Pages are sorted by namespace then page ID rather than just page ID on Special:WhatLinksHere on Wikimedia wikis
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	GTrang
	Feb 12 2022, 2:04 AM

Description

List of steps to reproduce (step by step, including full links if applicable):

Click on "WhatLinksHere" from any Wikimedia wiki page (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Main_Page).

What happens?: Pages are sorted by namespace, and pages within the same namespace are sorted by page ID.

What should have happened instead?: Pages are sorted by page ID regardless of their namespace, like they used to.

Software version (if not a Wikimedia wiki), browser information, screenshots, other information, etc.:

This issue at least affects Wikimedia wikis. We do not know whether it affects other wikis with the latest code for MediaWiki 1.38, regardless of whether or not the "Linter" extension (with its latest code) is installed, but those wikis are probably unaffected. This may or may not be caused by https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Linter/+/755817.

See https://web.archive.org/web/20220130015434/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Main_Page vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Main_Page for the difference.

Sorting by namespace is, in my opinion, not a good idea, because cross-namespace moves could mess up the ordering of the pages.

Related Objects

Mentioned Here: T297754: CVE-2022-28204: Whatlinkshere of heavily used properties in wikidata can be easily utilized as a DDoS vector
T300222: Implement normalizing MediaWiki link tables
T300402: Add namespace column to Linter table
rELINT4544a9c7cc32: Add namespace column and new index to Linter table - part 1

Event Timeline

GTrang created this task.Feb 12 2022, 2:04 AM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptFeb 12 2022, 2:04 AM

4544a9c, T300402, feature instead?

I cannot imagine why Linter has anything to do with this since Linter has its own table and those tables aren't referenced by anything else other than the Linter extension. Linter extension in turn doesn't modify any other tables and does not render any other special pages besides Special:LintErrors.

Linter is enabled on all Wikimedia wikis so it being enabled isn't a good signal for this regression. I'm going to untag the Linter tag from this task.

Pages are sorted by page ID regardless of their namespace, like they used to.

@GeoffreyT2000: I don't see why? It's more useful to sort by namespace instead of a page ID most people are never going to see or care about...

Could anyone confirm this on a test installation of MediaWiki 1.38 (as yet unreleased) without the "Linter" extension installed? My guess is that https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Linter/+/755817 causes this on wikis with the extension installed.

SpecialWhatLinksHere.php has not been modified for a while and on my own install, even with Linter, the query has ORDER BY page_id ASC. It's something else that Wikimedia does have, but my install does not. T300222 is an ongoing update to this field.

GTrang renamed this task from Regression: Pages are sorted by namespace then page ID on Special:WhatLinksHere to Pages are sorted by namespace then page ID rather than just page ID on Special:WhatLinksHere on Wikimedia wikis.Feb 13 2022, 2:50 PM

GTrang removed a project: Regression.

GTrang updated the task description. (Show Details)

Restricted Application added a project: Internet-Archive. · View Herald TranscriptFeb 13 2022, 2:51 PM

I have removed the "Regression" tag and updated the description to say that it specifically affects Wikimedia wikis.

Harej removed a project: Internet-Archive.Mar 14 2022, 9:28 PM

Ah, here we are: T297754: CVE-2022-28204: Whatlinkshere of heavily used properties in wikidata can be easily utilized as a DDoS vector.

Oh, I now see why the change was made. It was made to unofficially fix T297754 (at least on Wikimedia wikis), and now the fix has been officially implemented in MediaWiki.

Pages are sorted by namespace then page ID rather than just page ID on Special:WhatLinksHere on Wikimedia wikisClosed, DeclinedPublicBUG REPORTActions

Description

Related Objects

Event Timeline

Pages are sorted by namespace then page ID rather than just page ID on Special:WhatLinksHere on Wikimedia wikis
Closed, DeclinedPublicBUG REPORT
Actions