, for instance, show an icon in the bottom right of the window when a cookie has been auto-blocked; clicking it reveals (IIRC) a dialog offering to whitelist the site that tried to set the cookie. I don't think it's a website's place to second guess what rules are being applied by the software (whitelist, blacklist, warning dialog, automatic filtering, who knows what else?) and instruct users to change them.
All web sites are blocked by default from setting cookies on my system.
Finally, I just want to mutter a bit about the unnecessary fuss people make about cookies - they can't actually retrieve any more information than they store, after all! Yes, I know, advertisers use them to see that the same computer is accessing different sites that carry banners from the same service - although some browsers let you block cookies from all 'secondary' connections like this, I think. But even that is only a tiny bit more reliable for them than just using your IP address - especially as more people get broadband, often with a fixed IP; and IPv6 promises to give everyone a unique address anyway - so if that takes off, the advertisers won't need cookies at all! Generally, cookies seem far more useful (for keeping track of information like "I am logged in") than harmful; but each to their own, I guess...
Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
Certainly for wikipedia I am happy to store a cookie.
The answer to this question is pretty simple - cookies can only be set for the domain that you're visiting, so the whitelist simply needs to include the same domain as is in your address bar (OK, that might not be true for sites using some cheapskate frame-based "forwarding", but that's not us) Moreover, only wikimedia's projects are hosted on the "wikipedia.org" domain, so you should be able to just whitelist ".wikipedia.org", and voilá you can log in happily.
In Mozilla 1.4 I have a huge list of thousands of "blocked" sites, for which I have to hunt for wikipedia to remove the domain which is there. There is no way to remove all ".wikipedia.org" domains without manually reading all domain names which are not sorted by their org, domain, host order.
If what ever the server wikipedia uses for storing cookies could be listed that would be helpful. I was browsing from en.wikipedia.org but the cookie server as not en.wikipedia.org...
If you could specify the servers you use for serving/reading cookies that would just make things a lot simpler than placing the burden on users to find whatever the present name of the cookie server happens to be.. :)
Kind regards
JG
On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 20:04:21 +0100, J. Grant jg@jguk.org wrote: snip
In Mozilla 1.4 I have a huge list of thousands of "blocked" sites, for which I have to hunt for wikipedia to remove the domain which is there. There is no way to remove all ".wikipedia.org" domains without manually reading all domain names which are not sorted by their org, domain, host order.
You could just look at the hostperm.1 file used to store the blocks on your profile directory, search for wikipedia or wikimedia with a text editor, and remove them that way.
Hi Dori,
You could just look at the hostperm.1 file used to store the blocks on your profile directory, search for wikipedia or wikimedia with a text editor, and remove them that way.
Yes, this is the workaround I did in the end. Not all users may be as "technically savvy" as I though. If wikipedia was not hiding the complete hostname for which it wished to store a cookie this would not be a problem.
Kind regards
JG
J. Grant wrote:
In Mozilla 1.4 I have a huge list of thousands of "blocked" sites, for which I have to hunt for wikipedia to remove the domain which is there. There is no way to remove all ".wikipedia.org" domains without manually reading all domain names which are not sorted by their org, domain, host order.
First check the complete hostname. Then check it with a "." at the front. Then strip off the first part ('www' or 'en' or whatever). Continue until you find the correct hostname.
Mozilla's cookie manager UI is pretty crappy, unfortunately, but you need to learn to deal with it if you're going to use it. That's not our problem, sorry.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
First check the complete hostname. Then check it with a "." at the front. Then strip off the first part ('www' or 'en' or whatever). Continue until you find the correct hostname.
Thank you for the workaround. This is what I did when looking, it would be better not to have to workaround the problem of not being told the complete hostname on wikipedia site though.
Mozilla's cookie manager UI is pretty crappy, unfortunately, but you need to learn to deal with it if you're going to use it. That's not our problem, sorry.
Wikipedia could make it more simple. Presently wikipedia is making it as difficult as it can by not listing the complete hostname which has a cookie block error when displaying such an error.
Kind regards
JG
On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 20:04:21 +0100, J. Grant jg@jguk.org wrote:
In Mozilla 1.4 I have a huge list of thousands of "blocked" sites, for which I have to hunt for wikipedia to remove the domain which is there.
I'm not quite sure how you've got into that situation, but I guess I haven't played with all the different configurations of Mozilla's cookie system - I gather it's one of the things that's been rewritten in FireFox, but whether a new system will ever "land on the trunk" I'm not sure.
There is no way to remove all ".wikipedia.org" domains without manually reading all domain names which are not sorted by their org, domain, host order.
Yes, that's a pain.
If what ever the server wikipedia uses for storing cookies could be listed that would be helpful. I was browsing from en.wikipedia.org but the cookie server as not en.wikipedia.org...
Well, I just checked, and it was 'en.wikipedia.org' that was storing cookies for me (I turned on "ask me before storing a cookie" and it came up with messages of the form "The site en.wikipedia.org wants to store another cookie..."; the details included "Host:en.wikipedia.org"). I can only think that whatever auto-blacklisting system you've got active made multiple blocks - one for 'en.wikipedia.org' *and* one for '.wikipedia.org', perhaps - so that removing one simply allowed the other to be triggered, and seemed to have no effect. If so, us telling you what cookies were trying to be set wouldn't have helped much anyway.
If you could specify the servers you use for serving/reading cookies that would just make things a lot simpler than placing the burden on users to find whatever the present name of the cookie server happens to be.. :)
I'm surprised that it can ever be as complicated as needing that - the way I understood it, the cookie can only possibly be stored for 'en.wikipedia.org', '.wikipedia.org', or 'wikipedia.org'. That's not really many options to try, and, as I say, as far as I can make out it's the very first one.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that *something* failed to give you the information you needed, but in this case I think it was Mozilla's cookie system doing too much automatically, and not giving you a decent UI to undo it.
Hi Rowan,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I'm surprised that it can ever be as complicated as needing that - the way I understood it, the cookie can only possibly be stored for 'en.wikipedia.org', '.wikipedia.org', or 'wikipedia.org'. That's not really many options to try, and, as I say, as far as I can make out it's the very first one.
Perhaps these domains can be listed on the page with the cookie error please. At least as suggestions for starting point to try and resolve the situation...
Don't get me wrong, I agree that *something* failed to give you the information you needed, but in this case I think it was Mozilla's cookie system doing too much automatically, and not giving you a decent UI to undo it.
I think Mozilla did now me it, but I did not click "Details" to see the hostname. I get cookie requests all the time, I wish to avoid being someones advertisement profile, so I deny all for which I do not think I need. Very few sites have errors this way. Although in this instance Wikipedia website did complain. So then I had the problem of trying to find which host the cookie came from, www.wikipedia.org no.. etc etc..
I have removed the block now, and the wikipedia.org site works ok with the cookie.
Thank you for your help.
Kind regards
JG
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org