Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 November 1

= November 1 =

Selective censorship
Wikipedia is not censored, but how about "selective censorship" - i.e., censored pictures that you have to wave your mouse pointer over to see. You can imagine why. OneWeirdDude (talk) 04:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I can't imagine why. Could you perhaps explain in more detail why this would be a desirable feature?  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  05:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a perennial proposal that the community has repeatedly rejected. Darkspots (talk) 06:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * You can choose not to view the pictures if you prefer, though. Options to not see an image will help you with this. C h a m a l  talk 06:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

A problem ..
If u go here: WikiProject Malaysia/Collaboration, at the bottom of the page where the link to Kinabalu National Park appears, there seems to be something wrong there. That link should not be there. What appears there should be what is contained in this subpage: WikiProject Malaysia/Collaboration/Nominees. Anyone can spot what went wrong? ќמшמφטтгמ torque 08:25, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The WikiProject Malaysia/Collaboration page needed a purge. Whenever you try to transclude something, and it doesn't show up right on the transcluding page, purge the transcluding page. --Teratornis (talk) 08:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah ic. Thanks a lot. ќמшמφטтгמ torque 08:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a quirk of how the MediaWiki software works. It's an unfortunate problem that confuses lots of users as they begin working with templates (it confused me too). Normally the software gets around to updating such a page by itself eventually, but not fast enough to avoid confusing people. The ergonomic difficulty stems from the fact that the visual indication of the problem gives no clue to help you find the WP:PURGE page that tells you how to fix it. All you see is a page that doesn't appear to be transcluding what you think it should be transcluding. You see no hint that the problem has an actual name, and a simple solution. At the moment, the only efficient way to discover the problem is to fall back on human intelligence by asking a question on the Help desk. When we design computer systems, we would like to avoid falling back on human intelligence - the system should be able to answer any questions it raises. The whole point of computer systems is to automate repetitive work, so humans can continue to focus on new problems. In a larger sense, this Help desk exposes the remaining ergonomic defects of the combined system of the MediaWiki software and all the Wikipedia add-ons, by fielding many of the same questions over and over. These questions that keep coming up are the frontier for future software development, i.e., the software should answer these questions itself, when it creates them in the minds of users. We are taking small steps toward this, by creating methods for users to look up their own answers. --Teratornis (talk) 18:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The tool that shows how many times a page was viewed
... So I was trying to find the tool that shows how many times a certain page was viewed from any Wikimedia project... but had no luck. Anyone here know the link to that tool? Thanks, – RyanCross  ( talk ) 08:52, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this is what you want: Wikipedia article traffic statistics Doesn't seem to be very accurate though. Note that it says the Main page has not been viewed on 21st and 22nd.  C h a m a l  talk 08:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's it. Thank you, – RyanCross  ( talk ) 09:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I also did some research, and the answer to why it wasn't working on those two days is located at User_talk:Henrik. – RyanCross  ( talk ) 09:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * See the Editor's index entry for "Page views" at WP:EIW. If you find another useful tool for counting page views, please add it to the list of links there. We want the Editor's index to be, as far as possible, a one-stop shop for looking up all the gizmos a Wikipedia editor needs. --Teratornis (talk) 19:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

How to Semi-protect a page
I have a question. How semi-protect a page? Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home ,User:Yellow Evan/Sandbox,Hurricane Fausto (2002),Hurricane Hernan (2008), Tropical Storm Dora (2005) or Tropical Storm Norman (2000) 14:37, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You can't. Only administrators have the ability to protect a page from editing. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  14:39, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * you can request page protection here: Requests_for_page_protection Sssoul (talk) 15:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, looking over those pages, I don't see anything that would qualify them for semi-protection. The tropical storm pages aren't currently being vandalised, nor are they the source of an edit war or other dispute, thus there doesn't seem any compelling reason to stop IP addresses (or anyone else) from editing them... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  15:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hernan and 2008 PHS has been vandalised a few weeks ago, and I am doing it to be on the safe side. see edit logs. Leave Message ,Yellow Evan home 15:50, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Pages are not semi-protected when they were vandalised weeks ago. See Protection policy. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Fake poster in a film article
Hi, User:Youngin211 is inserting again and again a fake poster in the Inglourious Basterds article. I warned him not to do this again but he is still inserting it. Could somebody help me? Thanks a lot! --Schizodelight (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've given them a final warning. GbT/c 19:07, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * He has inserted it again http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inglourious_Basterds&diff=249063282&oldid=249035561 :( --Schizodelight (talk) 21:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Indef blocked for disruption. Take out those edits and there's nothing particularly constructive in his contributions. GbT/c 21:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

clarinet userbox
Is there a userbox that says "This user is quite good at the clarinet for his experience/age?"--Archeopteryx (talk) 19:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there's either User:Reaverdrop/Userboxes/clar-1, or User_clarinet. There may be others, but it's quite specific wording. Probably the easiest way to create it would be to subst the latter template onto your sandbox, change the wording to what you want, then copy it over to your userpage. GbT/c 19:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Birds
What it the template for Wikiproject Birds that goes on an article's talk page? Schuy m 1 ( talk ) 22:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * BirdTalk - that's the one.  Garden . 23:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)