Kill $wgAllowPageInfo; enable MediaWiki's info action by default
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	• MZMcBride
	Jul 17 2012, 8:35 PM

Description

As documented at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Reimplement_info_action, the info action in MediaWiki was disabled by Tim in r4247 by putting it behind the global variable $wgAllowPageInfo and setting this global to false by default.

Now with years of hindsight, it's become clear that a more generic solution should have been used (e.g., $wgDisabledActions), however this bug is about killing (or deprecating) $wgAllowPageInfo and enabling action=info by default.

This requires marking the global as unused in DefaultSettings.php, removing the conditional code that relies on this global variable (fortunately it's not used in many places), and then disabling the expensive portions of the info action that caused the action to be flatly disabled so many years ago (namely disabling any properties that rely on unoptimized queries).

Relying on $wgMiserMode is one option. Another option is to introduce an array such as $wgDisabledInfoActionProperties or introduce another binary global such as $wgDisableExpensiveInfoActionProperties, though I'm very hesitant to add a binary global variable again.

Version: unspecified
Severity: normal

Details

Reference: bz38451

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Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
Open	Feature	None	T40450 Reimplement MediaWiki's info action (tracking)
Resolved		None	T43582 Show "Page information" toolbox link to info action also in history etc.
Invalid		None	T44238 Provide a link to the permalink for this page in the user interface (to page, not revision)
Resolved		None	T23572 Provide a safe and short permanent link to a page (e.g. by title, or stable page id)
Resolved		None	T18362 Add link to MediaWiki info action in UI
Resolved		None	T40451 Kill $wgAllowPageInfo; enable MediaWiki's info action by default
Resolved		Parent5446	T41490 Add caching to info action

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.Nov 22 2014, 12:46 AM

• bzimport added a project: MediaWiki-General.

• bzimport set Reference to bz38451.

• bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

• MZMcBride created this task.Jul 17 2012, 8:35 PM

We can MiserMode and call $dbw->estimateRowCount on the bad queries... ;)

The only really slow query is the distinct revision count, but even then this isn't too bad.

page_counter is useless for WMF usage... And is half based on $wgDisableCounters

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/15840/
https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/15844/

mysql> explain select count(*) from watchlist where wl_title = 'Barack_Obama' AND wl_namespace = '0';
+----+-------------+-----------+------+-----------------+-----------------+---------+-------------+------+--------------------------+

select_type

table

type

possible_keys

key

key_len

ref

rows

Extra

+----+-------------+-----------+------+-----------------+-----------------+---------+-------------+------+--------------------------+

SIMPLE

watchlist

ref

namespace_title

261

const,const

4060

Using where; Using index

+----+-------------+-----------+------+-----------------+-----------------+---------+-------------+------+--------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select count(*) from watchlist where wl_title = 'Barack_Obama' AND wl_namespace = '0';
+----------+

count(*)

+----------+

2234

+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select count(*) from watchlist where wl_namespace = '0' AND wl_title = 'Barack_Obama';
+----------+

count(*)

+----------+

2234

+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from page where page_namespace = 0 and page_title = 'Barack_Obama';
+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+

page_id

page_namespace

page_title

page_restrictions

page_counter

page_is_redirect

page_is_new

page_random

page_touched

page_latest

page_len

+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+

534366

Barack_Obama

0.379391504628

20120717194453

502845086

203903

+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> explain select count(rev_page) from revision where rev_page = 534366;
+----+-------------+----------+------+------------------------+----------------+---------+-------+-------+-------------+

select_type

table

type

possible_keys

key

key_len

ref

rows

Extra

+----+-------------+----------+------+------------------------+----------------+---------+-------+-------+-------------+

SIMPLE

revision

ref

PRIMARY,page_timestamp

page_timestamp

const

17160

Using index

+----+-------------+----------+------+------------------------+----------------+---------+-------+-------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select count(rev_page) from revision where rev_page = 534366;
+-----------------+

count(rev_page)

+-----------------+

22257

+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> explain select COUNT(DISTINCT rev_user_text) from revision where rev_page = 534366;
+----+-------------+----------+-------+------------------------+---------+---------+------+-------+-------------+

select_type

table

type

possible_keys

key

key_len

ref

rows

Extra

+----+-------------+----------+-------+------------------------+---------+---------+------+-------+-------------+

SIMPLE

revision

range

PRIMARY,page_timestamp

PRIMARY

NULL

38318

Using where

+----+-------------+----------+-------+------------------------+---------+---------+------+-------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

mysql> select COUNT(DISTINCT rev_user_text) from revision where rev_page = 534366;
+-------------------------------+

COUNT(DISTINCT rev_user_text)

+-------------------------------+

5923

+-------------------------------+
1 row in set (1.03 sec)

mysql> select page_counter from revision where rev_page = 534366;
ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'page_counter' in 'field list'
mysql> select page_counter from page where page_id = 534366;
+--------------+

page_counter

+--------------+

+--------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from page where page_id = 534366;
+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+

page_id

page_namespace

page_title

page_restrictions

page_counter

page_is_redirect

page_is_new

page_random

page_touched

page_latest

page_len

+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+

534366

Barack_Obama

0.379391504628

20120717194453

502845086

203903

+---------+----------------+--------------+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-------------+----------------+----------------+-------------+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/16235/ does the actual killing of the global

Updated manual at https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Manual:$wgAllowPageInfo&diff=579349&oldid=562830 to mention the setting has been removed with 1.20.

16235 is merged

Kill $wgAllowPageInfo; enable MediaWiki's info action by defaultClosed, ResolvedPublicActions

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Kill $wgAllowPageInfo; enable MediaWiki's info action by default
Closed, ResolvedPublic
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