Wikipedia:Twinkle
 | Warning: You take full responsibility for any action you perform using Twinkle. You must understand Wikipedia policies and use this tool within these policies, or risk being blocked from editing. |
Twinkle is a popular JavaScript Wikipedia gadget that gives autoconfirmed registered users many extra options to assist them in common Wikipedia maintenance tasks and to help them deal with acts of vandalism or unconstructive edits. It provides users with three types of rollback functions and includes a full library of speedy deletion functions, user warnings and welcomes, maintenance tags, semi-automatic reporting of vandals, and more. In addition, it gives administrators more tools to help them carry out their duties.
 | Twinkle 2019 Coolest Tool Award Winner |
Quick info
- Getting started
- To enable Twinkle on your account and receive any future updates automatically, you can simply enable the "Twinkle" gadget in the Gadgets section of your Preferences page. (Don't forget to click "Save" at the bottom of the list of gadgets!)
- Customizing Twinkle
- To modify many aspects of Twinkle's operation, you can visit the Twinkle preferences panel. Make your changes, and click "Save changes" at the bottom of the page. Then make sure to completely clear your browser cache so your changes take effect.
- Getting help
- There is comprehensive information about Twinkle at the documentation page. If that page does not answer your question, consider asking at the talk page. IRC users can connect to the #wikipedia-userscripts or #wikipedia-en IRC channels.
- Reporting bugs or requesting features
- Twinkle is under active development, and we generally fix bugs reasonably quickly. If you find a bug, please help out by reporting it at our GitHub repository (you will need to have a GitHub account). If you don't want to create a GitHub account, or you have a request for a new feature that could be added to Twinkle, you can ask at the talk page.
- Notes
- If your account is very new, you will not be able to use Twinkle. You need to be autoconfirmed (at least four days old and have ten edits) to enable the Twinkle gadget.
- It is no longer possible to use Twinkle on Internet Explorer (IE) versions 10 or earlier. If you are still using one of these IE versions, try switching to another browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, as Twinkle is functional on most other modern browsers (including modern smartphone browsers).
- Some browser add-ons may interfere with Twinkle. If Twinkle still does not load after following the instructions above, consider disabling one or more of your add-ons and then restarting your browser.
- If you're using a touchscreen device, you may need to tap and hold the "TW" button in the Vector skin to show the Twinkle menu.
For a visual demonstration of many of the aforementioned items, it may be useful to view the "Twinkle" video tutorial on WMF Labs.
Documentation and configuration
Before using Twinkle, you should read its documentation to familiarize yourself with its possibilities and functions. Experienced Twinkle users are welcome to expand or improve the documentation based on their use of the tool.
Abuse
Never forget that one takes full responsibility for any action performed using Twinkle. One must understand Wikipedia policies and use this tool within these policies or risk having one's account blocked. Anti-vandalism tools, such as Twinkle, Huggle, and rollback, should not be used to undo changes that are constructive and made in good faith.
If a change is merely "unsatisfactory" in some way, undoing/reverting should not be the first response. Editors should either make a reasonable attempt to improve the change, or should simply leave it in place for future editors to improve. Undo/revert is appropriate in cases where the contribution is arguably "wrong" (consider moving it to the Talk page), or is unreasonably difficult to fix (e.g. incomprehensible, and the author is unresponsive), or is actually harmful to the article (such as vandalism). A plain language edit summary (not merely tags) should be used when reverting changes that appear to have been made in good faith because many contributors will not recognize minimalistic tags and will not learn what the problem was and are likely to repeat it.
Is Twinkle loading unreliably?
In the past, you could install Twinkle by adding the text importScript('User:AzaToth/twinkle.js'); to your personal script page; however, this practice can make Twinkle load unreliably (Twinkle might not load on every page you visit, or it might show up but not work properly).
To rectify this problem, you should remove the line importScript('User:AzaToth/twinkle.js'); from your personal script file, and then turn on the Twinkle gadget using the instructions above.
If you have any old configuration set up using TwinkleConfig or FriendlyConfig, it will still be effective. However, if you use the preferences panel to modify your configuration, you are advised to remove all old Twinkle/Friendly configuration variables from your skin JavaScript file.
History
Twinkle has its origins as a reversion script based on ideas found in Aaron Schulz's script collection. It was developed by AzaToth and released in 2007. It has grown into a tool with many more capabilities than its reversion roots and is used by thousands of Wikipedians. The toolset has expanded over the years: the collection of tools formerly known as Friendly, developed by Ioeth, became part of Twinkle in 2011, and a new module to make user blocking a smoother process for administrators was developed in 2015. Other major contributors include Amalthea, Amorymeltzer, MusikAnimal, SD0001 and This, that and the other. The gadget continues to be updated and improved, in order to accommodate user requests and changes to Wikipedia processes.
Use on other wikis
A common request on the Twinkle talk page comes from those who wish to use Twinkle on other wikis. Some parts of Twinkle are easily portable to other MediaWiki-based wikis: the revert/rollback module, for example. But most modules have been designed only with English Wikipedia in mind. For instance, the CSD module relies on templates that most likely do not exist on other wikis.
Users who wish to make Twinkle's functionality available on other wiki projects should consider the following suggestions:
- The "fluff" (revert/rollback), "diff" (quick access to diff pages), and "unlink" (automated orphaning) modules can be used elsewhere with little or no modification. In the future, it is possible that these scripts will be packaged and made available for a quick setup and update process. For individual users, this can be done by following the instructions here.
- If you wish to harness more of Twinkle's functionality, you may like to find a willing, JavaScript-savvy user on your wiki who can tweak Twinkle scripts to suit your site. The Twinkle developers are happy to help these efforts, to a reasonable degree: just ask at WT:TW, or join the #wikipedia-userscripts IRC channel (but be prepared to wait for an answer).
- The
morebits.jslibrary is likely to be of use to script developers, both here on English Wikipedia and other MediaWiki-based wikis. The latest version can be found at the Twinkle GitHub repository. The comment at the top of the file should be read to find out more.
Userboxes
Twinkle users can add any of these userboxes to their User page.
Also, there is the Twinkle topicon {{Twinkle topicon}}.