Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive W

Help with the "#If" Parser Function
I can best illustrate my question by an example:

I like pizza.

In order to engage this, I need to subst it in giving anchovies and pepperoni a dummy value:

What I'd like to be able to do is just do:

anchovies

And have it go, "Oh, anchovies has been included as a template argument. So let's put in the 'anchovies' phrase."

How exactly do I tell the '#if' template to do that? I couldn't figure it out from ParserFunctions.

Much obliged to anyone who can assist. &mdash; Mike &bull; 21:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You can keep it general and put in the template, and call it with anchovies, or  , and call it with e.g. a .--Patrick 22:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

To clarify what Patrick is saying, if you do not include an equals sign (=) in an argument, then the parameter has no name, only a number. Eg:
 *   defines  as "anchovies" and  as undefined.
 *   defines  as null, and  as undefined.
 *   therefore defines  and  so you must work with those.

Some examples of what you could do then:
 * Template:Pizza with contents:  I like on my pizza. 

Which would produce:
 * : I like nothing on my pizza.
 *  : I like anchovies on my pizza.
 *  : I like anchovies and pepperoni on my pizza.

However, to only allow specific arguments, like a predetermined list of toppings in any order, you'd either have to use a #switch for each argument (if you allowed 5 arguments, you'd need 5 #switch) and a number of cases in each #switch equal to the number of toppings. Or you can require equals signs in your arguments and use one #if for each topping.

Note that subst + parserfunctions = headache too. --Splarka (rant) 23:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Guys, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help. However, after seriously thinking about how I need to go about this, I've realized that what I was asking for above wasn't a practical way to approach the problem in question.  I'm very grateful for your assistance anyway, and hope you'll forgive the change of mind. &mdash; Mike &bull; 04:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Expanded watchlist
An easy newbie question, I hope. I have my preferences set to Expanded watchlist. Can you tell me, please, what the letter N means, when it appears in the left-hand margin against an entry? Sorry to be so stupid! --MichaelMaggs 12:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It means it's a newly-created page. --Daduzi talk  12:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Obvious when you know. Many thanks. --MichaelMaggs 12:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD template change
Where can I go to propose a change to the AfD template, please? BlueValour 03:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Try Village pump (proposals) Folajimi 04:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * For changes relative to the template only (not the policy), Template talk:afd is probably a better place. (Liberatore, 2006). 16:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Useful suggestions chaps, thanks. BlueValour 21:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What determines the summary for a Wikipedia entry that describes the Google hit?
For some articles, it seems to be the opening sentence. For others, it is a selected piece of text embedded in the article. There seems to be no default, or if there is, how does one change it? In other words, how is the Google caption assigned within the article? Thanks. --PureLogic 02:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe it's determined by Google's search algorithms based on the search term you enter. I'm no Google expert, though. --james // bornhj (talk) 08:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It chooses it well, doesn't it! The summary for en.wikipedia.org is "A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software. (GNU Free Documentation License)". That's cool. --Lord Deskana Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS 09:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure does, but try it for yourself: first, try this query: which returns a summary of "Although the Vought F8U Crusader won the contract, the Super Demon (as McDonnell's entrant ... The aircraft was originally designated the AH "Super Demon", ...". Then, try this query:  which returns a summary of "The German Luftwaffe initially ordered the reconnaissance RF-4E in 1969. ... Eleven reconnaissance aircraft received a similar RF-4EJ Kai upgrade. ..." (both from the same page, F-4 Phantom II, one of our newest featured articles). Gotta love Google! --james  // bornhj (talk) 12:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

As the originator of the question, I will describe the issue which led me to ask it. Googling "Winston Churchill" brings up a Wikipedia summary which is the first line of his entry -- probably the Wikipedia/Google default. But if you Google the Professor who has been questioning the US government's account of the 9/11 World Trade Center collapses, "David Ray Griffin", the Google summary finds a criticism of Griffin that is embedded way down in the article. It is very odd, is it not?--PureLogic 00:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes, the summary (abstract) is far from satisfactory. If there's an infobox on the page, you might get a spattering of redundant and seemingly meaningless info. : "Neon Genesis Evangelion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Neon Genesis Evangelion logo. 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン (Neon Genesis Evangelion). Genre, Science fiction, Mecha, Psychological", which at least contains some information, but other times is a run of numbers. --GunnarRene 01:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:List_of_infoboxes--GunnarRene 01:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

how to keep track of the number of visits a certain page gets
I recently added a few articles on terms that my professor and his colleges have been using and wished to be used correctly by others. It would be helpful to know if people have visited the articles and how many have done so. I was wondering if Wikipedia had the ability to keep track of the number of visits that these articles have received, and if this is in agreement with the ethics of the Wikipedia site. If someone could post a sample code, which could achieve this task, I would appreciate it. I am a amateur programmer and don’t have the ability to write a script on my own to accomplish this task. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tiasusnmt (talk • contribs).


 * Basically no. Please see Technical FAQ. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

TOC modifications
Is there a page that enumerates the TOC-relates flags (,  , etc.)? I'm looking for one that will cause the toc to be hidden by default. ~ Booya Bazooka 15:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You obviously want if the TOC is to disappear. see also Category:TOC templates Circeus 15:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * When you click the "hide" button, it doesn't disappear — just collapses to hide the contents, and still retains a link to expand it. That's what I'm looking to do. ~ Booya Bazooka 16:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The page that enumerates them is Help:Magic words. --cesarb 17:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there a way to specify the subheading-depth that the TOC should display. For example, if I have an article that has a lot of level-3 headings under each level-2 heading, how can I tell the TOC to list only till level-2 headings and not the level-3 ones? 203.81.221.68 23:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Two Bots and a thing
I wasn't really sure where to ask this, so I decided to post here, where a broader audience may see it. I am in doubt about this edit. As you will see, this is a user talk page, and it's a situation where a bot added an automated message regarding the Signpost (which I'm not sure should be done, but it could be that the user signed up for this...). But then, five hours later, another bot removed the message from the talk page, calling it an automated archival. I'm not sure that we can have bots adding and removing messages from talk pages like this. Perhaps one of those bots, or both, is malfunctioning? Or is everything just fine and I'm overthinking this? Thanks, Redux 13:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The first was not an automatic bot, and delivered the signpost on request, the second archived old discussions (also on request), but apparently did not do it properly, as the discussion was not old, that is where the problem lies. Martin 14:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Update: Actually there is no problem, the message it removed was a different one than had just been placed there, so all is good. As to whether bots should do this kind of thing, both were done on request so I guess it isnt really a problem (though I don't know why they don't want to do it themselves). Martin 14:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm glad to hear it. Thanks, Martin.  Indeed, I missed that the message removed was not the exact same one that had been added earlier by Ralbot &mdash; as it turns out, one message about the Signpost was added and another message about the Signpost was removed later; and, although I knew that it was a very tangible possibility, I was not certain as to whether or not the actions had been requested by the user himself.  In any case, all is well, then.   Redux 17:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Modifying date in signature
I already posted about this issue in corresponding talk page (Wikipedia talk:Sign your posts on talk pages), but got no answer. How to modify date format in signatures, which is obtained by ~ or ? -Yyy 12:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not possible. It's also not recommended to try to sign with an alternate date format (by hand, for instance) on pages such as this one which are archived by a bot (which ignores alternate date formats). --cesarb 14:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

On this wiki, don't. To have another wiki's behaviour corrected, open a feature request explaining what the correct date format is for that language, so we can have MediaWiki output the appropriate format. robchurch | talk 17:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify: everybody's signature dates are inserted with the same style and time zone so you can reasonably compare them when looking at a page full of different people's comments. Since they're part of the text they can't be customized for each viewer. --Brion 23:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not wikilink the date so viewer preferences can kick in? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, the best you can do is modify how the date appears. You can't change anything else beyond that. See User:nathanrdotcom/Sig (by doing this, you'd have to sign with three tildes rather than four). — Natha  n  ( talk ) / 00:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Nathan, this appears to be what I was searching for. -Yyy 07:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's productive. What part of what Brion wrote did you not understand? robchurch | talk 02:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I did not need to customize everyones else signature dates, i just needed to modify my own signature date (it is converted to normal text, anyway, when saving page), and Nathan described how to do it, and it works. Date is still the same, only now there is possible to change, how it looks. Time is still in UTC, too. -Yyy 04:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You could view signature dates in local time using User:Where/commentLocalize. -- <b style="color:blue;">Where</b> 17:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking about using this kludge. The verbose timestamp has sp instead of nbsp between its components, causing ugly line breaks. Adding "(UTC)" everywhere is also dubious, what else should it be, server local time with load balancing surprises to make it as interesting as expressions using MOD? --&#160;Omniplex 20:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Changing edit textbox fonts
I've tried to change the edit textbox fonts by changing the IE font but this is not working. What is the best way to change the edit textbox font in IE form Times New Roman to Comic Sans MS? ...IMHO (Talk) 04:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You should be able to edit your monobook css to do it. Try adding this:

textarea {font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size:110%;}
 * --Splarka (rant) 07:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Works great unless you fail to hit ctrl-F5 and reload IE. Thanks. ...IMHO (Talk) 13:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Monobook.js
Tossed a little bit of code up there today that adds a "User logs" link in the toolbox whenever you visit a User (or User talk) page. I'm proposing its inclusion into monobook.js, or if you like it but don't want it included, the code is available there (or in my userspace as User:Kylu/userlog.js) for use. <i style="color:#FF00FF;">~Kylu ( u | t ) </i> 04:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like something we should add to MediaWiki. I'll poke it later. robchurch | talk 18:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems with cite
On Ladakh article, I'm getting the following error with some cites:

Cite error 4; Invalid call; no input specified

I think I'm doing all the right things, and the exact same syntax works sometimes, and doesn't work the other times. Could someone please check what the problem is? deeptrivia (talk) 04:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Try this: Insert 1 citation per edit. Whenever you get an error, post the code in question here, so we can analyse it. It's pretty hard for us to try and replicate the error with the information you've given us. --Lord Deskana Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS 07:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You entered the code .  This is incorrect; use   (strictly , but MediaWiki isn't so picky).  In the XML standard, these are identical, but not for Cite.php. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Special:Namespaces
Is the introduction of pseudo namespace C: in addition to CAT: relevant wrt the future Namespace manager? In three RFDs I claimed that it's a bad idea, but it could be also irrelevant, e.g. if there are no plans to introduce this feature on Wikipedia. --&#160;Omniplex 04:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * There's no such thing as a pseudo namespace. Those pages all exist in the main namespace. The namespace manager exists in an incomplete and unmerged branch of the code at present. It's worth pointing out that CAT doesn't categorise pages; MediaWiki will not recognise anything other than the local and canonical namespace names for Category as category namespaces. robchurch | talk 18:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, "pseudo" means "not really", it's in the main namespace. The mentioned help page apparently offers to transform "pseudo" into "real"... at some very distant time, if I got your drift. And sure, CAT's no category like T's no template, theyr're used as shortcuts. I'm not defending this, quite the contrary looking for a good technical reason to at least limit it. Sounds like "namespace manager" isn't that magic wand. --&#160;Omniplex 16:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no good technical reason to limit it. At most, there are aesthetic or ideological reasons. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't share that confidence wrt some hypothetical ISO language codes or Interwiki prefixes. The ideology is KISS, C / CAT, or P / WP, one letter's shorter, "Project" works on all projects, that could be a reason to use one letter. But other ideologies are "if it ain't broken don't fix it" and for consistency just stick to it. --&#160;Omniplex 08:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll admit, I hadn't thought of that. In principle, all two- and three-letter prefixes should probably be reserved for language codes; cat is actually the three-letter code for Catalan in ISO 639-3.  (Wikipedia, however, uses the two-letter ISO 639-1 code, namely ca, so in this particular case we can let it slip.)  And I'll agree a c shortcut to some future wikiproject is entirely plausible.  So I'm with you on killing C: in favor of CAT:, at any rate. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:54, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe we need a statement in this direction in the WP:SHORT guideline, for starters I added links to Special:Prefixindex/CAT:, P:, WP:, and WT: on the relevant lists, so folks see what's accepted wrt "cross namespace redirects". The RFDs for the three C:xyz failed. --&#160;Omniplex 17:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Highrisk templates
Admins protected highrisk templates because editing those templates could cause DOS and highload servers. My question is: since Wikimedia servers also handles other Wikipedia projects (is this correct?), can somebody make this kind of problem (dos/highload/outage) on en.wikipedia by changing other Wikipedia projects unprotected highrisk templates? or viceversa. sorry for bad english. :) <font face="Copperplate Gothic Bold" color="#1F85FF">borgx (<font color="#003366">talk ) 03:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As interwiki transclusions are not enabled, that shouldn't be possible (unless a high-risk template somewhere is automatically periodically propagated by bots (copied) from a central location to other projects or languages and is vandalized moments before such a copy, but that doesn't seem very likely). --Splarka (rant) 07:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Last time it happened (a high-risk template on en: was edited in one of the worst possible ways), IIRC the whole cluster went offline. However, that specific case shouldn't happen again, since the software and the server configuration were changed to avoid it. --cesarb 14:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe the issue you're referring to was replacing a template with megabytes of text. That should be impossible now, thankfully. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No, it's not; it was removing an image from a template. Album, if you want to look at the history. The fix was some changes in the way the job queue runs. --cesarb 18:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In general, DOS is not a concern with high-use templates at the current time, to my knowledge. The templates are mainly protected because you don't want a vandal inserting penis images into 200,000 articles at once.  On other, smaller wikis, DOS certainly isn't an issue, because templates aren't used enough times to be an issue. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Secure server interprets wikimarkup differently?
User talk:Phaedriel appears differently on the secure.wikimedia.org server - everything after Joshbuddy's signature at the bottom of section 65 ("Asimov") is struck out, at least according to K-Meleon on Windows XP. After Phaedriel's signature at the start of section 90.1, everything becomes struck through and red. Accessing the page via en.wikipedia.org, everything looks normal. Kimchi.sg 01:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Looks like a bad sig, though, hope it's not current! --Brion 03:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Question about Special:Shortpages
Shortpages, Ancientpages, etc. - how are they run? The schedule seems to be erratic, now once in 3-4 days. Can they be put on a schedule? Once daily, perhaps? If not so frequently, at least on a known schedule. Thanks. - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * They're run on a regular schedule, twice a week. By amazing coincidence, this comes out to once every 3 or 4 days. --Brion 03:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Ouch. Used to be longer. Thanks for biting my behind anyway - keeps me honest. - CrazyRussian talk/email 05:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Peterborough
Hi

Just wondered what happened to the Peterborough entry - it is missing, the page does not load in properly. It worked fine on sunday and I have not done anything to my browser, the rest of the site works fine.

Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.100.202 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 26 June 2006


 * Looks fine here. --Brion 00:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Interest boxes
Is there a resource anywhere, please, for the interest boxes that folks put on their User page? BlueValour 22:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Userboxes? robchurch | talk 23:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, just the job, thanks. BlueValour 23:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Importing dumps from meta
I recently downloaded a xml dump of Meta. I tried uploading it to my localhost wiki, running the same version, and when i try to upload it, it says something like "import source unknown". I have tried using the maintenance script, but it still has the same error. Is there something that I need to do prior to importing it, or is there a way to fix this error? Thanks, Shardsofmetal [ Talk 19:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't repeat yourself / MediaWiki
I'm not really sure where to get started on this, so I guess I'll start here. I've contributed to Wikipedia for about a year, but more and more I'm finding that it's suboptimal for storing certain kinds of information. I've documented one concrete example of what I mean at Don't repeat yourself and have some other musings at User:PhilipR.

I'm sure that if MediaWiki doesn't currently have a module for conventional row-and-column kind of data -- and yes, i realize that even Wikipedia as we know it still has an RDBMS backend -- that something like that could be created. In my view this sort of thing would enhance Wikipedia immensely.

How would I go about suggesting this, if such an initiative doesn't yet exist? Cheers, PhilipR 19:17, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean templates? They do exist. Tito xd (?!?) 20:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I'm well aware of templates.  In that regard one of the discussions about possibly setting up a template for each squads list, and why that discussion didn't seem to attain consensus, might be instructive.    Even if that proposal had been adopted, it doesn't answer all my points -- for example, you can't sort a squad list by different fields just because it's templated.   In general, it doesn't seem that one template for each bit of information (for example, templating Draman's name because we haven't yet resolved whether it's Draman or Dramani -- see my example on don't repeat yourself at User:PhilipR) is the right way to do things.    - PhilipR 20:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the question to ask is: If PhilipR is right that Wikipedia has an RDBMS backend, do (or should) editors have access to it? --teb728 22:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, plainly there are some things in the DB that editor-users shouldn't be accessing, like changing the history of a page.  But that's a helpful starting point -- I'm envisioning that, for example, we might have a "virtual table" where the data in the table can get edited with the same audit trail that presently happens when someone edits an article.   Only it's not a textual article -- it's just data, that can be presented a million ways in textual articles.


 * Simple example: suppose there were a "person" table with personal name, family name, date of birth, date of death, etc. etc.  Then each time the person's name gets changed, that change propagates to all articles that use that name (that's the enhancement from the present setup).   Another table might be "football scores"; another might be "Presidents of Brazil".   I'm just blue-sky dreaming here; if necessary I can work harder to give a good example of what I'm envisioning.   - PhilipR 22:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

One word. Wikidata. OK, a bit more than that. :) There's been discussion relating to this for a long time, but as far as I know, no particular time schedule for making it all happen. robchurch | talk 23:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Rob, I figured someone else had probably been thinking about this problem, but had no clue where to turn.  Now I do.  - PhilipR 23:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

alignment
Hi, my question is how to use the align paremeter when grouping user boxes using   (just right/ left isn't good enough).Tal :) 11:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

All content is far from being accessable in the most efficient form. Even for direct human consumption the information could use more rigid and meaningful markup. More over for the use in automation and to be of true use to a modern individual the information needs to be easily useable by the simplest of programs possible. That means the actual data needs to be stored seperate from it's presentation wherever possible and there needs to be far more defined and enforced structure to the information. Even more the raw data needs to be accessable to anyone and everyone by allowing the entire (including all revisions, posters, etc) knowledgebase to be obtained and kept in sync. This also needs to be done in such a way that the most simple of programs possible is capable of doing it. A modern source of knowledge can't simply be a novel new way of obtaining and publishing information, it needs to be formated and published in a modern format.

Speedy Delete deleted
A 'Speedy Delete' box on an article has been removed by the creator - what should I do next? BlueValour 01:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I tried a second time and the article has now gone. But, for future reference, a pointer to the procedure would help. BlueValour 02:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Template:Drmspeedy (and several stronger versions) are appropriate in this circumstance. There's a list of these templates at Template messages/User talk namespace. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. BlueValour 02:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Black image
For some reason, Image:Binary tree (letters).png appears to simply be a black box to me. Is this a browser issue? (I am using IE6). I have not noticed issues with any other .png files. I don't really mind that I can't see it, but I suspect that it might be a problem that others could have as well. Thanks!--GregRM 00:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It's an IE thing. It looks fine for me in Firefox, but I see the same black box you do in IE.  I brought up this problem a month or so ago with respect to another picture.  Go here and look at "Background colors for svg images".  The solution for that image was to remove the corrupt local version of the image (there was a commons version that didn't have the problem).  I know that this situation doesn't particularly help solve your problem, but it at least tells you it's an IE thing. BigDT 01:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * By the way, as a workaround, if you make the image any size other than the natural size, that forces Wikipedia to generate a temporary copy of it. I have set the image to 231 px so now it displays in IE.  That's a workaround, though - I don't have a clue how to fix the underlying problem. BigDT 01:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have created a duplicate jpg file Image:Binary tree (letters)2.jpg, which should work fine in IE. --GeorgeMoney (talk) (Help Me Improve!) 01:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks BigDT and GeorgeMoney. The 231 px modification seemed to fix the problem in the article, although as would be expected from BigDT's explanation for the workaround, it still displays as a black box on the image description page.  Of course, GeorgeMoney's jpg version appears fine on the image description page.  Thanks again to both of you.--GregRM 01:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason for the problem is that an alpha channel was used instead of transparency. This is unnecessary; someone should edit it to change it.  (Saving it as a JPEG isn't a good solution.)  I'll do it if no one else does, but tonight I don't really have time. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I've the thumbnail cache for the image. The 230px version looks fine in IE now. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Table colors
Is this possible? I would like to make a table like the ones at Utah-BYU rivalry or Army-Navy where the row is colored by the winner of the event. Currently, the way this is done is by specifying the bgcolor for each individual row.

What I really would like to do is have something like this ...


 * }

... where the row could infer its color from the name of the winner and start game list could define the colors for the teams involved. Is such a thing possible? BigDT 19:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a way to set the color in one template and use it in another, but you could use ParserFunctions (specifically ) in template:Sports game to select a color, or define another template that selects the color given the winning team.  -- Rick Block (talk) 20:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I added the parsing functions ... unfortunately, you're right, it doesn't inherit the variables from template to template. I can only get it to work if I specify the teams and colors on every row (as I do in the last two). It won't inherit the variables from the parent template (as I attempt in the first two).

Any ideas from here? Another thing that would work is if there were some kind of iterative function ... for example, if I could have Year1, City1, Winner1, Score1, Year2, City2, Winner2, Score2, etc. That wouldn't be a spectacular solution, though, because of the nightmare of what happens if you have 100 games in the series and you leave out the second one ... oops ... any thoughts? BigDT 20:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You can indirect the color selection through another template, see for example:


 * Seems like this might be closer to what you're looking for. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah ... I thought about that, but then there has to be an extra template every time the table is used ... BigDT 23:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Please note that, in the tables above, some rows are now very difficult to read on some browsers. I had to open this section in an edit window to see what was written on the dark maroon bars. You might want to use paler forms of the colours rather than "full strength". Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  04:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah ... the colors were as an example. (Orange and maroon are Virginia Tech's colors.) The problem I was hoping to solve was a way of making the colors generic (meaning, to not have to specify them for every single row) without using a child template (which would necessitate a template for every page using the table, negating the usefulness).

Any other ideas? Or is it just not possible?BigDT 14:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Side-by-side sidebars
In English verbs, the Grammar series sidebar was just added after the IPA notice sidebar. Rather than being stacked, the two sidebars appear side by side, pinching the top of the article. (In preview only) I tried inserting clearright between them with no difference on my browser (IE6). I also tried enclosing the second sidebar in a div tag with style="float:right;clear:right"; that stacked them, but the top of the article was still pinched adjacent to the second sidebar. What's the solution. --teb728 19:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Pushing one of the two a bit lower, which I've done now. Tito xd (?!?) 19:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Or, enclosing them in a table (feel free to revert to the other version). -- Rick Block (talk) 20:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * But I think a better way would be to add a "clear:right" to the 'Grammar series' template since it is unlikely you would ever want it to be side-by-side with any other template. —Mike 00:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

More detailed article statistics suggested
Not really sure if to post this in BugZilla as a feature request or here, but I'll put it here as it is more visible.

In a quite detailed essay about Wikipedia titled ''[http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/d/42 Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past]'' (good read, by the way), Roy Rosenzweig, director of the Center for History and New Media in George Mason University, suggests:


 * Indeed, simply taking information buried on the “History” page and making it more public would enhance Wikipedia—for example, the “Article” page might say, “This article has been edited 350 times since it was created on May 5, 2002, including 30 times in the past week.” It could even add that “very active Wikipedians” (those with more than one hundred edits this month) contributed 52 percent of those edits.

Currently, MediaWiki:Lastmodified has room for one variable, it being the last modification date. How feasible would it be for the article creation date to be there, as well as the number of revisions in a page, and the number of revisions in a given time period? The suggestion sounded like a good thing, but I can't find in the Database layout whether it is possible without running expensive queries on each page view. Would it require db schema changes, or I'm just not looking at the right place? Should it be something we do anyways? Comments? Applause? Angry lynch mobs? Tito xd (?!?) 18:34, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is an excellent idea, and one that might go a long way towards increasing transparency and confidence for the reader who doesn't know our inner workings. If it's not possible now, perhaps it can be added to the database in the future.  &mdash; Catherine\talk 13:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Nice idea. --DLL 20:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As it seems it is a good idea, and other editors agree, can it be done? I personally think that it could be done by adding a char(14) <tt>page_creation</tt> field to the Page table, defaulting pages to blank and filling it by invalidating the page's cache, and filling the value on the first page view with the first edit's <tt>rev_timestamp</tt> value. The number of edits in history is available at Special:Mostrevisions, but I don't know how expensive it is to generate that data. As for the number of edits within a week and the number of active Wikipedians, I have no clue how to actually do it. Is it feasible? Tito xd (?!?) 03:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Sections
Is there a way to insert section headings in tables, such as at the page Harry Potter cast? It would be much more convenient on that page to edit only the section of the type of cast rather than going to the top of the page. I'm pretty sure I've seen this done before, but I don't remember where or know how. Thanks. --Fbv65 e del / &#9745;t / &#9755;c || 17:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Is the change I just made to that article what you had in mind? --iMeowbot~Meow 18:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It is. Thank you. I could have sworn I did the same thing myself, to no avail… hmm… LOL. :-D Thanks again. --Fbv65 e del / &#9745;t / &#9755;c || 20:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The links won't show up in a preview, so you can have it exactly right and it will still look wrong. --iMeowbot~Meow 13:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories
Is there some method that can be used to change one instance of a category to another - my specific example - I'd like to change all instances of "Category:Live-bearers" to a new category "Category:Ovoviviparous fish" - is this possible to automate? ThanksHappyVR 14:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, you can request renaming at CFD, they have some bots which can do all the work automatically. --cesarb 15:47, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Tog-shownumberswatching
Hi. Does anybody knows which pages are using the MediaWiki:Tog-shownumberswatching message? <font face="Copperplate Gothic Bold" color="#1F85FF">borgx (<font color="#003366">talk ) 03:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It's switched off on Wikimedia wikis, but normally, the numbers would show up in changes lists and under the "page last edited"/page view counters at the bottom. robchurch | talk 03:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Determining a page's popularity
Is there a way to look at a certain page's stats, like how many times it has been viewed, and how regularly, etc...? Pacian 23:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Basically, no, but for a slightly more complete answer please see Technical FAQ. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

userpage accidentally in article space, very subtle
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%8EUser:AnnaKucsma/Geography/France (the extra characters before "user" are only visible in URL) and Talk:‎User:AnnaKucsma/Geography/France. Circeus 23:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * looks like a candidate for WP:MFD.  BL Lacertae -  kiss the lizard  00:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This could easily become a slippery slope... How would you address this? --Folajimi 00:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * no need its ok where it is. but the AnnaKucsma needs userfying which is done via MFD. it doesnt automatically mean deletion.  BL Lacertae -  kiss the lizard  00:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and just moved it to where it was obviously intended to go. I just wasn't sure it would work properly. Circeus 00:23, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Substing templates
Can I create a template that automatically substitutes itself, without having to use <tt>subst:</tt>? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No. How would it? Without <tt>subst:</tt> the template is not even called until the page is loaded, so nothing happens on save. --Splarka (rant) 00:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Poo. That'll make things difficult.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Does MediaWiki allow direct editing of history pages?
Not that I think it's a good idea for Wikipedia, but I'm wondering if my memory is failing. I used to be involved in another project that used the MediaWiki software and I swear I remember the ability to directly edit history pages, such as adding a forgotten edit summary. I don't think it was a local modification because we rarely used edit summaries and I doubt anyone would have gone out of their way to add this feature. I don't want to go install and configure the software just to satisfy my curiosity. Am I losing my mind? Opabinia regalis 17:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No. --Brion 17:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Rather, yes, you are losing your mind. ;) We don't have such a feature. Under limited circumstances entries may be removed from the history, but they may not be altered in any way. --Brion 17:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well dammit, I just lost a bet then. Thanks. Opabinia regalis 18:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Search engine indexing of talk pages
I was having a look at whether linkspam is an issue on talk pages and noticed the following things: Number 1 is a good thing, but I don't understand number 2 in view of 3--5. Is there anyone with a clue? My hunch is that Google gives a very low priority to pages that are only linked to from one other page (i.e. from the accompanying article page), while user talk pages are typically linked to from many other user talk pages through the signatures. Han-Kwang 17:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) External links on talk pages are marked with "rel=nofollow".
 * 2) Google does indexes very few "Talk" pages, but does index "User Talk" and "Wikipedia Talk" pages, as witnessed by the query talk utc -user -template, or a direct search for a heavily discussed page: Talk:George_W._Bush.
 * 3) Yahoo does index article talk pages: talk -user
 * 4) The robots file robots.txt does not exclude talk pages
 * 5) The links from article pages to talk pages are not marked with 'rel="nofollow"'.


 * I believe our SiteMap specifies lower priority for talk pages. --Brion 17:37, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

ASCII
How can I get a table to appear is ASCII, i thinks thats the correct term,

like this basically

as when you put a space infront of it nothing happens.

so is there some sort of thingy in the triangle brackets I can put in to make it so this. <font color="Green">Philc TECI 14:34, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You probably want ...  :


 * æ² ✆ 2006-06-24t14:52z


 * Cheers <font color="Green">Philc TECI 17:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

SVG not working
I've made an SVG at which displays in Opera and Adobe Illustrator, but Wikipedia can't seem to convert it to a PNG. Any ideas? El T 12:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There have been problems with this recently. Try thumbnails of various sizes - small sizes seem to work more often. It might also be that the renderer Wikipedia is configured to use doesn't support some of the stuff used in your SVG. Deco 13:48, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I tried purging the cache and that seems to have fixed it. &mdash; Ian Moody (talk) 13:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I've finally got this problem resolved. If you see similar files blanking, purge them -- it should be the last time you have to. --Brion 05:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser requests are piling up...
There are at least 4 days' worth of sign-ups on there, of users who have requested to be approved for use of this special editor. This requires the attention of an admin. Here's the link: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage --Transhumanist 08:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In the future, admins might be more readily reached at WP:AN. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki's search engine
I recently made a search (in Wikipedia) for acaraje. No results turned up, so I made the page that I linked to in the previous sentence. However. When I, through other articles, find an article named acarajé, I'm baffled.

How come the search engine didn't pick up on the word without the accent?

This must be a major flaw, as most people (I think) do not always use accents in searches.

--Qwerty qwerty 03:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Generealy we work around this problem by useing redirects.Geni 03:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but the question is how long before someone discovers the problem with every single article that is affected, and then actually redirects the page. It would be better to change the search engine, wouldn't it? --Qwerty qwerty 03:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * See also Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%29.-gadfium 03:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * and another thing thats annying, is if you search for something, and it comes up with a major article which you dont want, I find then next 100 or so hits after than are redirects to that page. <font color="Green">Philc TECI 23:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

National football team kit
Am I the only one seeing the Portuguese national kit in white, green and grey? Can someone fix it please? (I work with Internet Explorer, maybe it's something that doesn't happen with Firefox). Joaopais 23:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you provide any type of link whatsoever to the problem? --Splarka (rant) 23:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I forgot. It's here. Thanks. Joaopais 03:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I suggest you ask at Template talk:Football kit. It uses various transparencies and so on that may not always display correctly in all browsers. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Forced Save
Ever since the 2006 FIFA World Cup began, I've been forced to go through so many edit conflicts when editing that page. I think that for extra-frustrated people who can never get their version in, there should be "force save" button to paste in their version no matter what. However, since two people might both press "force save", causing another conflict, then perhaps make the "forced save" option available to only those who have gone through at least three edit conflicts. How's this idea sound? -- King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;   &spades;  21:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah. I really get tired of having to go through multiple edit conflicts when I just want to save. Because of this, sometimes I edit in a hurry to not get into edit conflicts, and sometimes make mistakes. --<font size="1" color="002bb8">GeorgeMoney T&middot;C 21:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Crap, to be frank. The whole point of an edit conflict is to ensure that stuff doesn't get overwritten and lost. Allowing people to force their version through could result in a lot of harm on pages with a high edit volume. robchurch | talk 15:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I created some "In Use" templates more than two years ago &mdash; November of 2003 &mdash; to take care of just this issue, so that you could save a page with a flag to ask people to give you a short period of time - say 5 minutes to 1/2 an hour - to make a change and not cause a conflict. Some people have even improved on them to make the message work better. There are two forms,   or   or   in which case you get either of the following:
 * 5 Minutes:
 * Until 3:20:

Save the page first with this message, then re-edit. Make the changes, and, of course, remove this template reference when you re-save. Paul Robinson (Rfc1394) 19:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Some users (incl me) won't know what EDT is. UTC might be slightly better, but is there a better way? The 5 minute one is fine, except without checking the history page I don't know whether it was posted 1 minute ago, or 4 minutes, or 3 days. (btw, although I'm nitpicking, I do think it's a good idea).


 * It might be worth adding - you can do draft edits in a text editor.


 * And when editing the introduction section, it's possible to edit just the section (which should reduce the chance of an edit conflict) - just click on the [edit] link for any other section, then go to the url and change the number on the end to 0, so it reads <tt>section=0</tt>  --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 14:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

How do I locate and upload this image for use on Wikipedia?
I have located this image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/2/23/Kraftwerk_Ekibastus.jpg of a power plant flue gas stack in Kazachstan which I would like to use in an article in the Wikipedia about flue gas stacks. How do I locate the image ... and then how do I upload it into the Wikipedia? - mbeychok 19:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * http:// upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ de /2/23/ Kraftwerk_Ekibastus.jpg <-- clues in red...
 * http:// de .wikipedia.org/wiki/Image: Kraftwerk_Ekibastus.jpg <-- ...reformed to link to image desc
 * or: de :Image: Kraftwerk_Ekibastus.jpg    <-- wikilink code...
 * de:Image:Kraftwerk_Ekibastus.jpg <-- ...produces a wikilink to it
 * --Splarka (rant) 23:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that is just how to *locate* it. To upload: Special:Upload. See image use policy and how to upload for uploading. --Splarka (rant) 23:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It has now been uploaded to commons:Image:Kraftwerk Ekibastus.jpg, just FYI, so you can use it normally. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Background image on a table
How can I create a table with a background image instead of a background color. The MediaWiki software is sanitizing my every attempt. --Jared W 18:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * That is by design. Images should not be placed (in wikicode) except with a valid [[Image:]] tag, so that the description of the image is the image's only link. You can edit your personal css to display them as backgrounds on specific class/ID tables, or try to convince the community of a wiki to add to the MediaWiki:Common.css (see MediaWiki_talk:Common.css for requests, but it is unlikely such a request would be adopted). --Splarka (rant) 23:29, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you. That at least allows me to setup some  and   handlers, there's only one for each tag; the overflow can only happen when there is more than one for each tag. So, if that's what Sygate is detecting, it's wrong and it's a false positive (probably it triggers on a number of   close together, without considering that, as long as they are on different tags, it cannot trigger the overflow). In other words, it's not lack of imagination, it's a bug; complain to Sygate. There's also a proposal to completely change the way it works, which would not hit Sygate's bug; however, that proposal depends on having editable JavaScript for all skins, which we currently don't have. --cesarb 15:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have "upgraded" to IE7 beta 2. This also works around the problem without disabling Sygate or Sygate logging the security threats.  I was at a completely updated IE6 before. -- thanx for your assistance.  If it is easy to file bug reports with Sygate, I will.--Poodleboy 06:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * My report was premature, I now reproduce the problem on IE7, I now suspect that the buffer space within IE is shared, and that the problem is cumulative if you have several web pages open at once. I generally have two dozen or more open for later reading.  Of course, it may be sygates detection mechanism which is cumulative.--Poodleboy 08:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I just upgraded to IE7 beta 3, and can cnfirm the problem still exists.--Poodleboy 13:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I ran into this issue, and in my case I fixed it by opening up the permissions on the /var/lib/php/session/ directory. session/ had root:apache ownership and a 770 permissions. chmod 777, restart httpd, and now I can make edits. Hope that's useful to someone.

Redirect
This may sound silly but I can't get a my redirect at Del Monte to work. I've tried hard to get it to go to Del Monte Foods but it just won't work. I someone could fix this for me I would be Eternally Greatful. Thanks Samuel 15:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC) Mayde somedid something just now but for some reason it works. Thanks Samuel 15:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

odd question
Can someone help me format the photos at Argo Tea. I am trying to get the two photos on the left to appear above each other. Tony The Tiger 18:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

odd question
Are there any potential pitfalls, to using this as a template? --AOL user 04:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, you don't want to use a JS file. -- GeorgeMoney T&middot;C 04:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * True! 162.83.147.242 05:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Trigger Happy
Dear Wikipedians: I, like you, am an editor; I create articles and make edits. But, many, I am sure many other people out there, are tired, frustrated and angry with the behavior of many Administrators. I am certain that it is appallingly easy to revert and article, that someone has undoubtedly spent allot of time and effort writing. I have, in the past spent hours, researching, planning, writing, checking and revising an addition to an article only to have the whole lot deleted forever three minutes afterwards.

I know that deletion of material is essential in a free-to-edit encyclopedia, but if you see an article that someone has anonymously devoted their time to writing, why could you not revise it, change it or give a reason for you action? They deserve one.

I know all Administrators are not all Drunk-With-Power-Trigger-Happy-Nazis, many of you do an excellent job and you know who you are.

In closing: Create, don’t Destroy. Make a distinction between “what is right, and what is easy”. Be enriched and enrich others with the knowledge of other people.

And keep that finger off the trigger.

(If I don't cop flack for this one, I will climb the Reichtag Bulding in a Spiderman outfit).

Dfrg.msc 07:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * See also Village pump (policy), begun 6 June. User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 23:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Images
I tried to add some images to Hornussen but they don't seem to work. The images are on the German page so I don't know why they won't work on the English page as well. Hope someone can help. Thanks--CharlieP 05:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You seem to have figured out the problem yourself. __meco 10:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Linking to Βικιπαίδεια
Hello, I'm new to Wikipedia so I'm not so sharp when it comes to making links. I am working on a page for Navagio and I have found that Βικιπαίδεια currently has an entry for it. On the Navagio page I would like the word "Ναυάγιο" to link to el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ναυάγιο_(Ζάκυνθος). How do I make an external link like that, without making a footnote? --Skyscraper 19:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Try el:Ναυάγιο_(Ζάκυνθος), which produces a link that looks like this. However, an article that consists of a link to just an external page can be speedy deleted. Tito xd (?!?) 19:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, I have content for the page. Thank you! --Skyscraper 19:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * In this case, it's better to use a interlanguage link. I've changed the article to use it. --cesarb 17:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding copyright tags
How do I upload a newer versions of the images to add the copyright tags correctly? 2006-6-6


 * To change the licensing of an image, simply edit the description page, there is no need to reupload an identical file. --Splarka (rant) 20:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! -T

Blocked user able to edit
I blocked CoolKatt number 99999 (talk • contribs • block log ) for violation of the three-revert rule at WWOR-TV. Six minutes later, CoolKatt posted a disruptive threat on the article's talk page. Does anyone know how this occurred? Is this a known glitch of some sort? &mdash; David Levy 19:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This user is continually editing pages, so I'm going to try lifting and re-applying the block. &mdash; David Levy 19:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That didn't help. The user is still able to edit. I suspect that this issue somehow relates to the username, which appears to confuse the software to some extent. Blocking the account generates the following unusual (and partially broken) message:


 * CoolKatt number 99999 (talk • contribs • number 99999 block log) has been blocked.


 * &mdash; David Levy 20:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You must include underscores to replace spaces in both Special:Blockip and that template. The user is currently blocked, however, since it won't let me apply another block. Perhaps there is a bug in the new blocking stuff. -Splash - tk 20:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a bug. It is being fixed. That is all to be said on this matter in interest of WP:BEANS. Nacon kantari 20:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The bug has been fixed. Nacon kantari  20:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem with login/logout
Now it's doing the logout problem more. I go to a new page at times, and it says I'm logged out! I usually just go back to the page I was logged in at, and click the link again...and it usually works. I know my cookies and internet settings are set, so I'm constantly logged in at sites (unless I personally logout, which I haven't done). RobJ1981 17:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Gingerbread Toolbar

 * On occasion, the toolbar at the top of the page (the one with my user name and such) will float away from me to the other side of the screen when I put my mouse over it. Even though it stays there afterward, it is a little annoying. Anyone know what's going on? I use IE.
 * I used to get this problem with IE occasionally. I use Firefox and I never experience it. As to the technical cause, I have no idea. --Oldak Quill 08:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Mass editing images
I've been working on several US military pages, and have noticed that there are at least two similar images for each rank's insignia in every force, and they're jumbled and named very hap-hazardly. Just look at Category:Images of military insignia! Is there any way for me to quickly and easily rename the images to put them in some sort of cohesive system? I would like to delete redundant images and refer the articles using them to the superior image, etc. It'll be a lot of work even with a quick and dirty approach, so any help would be appreciated! --Mordien 06:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * From a quick browse through the category it seems that most of the images are locally uploaded (en.wikipedia). It is always preferable that free-content images be stored at Commons so that all other Wikimedia projects (and, in the future, non-Wikimedia MediaWiki projects) are able to use them. I'd go through the category, selecting all usable images and save them to my hard drive using systematic names. I'd then upload these to Wikimedia Commons and categorise them there. After this has been done, the articles should point to the Commons images and the local versions should be deleted. --Oldak Quill 08:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

New template, any thoughts?

 * , when placed on a user/user talk page, displays any outstanding autoblocks caused by that user, if included in a standard series of blocking templates, could allow easy detection of harmful autoblocks, without having to alert the vandal that anyone is aware of them--AOL user 00:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * And yes, I am aware that the current formatting is garish and written in giant sized font, someone may want to change that before incorporating into any blocking templates, or vandal templates--AOL user 00:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is a great idea, but made somewhat difficult by the current wide profusion of block templates. Adding this to and related templates might help. --CBD 22:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Media file placement
On the Gregorian chant page, the lede image is a music manuscript, accompanied by a media file with a recording of the song in the image. Is there a way to anchor the media file to the lede image so that it always shows up directly beneath the image, with the text of the article appearing to the left of both the picture and the sound file? Thanks! Peirigill 19:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This seems to have been done already by User:MarkBuckles. --Splarka (rant) 07:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Finding contributions from a range of IP addresses
Is there a tool to help look for contributions for a range of IP addresses? Or the ability to search based on only the first part of an IP address. For example, any edits from any IP that starts with "255.0". Thanks. --mtz206 (talk) 18:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * User:Interiot just wrote one for you: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/rc_usergrep (format is in LIKE syntax). So, for example, to search for the last 50 edits by 152.163.0.0/16 (an AOL range): 152.163%. As it uses recent changes, there is a practical limit on how far back it can search. --Splarka (rant) 07:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, toolserver replication for enwiki is really bad, making recentchanges nearly useless. <tt>:(</tt> --Interiot 07:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki Password Unsecurity
Apologies if this is already known and/or being addressed, but here goes:

The "incorrect password" page mimicks the user's (incorrect) password in plaintext (in the HTML); if the user had typed an almost-correct password, it could become very easy for an attacker to guess the correct password (particularly if there was but one error and it was in a portion of the password that was a dictionary word or so). Given that the provided password is all but useless to a legitimate user, can it be omitted? --Tardis 01:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I just tried and all it said was "Login error: Incorrect password entered. Please try again." Goplat 01:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You have to look at the HTML source, but he's right, it's there... hmm, interesting. I assume the way around this is to not return the failed password at this point, but just return the username and ask for a new password? Shimgray | talk | 01:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I am making a silly mistake, but I just looked carefully at the password dialog and it does not appear to be in SSL. Are we sending passwords in the clear? Robert A.West (Talk) 02:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Since you're sending that text over cleartext anyway, this doesn't leak anything additional. It's still not a very good practice, and will go away under upcoming login system revisions. --Brion 03:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * So we are sending passwords in the clear! Given instances of Wikistalking, that fact makes me very nervous. Robert A.West (Talk) 06:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you feel nervous about it, try https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page (the TLS server for this wiki). --cesarb 16:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

and PAGENAMEEE
Copied from WP:ANI

I only put this here becasue the script that links to the media wiki autoblock page on template:AOLdos is thiiiiiiis close to working correctly, which would cut down on vandalism a lot IMO, so, one more question... PAGENAME gives " " and PAGENAMEE gives _ so is there a 3rd variable out there somewhere that inserts + signs in place of spaces? otherwise the mediawiki link is never going to work correctly without being manually subst'd and debugged--205.188.116.65 14:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The only way I know of to get something like 'User:Conrad+Bertrand+Dunkerson' (if I correctly understand that to be what you are looking for) into a template is to pass it in as a parameter. There is no 'magic word' (like 'PAGENAMEE') for '+' separators and no way in MediaWiki to parse sub-sets of a string. --CBD 20:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What about ? That makes it so if you do  it will make it "Administrators'+noticeboard/Incidents" -- GeorgeMoney T&middot;C 20:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Now created at Template:PAGENAMEEE. AmiDaniel (talk) 20:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This is an horrible name. PAGENAMEE stands for "pagename encoded"; what the swearword does "PAGENAMEEE" stand for? --cesarb 23:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Then feel free to move it. I simply stuck it there as that was what was requested here. PAGENAMEEE I suppose would be pagename extended encoding or something, dunno. If you have a better idea for the name, then put it wherever you want. AmiDaniel (talk) 04:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. --cesarb 19:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Deleting User prefix in my title
Perhaps I created my entry wrong to begin with - I am sure I created it as an article, but my wiki-entry on google search shows up as (User:) and then the title. Also, if people search wikipedia for my entry, it doesn't show up unless they search for it with the word "User:" before it. How can I delete just the User: prefix title without changing the whole entry? thanks--Inky Dreadfuls 21:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * User:Inky Dreadfuls is a user page in userspace, which it should be. Regarding biographical articles in mainspace, please refer to WP:BIO, and especially WP:AUTO if you're considering making an article about yourself. --mtz206 (talk) 22:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Also see Help:Namespace GeorgeMoney (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

AOL now uses XFF headers for MediaWiki sites!
Woo hoo! According to Angela on the Wiki-EN mailing list (http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-July/050279.html), within the next day or so we will be able to block AOL users individually, and not the proxies. &mdash; Catherine\talk 21:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Current events
It's gone? What happened to it? Hello32020 17:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It's back! Nevermind...Hello32020 17:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Gallery tag
I have used the gallery tag but the thumbs produced are too small. Is there a parameter that I can use to increase the thumb size, please? TerriersFan 17:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * According to m:Help:Images and other uploaded files, no - but you can create a table with images and make them whatever size you'd like. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * According to includes/ImageGallery.php, it's fixed at 120px. --cesarb 21:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Two Images
If you go to Image:Trafford View.JPG you will see the picture is tilted. Click on it and you get the correct version that I fixed and uploaded. How do I get rid of the first version, please? TerriersFan 03:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Purging fixed it; now you just have to clear your cache. --cesarb 04:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey, that's great. Thank you. TerriersFan 04:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Safari browser
I'm using a Macintosh Safari browser, and when I log in to Wikipedia, the text gets larger and the page layout is all different. How come? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.52.69.223 (talk • contribs).
 * I can understand the "larger" part, because Safari does draw text a little differently from other Mac browsers, but the part about a different layout is kind of puzzling. Things look pretty much the same to me across browsers (except for the font rendering). Got an example page and section? What skin are you using? --iMeowbot~Meow 01:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Everything changes. I wish I knew how to make a snapshot in Safari, and then I would email the image to you. Let me check this. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Qwerty qwerty (talk • contribs).


 * Press shift-apple-4 and the cursor will turn into crosshairs. Move the cursor over to the window you want to grab, and press the spacebar. The cursor now should look like a camera. Click and the screen grab (called Picture 1 and so on) will be saved to your desktop. --iMeowbot~Meow 01:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Check Special:Preferences for the skin selection. You may have simply selected a different skin. --Brion 01:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Check this image. This is what I see when I log in to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Loginsafaribrowser.png --Qwerty qwerty 02:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The main two unusual things I can see are that you seem to have Javascript turned off in Safari's security preferences (because the "Main Page" heading appears) and your default font is rather large. While holding down the apple key, you can use + and - to adjust the text size. You may also want to look at the other Safari preferences to see if there is anything else that seems odd. --iMeowbot~Meow 02:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh wait, that's the "chick" skin, isn't it? (checks) Yeah, looks like it. The "normal" Wikipedia skin is Monobook, if you want to change it back.

Thanks Meow, I didn't know about the skins, but the reason I noticed it is because the default used to be different in my case, even though I haven't changed anyting. But now it's like i want it. Thanks. --Qwerty qwerty 02:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

categorising templates
when trying to categorise template:Everton F.C. squad it categorises al the players on it as well. How can I just categorise the template itself? Thanks SenorKristobbal 23:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem appears to have been sorted now, but I'm at a loss as to why it ocurred in the first place, given that it was an issue when this edit was in place. Theoretically there should not have been a problem as there were tags present. --<font color="Brown">Daduzi <font color="Green">talk  01:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

annoying problem with special:blockip update
I liked the update for the most part, but the "feature" that prevents duplicate blocks can be very annoying. For example, consider the following scenario:


 * 1) an administrator sees an AOL IP using a vandal bot
 * 2) the administrator blocks the IP for one week
 * 3) realizing that AOL IPs should not be blocked for so long, the administrator decides to shorten the block
 * 4) with this new "feature", the administrator has to unblock the IP first
 * 5) during the short time that the IP is unblocked, it vandalizes 10 more articles

Without this "feature", the administrator could have simply blocked the IP again using a shorter expiry time. This way, the IP does not have to be unblocked.

It would be nice if the MediaWiki software would automatically lift existing blocks, much like deleting pages to make way for moves, when an administrator wants to place a new block on a user. --Ixfd64 20:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Will (message me!) 10:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

"You have new messages" in IE
This may already be a known issue, but I have tried looking for some discussion somewhere and can't find any. In Internet Explorer, when you get new messages, on the Main page only, the orange background of the "new message bar" doesn't show, nor does the border. On any other Wikipedia page and in Firefox it's fine. I can provide a screenshot if needed. Sorry once again if this is already a known issue. —  Fire  Fox  13:55, 11 July '06

Could be related to the trick used in MediaWiki:Monobook.js to hide the <h1 class="firstHeading"> and other certain elements specifically on the Main_Page. Try disabling javascript and see if it still does that. --Splarka (rant) 08:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not quite sure how to do that in IE. Anyway, why would it do that in IE but not Firefox? —  Fire  Fox  10:51, 12 July '06


 * IE 5, 5.5, and 6 (I guess you are not using IE 7) are widely considered to be quite buggy (IE 7 isn't even finished, so there's no way to know how buggy it will be). See http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html for a list (complete with detailed examples, explanations, and workarounds) of some of the most annoying (and strange) of them. --cesarb 15:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Initials not working properly in IE 6
<p style="vertical-align: text-top;"> A t the Initial article, the examples do not render correctly in Internet Explorer 6 for Windows. Could someone please try to fix them so they render in IE the way they currently render in Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4? Also, in both browsers, there is an extra paragraph break above the drop cap, which I think was added by MediaWiki; could someone remove it please? Seahen Neon  Merlin  23:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Tweaked it a little, fixed the extra paragraph break. Don't have IE, so I can't tell how it looks there. — Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * H ere's a screenshot showing the page in Opera 9, Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer 6. Perhaps the best way to ensure cross-browser-friendlieness would be to use images instead? Icey 23:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

WAM!
I go to look at a page history, and then all of a sudden.. WAM! Talking up half the page, can whoever did that put it back the way it used to be--64.12.116.73 17:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Or, at the very least, can we please give it a CSS class so that people can dip into their monobook.css and <TT>display:none</TT> it? With all due respect to whomever made the alteration, for the majority of Wikipedians familiar with how a history page is laid out, it takes up a great deal of screen space and is closer to the center of the screen than the history data editors will be looking for. &mdash; Mike (talk &bull; contribs) 18:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's ugly and huge. The history page was fine the way it was, really. --Conti|&#9993; 18:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, that's better again. See further Village pump (proposals) --Femto 18:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Rollback summary
This has probably been asked before (maybe even by me, I can't recall), but is there any way of adding a way of making an edit summary when performing a rollback? It could simply involve one extra screen, a la "Delete page" or "Move page" asking for a reason - the standard "reverted edits by XXX to last edit by YYY" isn't always sufficient to let people know why rollback was done, and the only way at present of adding this sort of summary is going through the longer non-admin process. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  05:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, other than by using one of the many automated tools. However, some months ago, an edit link was added to the "diff" view, so you can click the edit link on the left-hand pane, tab to the edit summary, type something, and press enter. That saves a step over the old way of loading the old version, before pressing edit on it.-gadfium 06:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That would do it...yeah - hadn't thought of that, thanks. BTW, mention of the "Delete page" function reminded me of something else I wanted to suggest... see below. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  06:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding optional "edit" links to the main page
I've created a version of the main page containing edit links for the five featured content sections (intended for use by admins). They're hidden via CSS (bypass your cache if they aren't), but this can be overridden by adding the following code to one's personal monobook.css (or equivalent) file:


 * 1) sysop { display: block }

I'm hoping that someone with better coding skills than mine knows how to relocate the "edit" links to the right-hand sides of the section headers (instead of below them). Any help will be greatly appreciated. &mdash; David Levy 02:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It'd probably just be easier to make them visible by removing, and then wrap the entire page in a  , and *then* add   to Common.css, and *then* put   in your skin. --Splarka (rant) 07:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, now having looked at your page, I see that the edit sections you are using are referring to transclusions. Two things: You can't use ID tags as there should only ever be one ID of one name per page, use class="sysop" and .sysop { display: block } . To get the effect you are after, you probably want something like Uncyclopedia used to have on the main page (based on the same design): old Uncyc main page. View the source and enjoy. --Splarka (rant) 07:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice! I've updated the CSS code. (Please let me know if know if it's correct now.)
 * The Uncyclopedia source code appears to be based upon our earlier HTML (which was modified to accommodate users with screen readers). I don't know how to integrate the desired functionality into the current setup. &mdash; David Levy 09:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I see that the style of those headers is appled to the tags. Ick! Putting a span or div into a header tag is a bad idea. So, if you cannot change those headers to divs, the easiest thing I can think of is (for example, I changed your test page thusly): . It is a bit dirty (using a position hack), but if it is only to be viewed voluntarily, then it can't hurt. Note that I combined the div and span as you don't need both. Also, you should put display:none into the div style there rather than MediaWiki:Common.css (unless it is site policy not to, or unless there are widespread plans to use that class to hide stuff most users don't wanna see ^_^). BTW: If you wanna discuss this more I'll be on IRC in #wikimedia-tech for another hour or two. --Splarka (rant) 09:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

"If" in template
I have just created a template called Template:EPC Article (see also Template talk:EPC Article for a user guide). This template contains an external link accompanied by an internal link to "European Patent Convention". I have just a small problem when inserting the template in the article European Patent Convention: the (self-)link becomes bold, which is not that nice. Can you help to insert some code to check what is the page name, and if the page name is "European Patent Convention", then add only EPC, and otherwise EPC ? Cheers. --Edcolins 21:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This should do what you want. --Splarka (rant) 01:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent. Thank you. works fine. --Edcolins 07:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Template creation.
I'd like to move into the magical realm of templates to add to my wikiskillset however I don't want it randomly deleted before i'm finished playing. Is there anywhere I can sandbox a template for personal play? can i create a functional template in a user sub-page?--I&#39;ll bring the food 14:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, because user pages can be transcluded just like templates. For example, if I wanted to transclude my user subpage User:Angr/Current translation project into another page, I would just type <tt> </tt>. User:Angr 14:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * There are also several test templates in the Sandbox, for *very* temporary tests. --Splarka (rant) 01:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Link colors
Looking at some of the FAQs, it looks like it may not be possible to edit link colors, but I haven't seen anything in writing. If I can, I'd love to know how as I've got something I'm working on for a page. --Bveale 16:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * From WP:MOS "Using color alone to convey information (color coding) should not be done. This is not accessible to people with color blindness (especially monochromacy), viewing articles on black-and-white printouts, older monitors with fewer colors, monochrome LCD displays (PDAs, cell phones), and so on." So unless there's a really, really pressing reason why the colors are needed it's probably best not to do it. I doubt it's possible with links, anyway. --<font color="Brown">Daduzi <font color="Green">talk  17:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's actually for more than just the color alone. What I'm working on is some extra accoutrements to the fixture list I created for the Nottingham Forest F.C. page to make each team they play represented by both their name and their colors so it looks something like this example for Yeovil Town, whose colors are green and white:

Thanks (I have no idea why it seems to be migrating to another section at the moment.)--Bveale 21:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason it was hiding at the bottom of the page is that the table wasn't closed (it ended with a |- rather than a |} ) so I've fixed that. As for what you're looking for, the best way to work around it would be to use   tags. So in the example you gave you'd change  at Yeovil Town  to  at Yeovil Town  . That would result in something like this:


 * I would stress again, though, that colours should generally only be used sparingly and only if they'd help users identify information, rather than for decoration. You might also want to consider letting the guys at WikiProject Football know what you're planning to do as they're trying to standardise the layout of football related articles and could probably offer some feedback. If they like the idea it may even be included in their article templates. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Clubs is probably the best place to go. Hope that helps. --<font color="Brown">Daduzi <font color="Green">talk  22:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to add that I've now realised you can change the color of links by adding a span in the middle of a piped link like so  Yeovil Town  . Using this technique you get the following:


 * I'd stress again that you should chat to the guys at WikiProject Football about adding fixture lists, though. --<font color="Brown">Daduzi <font color="Green">talk  19:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, whether the desired effect can be achieved or not is a moot point, as fixture lists are copyrighted by The Football League. See Talk:Nottingham Forest F.C. for details. Oldelpaso 17:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

compare version function in 'history' too very wide for actual practical use -- see what I mean?
On some pages, when I select two versions on the history tab, I get two very wide blocks for the compared versions. So wide in some cases that I've already acquired CFS (carpal finger syndrome) from jockeying the box contents back and forth. I'm using Firefox 1.05, and do not have this trouble with all articles, and not always with particular articles. This being so, this looks very much like a Heisenbug (and if we don't have an article we should). On the general principle that ignorance or incompetence shared is dissipated, does anyone have an idea what's going on? ww 21:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is just long lines (often urls) of text failing to wrap. It is just how tables work. If a specific diff has a such a line in the changed text, or in the paragraph before or after any change, the table cell (and the table) will be quite wide. You might be able to limit it in your css. I'll investigate later. --Splarka (rant) 08:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a fix available which can be added to your javascript file. See WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Fix diff width, and copy it to User:Ww/monobook.js (or the equivalent if you are not using the standard Wikipedia monobook shell). I found that it worked very well, but too slowly for my liking, so after using it for a few weeks I removed it.-gadfium 08:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I tried every css trick I knew (ok, I spent 10 minutes at 5am on it), and I could not get it to wrap long unbroken strings of text, nor to get the tables to squeeze into the page under all cirucmstances (except with  which screws up everything massively, as the table widths and heights are not specifically defined). It'd probably have to be done with the javascript fix gadfium mentions, or one like it. That, or ask the devs to rewrite the table to be more customizable via css (give every type of cell a specific class, wrap the whole thing in a div and the contents of each cell in a div too, etc). --Splarka (rant) 02:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Editing Toolbar
I use IE version 6.0 on Windows XP and the editing toolbar doesn't work for me. Whenever I click on one of the buttons, nothing happens except that the insertion point in the text box goes away. Can someone help me? --Anakata 16:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist truncated
When I logged in this morning my watchlist only went back to (it appears) midnight today. I've clicked the various choices for the time range and am also sure I'm not reaching the limit of entries. Any experiences with this? I don't see any sign on the tech pages of a db crash or anything. . . (John User:Jwy talk) 14:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh hang on:

07:58 Culture of Greece (200 changes; Page history) [86.133.237.95 (200×)]


 * That would do it. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Move tab
How would I go about requesting that the 'move' tab be changed to 'move/rename'? <font color="#CC0000">Clappingsimon talk 13:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Probably the proposals VP, the wording is at MediaWiki:Move. You could also do it for just you with a little bit of JavaScript in your Mypage/monobook.js file:

if ( document.getElementById('ca-move') ) { document.getElementById('ca-move').getElementsByTagName('a')[0].innerHTML = 'move/rename'; }
 * (not tested) <font color="#3366CC">--jam es (talk) 15:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Webalyzer statistics for Wikipedia articles?
Are there publicly available statistics (number of page views) for Wikipedia articles? --Smithfarm 11:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No. This would be too much strain on the system.  See Technical FAQ.  Sam Korn (smoddy) 12:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiFilter
write me aboutWikiFilter.I have down Loaded the folder but couldn't understand it -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.163.2.66 (talk • contribs)
 * It would probably be best to ask the author here or a similar place (Link for the potentially confused reader). --Interiot 11:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Sign in box
When I sign in to Wikipedia, I used to be able to type my username, password, and press tab, so that the "log in" button is highlighted. Now, when I press tab, it goes to "e-mail new password". Is there a way to fix this? --HappyCamper 02:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The past behaviour was considered a bug, since the tab order was not consistent with the flow of the user interface. You should still be able to hit "enter" within the password box to trigger the form submission. 86.134.116.228 20:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Modifying CURRENTYEAR results
Is there any way I can modify the CURRENTYEAR variable, so that rather than giving the current year, it gives next year? --Jim (Talk) 22:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is: you can do calculations, such as, which gives , as expected. Schutz 22:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks! --Jim (Talk) 23:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That's very interesting. Are there other examples of calculations, or any other special things you can do with Magicwords? Is there a page that lists them? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * ParserFunctions m:Help:Magic_words m:Help:Colon_function Variables m:Template:Wikivar and probably quite a few on mediawiki.org too. --Splarka (rant) 07:13, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Problems with search bar on "Chick" skin
If I use the "Chick" skin, the "Go" and "Search" buttons in the Search toolbar line up to the right of the Search field, obscuring some of the article. C. M. Harris Talk to me 15:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Is the problem replicated on chick this page while you are in the monobook skin? It looks fine to me. You might try adding to your chick css: And see if that squishes it suitably for you. --Splarka (rant) 23:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) searchBody { width:10em; text-align:center }

UCIMED
Hello! I just wanted to know how to put my new UCIMED wikipage in search engines such as yahoo and google. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huaizhi (talk • contribs)


 * Erm, see the section directly above this one. --Interiot 03:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi! I tried to fix the UCIMED page to be as unbias as possible. Is it suitable enough? or needs more fixing? When can the page be launched at a search engine? -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Huaizhi (talk • contribs)


 * We don't control when the page appears on Google or Yahoo. Yahoo and Google will scan Wikipedia on their schedule, and the page will appear on the search engines in a week or two (or three).  If you have more specific concerns, please see Google's  or Yahoo's FAQ. --Interiot 03:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki redirects bumping into articles
Maybe it is only a coincidence that I have encountered this twice today, once at Requested moves and once at Help desk, but it may indicate a inappropriately common problem. The two examples: The proper name for an article about this book is "War: Opposing Viewpoints (2005)" (see Talk:War (book): Opposing Viewpoints (2005)), but it can't be moved there because anything beginning with "War:" gets sent to somewhere in http://war.wikipedia.org another language Wikipedia. Worse, according to Help desk, an article that was at The New Mythology Suite now can't be found and gets redirect to somewhere in http://en.wikiversity.org because of the newly created "V:" redirect for Wikiversity. There may be several pages that aren't easy to retrieve because of this, and need to be fixed somehow. Possible ideas to fix the problem technically are to change interwiki functionality somehow or to not have interwiki redirects for common words or single letters like "War" and "V" which are more likely to have articles. —Centrx→talk &bull; 19:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * this is a known issue documented at naming conventions (technical restrictions), if you have lost an article due to the addition of a new interwiki prefix you need to talk to the devs (who should be able to manually rename it in the db if the have not already done so) Plugwash 21:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ok just spoken to the devs, User:Brion_VIBBER/V_articles for where this and other affected articles were moved to. Plugwash 21:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * the bad news is that we seem to have no way of finding the broken links short of scanning the entire wiki :( Plugwash 21:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You could use a small application to scan the list of page titles. I wrote a little C++ app to do that and found the articles starting with "V:", which are: TM, _SOH, _The_Final_Battle, _The_Final_Battle_(mini-series), _The_New_Mythology_Suite, _The_Series, tM.
 * That was me, sorry, I didn't sign my name. Icey 16:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit box "speed"
Has something changed regarding the edit boxes lately? Editing any page is really really slow for me, it takes about half a second for an input I made to be shown in the edit box, that makes writing quite painful. The problem only appears on the english Wikipedia, and only with Opera (9.01). I've edited the german Wikipedia and a random wiki at Wikia, both work fine. Firefox also works fine with all wikis. Interestingly, creating a new section with the "+" link works fine even with Opera. I haven't had any such problems with Opera yet, so I guess something has changed on Wikipedia. --Conti|&#9993; 19:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Aye, same thing is happening with me using Opera 9. I've never had problems before and they suddenly seem to have appeared. Sorry, I have no idea why it's happening. I'm guesisng it's some new javascript though. Icey 23:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahh, I see what it is. It's this:

.imagelist td + td + td + td + td { white-space: normal }
 * at the end of this file. If that is filtered out it works fine. Icey 23:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So, can anyone who knows about this stuff fix it? --Conti|&#9993; 00:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Mea culpa, but in my defense: what the heck, why would that slow down Opera on an edit page, when that class only exists on Special:Imagelist? Can opera not handle sibling css, even when unused? --Splarka (rant) 07:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing that, Splarka. I'm going to assume your question is rhetorical, because we are only users of Opera, we didn't write it! :) Icey 12:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Aah, super fast typing again! Thanks! I don't have a clue how an why this affected opera, but the comment says "e.g. Special:Imagelist", so there might be more pages that are affected by that class. --Conti|&#9993; 15:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually it was Tim, I was just the one helping to break it ^_^. &bull; The question was partially rhetorical, but mostly yelled upward at the heavens. &bull; The "e.g." was speculative and it only applied to the .TablePager class (which will eventually be used elsewhere). &bull; It was the .imagelist class which had the td siblings (and the imagelist class only exists and should only ever exist on Special:Imagelist). I can verify the class wasn't used anywhere else because I only suggested it Tuesday night. --Splarka (rant) 22:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

One template spilling into another
In the Kentucky article at the bottom, the Kentucky template is shown, followed by the United States template. Something is making the first template "spill" into the second, and I cannot figure out the problem. Could somebody please take a look at this and perhaps fix the issue? The Kentucky seems to display correctly in every other article it resides in, but not this one. Thanks. Stevie is the man! Talk &bull; Work 18:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What browser? (Looks fine on Safari). -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Tested on Mozilla Firefox and IE6. The spilling over is quite subtle, by the way.  The major aspect of this is that the border for the Kentucky template has disappeared, and it sits right on top of the United States template, and that shouldn't be occurring.  Stevie is the man!  Talk &bull; Work 19:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Added a 1em vertical margin (and auto-fied the edge margins and removed the 'center' align tag), look better? --Splarka (rant) 21:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No apparent change. Thank you for trying, though.  Stevie is the man!  Talk &bull; Work 22:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed (it was no spilling, it was outright breakage, which affected other things like the "Purple People Bridge" image and the sister project boxes). Now it's my turn to ask, what's the purpose of section? It's completely undocumented. --cesarb 02:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks a million! Whatever section is, its sole use appears to be in Paleobox, which is transcluded in 130-something articles.  Stevie is the man!  Talk &bull; Work 03:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

New template limits, Special:ExpandTemplates
The new template expansion limits, announced on wikitech-l and wikipedia-l, are now in effect on a trial basis. Keep an eye out for any broken articles. Note that there is some information to help track down problems in comments in the HTML source of the parser output. To help editors to substitute templates for literal text in problem articles, I've introduced a new special page: Special:ExpandTemplates. It works like adding subst: to all the templates, except you don't have to repeatedly save the page. -- Tim Starling 07:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * →Discussion moved to new page Wikipedia talk:Template limits. I propose to add further discussions there. --Ligulem 09:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Running bots
I posted this on Wikipedia talk:Bots, but never got a reply, so I'll put it here. How are bots run? Do you need to download software, or can a robot script be coded into Wikipedia itself? I understand the policy about bots, but I couldn't find the answer to that important question. --Gray Porpoise 17:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Bots are run on some contributor's personal computer resources, and access Wikipedia just like any normal user would (over HTTP), i.e. they are generally just programs contributors run on their own PC. If you intend to run a bot, you should establish a separate account for the bot and get its purpose OK'd at Bots/Requests for approvals.  There are also some separate tools (not bots) that users run against an offline copy of the database, on the toolserver machine.  No one directly touches the Wikipedia software itself, or any of the machines Wikipedia runs on, except developers.  -- Rick Block (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Bots operate the same way as humans on a computer with a browser. Think of a computer program that runs on your computer and edits pages on Wikipedia over the internet. The bot operator starts the program on his computer and is reponsible for what it does to Wikipedia pages. Some bots (programs) are run at regular times by the bot operator (every x hours, at midnight, whatever). --Ligulem 18:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you. --Gray Porpoise 18:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

adding sub Category?
New & learning. I found the bracket for making a Category, but cannot figure out how to make the subcategory. Could someone post an example with the code exactly as it should be written for one page that has one category and one subcategory? I need to see the structure so I don't mess things up.

And in Uncategorised_good_articles, how do I remove an article from the list of uncategorized?

Lifesnadir 12:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Try Subcategory. -- DLL .. T 19:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Nesting noinclude and includeonly
I'm trying to create a template that outputs noinclude tags when it is included (allowing the page using the template to show different content if it is viewed directly or included itself). Is there anyway to escape the nested noinclude tags so they work as expected? The documentation just says that straight nesting won't work (and it doesn't...I've tried it just in case), it doesn't give any clues as to whether there is a way to make it work. Yomangani talk 09:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The only way to do it (currently) is to place the template inclusion inside noinclude tags. On the middle page: (so the template doesn't show on the bottom page). Or, if you are just doing this for templates:  (or other pre-determined tricks). --Splarka (rant) 11:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, unfortunately the additional step of including the noinclude tags around the template is what I needed to avoid, but at least I know I'm not missing something. Yomangani talk 11:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

For future reference it is possible:

< noinclude  >
 * Whatever you want to just appear in the original page and not in any pages it is included in

</ noinclude  >

What could be easier? Yomangani talk 16:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, you could reduce the amounts of includeonlys to break up the noincludes. Just use:
 * <noin clude>
 * stuff
 * </noin clude>


 * GeorgeMoney (talk) 17:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what I did to begin with, but it leaves parts of the tag showing in the page. Yomangani talk 17:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The goggles, they do nothing! Ow. --Splarka (rant) 21:22, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Moving My User page.
If I select Move and change the name of my Userpage, will it change my login name, just the page name or nothing at all? Celebrity-Benji 13:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It will just change the page name; this is strongly discouraged. If you would like to change your username this can be done at Changing username — Mets 501  (talk) 13:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Thumbnail problem with Image:Alberto 2006 track.png?
I'm not sure what is going on with this (Commons-hosted) image. It was recently updated to reflect some changes in the underlying data that it represents and when viewed on the image description page and in a thumbnail (the right image) it views correctly. However, when the image is used through a template, which is how it is used in Tropical Storm Alberto (2006) and 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, it shows an older version. I did some looking around and this same image has the same problems on the other wikis that use the image, for example the Spanish wiki (which also uses it thru a template. Any ideas whats going on?--Nilfanion (talk) 11:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks fine for me now. Try refreshing your page in the browser. --Ligulem 11:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea works now. I updated the image a couple days ago, seemed funny to be able to view two versions of the same image at once...--Nilfanion (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleting a disambiguation page
If a disambiguation page has two links, and one of them gets speedy deleted, it's no longer needed. How do I delete the page? --Brat32 03:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a candidate for proposed deletion. --  timc  talk   04:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Just make it in to a redirect, by putting #REDIRECT Target Article as it's only line. — xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  04:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Error in a template
Hi,

I've just found an error in the template US time 2006. If somebody can find what's wrong between "USA Alaska" and the end... I think this is because of a change in is the template using policy in the mediawiki software (we had a kind of similar problem two days ago), but I'm not sure so...

Slasher-fun 00:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If you view source on the page, you will see

USA Aleutian -10 hours USA Hawaii -10 hours
 * Those errors are related to the new template size limits. I'm not sure what's going on with the Alaska row, but maybe it's related? -- timc  talk   04:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I moved the template documentation of some subtemplates into subpages as Tim suggested on this page here (scroll up). It seems to work now, but I fear the transclusion limit is almost eaten up by monsters like this one, which are very bad given the new limits. See also . --Ligulem 12:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Report a Contributor
Hi,i want to report a contibutor who wants to delete an article that i have posted — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trppo (talk • contribs).
 * I assume that this user is referring to the AFD I have made for the article he wrote up. Ryūlóng 00:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Massive delay on WP:RFD's current list?
Redirects listed for deletion today were properly listed in Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2006_August_15, but didn't show up Current list in WP:RFD unil pretty late today, around 21 UTC. What's the cause of this? Owoc 21:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Added categories to a redirect's single-line wikicode
I've stumbled on a special case where it was needed to categorize a redirect page itself. (It was for a CD reissued under a different title). It works, but it seems undocumented on your help page. For the full details of the case and what I did, see:

&rarr; SOLUTION: WP:ALBUMS

Even though it's a rare case, I think it should be documented somewhere on your help page that it can be done, and how and when. For instance, there are plenty of books or movies with previous or alternative titles: shouldn't their redirect pages be categorized too, so as to make the main previous titles be findable in categories lists too?

&rarr; DEBATE: crossposted to Meta:Help talk:Redirect

-- 62.147.112.164 20:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See Template messages/Redirect pages. --cesarb 21:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

AFD transclusion
I'm trying to transclude the afd, Articles for deletion/9/11 Guilt, onto the Articles for deletion/Log/2006 August 15 page. The transclusion isn't showing up there. I suspect Wikipedia has a problem with the "/" in the article name, and that technically speaking "11/Guilt" is a subpage of "9" Can anyone please confirm that this is indeed the problem, or am I doing something wrong. If it's indeed not possible to transclude, I might just rename the afd page to "9-11 Guilt". -- Aude ( talk   contribs ) 16:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. You didn't use the template  at Articles for deletion/9/11 Guilt. — Mets 501  (talk) 16:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay. Thanks. -- Aude ( talk   contribs ) 16:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Show/Hide not hiding on default
I have a div-Nav class pop-up on my user page but it's not hiding on default, as I'd like it to. How can I fix this, or could someone fix it for me? Thanks in advance. --User:Arual 16:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed on your user page. If you wrap it in two show hide div's then it hides by default — Mets 501  (talk) 16:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Wonky edit links
Could someone check out WikiProject Guitarists and see if they can duplicate this problem: At some point I created a new second-level heading after I clicked the "edit" link next to an existing second-level heading. Now, the edit links are all messed up. For example, if I click the edit link next to the "Departments" heading in the text, it takes me to edit the heading that is below that one. Any way to fix this? -- Aguerriero  ( talk ) 15:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's really messed up. I don't know what it is. — Mets 501  (talk) 15:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. diff — Mets 501 (talk) 15:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahh, thank you sincerely. I knew it was going to be something like that. :)  This is why I'm a writer, not a developer.... --  Aguerriero  ( talk ) 15:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

ref footnotes disrupt line flow
Easy to fix in CSS: http://www.soxiam.com/Code/CSSSuperscriptLineheightAdjustment &brvbar; Reisio 02:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirect not saving?
Hi. After conferring with the original author of the article Narcissistic damage (which I had tagged with for being a definition), it was decided that the article should redirect to Narcissistic personality disorder. I edited Narcissistic damage to place the redirect, added an edit summary, and saved the article. However, upon my return to it, the original article appears. When I click "edit this page", however, the redirect shows up. Huh? Can someone take a look and tell me if this is a technical glitch or if I'm doing something incorrect? Thanks. --CPAScott 20:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Clear your cache. It should work then. Mozilla/Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera/Konqueror: press F5. — Mets 501  (talk) 20:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) No, it's just your cache playing tricks on you. Try replacing "?action=edit" with "?action=purge" in the edit link you gave us above. Tito xd (?!?) 20:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That does it. Thanks for the prompt response. --CPAScott 21:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing spaces either side of slash
Hope this is the right place for this question - please let me know if not...

When you're not logged in, "Sign in / create account" is shown in the top right of the screen. This is incorrectly punctuated - there shouldn't be a space either side of the slash. The same error can be seen in the title of the screen reached by clicking on the sign in link. How can this be corrected? Thanks for any suggestions! Jenny Wong 16:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Whether it's "correct" according to any particular standard, it is common practice to put spaces around the slash if more than one word is logically grouped on either side. For example, "apples/oranges", but "red apples / green apples". - dcljr (talk) 19:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This wording can be updated at MediaWiki:Userlogin, by sysops, with consensus. You may want to bring it up on that pages' talk. —  xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  03:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Viewing Musical Notation
How do i view musical notation? I've asked lots of people that use wikipedia and they all have the same problem, instead of showing a sharp or flat symbol it just displays a square.. you can see an example on this Bebop article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop
 * The problem is because the symbols are stored as the Unicode for those symbols (which is fine), and you might not have a font which knows how to display them. Get Code2000, return to the website and see if the problem is still there. &mdash; D a  niel  (‽) 16:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Or just get Firefox. — Mets 501 (talk) 20:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Even Firefox won't do it if you don't have the fonts. But get it anyway. &mdash; D a  niel  (‽) 11:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, you do have to get Firefox in this case, since that page isn't using unicode, and MSIE is unable to use any font other than the currently selected one (i.e. it won't use Code2000 without to change the font). --cesarb 15:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixing a table
I've pretty much completed a table apart from one small bug, their is a white part in the top right corner i don't want to be there pretty much for aesthetic reasons, so could someone possibly take a look at the code and try and fix it, I can't see where the problem is User:Curswine/Sandbox/Regionalliga. --shanda 14:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it, see this diff. — Mets 501 (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, but now the information in the 'goals' column can no longer be seen, anyway to get around that? --shanda 14:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like you already fixed it? --Splarka (rant) 01:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"Or" logic in templates
An infobox is being designed at WikiProject Narnia/Sandbox/NarniaCharacterInfobox2. As will be made clearer when seeing the example template used on the talk page there, all five of the parameters under the "Family" category are optional. Supposing none of these are filled out, the long cell that groups them, that says "family," should not appear. However, neither User:Lsommerer, the template designer, nor I know how to fix it so that if neither "spouse" nor "parents" nor "children" nor "siblings" nor "otherFamily" are used, then the "Family" disappears. Thanks! --Fbv65 e del / &#9745;t / &#9755;c || 01:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Concatenate them all together, and then check with a single #if: ? --Interiot 01:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Here are all the parserfunctions available: ParserFunctions. There's no easy way to do it. Perhaps create an if for each and if at the end it isn't there, then nothing, otherwise display. You may be able to use the swtich as well. <font color="CEBE70">MECU ≈ talk 02:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. I'll take a look. --Fbv65 e del / &#9745;t / &#9755;c || 02:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * What I described does in fact work...  see User talk:Interiot/sandbox/or.   checks to see if its first argument is blank, so if you concatenate several parameters together, and they're still blank, then that means that none of the parameters were set.  --Interiot 02:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks Interiot. That's what I was missing. The example was quite helpful. LloydSommerer 03:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

'Unreferenced' template
Please see Template talk:Unreferenced for a format problem with this template which needs to be sorted. Thanks, MPF 23:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Category
How do I add a link to a category, as in without it categorizing the page and the link disappearing? AdamBiswanger1 20:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Category:Living people note the colon. Martin 20:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanx AdamBiswanger1 20:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Comparing Articles
I comparing articles fine when I'm logged off. But when I try to compare articles when I'm logged in, Firefox opens up a prompt box that tells me to download index.php. <font style="color:#ddd;background:#00a;"> Demonblade  <font style="color:#ddd;background:#00a;"> (talk)  09:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Is your alt key (or equivalent) stuck down somehow? Tap it a couple times, see if that makes it work?  (though if it were stuck down, it would make all links try to download)  --Interiot 10:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * See also the section "Page history problems - can't view changes" (scroll two sections up). --Ligulem 10:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Problem fix, in preferences just disable the external editing thing. <font style="color:#ddd;background:#00a;"> Demonblade  <font style="color:#ddd;background:#00a;"> (talk)  11:43, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki markup
Shouldn't we have a central guide to wiki markup?--Mac Lover Talk 23:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a guide here, is that what you are looking for? Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  23:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * No, but I found a link to what I wanted. Thanks.--Mac Lover Talk 04:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Then why haven't you published it?

next and previous page
Hi all,

at the dutch wikibooks we like to use the buttons "next page" and "previous page" in a book (see: http://nl.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rekenen/Modulair_rekenen : '← Vorige'). However this method is very stupid when the sequence of the pages is changed, or if a page is added or removed (the 'surrounding' pages have to be changed too).

Is there a way to 'calculate' the next and previous link automatically? My idea was to make for each book a page with a table of contents in a specific layout so the computer can read it. By placing a template the computer can look into the TOC-page and calculate the previous and next page. Is something like this possible, has anyone a link? You can answer in this page, or at nl:b:overleg gebruiker:MADe 86.39.65.85


 * Hmm, what could be done is to put it all in a 'table of contents' type template. This would require one base template (I chose Template:Pageflip to test) for the system and then one sub-template for each book (eg Template:Pageflip/Test book). Whenever you wanted to add/remove/rearrange pages, you need only edit the TOC subtemplate for that one book, which maintains a list of the next and previous page for each page (and must also contain the name of the book as the first parameter). The implementation is just one #switch which calls a next/for generating template, eg:


 * And then it requires just one parameter-free template on each page of the book. See wikiasite:Scratchpad:Test book and view the source of the pages to see it in action. However, if you wanted a TOC in hujman readable format, it would need to be maintained (as it could not be easily generated from this list while keeping the list easy to edit), so there would be at least two pages needing editing with this method. Still, makes it easy to totally rearrange a book's pages with just two edits. Let me know if you need any help or more information/possibilities. --Splarka (rant) 05:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, it works! See nl:b:Firefox for an example.

Date format and preference problem
I've built a mediawki 1.7.1 installation at work. Dates appear in whatever format I type them in (ISO, whatever), not what I have set in preferences. Also, the ISO date link as one unit (y/m/d all as one), not as m/d and year as on wikipedia. How can I fix this? Do I need a plugin or extension? Is this being caused by one or two issues? There should be a guide on "How to get mediawiki to work just like Wikipedia" somewhere-;) Rlevse 12:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It was the same here on WP until a couple of days ago when Tim Starling fixed it. — Mets 501  (talk)  12:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea, but I need it fixed on my mediawiki installation. How? Rlevse 13:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * FYI, Tim Starling told me the code is already in DateFormatter.php and all one has to do is set set $wgUseDynamicDates = true; in LocalSettings.php.  Rlevse 11:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

long table of contents
I am promoting a merger of a long list of articles to a single one. My current proposed solution is at User:GarrieIrons/Westfields in Australia. My first immediate problem is the Table of Contents is longer than one screen. I understand it can be floated, but can the TOC be "fiddled" to "roll-up" subsections until they are clicked on? There are geographical sections based on Australian states and cities. I would like to see 1. Promotional Activities 2. Common Franchises 3. New South Wales 4. etc

But if you click on 1, 2, or 3, it expand so you get 3. New South Wales 3.1 Bondi Junction 3.2 etc.

Any suggestions? Have I merged too many articles, or do I need to turn some elements from real section headings to "pretend" section headings just using bold text? Garrie 00:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * First, take all your "External links" sections and merge them into a single one at the end. Then, remove a lot of headings; in several places, for instance, the heading "Stores" can be turned into a sentence like "Stores in this mall include:". These subsections all are small enough to not need to be separate. You will end up with most of the malls having no subheadings, and the few ones which need subheadings with one or at most two. Now the TOC is no longer the problem; if the article is too long, split it by geographic region, with a separate main article for the "lead". Hope this helps. --cesarb 01:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am aware that currently the page is a series of pages which each had sections, dumped onto a single page. I am still concerned that "just" having the states, and the locations within the state that have a Westfield, will result in quite a long TOC. Hopefully, floating it will help this problem.
 * I don't really want to strip the link to each store's entry on the external website down to a single external link, at the time of launching the merged page. Maybe later when the noise dies down....
 * However is it possible to have "rollover" style TOC? Garrie 22:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * However is it possible to have "rollover" style TOC? Garrie 22:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem with text in SVG
I am using inkscape and when I upload images wich contein some text they are not correctly visualized in wikipedia (even if inkscape do it correctly): the text either is not visualized at all or is replaced by "black blocks" such as. Can someone help me to find out what is the problem?--Pokipsy76 17:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This has been asked before here; the problem is that inkscape is generating SVGs using the current draft of the next version of the SVG standard, instead of the current version. Neither rsvg (which Wikipedia uses) nor Firefox understand the new elements. --cesarb 21:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * My answer last time this question was asked: . --cesarb 16:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

How to escape indents?
Hi, how do I make sure a new paragraph starts at the leftmost point, past a picture that might keep it indented? Example: 118 WallyPower. If your browser window has the right width, the "Features" section title is indented (because its below a picture) while the accompanying hr-line is not. I'd like to move both elements a bit down, and I know there is a mediawiki command for that ("move an element as much down as needed so that it can stay leftmost"). Can anybody tell me its name?

Question 2: Can anybody pinpoint me to the complete mediawiki command set overview?

Thanks! :-) Peter S. 23:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Answer to the first question: use -.-gadfium 00:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * To the second question: see Quick guide, or if you want a printed sheet, use Image:Cheatsheet-en.pdf.-gadfium 00:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fantastic, thanks! :-) I'm actually looking for a guide that is very complete, ideally it should also include things like this template. Might I suggest we create one if there is none? Peter S. 00:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I suggest you go to Help Project to suggest and participate in improvements to the help system. For useful templates, Template is one starting point. Category:Wikipedia special effects templates is a different starting point, or Category:Wikipedia templates as a more general listing. Templates are different from the MediaWiki command set, because many will be specific to the English Wikipedia.-gadfium 01:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Page history problems - can't view changes
I can't view the changes between different versions i.e. the "compare selected versions" in the history of pages. I was always able to until one day I fiddled around in my preferences and now whenever I want to view the differences between past pages, a file download window always appears asking to download a file named "index" of an unknown file type and when I open this file, with Internet Explorer some random text appears. What's wrong? How do I fix this? I tried going through my preferences and changing them back - but the problem is still there! Please help!! Tanzeel 23:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You probably turned on "Use external diff by default" which is under the Editing section of your preferences. Turning it off should fix the problem. Let me know if it doesn't, happy editing! Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  23:45, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

search box focus
How would one go about making the focus of a Wikipedia site the search box every time? For example, if you opened the Main Page and you wanted a blinking cursor in the search box without any input from the user, how would you do that or where would be a good place to find out? Thanks.ndyguy 18:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If you're using the monobook skin, press [alt]-f to put the cursor in the search box. There's no way to do it automatically. —  Mets 501  (talk)  18:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Bummer, but thanks for the info. ndyguy 18:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Add to Special:Mypage/monobook.js:

addOnloadHook(function {document.getElementById('searchform').elements[0].focus; return false;;});
 * --Splarka (rant) 20:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome, works like a charm. Thank you. --ndyguy 20:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Promotional image tag
I want to upload a promotional image for a band. I've found the correct tag: promotional However, I can't figure out what to put for licensing. I've gone down the drop-down list numerous times, and none of them seem to correspond. Could anyone with a bit more experience uploading images help me out a bit? Thanks in advance! --NinjaCharlie 16:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If you just type the tag into the box, then that shall suffice. You do not have to selected an item from the drop down box. (I also corrected the display of the template above. To talk about a template but not show it, you need to add tl| before the name, so the above would be promotional and will display as above. It helps prevent confusion and since this page isn't being applied the Promotional copyright, it's also not correct to put it on here like that. No big deal though.) Be sure to include the source URL or whatever you found the image. <font color="CEBE70">MECU ≈ talk 17:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry about that. Thank you for the help! --NinjaCharlie 17:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there any section which explains the various tags within the XML dump file
I would like to publish the contents of wikipedia on my site. I am looking for a list of all the possible xml tags and their explanation. Any idea where I can locate that information. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.163.2.66 (talk • contribs) 09:10, August 12, 2006 (UTC).


 * The list of the possible XML tags, and what is allowed within each of them, is on the XML Schema which can be found at http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.3.xsd. --cesarb 16:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Trying to make an infobox template
deleted for maintenance

CAT:CSD problem?
For some reason Vincent Mercer appears in CAT:CSD, yet the article isn't tagged for deletion. Am I missing something? What's up? --ZimZalaBim (talk) 21:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, it has now disappeared, without any changes being made to the article. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 21:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It was because a template transcluded into the article, which was briefly tagged as CSD. --cesarb 23:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Small table text
Is there any way of making all of the text in a table small, by putting just one tag around the table itself? Jim (Talk) 19:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A table:


 * A table with a font-size:80% in the style:


 * A table with a font-size:80% in a wrapping div's style:


 * HTH. --Splarka (rant) 22:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Splarka. I get the feeling I should have figured this out for myself! Apologies for asking stupid questions... Jim (Talk) 10:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Page history
When comparing two versions of a page on the page history, users (or at least me) have to click multiple times on the little dots on each version of the page. It would be nice if one did not have to do this every time one wants to compare another user's edits. Respectfully, Republitarian 17:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There is an option to click on "Older edit" or "Newer edit" to see the diffs one at a time. Stephen B Streater 17:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If you have a tabbed browser, you can also hold [ctrl] and click a bunch of those little (diff) links in a series to open them into new tabs. --Splarka (rant) 22:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Template
How does one make a template, such as an infobox, a certain width? Bornagain4 15:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It depends if the template uses a width parameter. See this : Template:Dynamic_navigation_box. Does that help ? -- DLL .. T 19:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia sidebar redesign problems
We are redesigning the sidebar that appears on every page of Wikipedia. However, we've run into some implementation problems. The biggest one is that we can't put a new menu below the search box. We need capable php programmers and those knowledgeable about the MediaWiki software to figure out a way. Please join us at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign. --Nexus Seven 11:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

What links here bug?
This shows no pages linking to the page (I'm not linking it here lest it eliminate this problem!) and there are no file links listed on the image page. However, it is linked to as Image:editcount.png from WikiProject edit counters. Is this a bug? Lupin|talk|popups 11:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's a known, ahem, "limitation" of the software. The workaround is notorphan. --cesarb 13:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks. Lupin|talk|popups 20:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

col and colgroup
Is there a way to define the {col} and {colgroup} attributes within a table using wiki markup? If so, how? I'd like to have all the numbers in one column aligned to the right but it is a pain to define the alignment in each cell. Help:Table is most useless when it comes to this question. Many thanks! -- Run e Welsh | &tau;&alpha;&lambda;&kappa; 10:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem in fixing disambiguation link in userbox template
Hi, I was doing a bit of fixing of disambiguation links from Bucks Fizz, which can be either Bucks Fizz (band) or Bucks Fizz (cocktail). I found that the disambiguation page linked to User:Fizzerbear, who had this userbox template, saying "This user loves Bucks Fizz." After checking the context to see if the user loves the drink or the pop group (the template has "fan-3", and the user also loves ABBA and Kylie Minogue), I changed  Bucks Fizz  to  Bucks Fizz . I pressed Preview, to see if it worked, and it actually appeared as "Bucks Fizz (band)". In other words, the piped link didn't work. I tried using the square brackets, but they were visible when I pressed preview. It seems that it should be possible for that template to allow a link to a favourite group without having to show the full Wikipedia title of the page. Any ideas? Thanks. AnnH <b style="font-size:medium;">♫</b> 09:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The trick is to use ! instead of the pipe |. I have fixed the userpage. Kusma (討論) 09:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. I must remember that for the future. AnnH <b style="font-size:medium;">♫</b> 10:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I assume you tried something like, which calls the template with two parameters. You could do it like this:  (which is an ugly hack and should best be avoided if possible). The | is interpreted as a parameter separator in template calls, so it can't be used as part of the text for a parameter. MediaWiki software lacks an escape mechanism for terminal syntax symbols. A better way would be to change the template to have an additional parameter that takes the part "Bucks Fizz" of the call and add the pipe inside the template. --Ligulem 10:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Any way to remove underscoring of within-article hypertext?
The argument for underscoring is, I suppose, that newbies will more quickly figure that the hypertext is a link. As reader, however, I underscoring an unnecessary distraction. Thx. Thomasmeeks 15:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Either go to your perferences and click on the "misc" tab, then select "never" for the underlining links part. Or you can put this in your monobook.css:

a { text-decoration: none; }

If you don't want to bother with links at all, use: /* IE-able */ a, a.new {color: black; text-decoration: none;} /* NON IE */ a, a.new {color: inherit; text-decoration: none;}

GeorgeMoney (talk) 15:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC) Thx. Done. BW, Thomasmeeks 16:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Where'd the TOCs go?
Um... I'm not seeing any Tables of Contents anymore, even though my preferences still indicate I should see them. Am I the only one? - dcljr (talk) 08:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, they're back. - dcljr (talk) 08:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Finding and eliminating fair use galleries
We've decided that it's a good idea to get rid of fair use galleries, as they violate our core principles, but ... how do we find them other than trying to remember on our own where each of us saw them? One way I could think of is to use a -type regex on a db dump, finding galleries with four or more images in them, and then checking the description pages on those images to see if they have any of the fair-use image templates on them. This won't be perfect, as some images don't have the exact templates, but rather, have a written out fair use rationale, but this could be a start. Might anyone be interested in pursuing this? I don't really have the technical ability to do it, but hopefully someone else does! -- Cyde Weys 06:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Might it not be easier to check the usage of fair use images (by Whatlinkshere on templates in Category:Non-free_image_copyright_tags), making sure they are only used on one (or rarely two) pages? Any other usage (including galleries) could be eliminated. This does bring up another interesting problem: Are galleries on category pages (automatically generated) against the core principles? If so, __NOGALLERY__ might be needed on some categories. --Splarka (rant) 07:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Bug in What Links Here?
Compare with. Seljuk Turks is a redirect to Seljuq dynasty. The page Seljuk Turk (singular) redirects to Seljuk Turks, thereby creating a double redirect. However, it doesn't show up at all in the list of links to Seljuq dynasty. What's going on here? Ardric47 00:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, double redirects do not show up on the Special:Whatlinkshere page. It's doing what it should as it shows the redirect. -- JLaTondre 00:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's the triple redirects that do not show up. Look at the Whatlinkshere for Seljuk Turks and for Seljuq dynasty; the one for the redirect has more than 500 items, while the one for the article has less than that. It's not that it isn't showing for being a double redirect; a number of other articles aren't showing too (Eshrefoglu, for instance; in fact, the whole second page of Whatlinkshere results for the redirect). I've purged the redirect; it's possible that, when the job queue gets to it, the problem fixes itself. --cesarb 01:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In fact, the article I just mentioned gets its link from a template; I've purged the template too, just in case. --cesarb 01:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, double redirects definitely show up. I did null edits on three templates that linked to Seljuk Turks, but that didn't fix it, either. Why is the job queue so long right now? Ardric47 02:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't know which license to use for image
Needing a good portrait of the subject of a Wikipedia article, I e-mailed him personally with the request. He responded with a few high quality jpegs to use for this purpose. Now, I don't know which license tag to use for the images. Any help please? Thanks <font color="#CCCCCC" face="times new roman">si &raquo; <font color="#999999" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> abhorreo   &raquo;   T 02:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * He needs to state explicitly that he releases them under a free for any purpose license, including the creation of derivative works and commercial uses without further permission. Typically, on Wikipedia, this is the Gnu Free Documentation License, but images are permitted under the Creative Commons licenses as long as they are the kind that allow commercial use and derivation. This particular case is confused somewhat if you specifically asked for use on Wikipedia and he granted that without having been told about the terms required or licensing them himself. Probably, it is not good enough in that case, and another email exchanged would be better.
 * Once you have such an email, upload the images using whichever tag is appropriate to the free license used (probably simply GFDL or cc-by-sa, cc-by-sa-2.0 etc), with an additional note regarding sourcing and licensing on the image page. Also, email a copy of his emails to the Foundation at permissions dot wikimedia dot org so that the Foundation has a piece of notpaper to wave around if it comes to it.
 * Unless the copyright owner has made this kind of copyright statement, then such a tag should not be used. The best that could be claimed is fair use in a relevant article. -Splash - tk 03:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, he is a big enough star that all this talk of licensing and him forfeiting his rights and giving it away for free etc may very well scare him off. I know that if I was in his position and didn't know about this stuff, I would probably get nervous about doing something like this, worrying that it's something I might regret later. Is there any way for him to give (even more) explicit xpermission for it to be used on Wikipedia, which will let me use a tag like this Template:WithPermission? Thanks <font color="#CCCCCC" face="times new roman">si &raquo; <font color="#999999" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> abhorreo   &raquo;   T 15:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I'm afraid we no longer accept images with permission to use only on Wikipedia, because it limits reuse. You could try asking him to release just one of the images under a free license, or just low-resolution versions of the images. If this doesn't work, I'm afraid you can't upload them. Deco 18:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This was bumped off of Village pump (technical) a while ago, but the matter has come back up, so I copy/pasted the above section from an old version of the page
 * OK, I got an e-mail in which the owner of the image explicitly releases it under a free license. When I tried to forward our e-mail exchange to "Foundation at permissions dot wikimedia dot org", however, I got an address does not exist error. Did I get the address wrong or has it changed or what? <font color="#CCCCCC" face="times new roman">si  &raquo; <font color="#999999" size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> abhorreo   &raquo;   T 23:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Requesting copyright permission and Example requests for permission have another email address; try that one. --cesarb 02:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia site only shows alt text only (no images) - Firefox 1.5.0.6
I have no problem on other sites, or when using IE on Wikipedia, but Firefox 1.5.0.6 (my standard/pref'd browser) gives me only alt text, even when I set a user-agent spoofer to fake being IE.

If I click thru on alt text and then click on an image file's name, I can get to the image and display it, without changing user agent or anything. But nothing by alt txt in-line or elsewhere on the topic-article pages themselves.

ALSO, of course: No math formulas.

--Any ideas? Multiloquent 05:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Make sure you don't have images disabled. Try hitting F9 and reloading, or checking privacy settings. --NE2 05:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

---> GOT IT. Thanks. Developer's toolbar by chrispederick defaults to block offsite img's. THANKS.


 * IT'S NOT SO SIMPLE. It has been happening with MOZILLA 1.7.11 too, with images enabled. The trouble is, on first visiting an article, images are OK. The second time (ie., after viewing the article's history) all images just vanish. This began to happen only this week. --AVM 04:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)