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Can't view source of empty page or revision in the MediaWiki namespace
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Description

If I'm not an admin, and I try to "view source" for an empty page or 0-byte revision in the mediawiki namespace, it shows a confusing error message.

Examples:

  1. A 0-byte revision
  2. empty message by default

I get the following message:

Permission error
You do not have permission to create this page, for the following reason:
This page provides interface text for the software on this wiki, and is protected to prevent abuse. To add or change translations for all wikis, please use translatewiki.net, the MediaWiki localisation project.

Expected result:
As the message is still a local message (just an empty one), I would expect to see an empty, greyed out text area and not get an error message. A visitor does not know whether it is really empty without being able to see the source text.

See Also: T52124: Difficult to create blank MediaWiki message

Details

Reference
bz48935

Related Objects

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 22 2014, 1:40 AM
• bzimport added a project: MediaWiki-Page-editing.
• bzimport set Reference to bz48935.
• bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).
Rillke created this task.May 29 2013, 11:06 AM
Rillke added a comment.May 29 2013, 11:08 AM

I am not a sysop at meta.

Aklapper added a comment.May 29 2013, 11:55 AM

Is this what is discussed in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Edittools#Future_of_this_message ?

Rillke added a comment.May 29 2013, 9:35 PM

(In reply to comment #2)
This is unrelated to the discussion there, I just wanted/expected to see an empty, disabled (because I am not a sysop) <textarea> instead of having to go to the history tab an lookup the size there:

Going to https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Edittools&oldid=5491472, the tab says: "View source" and I wanted to do exactly this.

Let me know if this clarified the situation.

Quiddity renamed this task from Can't view source of empty MediaWiki page on Meta to Can't view source of empty page or revision in the MediaWiki namespace.Sep 17 2016, 6:47 PM
Quiddity updated the task description. (Show Details)
Quiddity set Security to None.
Quiddity edited subscribers, added: Quiddity; removed: • wikibugs-l-list.
Platonides subscribed.Sep 17 2016, 7:01 PM

Probably related to the magic of MediaWiki namespace, where some empty pages mean that the default should be used.

zhuyifei1999 subscribed.Feb 7 2017, 8:17 PM
matmarex mentioned this in T249978: Unable to view source of empty protected page, have a message explaining why.Apr 14 2020, 5:53 PM
Ammarpad closed this task as Invalid.Apr 17 2020, 12:19 PM
Ammarpad subscribed.

This is intentional and it's so for all pages not only in MediaWiki namespace.

There's no point in showing empty edit window. T249978 may, or may not change the message. In fact, the current message is not even wrong.

Tacsipacsi mentioned this in T52124: Difficult to create blank MediaWiki message.Dec 20 2022, 4:11 PM
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