Help talk:Special page

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Question special:statistics[edit]

"there are 3305 pages that are probably legitimate content pages."

Other than being a "talk" page or redirect what disqualifies a content page from being legitimate? --24.49.37.223 04:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Being empty or not containing any links. (Technically it checks for the presence of the substring '[['.) For historical info, see Article count reform --brion 06:56, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)


The statistics page on my wiki is giving weird results -- "There are 1,446 total pages in the database. ... Excluding those, there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,609 pages that are probably legitimate content pages." Also it tells me there are more registered users than actually show up in the userlist. Anyone know why, or how to fix it? Thanks. --67.161.0.111 13:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question re: Special:Allpages and namespaces[edit]

Hello, apologies if this question is addressed elsewhere but I can't seem to find it if so. Special:allpages on another wiki I'm working on currently only displays regular article pages; pages in other namespaces such as Category or Template don't appear there. Some are indexed through the standard Special pages (Listusers or Categories, for example), while others like the Template namespace don't seem to be indexed anywhere that I can find. Is there something you can switch on somewhere that will add a list of templates or other namespace pages to the Special:Allpages list, or is that feature unavailable to us without a software hack of some sort? Thanks in advance. -- MC MasterChef

You have version 1.3, I think it works from 1.4.--Patrick 23:15, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Thanks!


Question re: Special:Allpages and custom namespaces[edit]

26 Feb 2005, Madjid Ghazi

Similar but different question. Sorry if I too am asking the wrong thing or in the wrong place.

Any custom namespaces that I make using guidelines in this site (Help:Namespace, Help:Custom namespaces) do not appear in the drop-down menu of the Special:Allpages.

I am using version 1.4beta6

Upon investigation it seems that which ones are listed is hardcoded to those with id code less that 14. 

SpecialAllpages.php
Line 40
    for ( $i = 0; $i < 14; $i++ ) {
        $namespacename = str_replace ( "_", " ", $arr[$i] );
        $n = ($i == 0) ? wfMsg ( 'articlenamespace' ) : $namespacename;
        $sel = ($i == $namespace) ? ' selected="selected"' : ;
        $namespaceselect .= "<option value='{$i}'{$sel}>{$n}</option>";
    }


If you change it to the following all non virtual (ie not Special and possibly others) namespaces will appear. 

Replace the above code with this
    foreach( $arr as $ns => $name ) {
       $namespacename = str_replace ( "_", " ", $name );
       $n = ($ns == 0) ? wfMsg ( 'articlenamespace' ) : $namespacename;
       $sel = ($ns == $namespace) ? ' selected="selected"' : ;
       $namespaceselect .= "<option value='{$ns}'{$sel}>{$n}</option>";
   }

This does mean that namespaces like Category and Category Talk that are not normally listed here and are supposed to be listed elsewhere would also be listed. So possibly the following is better : 

After the original for loop, (ie in line 46) insert this:
   $ns_max = max(array_keys($arr));
   for ( $i = 100; $i <= $ns_max; $i++ ) {
       if (array_key_exists($i, $arr))
       {
           $namespacename = str_replace ( "_", " ", $arr[$i] );
           $n = ($i == 0) ? wfMsg ( 'articlenamespace' ) : $namespacename;
           $sel = ($i == $namespace) ? ' selected="selected"' : ;
           $namespaceselect .= "<option value='{$i}'{$sel}>{$n}</option>";
       }
   }

This should mean that the only new namespaces listed should be the custom ones you have added.

There might be a better way of doing the following

  1. The number 100 is currently hardcoded, it might be a system varaible instead.
  2. A better way of seeing what is the highest id used for the custom namespaces.

What happens if a non numeric id is used for namesapces? Does it work at all?

These codes are part of the namespaceForm() function Where else is this function called and would this alteration break anything ?

Madjid Ghazi

Another Question about Special:Allpages[edit]

Would there be any way to prevent sub-pages appearing on this list?

Thanks for the information Madjid, btw. --Nigedo 9 July 2005 01:26 (UTC)

Special page creation[edit]

How do I create my own special pages? Is there an article on Meta about this? Can I just upload a PHP file to the server and then change some setting to make it into a special page?

Kidburla 21:31, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I do know PHP, I just want to have some mechanism whereby I can upload a PHP file such as somepage.php to somesite.com and have it accessible by somesite.com/index.php/Special:Somepage as well as somesite.com/somepage.php. Kidburla 23:48, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Create your special page and name it "Special_____.php"
  2. Save it in the includes directory
  3. Add a new page into the database with the title "_______" under namespace 8
  4. Add a line to includes/AutoLoader.php
  5. Add a line to includes/SpecialPage.php

Zach 05:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not follow Zach's advice. There is a wiki page already created on how to create a new special page. You should always try and use the extensions directory when creating a new special page or extension to avoid future problems when you upgrade your MediaWiki baseline. Cheers --Biyer 16:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of New pages on Newpages[edit]

How long is a page considered 'new' and thus displayed on the 'New Pages' special page? Is there a special page that will list recently added pages only (not Recent Changes)? --brob (20060627)

Apparently on Meta it lists pages created since a month.--Patrick 08:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
how to show all?

Old Pages[edit]

From the article: "Oldest pages : Special:Ancientpages - pages in the main namespace, with creation date and time, in order of creation"

This is not true. The date is not for when it was created, but for when the last edit was made. As an example, I selected a random article, "Logo putsch" (It's currently number 39). If the statement from the article was true, it would mean that the "Logo putsch" article had been created at ‎(08:23, 10 January 2004), since it says so on the special page. However, when one looks at its history page, one would notice that the third, and last edit, matches the date and time, and not the creation date and time, which is (10:40, 11 December 2003). Either the description or the "coding" needs fixing. --80.161.65.57 14:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Updates of Deadendpages[edit]

I'm interested in keeping up with the Special:Deadendpages results on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the update is only refreshed sporadicly. Currently it's from 2 December 2006. I've heard that the process of generating the list is computationally intensive and a drain on the system. Is that true? What I really want to know is who or where I would inquire to petition for a more frequent updates to this list. I'd even volunteer to run and post it if that would be possible. Thanks in advance for any info on this. (I can't seem to stay logged in so please excuse the IP address.) Wikipedia User:Paul Pigman 66.82.9.91 06:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a similar query. Normally specialpage lists are updated or cache refreshed about once every 24 hrs. Sometimes however a long time goes by with no update. I am writing now because it has been ONE WEEK since the last update. All of the special pages are giving information as of Feb. 16. Someone who understands this stuff, please refresh!!! Thanks!!! Blockinblox 17:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello...? we are having the same problem again, it has been about a WEEK since the update was refreshed. Can anyone reading this PLEASE point me to the right place where this mystery is explained? Blockinblox 17:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Translating special pages?[edit]

I've seen special pages such as "Special:Letzte Änderungen" in German wikis, and "Toiminnot:Tuoreet muutokset" in Finnish, which is Recent Changes. Now I wonder, how can one do such translations? Smiddle 20:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This give you a pinter how to write new Special pages Writing a new special page. The translations are done in the MyExtension.i18n.php file. See example in the above article. Hope this helps. [Vic 21:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)]

Italic redirects in Special:Allpages?[edit]

wikipedia displays redirects in italics on its Special:Allpages [1]. is this something that can be switched on in mediawiki, or is it a hack? --Hexvoodoo 21:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is in w:MediaWiki:Common.css:
     .allpagesredirect {
     font-style: italic;
     }
Patrick 00:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
aha it works! thank you --Hexvoodoo 02:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Help![edit]

It appears that the user list on Wikipedia is malfunctioning. When a search is entered in the box(Show all names starting with:) it gives you a list of names starting with tildes. Why is this so? Or is it just my computer? Yuanchosaan

Editing special pages[edit]

I am an administrator on a private Mediawiki, and I was wondering if there was any way to edit pages in Special:

SpecialPAges are more like scripts. You can edit them by edit SpecialPagexxxx.php in your includes directory. [Vic 21:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)]
Please do not directly edit MediaWiki source files. Most of the text on special pages can be customized by editing pages in the MediaWiki namespace. You can use Special:Allmessages to determine what the name of the page is to edit. — Edward Z. Yang(Talk) 22:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SpecialPages grouped into categories[edit]

SpecialPages grouped into categories doesn't work in MediaWiki 1.9.3 and gives the error Fatal error: Call to undefined method SpecialPage::getpages() in ../includes/SpecialSpecialpages.php on line 14 (which is $pages = SpecialPage::getPages();). Is there another way to "# Get listable pages, in a 2-d array with the first dimension being user right"? -Eep² 14:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Order of entries in Prefixindex[edit]

With the prefixindex special page, in what order are the items listed? It seems to be alphabetical but with recentness mixed in. (Unless it's all recentness and I'm just confused.) Lenoxus 23:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grouping[edit]

I don't find this page very useful like this. If there are no objections, I'm about to rewrite it, grouping Special Pages together like this: Lists, Cached Lists, Instruments, Project, and also adding a lot of relevant information ∴ AlexSm 22:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

redlinks[edit]

I was wondering why redlinks appear on Special:Shortpages and not on Special:Deadendpages. It could be very useful. --Pok148 18:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both pages are cached (i.e. generated at some intervals, not in real time). If some page got deleted between updates, then the link to that page will be red until next update (when it simply disappers from the list). Either that, or I misunderstood your question and you're reporting a real bug when the link to non-existant page is shown in blue; could you provide a specific example then? ∴ AlexSm 19:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pages were deleted after that the cache has been done. one example on french wiki :
  • fr:Special:Deadendpages you have a lot of deleted pages : AUN, Abbas Moayeri, ... -> they are in blue link and if you look at the html code the link is like /wiki/AUN
  • fr:Special:Shortpages you can see that deleted pages are in red links. Moreover in the html code, the link are like /w/index.php?title=xxxx which is the normal for links in wikipedia. So I guess that there is something strange in Special:Shortpages ? --Pok148 20:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, then I guess this is just how it works. Some cached special pages check if linked pages still exist, and some don't. It is possible that this is done intentionally, since Deadendpages are usually supposed to be improved (by adding links), while a lot of Shortpages are supposed to be deleted, and it would be very inconvenient not to see which ones are already deleted ∴ AlexSm 21:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
in fact in Deadendpages there is a lot of pages which are usually created just before the cache release. You can have copyright violation, out notablity articles... So when you work on this page for maintenance and cleaning, it could be very interesting to have such behaviour. Do you where I can suggest this improvement ? --Pok148 22:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sure: go to bugzilla:, you have to register with an email address (which will be visible to everyone), then "Enter new bug" on the left, choose "MediaWiki", then select Version 1.12, Component: Special pages, enter some summary and description. It would probably be nice if you also checked if there are any other special pages that exibit this behaivior. If you don't want to register on bugzilla, I guess I could file this bug, but then you won't be able to even add a comment to it ∴ AlexSm 17:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have reported the bug here. Regards --Pok148 18:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I should have mentioned mw:Bugzilla with some more info, and I just added "What syntax can I use?" section there. Also, in here you could use bugzilla:12679 link ([[bugzilla:12679]]) ∴ AlexSm 18:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have Special:Prefixindex how about Special:Suffixindex?[edit]

One time I was looking for all articles ending with a certain string, well, that is extremely difficult since the punctuation was being ignored. [I was looking for all pages ending in (film series).] I was wondering if it were possible to search just by suffix, or if there is some wild card that I don't know about. - LA @ 13:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This was discussed at w:Wikipedia talk:Special:Prefixindex#Probably not, but anyway, there is google query example at the end of that section that might help. -AlexSm 18:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update this to add new cross-wiki special pages[edit]

New cross-wiki special pages for steward tasks and the like should be added here. Many wiki constellations, not only Wikimedia, have use for them; and the documentation elsewhere on Meta is falling behind a bit as well. The same goes for improving the Help: documentation for supporting a network of wikis with interwiki and interlanguage links (again, not a unique request; all global sites need interlanguage links, and any sites with multiple major topics will need internal interwiki links as well). -- sj | help translate |+ 01:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special:PrefixIndex not working?[edit]

See Special:PrefixIndex/Technical lists 4 pages, but if I go to Special:PrefixIndex and type "Technical" and then click "Go", I get lots of pages... =/ Helder 15:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is a known bug. Can't find the number at the moment.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 16:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Allpages is blank[edit]

Help! http://ict.ussf2010.org/ticket/7 - MarkDilley 00:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Special: BookSources[edit]

Could anyone point me to a discussion regarding the creation of the page Special: BookSources? I am interest in finding out about the rationale behind it, who edits it and whether it could be adapted so that it could be used with other publication catalogue numbering systems? --Gavin.collins 13:53, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move to Mediawiki?[edit]

Just wondered why the page is here, rather than at Mediawiki. I would have nominated it to go there, however, the label of OUT-OF-DATE isn't very helpful without an indication of what should be updated on the page (IMNSHO). billinghurst 08:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support a move to MediaWiki.org. Tisane 01:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

LMO: Pages without language links[edit]

On LMO wiki, it seems as the Special Page "Pages without language links" is not updated. The page says "updated on 19:30, 1 Nuv 2011", but it contains pages with interlinks added almost 1 year ago, as lmo:Alto (CN), lmo:Barolo (cümü), etc. Is there a solution? Tnx, Dragonòt 10:49, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. In the pages there was an inexistent template. We removed the inexistent template and the pages have been removed from the list. -- Dragonòt 08:40, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Setting refresh[edit]

It seems to me that setting a refresh for Special:Watchlist (e.g. <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300">) would be very helpful. That would allow editors to keep up to date with changes to their watchlist semi-automatically. What's the best place to go about proposing such a thing? Waitak 22:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bypass cache for cached special pages[edit]

Is there a way to bypass the cache for special pages such as WantedX, UncategorizedX, UnusedX, and MostLinkedX to see what is actually wanted, uncategorized, unused, and most linked to after a serious bout of editing? - LA @ 10:25, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Page does need to be migrated to Translation: system[edit]

This page should be migrated from the old approach to translation to the new one. It is limiting information to a few languages to what should be truly universal, and its many single lines scream for a better approach.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:42, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the page was already translatable, but it has been updated through a copy and paste of English Wikipedia page.
Since the long term goal is to move all technical help pages to MediaWiki.org, I do not prepare new help page for translation locally any more. I think we should complete mw:Help:Special pages instead (which is in Public domain).
Let’s ping TheAafi and PK2. -- Pols12 (talk) 00:49, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Billinghurst, I agree with what my friend @Pols12, and I did bring this issue to Babylon (our noticeboard) much earlier than you brought it here, and also posted a warning to PK2 about not messing with pages in translation this way. They updated it based on en-wiki and removed a lot of translation markup which resulted in the page's translation anatomy getting broken. This is so huge and I am not going to help with marking it here since Pols has already said, "the long term goal is to move all technical help pages to MediaWiki.org", and translations admins on that wiki would help fixing this. ─ The Aafī (talk) 04:13, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am always comfortable with this page being hosted at mediawikiwiki. My comment was that this method of addition and translation is not a sustainable approach. If there is any sort of work done at mw: then let us make it an {{interwiki redirect}} sooner rather than later.  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
AND AND AND you will note that I made a comment at mw: being the site for this text way back in 2009. So zero issue for me  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:43, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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