User:Bishonen/My saved bits

Salting the earth
Per WP:SALT. Go to the deleted article, click "protect". Entry on the Special:ProtectedTitles list will be generated automagically.

Collapsing text
Hey, aren't you the one who gripes at people on ANI who use this stupid template? I demand you let me speak! (Notice I'm typing inside the collapsed box so nobody is going to see this stupid post) Tex (talk) 14:34, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Not at all. I'm the one who gripes at people on ANI who use the stupid archive template for active discussions (=everybody stop talking, discussion is over because I want it to be over). That's the one I am. (Take a look, if you like, at the stuff I just collapsed at User talk:Penyulap. Not long, not offensive, but a silly distraction in a discussion that's having trouble staying coherent anyway. It would have been overlong at three words.) Bishonen &#124; talk 15:01, 17 August 2012 (UTC).


 * He no watchlist, he just stalking edits! Hey, balloon work in collapse box?  Goo chy  Oooh, pretty! 13:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)




 * Oh, look! Balloon only show up when box is opened!  Yee haw!!! -- Bearded Burro  (Scratch Me)  13:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Look DaDa, Barrooon! Barrooon! Baby Tex (talk) 13:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It worked! I wonder if collapseboxes are infinitely recessive? Bishonen &#124; talk 16:53, 21 August 2012 (UTC).

Green quotes
Yeah, how to make quotes green

To make a blockquote
Put "my text"

Little boxes
Either do like on my Talk, or use this "divbox", which looks much simpler. Check out also Heimstern's use of it on his talk as of July 2012.

How to make interwiki links
Wiktionary links:
 * , which appears as: article.

or


 * , which appears as: article.

Links to other wikipedias:


 * , which appears as sv:Kräftor.

or


 * , which appears as Kräftor.

Coloured text
Write like this for colour: Little Toxic User: Little Toxic mediumpurple aqua bisque blanchedalmond brown crimson cyan darkblue firebrick goldenrod maroon mediumpurple orchid plum violet palegreen grey

How to make a coloured background for a bit of text
This is how:

Harriet Sofie Bosse (19 February 1878 – 2 November 1961) was a Norwegian-Swedish actress. A celebrity in her own day, Bosse is today best remembered as the third wife of August Strindberg, one of the originators of modern drama. Bosse began her career in a minor company run by her forceful older sister Alma Fahlstrøm, in Christiania, now Oslo, the capital of Norway. Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm, Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "Oriental" appearance.

After a whirlwind courtship, unfolded in detail in Strindberg's letters and diary, Strindberg and Bosse were married in 1901, when he was 51 and she 22. Strindberg wrote a number of major roles for Bosse during their short and stormy relationship, especially in 1900–1901, which was a period of great creativity and productiveness for him. Like his previous two marriages, the relationship was broken up by Strindberg's jealousy, which some biographers have considered paranoid. The arc of Strindberg's feelings about Bosse, from worship to rage, is reflected in the roles he wrote for her to play, or wrote as portraits of her. Despite her role of muse in Strindberg's life, she remained an independent artist.

Bosse married Swedish actor Gunnar Wingård in 1908, and Swedish screen actor, director, and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson in 1927.

More simple highlighting a few words:

All three of her marriages ended in divorce after a few years, leaving her as a hard-working single mother with a daughter by Strindberg and a son by Wingård. On retiring after a high-profile acting career based in Stockholm, she returned to her roots in Oslo.

Closing AN and ANI threads
Couldn't be simpler!

Archive box
Put at the top (do NOT include the heading in the box) and  at the bottom. Subst them if you want to change the standard text.

Who can give a topic ban?
Any uninvolved admin, according to FloNight in March 2008:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=198080956#What_is_a_.22topic_ban.22.3F

Tip for RfA report
If you want to override the formatting on the rfa report box you can do something like this:

That is what I am doing User:HighInBC. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

History merge
(A is the desired final version = the desired final name.)

1. Move B to A (approve deletion of A)

2. Delete A.

3. Undelete A. This restores all revisions from both A and B.

4. The front page of A will now be showing whatever the most recent version of either page was. If that's a version of B, such as "#redirect A", fix this by reverting to the last version of A from before the move. First make sure you see the most recent history by purging the page (clicking on my little clock).

Try Special:MergeHistory next time. Seems very simple to perform, but has considerable instruction creep here. I think this is the only thing I need care about: "It automatically detects the latest version of the source page which is older than the oldest version of the target page, and won't allow the user to move later revisions. This feature is good if the source page eventually became something else, but can be bad if the target page had started out as a redirect to the source." Does that mean it won't create a history with mixed chronology? I think so. So only good for adding the history of the source page (=the page with the old title) to the beginning of the history of the target page (= the page with the new title).

What's the use? I can't away with all the creep. The classic way I do it is fine.

How to undo a history merge (=partial archiving of history)
If a history merge should not have been performed, then it may be undone. Note, however, that it can be quite tiring, especially if the article has a very long history. The following procedure is listed:


 * 1) Suppose A has been history merged into B.
 * 2) We want to get A's former history back into A.
 * 3) Delete B.
 * 4) Selectively undelete the revisions of B that made up the history of A before the history merge.
 * 5) Move B to A.
 * 6) Undelete the rest of the revisions of B.
 * 7) If A and/or B is now a redirect to itself or the other article, then revert or change the redirect target, as deemed appropriate.

An example of a successful history merge and undo is available at User:King of Hearts/Sandbox/6 (the A article) and User:King of Hearts/Sandbox/7 (the B article).

Thus the quoted procedure. To move my history:
 * Delete User talk:Bishonen.
 * Undelete the 2004-2006 revisions.
 * Move User talk:Bishonen to User:Bishonen/talk history archive 2004—2006
 * Undelete the rest of the revisions of User talk:Bishonen
 * Check up on the redirect situation, delete redirects as required.
 * Put a link to this new history archive into the archive box.

nah

Arbcom mailing list
arbcom-l@wikimedia.org

cc to dgerard@gmail.com will get David Gerard to notice it.

Letter from Jimbo


INVOLVING JIMBO

I'd like to add some additional recommendations for people who'd like to appeal such cases directly to me (Jimbo).

First, it's very important that you write me a minimum of six pages of text explaining and defending the version that you prefer. The more tedious details, the better. I'm specifically keenly interested in the names of obscure rivers in Germany Poland Prussia. Also, be sure to write to me about the shape of Bigfoot's head. I really am the person to make a decision about that.

Second, everyone knows that I make it a routine practice to force articles to read exactly the way that you like. I also ban longtime users and sysops whenever I feel like, just based on the say-so of people just like you. So be sure to ask for that.

Third, better yet, don't ask for it, demand it. Threaten to leave if I don't comply within 24 hours. That always works.

Fourth, if you happen to know that I'm personally politically sympathetic to your point of view, feel free to call your opponents names. For example, since I'm generally sympathetic to Israel, feel free to call anyone who has written anything critical of Israel a "Nazi." I'll get so excited that I'll probably ban them. Heck, I might even write new code in the software to only let you and people you approve edit the pages!

And finally, if for some insane reason I don't act on your wise proposals, tell everyone that you know that Wikipedia is all a scam to make money. It's a tool of capitalist oppression. It's a liberal playground with no standards. It's based on the principles of communism. It's collectivist. It's individualist. It's useless. It's the most important thing in the world, except for me screwing it up. That'll show old Jimbo who he's messing with! Jimbo Wales 13:32, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism warning warning
Which expands to

Please don't accuse editors of vandalism unless you're sure they have committed it. In particular, avoid using the word in edit summaries (such as "reverting vandalism"), and be very careful about posting vandalism warning templates on users' talkpages. Review the vandalism policy thoroughly before you do that, and see especially the section "What vandalism is not". Note that content disputes are not vandalism, and that good-faith edits of any kind, even if you think them misguided, are not to be considered vandalism. Vandalism accusations without any basis in policy are bad for the climate on the wiki and make constructive discussion more difficult. See also Avoid the word "vandal".

diff, with info inside http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Islam_and_anti-Semitism&diff=prev&oldid=57260704 gives

Welcome to Wikipedia! We're delighted that you've magically stumbled upon our web site, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It's marvelous that you already know so much about editing Wikipedia, from wiki syntax to policies and guidelines. It's very rare that new users learn so much on the same day, so congrats! Also, I'm glad to see that you're being bold! [Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/His excellency] All of the edits that you're making on resemble the same kinds of edits made by recently-banned users; it's a relief that their merit is not tarred by the reputation for bad faith of their originators. I'm now confident about the integrity of those edits. It's not every day that new users crop up out of nowhere to continue carrying the torch (well, I guess that does happen every day, but, oh well), so I'm very excited about your enthusiasm, and very happy that you decided to dive in. Please don't hesitate to ask anybody if you have any questions. Good luck, and happy editing! :-)



Well, or it would if it worked. :-(

... Oh, all right. Thank you both. . May I ask where there is a log of these kinds of blocks? Bishonen | talk 20:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC).

This is the range to block for Hollow Wilerding: 64.231.0.0/16. Anons only, two-three hours, we shall see if accouont creation needs disabling.

Template for references
gives

It looks like there's no room for place of publication, but all you have to do is this:

to get

For me, it's simpler to just write it, but that won't satisfy, I expect. At least this one's simpler than the horrible template used for Belton House.

See WP:CITE for more.

Sock tags
Suspected, with category:
 * Israel shamir

Puppeteer:

Smileys






Article contribution counter
Is supposed to be here, but is currently broken.

How many people have a particular page on their watchlist?
Is here.

User contribution counter
Is here, or was in November 2006. This is Interiot's tool. Very informative, actual article titles, etc. Slow, but who cares?

Formatting text, with fancy sig
To make something stand up.

To make something stand up.

To make something stand down

To make it  really big.

To make it blink like this

To make it red

To gray it out

To make it red another way

To make something stand down

Bishonen | talk

Modestly fancy sig:

bish bosh 

Blocking IP ranges

 * From Lucky's page.

It's actually not that difficult. Basically...say the user is using 129.54.23.34. If you wanted to block everyone in the 129.54.23.34 range, you would type in 129.54.23.0/24. That would block everyone that has an IP address that starts with 129.54.23, If you wanted to block the 129.54.23.0 and 24.0 ranges, you'd type in 129.54.23.0/23. 129.54.23.0/22 would block 23.0, 24.0, 25.0, 26.0. it's in multiples of 2. So /21 would block 8 ranges. /20 would block 16, etc. Hope that makes sense. :) It's actually not that complex. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 03:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The pissy autoblocker/WBardwin thing, according to JRM
From User talk:WBardwin

Note left for User:DragonflySixtyseven -- Please be aware that when you place a block on a IP address used by AOL, you rarely hit your target. Instead, innocent users get blocked for other's vandalism or misbehavior. Such IP addresses, including the one below, are on a list available to administrators and should never be blocked for long/indefinate periods of time. I have a long history of being impacted by such blocks. Please see User:WBardwin/AOL Block Collection for a history and decisions made on this problem. I would appreciate a prompt release of this and related blocks. Thank you. WBardwin 09:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Your IP address is 207.200.116.134. Your user name or IP address has been blocked by DragonflySixtyseven.
 * User:207.200.116.134 has not been blocked recently; the only IP addresses User:DragonflySixtyseven has blocked recently are User:65.117.158.6 and User:67.82.159.228. Were you hit by the autoblocker again? If so, you need to provide the name of the account that was blocked, since it was a registered account that was blocked, not your IP address. Registered users' IP addresses are private and administrators do not have access to them. Please don't imply that DragonflySixtyseven had any way of knowing that an AOL IP address would be autoblocked by his block. Copying the entire block message here will allow us to quickly unblock you. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 09:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't understand it either. I've e-mailed JRM, that's the best I can do. Bishonen | talk 11:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC).

Let's go over MediaWiki's ever so helpful and privacy respecting block system again, and why it's hardly optimal.

What happened here is that DragonflySixtyseven blocked a registered user who was being an ass. Which one is impossible to tell in retrospect. Said registered user then tried editing while logged out (clever!). In response, the autoblocker kicked in and blocked that address for 24 hours. Now, where is that address in the block list?

Nowhere, because "to respect privacy" (we all know how sensitive IP addresses are, especially of AOL proxies) IP addresses are obfuscated. So it will have been something like #XXXXX, with X a digit. If I'm not mistaken, WBardwin should have gotten a message that told him he was blocked by DragonflySixtyseven, but I do not know the reason it specified. The system should provide a reason that looks like this: "autoblocked because your IP address has been used recently by User:Foo ". With this block reason in hand administrators can look in the logs and find the obfuscated IP address that's targeted by this. Without this, they cannot. You could try to find the block based on the time of the message, but this is unreliable.

Who is to blame? The developers. There are at least three ways of solving this problem, some complementary:
 * If the autoblocker blocks someone, make it clear the autoblocker is doing it and not the administrator involved in the original block. Make this abundantly clear in messages, too. Add the time of the original block.
 * Implement a blacklist of addresses the autoblocker must never block automatically, or at most a few minutes, just like administrators are required to do.
 * Turn off the stupid autoblocker. If people log out and continue to edit, require administrators to do the re-blocking themselves. The autoblocker has proven to be incompetent. Apropos privacy: why should a blocked user who tries to evade the block have his IP address kept secret? You forfeit your right to have your IP address kept a secret when you violate our policies. Anonymous users are treated no better.

In the meantime, the most productive "codes of conduct" for everyone involved are:
 * If you're an innocent user hit by a block, ask the administrator (or an administrator) to unblock you. Mention your IP, the block reason, and the fact that you are using an AOL proxy. Do not imply the administrator must have blocked you directly and ignored the AOL block list; it's very well possible they didn't. To play it safe, you can contact an administrator of which you know they understand all this. You don't necessarily need the original admin to do it.
 * If you're an administrator, educate yourself on proxies, the autoblocker, and How Stuff Works (tm). The last thing we need is ignorant admins going "I don't understand, I didn't block you, should I unblock you?" See if the IP specified really is an AOL proxy. If it is, unblock without question. Simply enter the IP address with a block time of 0, this should release the block regardless of how it came to be, and you won't need to delve into the blocked addresses list. (Disclaimer: I don't know if this works; I "seem to recall" it does/did.)
 * If you're a developer, just go on doing whatever it is that you're doing. There aren't enough of you anyway to fix these things, so don't bother. Thanks for the autoblocker, though; it's a real help. JRM · Talk 16:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Admin tools

 * Admins only can edit the text of a Special page such as Special:Blockip at, as it might be, MediaWiki:Blockiptext.
 * Block user
 * List of blocked users; users can be unblocked from here.
 * Recent changes
 * New pages
 * Criteria for speedy deletion
 * Category:Candidates for speedy deletion
 * Logs, combined display of upload, deletion, protection, blocking, and sysop logs.
 * Administrators' reading list
 * Administrators' how-to guide
 * Bishonen/School IP box
 * Template messages/Maintenance, templates for protection, in use, cleanup, copyvio.

Mediation
Mediators can be found at Mediation Committee, use e-mail to approach one privately. I can either do that, or post a request on WP:RfM. This comes from Sannse on irc 050304. But it's borked. There is a new page as of July 2005, Wikimediation. There is an even more unofficial one at WP:TINMC.

But if I want someone to pass messages and be my språkrör, what I want isn't a mediator at all, but someone from Association of Members' Advocates. That was a bit of a disaster when I tried it in March 2005, but I suppose it's all the luck of the draw.

A cool way to search Project Gutenberg
A message to the C18 mailing list:

Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 18:39:47 EST From: Jim Chevallier  Subject: A cool way to search Project Gutenberg

Which is to say, to search a good portion of the world's literature.

For a while I've used the Greenstone search tool to search Gutenberg:

http://public.ibiblio.org/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?site=localhost&a=p&p=about&c=gberg&ct=0

But it has a variety of limits.

Now I've discovered this 'Advanced Search' tool:

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/search

Which works a bit more like Gallica - that is, it brings up the search text in context so that you can check that before loading the whole document. Very convenient.

To purge server cache
Make an URL on this pattern and hit return: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates&action=purge

Diverse MEMOS AND LINKS
Page of metalinks and shortcuts about copyright etc, very useful!

Manual of Style

Cite sources, which is part of the Manual of Style

Guide to layout, which is part of the Manual of Style

Minimum waste of time

Requests for sysop attention, perhaps superseded by WP:AN and/or WP:AN/I?

New pages

Kate's tools old

Kate's tools new

Interiot's tool

How to find an old FAC discussion
The addresses look like this: 

References vs External links
What of an external link that's a reference? Apparently that's one for the "References" section, since Filiocht said in an FAC comment that "The external links that served as references need to go to a references section, along with any print refs that were used". OK, do I ever even put in any external links that are not used as references? Probably not, but other people do.

To do "strike through"
Write like this to produce the headline: To do "strike through"

To write comments in the edit field that don't show up on the page
Write like this:

External links in text vs. at the end (discussion)
A Talk:Cite sources section

Templates

 * To say This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.Category:1911 Britannica, put at the bottom of the page or under references.


 * To say "This article is partially based on content from the public domain "Owl Edition" of Nordisk familjebok", put at the bottom of the page or under references.


 * To say "This article uses text from A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies by Henry Wace", put  at the bottom of the page or under references.

Examples of controversial RFA promotions
All below is copied from User:Friday/bcrat.

Purpose of examples: try to demonstrate that when candidates have been promoted despite objections for good cause, this has usually been a mistake. (More importantly, it's usually been later recognized as a mistake.) Objective: get the RFA voters to open their eyes and start actually evaluating candidates. Alternately, get people to recognize that it'd be useful to have a way to remove the bit without going to arbcom.

Examples of controversial crat decisions:

Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3

Requests for adminship/^demon 3 (see also Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-25/Controversial RFA)

Requests for adminship/Elonka 3

Requests for adminship/Gwen Gale 2

Requests for adminship/Philosopher

Requests for adminship/Ryulong 3 - was eventually desysopped for doing the sorts of things the opposers predicted

Requests_for_adminship/Majorly - weird. he was apparently promoted after this with no additional RFA? how did that happen?

Requests for adminship/Ecoleetage 3 - clear and ample evidence of unsuitability of the candidate. will likely be closed by the numbers, as a success. Some unknown quantity of chat room buddies number among the supporters. what a catastrophe. retirement stalking accusation At least people see now that we dodges a bullet there.

Requests for adminship/Foxy Loxy 3 - ongoing maturity concerns, even among supporters. yet, a big crowd of "great candidate, hooray!" voters turned up.

Other weird stuff:

Requests_for_adminship/Archtransit - not "controversial"- nobody saw this coming.

this travesty is good evidence that yes, things are screwed up with RFA. How can we discourage fan-club-ism and encourage actual evaluation of candidates?

Requests_for_adminship/IMatthew_2 - highly questionable rfa. some of the supporters, and even the nominator, had "concerns" yet they put their vote in the wrong column.

What happens when people ask crats to do something about a problem admin? We don't have much data. I have two ill-fated attempts at User_talk:Kingturtle/Archive6 and User:Raul654/archive14. All we can do is keep trying, backed up with better discussion and a good demonstration of a community lack of confidence. Altho, it appears that no argument can stand up to the objection of "But, we've never done that before."

Requests_for_adminship/Majorly_2 another case of misplaced opposes. Some of the people voting support come right out and admit he's a drama queen, and they support anyway? I strongly disagree.

Requests for adminship/Pastor Theo significant opposition for good cause, yet by simple vote counting it's successful