User:Vancemiller/Tools

Tools
Tools and techniques that have been useful:
 * Magnus' citation builder, which is more up-to-date and comprehensive thanrefTools. Magnus' citation builder shows a ref and citation that you can copy and paste into the article. WhilerefTools or WikEd run in the edit box, Magnus' citation builder runs in a different page than the article, and it is usually easier to run it in a different tab. The builder outputs the ref and citation as text rather than in box, but you can use the hotkey copy here and then pastse in the article's edit box. Table of keyboard shortcuts lists hotkeys for common operating systems.
 * If you specify a URL, you must also specify accessdate. Until mid-2009 the recommended format was the ISO yyyy-mm-dd, but now regular dates are recommended, and a bot has been these working through these. Someone has even an parameter in citations to say whether the accessdate is in form dmy or mdy.
 * Disambiguation link checker checks disambiguation pages.
 * Keep Alt text checker in the toolbox but don't use it until WP:ALT has been re-written and got real consensus. At present (end of May 2010) WP:WIAFA excludes WP:ALT.
 * For converting old money values to modern ones:
 * Template:Inflation. Based on consumer prices, handles a wide range of currencies. Best used with template:Formatprice, e.g. £ (modern value of a 1948 figure of £35,000) generates £920,000.
 * measuringworth.com has only £(GB) and $(US), but can use prices, incomes and other bases for conversion.
 * Chronological list of articles awaiting GA review: User:VeblenBot/C/Good article nominees awaiting review
 * Featured article tools might be useful. This "template" is undocumented, but it seems the way to use it is to add
 * WikEd - the Find and Replace facilities are great for doing global edits. It's often best to switch off its the Syntax highlighter because it has a few eccentricities, especially in moving to & selecting highlighted text. N.B. WikEd does not currently work with Internet Explorer (non-standard CSS; a security hazard) or Opera (seems limited in JavaScript). The tool works fine in Gecko-based browsers like Firefox or K-meleon, and in WebKit-based ones like Safari and Google Chrome, and presumably on KDE's KHTML as WebKit is a port of that.
 * Just before nominating an article for GA- or FA-review, use User:Dispenser/Link checker to check that none of its URLs has not died (the checker does all in one hit) and that all required parameters of the citation are present.
 * If a URL dies, Internet Archive's Way Back Machine often contains archived copies of Web pages that have gone offline. You need to supply the original URL. When citing archived copies: parameter accessdate= is still required; add parameter archiveurl=... for the link provided by Internet Archive - as well as url=...; add parameter archivedate=... giving the date when the archived copy was made (a link shown in the search results from the Way Back Machine; you have to click this to see the archived content). Occasionally a URL dies during a reviewer. Keep calm, explain what happened, try the Internet Archive and and then fix the link. But some sites use the robot.txt to prevent the Way Back Machine from making a backup copy. In that case you need find another source, or remove some of the article's text.
 * There are more tools at Tools.
 * Keeping updating your toolbox, for example add:
 * items that are relevant to the types of work you do.
 * items that have been hard to find, such as the whether the accessdate is in form dmy or mdy.

Links that have died

 * User:Dispenser/Checklinks checks web pages that an article refers to, to make sure they still exist and still do what you expect them to (e.g. have not lapsed and been taken over by an advertiser).
 * Internet Archive's Way Back Machine often contains archived copies of Web pages that have gone offline. You need to supply the original URL. When citing archived copies: parameter accessdate= is still required; add parameter archiveurl=... for the link provided by Internet Archive - as well as url=...; add parameter archivedate=... giving the date when the archived copy was made (supplied in the search results from the Way Back Machine; you have to click this to see the archived content).

Other useful items

 * Graphic Lab - not a tool, a bunch of helpful artists
 * User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a (of FAC - "engaging, even brilliant prose")
 * User:Giano/A fool's guide to writing a featured article
 * Simplified ruleset aka WP:SIMPLE - good for educating newbies.