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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bug reports and feature requests should be made in Phabricator (see how to report a bug). Bugs with security implications should be reported differently (see how to report security bugs).

If you want to report a JavaScript error, please follow this guideline. Questions about MediaWiki in general should be posted at the MediaWiki support desk. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for 5 days.

Making it so clicking on a Template:Location map opens a Template:Infobox mapframe

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Right now, Template:Location map is used in many infoboxen to show the location of a city or building on a map of the surrounding area. It's a great feature, except that when you click on the map, it takes you to the file page for the underlying image without the pushpin. I think this is quite unintuitive, and a big problem for accessibility since by default the map is quite small (at least on desktop). It's possible to zoom in by simply enlarging the web content in-browser, but not everyone knows how to do this.

The most intuitive solution would be for clicking on it to enlarge the image with the pushpin still included, but I'm not sure how feasible this is (I don't really know how modules work but it seems like you would have to implement a new GUI element). What seems probably easier, and arguably more useful, would be for clicking on it to open an interactive map, like you get when you cilck on a Template:Infobox mapframe. That would reuse an existing interface and allow the user to zoom and pan as much as they like on a full-sized map (at least in browser).

Does anyone here know anything about how to do that? And do people think that would be a good idea? Justin Kunimune (talk) 20:53, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Justinkunimune: Pushpin maps like that are not a single image, they are two. You don't give specific examples, but in the case of Didcot it's File:Oxfordshire UK location map.svg upon which is superimposed File:Red pog.svg. By using this method, we only need two images for every location in Oxfordshire - if we did it as a single image, we'd need several hundred, each taking up about 2 MB of storage. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 22:29, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Justinkunimune: totally agree on the unexpected empty file page map behaviour.
Some (all?) infoboxes will produce an interactive map as you describe by default if you leave out the pushpin parameters. Then you get a clickable map with marker on the location of the article's subject. Santa Barbara Church example (took me two edits). However, in that example the pushpin has two zooms with a toggle. I couldn't get the same behaviour using mapframe-switcher = auto on {{infobox church}} - it shows four maps unhdiden (none of which include the good zoom of the default) without a toggle - the feature is broken/unavailable? Commander Keane (talk) 07:18, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It might be that the toggle only appears when the edit is finalized; I've noticed that for location maps it doesn't show the toggle in the editor preview for some reason. I tend to like the static location maps because the zoom is set manually by a human instead of automatically, and it lets the editors choose between a relief map and a political map, so I think it would be ideal to combine the static location maps with the existing interactive mapframe functionality. Justin Kunimune (talk) 01:49, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I made a click to enlarge feature when working on {{CineMol}}, potentially that approach could be copied for location map. Bawolff (talk) 19:52, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that looks perfect! How difficult was that? Would it be simple to adapt it to {{Location map}}? Justin Kunimune (talk) 01:50, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Justinkunimune I made a proof of concept at User:Bawolff/location_map_lightbox. Its not perfect but demonstrates the idea. Bawolff (talk) 09:03, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

OWID iframes

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Hey All, folks from the Wikimedia Foundation and Our World in Data are interested in discussing with the EN WP community the possibility of integrating more complicated data visualizations via iframe. You can see an example for mPox here[1] and the list of data explorers available here. Are there folks interested in joining this conversation?

We have launched simpler visualizations from OWID but what we have build cannot handle the more complicated visualizations.[2] OWID wishes to have the opportunity to address the concerns that were raised here.[3]. Please reach out to me if your interested in joining. Looking at an 8 am Pacific time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:31, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Future requests for integration should go to WP:VPPRO, and I think you should revisit any and all of the prior requests that have already resulted in this kind of material being integrated here. The continued use of this forum is inappropriate for what are also in actually non-technical proposals for incorporating material that we do not control locally and I am tired of fielding those here. Izno (talk) 22:04, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is clearly not a proposal, but an invitation for folks to join a conversation about technical concerns. I don't see anything wrong with using VPT for this. – SD0001 (talk) 12:02, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, today it's not a proposal. Every single other post here has been. Izno (talk) 16:47, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How does this work? - Coords on a page without coords

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I came across an interesting thing. The article Battle of Fucine Lake has a coordinate for the Fucine Lake (correctly), but the syntax of the battle article does not have the Fucine Lake's coordinates anywhere in the article markup. How does it display the correct coordinates? I don't think it's the "|place=" parameter because when I change the place to somewhere different and hit Preview, the coordinates remain the same. Can someone clarify? -- Veggies (talk) 01:52, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't checked the details, but it is probably a template using Wikidata, see Battle of Fucine Lake (Q4871069) (which is the "Wikidata item" in the side bar of the article). Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's pulling the coordinates from Wikidata. You can see that it is doing so if you go into edit preview mode, and fold down the triangle for "Wikidata entities used in this page". The secret code "P625", which you can't locate using "Find" on the article's corresponding Wikidata page, corresponds to the Wikidata property called "coordinate location". How Wikidata remains this obtuse after so many years is beyond me.
You will also notice that if you go into edit preview mode and remove the empty {{coord}} template, the coordinates disappear from the article. That is because, as is documented at that template's page, You can get coordinates from Wikidata by transcluding this template without any numbered arguments. Clever and also mysterious when seen in practice. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:42, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked page

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Could anyone with administraor rights unlock page LCPDFR, so I can create redirect? Eurohunter (talk) 12:22, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:30, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Textbox in the source editor returns incorrect page size

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I have this user script in my common.js which warns you in the source editor if the textbox's length exceeds 400 kb, but for some reason, the actual page size is different from the length of textbox's content. For example, on this page, the script warns me that "This page's size is 699053 bytes", but it is, in fact, 2097152 bytes. How can I fix this without making this script more complex than it already is? sapphaline (talk) 17:27, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Your script is counting UTF-16 code units, not bytes when encoded as UTF-8. Anomie⚔ 17:48, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That script appears to be counting the number of characters and not bytes. Since nearly that entire page is made of multibyte characters, they won't match. Using wc (Unix) locally, in "bytes" mode I get 2,097,154 bytes (probably accidentally copied a newline or something) and character mode I get 699,054 characters. Changing the counting piece to something like
var encoder = new TextEncoder(); var length = encoder.encode(textbox.value).length;
should give you the actual byte count of the text field instead of the character count, based on my limited test. See [4]. Skynxnex (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Works as intended with your code. Tysm!! sapphaline (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading CSV files

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Related to Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#RfC Bot Ideas: Is there a good place to store .csv files (e.g., if someone wanted to check the script's accuracy later)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The Data namespace on Commons can contain tabular data, and that page says that there's a gadget for converting csv files. I don't know what their criteria for allowed pages in that namespace are, beyond that only a few licenses are allowed (CC0 is recommended). Anomie⚔ 00:44, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The gadget is even enabled by default. Just go to the edit page and choose import. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:52, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Bugs on mobile

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T413884

Temporary account sticky header overlaps hamburger menu when scrolled all the way at the top. Occurs on Chrome on IOS, may occur on other mobile devices.

And the archive template for AN, ANI, and such noticeboards don't conform properly to the mobile layout and cause the template to go off the screen. ~2025-31733-18 (talk) 10:56, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello? ~2025-31733-18 (talk) 17:29, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The archive template is a known issue and the fix takes some time (I have started before). You can leave a note on the template talk page for that one so we don't forget if you want.
The other is an issue for upstream, though it's not clear if your issue is with Vector 2022 or Minerva (the latter of which is the default skin for mobile). Izno (talk) 21:23, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's Minerva or whatever the default mobile skin is. Not sure whether the issue is present on any other skin/device. ~2025-31733-18 (talk) 13:58, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I filed a bug, I couldn't see it already lodged. Tracking template added above.---Commander Keane (talk) 14:36, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Excluding one project from a global user script

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I use a fair number of user-scripts, applying a lot of them globally via meta:User:Pigsonthewing/global.js.

Is there a way to exclude a single, or handful of, projects from scripts applied that way? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:30, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Load the scripts inside the curly braces in something like if (!['enwiki', 'frwiki'].includes(mw.config.get('wgDBname'))) {mw.loader.load(...);}. This excludes English and French wikis, for example. Ponor (talk) 19:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Using Wikidata in sandboxes

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Is it possible to tell a sandbox page to use a specified Wikidata page, for all required properties it may need?

Wikipedia:Wikidata#Inserting Wikidata values into Wikipedia articles talks about using {{#statements:Pabc|from=Qxyz}}, but that's about grabbing one specific property from a Wikidata page, not about dynamically filling in any values that are required for templates on the page.

I just put through an edit request for a template which involves a call to Wikidata, but because the testcases page for that template isn't linked to any Wikidata entry, the field in question is empty and left blank, and I couldn't properly test my change as a result.

Essentially, am I able to tell a sandbox page "you aren't Wikidata entry Q123, so I can't link you to it, but pretend you are, and use its values for any properties that are required"? Or is this not possible? Thanks, Buttons to Push Buttons (talk | contribs) 23:02, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Special:ExpandTemplates usually works for this. Put your code in the upper box and the name of the article in the context box. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect, this did the trick. Thank you! Buttons to Push Buttons (talk | contribs) 00:08, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
For testing we normally we use a qid parameter to specify which wikidata item to use. This parameter can be ignored in mainspace. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Help with infobox template

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(I've copied the following message from a similar one of mine at the Teahouse)

Hey! I'm trying to add a module to an infobox template of mine – that is, I'd like my template to consist of a part which I made myself and one below it that already exists as a separate template. I am very new to creating templates. Does anyone know how to insert this module? I have absolutely no coding experience, so could this be done without Lua? I can show an example of my progress so far, so maybe someone can point out where I went wrong, as the module currently doesnt work: 

{{Infobox
| child = {{Yesno|{{{embed|no}}}}}
| title      = {{{Title}}}
| label1     = Any label
|  data1     = {{{Any data}}}
| label2     = Another label
|  data2     = {{{Another data}}}
|  header3   = Separate module should go below:
| module4 = {{Infobox any example
| child = yes
| image = {{{Any image}}}
| caption = {{{Any caption}}}
}}
}}

Of course, this is just an example, but I'm wondering if my format is wrong. Any help is greatly appreciated! Rockfighterz M (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

When reporting a problem, always link to an example page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:02, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Sure: Template:Infobox esports duo Rockfighterz M (talk) 01:15, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. I have cleaned up that template per the infobox guidelines and fixed a few things. You can see a basic test case at Template:Infobox esports duo/testcases. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:50, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Is there any way for the two infoboxes at the bottom to cover the entire width of the original infobox? Now there's an awkward margin Rockfighterz M (talk) 12:11, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. The template documentation helped me fix it. Keep on plugging away. It looks like your immediate questions have been answered. Feel free to ask more specific questions at Template talk:Infobox esports duo. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:53, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciate the help @Jonesey95! Rockfighterz M (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding MediaWiki:Revdelete-text and steps for its warnings to appear in the RevDel interface

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Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Regarding MediaWiki:Revdelete-text and steps for its warnings to appear in the RevDel interface
 – Codename Noreste (chat) 01:55, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect after moving an article to draft space

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When an article is moved to draft space, a redirect is automatically created from main space to draft space, which is against rules/guidelines. Editors who move the article are then supposed to tag the redirect for speedy deletion.

If we do not want redirects from main space to draft space, then why is the redirect created automatically? It's just adding an unnecessary extra step, both for the editor and the administrators.

I know only administrators can delete articles, but can't the whole thing be avoided by not creating an automatic redirect? TurboSuperA+[talk] 12:45, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Admins, page movers, bots, and 'crats can suppress the redirect creation when appropriate. Opening this up to anyone, even just for article to draft moves, would make it too easy for vandals. Anomie⚔ 14:12, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
... and by default we do want moves to generate redirects. Izno (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@TurboSuperA+: The mover does not have to tag the redirect for deletion. We have an automatic procedure. MediaWiki automatically adds MediaWiki:Move-redirect-text to the redirect code. We made it include {{R from move}} which automatically detects a redirect from mainspace to certain other namespaces and adds a note and Category:Redirects from moves from mainspace to R2 namespaces. Here is an example which wasn't deleted so it can still be seen by non-administrators. Enable "Show hidden categories" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering to see the category. An administrator can then decide whether to delete the redirect, change the target to a relevant article, revert the move, or something else. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:44, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Public watchlist broken after New Year

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I made a public watchlist with all possible listings in a year in September using some magic words to update itself, however it seems to have broken after the new year. The links have updated on the page itself, but on the recentchangeslinked special page none of the 2026 listings are shown. Any idea on how to fix this? Tenshi! (Talk page) 17:27, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Special:RecentChangesLinked depends on the data recorded in the pagelinks table, which still had the links from a 2025 parse. A null edit should have fixed it for you now. Anomie⚔ 18:00, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That seems to have fixed it, thanks. Tenshi! (Talk page) 21:53, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Not getting 2fa to login to my account

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I'm able to login with my username and password, but I'm not receiving the 2fa email. Can someone tell me how I would be able have the email associated with my account updated? ~2026-40921 (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC, there should be a link on the page asking for the email code to a request form. Anomie⚔ 19:32, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if the your 2FA involves setting up timed one-time passwords like in Authy or Aegis Authenticator or the email confirmation.
Because if it's setting up one-time passwords that are sent to your phone app then it does not require an email (I just reset and reenabled my 2FA credentials to check; see generally WP:2FA)
If you didn't get an email that was supposed to have a code you need to enter, like in this case, then I think you can request the WMF to resend it to you. Or maybe you messed up and made a typo in your email address, which is why you won't get the code. If so, it's maybe better to make a new account and later disclose the failed attempt to set up an old account. They may deny you sending the code to a different email address you provide for security reasons because they don't exactly know if the author of that request is the same person who initially set up the account. Szmenderowiecki (talk · contribs) 19:52, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
email authentication is not the normal two-factor authentication. If you can't log on and can't get your email authentication your only option is to contact ca@wikimedia.org. — xaosflux Talk 00:55, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Or, more specifically, fill out the form at Special:AccountRecovery. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:07, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

AfD Statistics not updating

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Hope this is resolved soon. — Maile (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66 Are you still seeing lag? AfDstats doesn't do any caching, so the only thing that would cause it not to update would be database lag on the toolforge servers, of which there is is currently none. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Everything is working today. Thanks — Maile (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

ReplyTool broken at WP:AN/I?

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Anyone know what would have caused that? FWIW, I bypassed and then tried clearing the cache to no avail. Browser is Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1 (64-bit). —Locke Cole • t • c • b 00:52, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It points to this explanation. — xaosflux Talk 00:54, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It worked at the top so I made tests to see where it broke and made a fix.[5] {{cot}} opens both a div and a table. {{cob}} closes both. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for sorting that, I couldn't find the offending bit. =) —Locke Cole • t • c • b 17:15, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Error with excerpt in the United States-Venezuela relations article

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There's an error in this section where the excerpt to the 2026 United States strikes in Venezuela article begins with a broken image(?) link, which is embedded as "[ [File:1 |thumb|]]" (no spaces). Another editor also saw this error, but was unable to fix it, instead instructing me to go here. Does anyone know how to fix this without removing the excerpt link? SirDore (talk) 01:23, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@SirDore: Fixed with |files=0 [6] per Template:Excerpt#Details. The infobox in 2026 United States strikes in Venezuela uses {{multiple image}} in the image parameter and this apparently produces code {{Excerpt}} cannot handle when it tries to extract the infobox image. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:51, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! SirDore (talk) 01:52, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the quick solution. Module talk:Excerpt is another good place to get help with similar problems. Certes (talk) 10:55, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My account is linked my old email address

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I have my username, password, and am currently logged in, but I have an old email address I can no longer access listed in my wikipedia account. Is there some way to change my email address without using a code sent to the (old) email address? Newystats (talk) 09:57, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Change your email address to nothing, save, change it to your new address, save. — xaosflux Talk 10:37, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Now if the problem is that you can't log on along the way, because you are triggering email authentication verification - you need to email the address on the message for help. — xaosflux Talk 10:38, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Newystats (talk) 07:49, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

c .org Block error

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https://www.maringensoc .org/ Marin County Genealogical Society

REMOVE SPACES

QUOTE

The following link has triggered a protection filter: c.org

Either that exact link, or a portion of it (typically the root domain name) is currently blocked.

UNQUOTE Piñanana (talk) 17:29, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Beetstra ^ Izno (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Piñanana@Izno .. crap, you solve one issue, create an other. My apologies, https://www.maringensoc.org should now work. Dirk Beetstra T C 18:10, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Bot for Wikidata synchronizing

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I do small article creations at the ms wiki and stumbled upon a big cluster of articles which were desynced from their respective Wikidata. There wouldn't happen to be a automatic bot or system that correctly places them for the en wiki are there?

If there is I'd be glad to introduce the system to the ms wiki to help clear out the thousands of desynchronization articles. Most are fairly obscure species of bugs but little clean-ups like that feels satisfying to resolve

PeepeeDino (talk) 18:45, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Usually I would advise Duplicity, but we're talking about 12k pages here. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 22:05, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't seem like an issue related to the English Wikipedia. If you want to perform bot edits on ms.WP, you would have to locate the bot operators' noticeboard on that site. I don't see one linked from Wikidata, but that might be something for your list. If you want to perform bot edits on Wikidata, same basic answer. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:26, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Very well then. Thanks for the help!
PeepeeDino (talk) 06:03, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Chuck Norris

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Can someone explain why File:Chuck Norris May 2015.jpg and the caption from another thumbnailed image appears inside {{infobox martial artist}} in this section Chuck Norris#Martial arts knowledge when neither the image nor the caption are stated in the infobox? Nthep (talk) 22:10, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They are coming from wikidata:Q2673#P18 but obviously the template is not pulling the correct caption — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:17, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A similar question came up at Template talk:Infobox#Mystery image appearing at top of InfoBox - has there been a change somewhere? --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 22:23, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There needs to be a simple and consistent way to suppress {{module:InfoboxImage}}. This infobox doesn't support |suppressfields=image as suggested at Template talk:Infobox#Mystery image appearing at top of InfoBox. Using |image=blank.jpg will suppress the image but not the caption. Nthep (talk) 22:36, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the whole system is a bit of a mess and harmonisation is needed. For now I have added a manual caption to Chuck, which fixes the immediate issue. I note that Template:Infobox martial artist is using Module:Wikidata which is marked as deprecated, so the template probably needs to stop using that module — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:20, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Nthep I switched the infobox to use Module:WikidataIB, so |suppressfields=image is now supported. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:10, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Page not being automatically archived

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User:LaundryPizza03/CSD log is not being archived by ClueBot III (talk · contribs). I don't know why it stopped working. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:53, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There's only one thread eligible for archiving, and it's only been eligible for four days. Maybe you just need to wait. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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