Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive X

Global search and replace
Dear friends:

Is there a global search-and-replace function over several pages?

Sincerely,

GeorgeLouis 03:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No. Dragons flight 04:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There's that bot that does some related job : but please check each page when using it. It's called AutoWikiBrowser. -- DLL .. T 19:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Date & Time format will not save
The problem is, my Date and Time Preferences will not save. I go in, check the format I want, save it, and when I check it afterwards it has changed back to 'No preference'. This has only been happening in the past several days. Be gentle - I am very computer challenged.


 * Michael David 20:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Everyone's having this problem. There's nothing we can do about it yet (check above for a few postings of this same problem). — Mets 501  (talk) 20:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Should be fixed now -- Tim Starling 18:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Image on Commons not appearing in Wikipedia
I am trying to upload the kalidas_smarak.jpg image on the article Kalidas. I tried to upload the image more than a week ago; however, the image still does not appear. How do I resolve this problem? Thanks!--Wikindian 14:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't find your image at the commons on the link you've given above or in the article - are you sure it hasn't been deleted due to lack of copyright info etc? or could you provide me with a link?--Mcginnly | Natter 15:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Is this the image? Maybe it's a problem with server caching generating the thumbnail. -- Aude  ( talk   contribs ) 15:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it shows up now. Wikindian 15:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Show/Hide colour on NavHead
Hi there. Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to make the Show/Hide text displays as white in the following code?.

Art, architecture and archaeology

Archaeology
Archaeoastronomy &mdash; Archaeology &mdash; Egyptian pyramids &mdash; Great Pyramid of Giza &mdash; Mummy — (5 articles)

Many thanks. --Mcginnly | Natter 11:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I do not use CSS, do you ? It seems that you have here a template = Template:Dynamic_navigation_box, or Template:Hidden, using a NavFrame class that is referred to in a script = javascript:toggleNavigationBar. Looks like that one is defined in the general script for user preferences = MediaWiki:Monobook.js, with no attributes. These objects have their page here in Wikipedia.
 * Maybe you could invoke another script with more parameters to play, but few people shall try your invention, unless you publish it (in one of your user subpages). Does that help ? -- DLL .. T 19:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * And see also the former section "Show/Hide bars"; which tells you about divs. If you, as I do, ignore everything about div, ask for more help. -- DLL .. T 19:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry but I'm non the wiser. I know what CSS stands for and that's about it. I need instructions as to how to change the colour.--Mcginnly | Natter 22:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You could wrap the whole thing in  but then *all* links would be white, so you'd have to use   for the content. Unfortunately the javascript doesn't seem to allow multiple classes (like class="NavHead charboxwhite") or wrapping just the header div in another div. See below for an example.  Also, see MediaWiki:Common.css for all such available class colors. Note: these classes are for something else, but the only way to change link colors for this javascript-created element are to add anchor color changes to the global css, so they work for this example. --Splarka (rant) 07:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Art, architecture and archaeology

Archaeology
Archaeoastronomy &mdash; Archaeology &mdash; Egyptian pyramids &mdash; Great Pyramid of Giza &mdash; Mummy — (5 articles)

XML export format change
Is there anywhere that Sunday (6 August's) Special:Export XML change is documented?

I use XML widely and the format change has caused chaos. Especially now the Wikipedia is at odds with other Wikis (here is an example where Wikinfo is trying to import a Wikipedia page: http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=Doune - all the revisions are now there due to the XML change)

--Scotthatton 08:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The only recent change I can see to it is revision 15959, which added an "experimental history paging API", and should not have changed anything on the output, except that you now do not get the full history by default. It's possible that your code was expecting to get only the top revision, without explicitly asking for it, and now that the code to get the history has been enabled again, it got confused by it; if so, your code is wrong (it should have asked explicitly for only the top revision). How are you using Special:Export? At least for me, it only returns either a single revision (when I ask for the top revision) or nothing (when I ask for the history); you must be doing something different. --cesarb 21:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I am using GetWiki 1.0 to retrieve the export page - as does WikInfo and many other sites. Coded this way, the Wikipedia Special:Export now has a different method than other Wikis. Surely this is bad news? --Scotthatton 07:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I downloaded the code and took a quick look at it (it's  on that package). The import code is an ugly and brittle hack; instead of parsing the XML structure, it waits for an element (for instance "title"), outputs a prefix, waits for its end tag while outputting all the text, and outputs a suffix (and, in an even uglier hack, the prefix for "title" opens a comment on the output, while the prefix for "text" closes it, this way hiding everything in between). It also completely disregards the fact that XML is case-sensitive, and also completely disregards the fact that MediaWiki's schema uses a namespace (which means that, if Tim decided to change the XML to use a namespace prefix, all correctly implemented parsers would still parse it, and it would have changed exactly nothing in the XML structure, but this parser would break completely). It's doing almost the same thing as treating the XML as a text file and parsing it by hand with regexps.
 * Since the code is so brittle, it's no wonder it breaks; it's expecting exactly one revision, formatted in the XML in exactly the same way, while there's nothing on the schema which requires it to have only one revision, or even exactly that formatting. For performance reasons, the export code used to return only one revision; now that the code has added a limit of 200 revisions, the performance issue no longer exists, and it helpfully returns more than one revision. The broken way the getwiki code was implemented is completely unable to even notice there's more than one revision, and it happily outputs everything it finds, printing junk which was meant to be in a comment outside of one (since the comment was closed before the first revision text, by the ugly prefixing hack; in fact you can see the comment closing just before all the other revisions).
 * Personally, I'd throw that whole file in the recycle bin and rewrite it completely from scratch &mdash; in a way that respects the structure of the XML data, instead of blindly outputting stuff in reaction to each known tag. And I would make it request only one revision from Special:Export (there's a parameter to request only the top revision, use it!), instead of second-guessing how many it would return. --cesarb 14:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * For future reference, this has also been discussed at 6946 (currently marked as INVALID). --cesarb 15:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My preferences not being saved
I am trying to change to the "16:12, 15 January 2001" date format, but it doesn't save. I click on the save button and get the "Your preferences have been saved." message, but when I go to a page and bypass my cache, the date format doesn't change. I then go back to Special:Preferences and see that the date format has been reset to "No preference." What's going on? --MC Snowy 18:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am able to change it to the ISO 8601 date fine, did you try that? (the last on the list). This may be related to a post above: . --Splarka (rant) 01:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I did try that. It seems to work, but I don't like that format. I like the "16:12, 15 January 2001" date format. --MC Snowy 15:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Odd, I have mine set to 'no preference' and I always see that format (16:12, 15 January 2001) in history. What format do you see? --Splarka (rant)


 * I'm not talking about the history. I'm talking about Help:Preferences and Dynamic dates not working. For example on List of longest reigning Monarchs of the UK, the date format should change according to the preference. And that's the problem, the preference keeps resetting. It only stays if I choose the last format. --MC Snowy 17:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I can confirm the same issue. I have not tried other preferences, but my old date preference got switched back to No preference, and now when I select a new preference, it is not saved, although I get the standard Your preferences have been saved message. – Mipadi 18:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Me too. I would like 2006-08-08 to rend as "8 August 2006", but all I get is 2006-08-08.  Changes to "My preferences" don't stick.  It used to work as desired, but not for about three-four days.  Mr Stephen 13:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I am having this same problem. I prefer "August 8, 2006" to "2006-08-08" and I cannot set this, or any of the other ones. Ryūlóng 05:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This appears to be a known bug, according to the last statement (just before the "please sign") in the heading box at the top of this page. Furthermore, this is a cross-project problem; I've confirmed it for en:Wikiquote and meta as well. Can someone identify what the problem is, and when it will be fixed? I've found no specifics discussed here or at Meta. The closest thing I've found in Bugzilla is bug #6830, which, given the response, is being treated as a server configuration error. (I would hope that MediaWiki projects haven't encountered a project-wide configuration error based on a single variable being incorrectly set that hasn't been fixed for several days.) Any specifics would be appreciated. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem appears to have been fixed within the past hour or so. Thanks, folks! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Redlinked images shouldn't go to Special:Upload
This is annoying behaviour when you're trying to find the deletion logs. In particular, a link to the corresponding deletion log somewhere along the line would be very useful. pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:09, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree that that is annoying. The vast majority of people clicking a red image link are probably more interested in the deletion history than uploading a replacemen image. What might work as a nice compromise is: if there is a wpDestFile parameter, it could display a new message at the top (eg MediaWiki:Noimagetext) which would show something like "This image does not exist, you can upload it below. See also the [ logs] for this page." by default (which would be easy to add a commons link too). So, go file it at bugzilla as a request ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 21:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There's a javascript fix (which also stops red links from editing and generates lists of red links) at User:Lupin/redlinks.js. Lupin|talk|popups 03:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Umm, where did all the images go
I've not been seeing wikipedia images for the last couple of evenings; and can find nowhere on wiki a status report which mentions this. a) are images down or what? b) what's with status reporting? Don't we think it's important? It isn't done well, imo. (though kudos to the people who keep wikipedia up; don't get me wrong.) --Tagishsimon (talk)


 * Are you using Firefox? It's surprisingly common for people to accidentally block the image server. Right-click one of the empty image boxes and UNCHECK "Block images from upload.wikimedia.org". --Brion 23:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Brion. That was indeed the problem. --Tagishsimon (talk)


 * How does that "accidentally" happen? — Omegatron 15:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * In the right-mouse-click context menu for images, "Save as" "Set image as wallpaper" "Block images from this server" and "Properties" are all next to each other. I've accidentally blocked images several time from a website, when trying to view the image properties such as size and image type (and there is no convenient keyboard method to do this that does not involve using the mouse to at least select the image). So, that is how that "accidentally" can happen. --Splarka (rant) 22:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah. I don't see that option; I guess Adblock removes it (the Adblock option is at the very end of the list where you can't click it by accident). — Omegatron 02:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Emergency bot shutoff button
There is something wrong with the emergency bot shutoff button. It has different problems in different browsers. All of my browsers are the latest versions as is my operating system (Mac OS 10.4.7), which has all of the updates. (I have to use multiple browsers because they all have serious problems with one or more of the following problems: website compatibility, bugs, lack of features, ease of use and speed (both for loading web pages and large downloads from high-speed sites, a browser can be good at one but not the other). If they had an updated Internet Explorer browser for Macintosh with tabbed browsing, effective pop-up blocking and the ability to force pages to open in a new tab instead of a new window, or if they only made Firefox with good bookmark handling and greater compatibility, I would pay $150 for it, easily.)

In Firefox 1.5.0.6 for Macintosh, the link to "Special:Blockip/bot name" that is supposed to be in the button extends far past its boundaries. I am unable to click on the "history" link at the top of the template page, it goes to the block page instead. It interferes with the links on the pages it is used on, too. The link extends far below the button as well. Another problem is that the "Administrators: Use this button if the bot is malfunctioning." text is partially inside the button. On my screen, the word "button" is mostly on the edge of the circle and the tips of the "t"s are inside of it. Finally, there is a lot of space between "Emergency bot shutoff button" and the circle.

In Netscape 7.2 for Macintosh, it is the same as Firefox, except that the block link does not extend as far up, so I am able to click on the history link at the top of the page.

In Safari 2.0.4, the button is much smaller than in Firefox, perhaps smaller than it is supposed to be. Like in Firefox, the block link extends far beyond the boundaries of the button. Also, the distance between "Emergency bot shutoff button" and the button is large for the size of the button. Finally, there is a huge distance between the button and the "Administrators: Use this button if the bot is malfunctioning." text.

In Internet Explorer for Macintosh 5.2.3, the button is very small, the link extends beyond the button's boundary's and there is a large distance between "Emergency bot shutoff button" and "Administrators: Use this button if the bot is malfunctioning." text. The distance is so large and the button so small that the block link only extend's halfway to the text on the bottom and the top. -- Kjkolb 04:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Seeking techie input on Sidebar redesign
We are looking for PHP programmers, and techies who know their way around the guts of Wikipedia. We need your advice at Village pump (proposals). --Nexus Seven 03:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Pages Created, and Page Views?
I have two things I'm curious about, and I'm hoping there's a script for finding them out:


 * Is there a way to see a list of all articles I've created? It'd just be fun to see, but the user contributions page, unlike the watchlist, doesn't show the N flag for new pages.


 * Is there any way to see a list of page views for a given page? Essentailly, a tally of how often the page is loaded (by people using wikipedia, I know it'd exclude all the many users reading sites copying the wiki database), as you'd have in a log analyzer or page tracker. Again, this would be for fun, it'd be nice to see how much, if any, a given page I (or someone else) created has served the readers.

--Kaz 17:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Special:Newpages now allows filtering by username.
 * The MediaWiki page hit counters aren't enabled on Wikimedia due to performance issues (as the pages have to be cached to deal with the traffic, several thousand hits per second). Best thing to do is compare the number of edits. There is nothing you can do personally to log the hits (as it should be, as this would violate privacy issues).
 * --Splarka (rant) 22:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles-I've-created is a resource-intensive query, and isn't available on-wiki (though Special:Newpages shows the last couple of days, per Splarka). However, I'm happy to run this query for anyone at any time if they ask on my talk page (example). --Interiot 03:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Category redirects appear as category members?
Is this really correct and default behavior? It doesn't sound right that a category would have a redirect to itself as a member. In the case of the Category:Enzymes hierarchy, many subcategories are listed both by common name and by EC number - but the membership oddity creates the appearance that an EC number category, whose meaning is not immediately obvious, contains an explanatory article when in fact it only contains a redirect. Opabinia regalis 06:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So I guess I'm the only one who thinks it's weird for a category to appear as a member of itself? Opabinia regalis 02:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Underlining
Wikipedia keeps switching to underlining the Wiki links and I can't figure out how to turn it off. Any help? Thanks! Sparsefarce 20:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it happens to everyone: it's unpreventable. When it happens, though, you can do a hard refresh to get rid of it temporarily; Mozilla/Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera/Konqueror: press F5. — Mets 501  (talk) 20:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I just click preferences, then click save, without changing any preferences. —Michael Z. 2006-08-08 21:37 Z 


 * It is preventable, just add  a { text-decoration: underline; }  to your personal css if it bugs you overly much. Also see the Frequently Asked Questions at the top of this page, this question gets asked twice a week. --Splarka (rant) 07:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * How the heck did that get to the wrong section. Damn mediawiki! Thanks Patrick. --Splarka (rant) 22:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Nominated article using Afdx - since article was deleted July 23
But old discussion shows up on afd log. Article is Anthony Ulwick. My nomination is Articles for deletion/Anthony Ulwick (second nomination). The one showing up on today's afd log is Articles for deletion/Anthony Ulwick. That is the problem. Mattisse(talk) 21:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

How to change the stub category on an article? - disease vs. marketing term
The article in question is Sisi syndrome. I know that I could just change it myself but that might be improper, given my objections to its being categorized as a disease given on the talk page. Is there a person/process that is in change of choosing what category a stub goes in? Mattisse(talk) 14:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I would say that, even if you're completely correct about it not being a real disease (personally, I don't consider AD/HD to be a real disease, or any other bundle of symptoms which can have many different causes), it still falls, technically, under the "disease" category, the same way that an article explaining a fraudulent fossil might still fall under paleontology or archeology. --Kaz 17:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * O.K. Thanks. Mattisse(talk) 17:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

What does it mean when an article's discussion page is a disambiguation page?
This is the case with Robert A Cunningham. So there is no way to have a discussion about the page. Mattisse(talk) 12:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't have been, so I removed the template. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 12:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Mattisse(talk) 12:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I encountered the case, it is easily generated and unseen. Just move an article and replace its original name with a disambiguation page. The discussion is stuck with one of the pages and a redirect created on the other.
 * To remove the template, you have to access the disamb link : click on the link following the words "redirected from" - or add  to the address. Does that help ? -- DLL  .. T 19:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Edessa, Greece
For some weeks now the article on the town of Edessa, Greece shows a strange message: "The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "Edessa, Greece". etc. etc. In the page history you can see the version of 3 July, but it's impossible to save edits. What's wrong? Markussep 17:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Problem has been solved. Markussep 17:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Page Templates
Hi all-

i dont know if this has or has not been asked (and if it has, sorry!). also, sorry about this, but it has very little to do with wikipedia and more with mediawiki (but i have not found the answer yet).

in a mediawiki-driven wiki, is there a way to create a "new page" template, so that when a new page is created it is automatically populated with a basic framework?

thanks in advance. if you dont want to clutter this area up with a response, please post it to my talk page.

Jeremys779 20:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You can do it easily, by making it voluntary: In MediaWiki:Newarticletext add a link like  [ Preload outline] , and then create the outline in Template:Outline. People clicking the link will be returned to the same nonexistant page with the template preloaded. You can add a whole menu of different styles if you want (probably by making subpages of Template:Outline, laziest/easiest method).
 * I don't know an easy way to force the issue, however. A javascript to add &preload to all a.new links might work, but be messy. Possibly an extension could do it with minimal changes to MediaWiki. Or, you could make the message in MediaWiki:Newarticletext so annoying that people have no choice but to click the link to the preload (not advised ^_^). --Splarka (rant) 21:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * PS: you can also add a &editintro= to the url which will show a template above the edit form (where preload shows it inside the edit form textarea). --Splarka (rant) 21:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that this is done in Wiktionary (you can select a predefined format for a word type), so there must be a way. &mdash; D a  niel  (‽) 21:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That is done via Wiktionary:MediaWiki:Noexactmatch, using — Mets 501  (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Google toolbar / Firefox bug fixed
The bug with breaking up long pages in Firefox with the Google toolbar, 5643, has been resolved for almost a month now in version 2.1.20060713W of the toolbar, however the message about the bug is still displayed when editing long pages. Maybe someone can remove the message from MediaWiki:Longpagewarning or replace it by a hint to upgrade to the newest toolbar version. JePe 16:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Print and show links
Is there a way to print an article and have the links show up as underlined (or otherwise marked)? I've been adding many articles on U.S. Navy ships of WWII, and learning a lot as I go. Now I want to go back through all the articles and check for the proper links (many obscure locations in the Pacific, many changed place names, etc.).

I know I could do it online, but for various reasons I'd much prefer to have printed copies of the articles in front of me. Lou Sander 22:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The print style sheet is here. But you can try forcing it by adding to your monobook css (if that is the skin you use):

@media print { a, a.external, a.new, a.stub { color: blue ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; } }


 * to make them all blue when printed, hopefully. --Splarka (rant) 08:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Show/Hide bars
Is there a way to get the javascript show/hide bars in the monobook skin to work with tables, without using any  tags? Thanks, Shardsofmetal [ Talk 22:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Glancing at MediaWiki:Monobook.js, it looks like it only checks for those classes in divs. --Splarka (rant) 07:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

HOW TO USE IMAGES FROM OTHER WIKIPEDIAS?
It's enough of a headache to upload|describe|tag|fight bots and paranoid admins in order to include worthy images into an article, especially when you find --to your astonishment-- that the work has already been done by another uploader working in a Wikipedia in another language.

QUESTION: how to refer to|include an image already existing in another Wikipedia? I cannot find the right syntax, or example, on how to do that. The need is very real, and simple enough to understand - so there ought to be a simple solution. Thanks, AVM 18:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There is no simple solution. If it's a free (public domain / copyrighted with all rights released etc) image then you can upload it to commons to use over all Wikipedias. If it's copyrighted you'll just have to upload it again to each Wikipedia you want to use it on. Fight those paranoid admins! --Lord Deskana (talk) 18:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You can't. Each Wikipedia has its own image policy. If it's under a free license (public domain, free use, GFDL, CC-by-sa are common examples), and suitable for use on multiple Wikipedias, you should upload it to Commons, which we can use images from directly. Otherwise, you will have to upload it separately to each Wikipedia on which you used to use it, after ensuring that it is conformant with local image policy, and possibly risk deletion. Deco 19:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

CURRENTMONTHGEN
The magic is currently broken, as it generates "&lt;august-gen&gt;" instead of "August". Actually, this magic word is not listed at Help:Magic words, but is used in some templates (Liberatore, 2006). 12:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is listed (here), for use on other language wikis. Might be nice to set up a bot to replace it with July . SB_Johnny  | talk 15:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Apparently, it used to be the same as July on en: I don't know why exactly it was used instead of this (which is also shorter) (Liberatore, 2006). 17:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

What happened to the index?
Hi, I just noticed that articles no longer show an index. The show/hide button doesn't appear either. Any thoughts? Thanks. Dr.K. 04:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It just came back, but what was the cause? Thanks again. Dr.K. 05:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's probably related to FAQ question #3 at the top of this page. --Interiot 08:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks Interiot. Dr.K.

A sneeky way to do logging
Still keen to get some logging data so we know of which of the 10,000 maths articles most deserve our attention. I just though of a sneeky way to do it which would not impact on our servers and give a relable count.

It could be done using this new fancy ajax stuff. A little bit of javascript could be added which sends an XXLHttpRequest to some logging server, with nothing more than the page name. It would not impact on the main page servers as the funcionality is handled by the users browers and a seperate logging server. Problems with all the squids are overcome. Thoughts? --Salix alba (talk) 19:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This could be done much simpler than that (on a purely temporary basis). If you had, for example, a template that was used exclusively on those 10k math articles (such as for a category or navigational template across the math project), you could add something like &amp;nbsp; . And then a similar something to the MediaWiki:Monobook.css:   . However, there are three problems with this: 1) You'd need a host that was trustworthy *not* to divulge IPs, and you'd need to convince a checkuserer that it was trustworthy, as they are the only ones trusted to check IPs. It might be easier to make one of them perform this logging by setting up the site and css themselves, but good luck with that ^_^. 2) You'd need a host that could serve the image and log the referrers *and* take the pounding. 3) You'd have to add the template to all the articles, which is ~10k edits. Good luck convincing anyone that this needs to be done ^_^. But really, it is much less invasive than trying to add something to the javascript (which would, at least, have to execute 'if' on every single page load by every user, to check if it was a math article (unless it was going to do all page hits... up to a few thousand per second...)). --Splarka (rant) 23:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * There's a hit counter feature in MediaWiki, but it is disabled due to performance reasons. Invitatious (talk) 02:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * dewiki has something like this working already...    Visitors to dewiki sometimes (1/10 or 1/100 chance due to load problems) load a 1x1 .gif from the Toolserver with something like ?title=..., and then Leon has a tool that combs through the resulting Apache logs.  I think they changed the logging to discard IP addresses because that was certainly a concern (people on-wiki don't necessarily realize their IP addresses are being given away to another host).  The folks at #wikimedia-toolserver would probably be willing to discuss it more....  the dewiki version just got started, and they're working the kinks out.  --Interiot 02:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Edward Chernenko also has similar hit-counting code running for ru.wikipedia.org as well.  --Interiot 05:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

password won't reset
I am user Desertsky85450 but I have lost my password, and the 'email new password' button on the login page is not sending me a new password. Could some one please get it to send me a new password, or my old one? 216.161.151.90 15:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is probably due to you not putting an e-mail address on file in your preferences, or it not being confirmed. I am afraid that without that having happened, there is nothing anyone can do to recover your password. If you decide to create a new account, remember to put an email address on file and confirm it. Hope this helps. >< Richard 06  12  UW 14:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Writing musical notes
Hello. I would like to upload to Wikipedia pictures of musical notes in order to explain some issues in classical harmony. Are the programs "Finale", "Sibelius", "Sonar" legal for my use? If not, can anyone suggest a different program?

In addition, I would like to add some explanations or signs in the picture. Is there a program which can help me with that?

62.0.92.190 12:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I expect the folks at WikiProject Music would be happy to help you. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Semi-automated AfC edits
I've been working on reviewing Article for Creation requests lately, and the process is very repetitive. Each submitted article (or at least the majority of them) occupies its own section on the page. Most submissions need to be declined, which is simply a matter of adding particular templates ( and {{subst:afc b}}) to the section, and one of a list of other templates explaining the reason for the decline, along with a signature.

Here's an example lame article submission:

==Fox== A fox is a type of canine.

Fox
A fox is a type of canine.

How do you write a bot?
Okay, so I thought I was following the instructions on the Using the python wikipediabot page just fine. I copied the little Sandbox example script and, after figuring out I had my script in the wrong folder, was able to append text to the sandbox. Now I want to be able to scan the sandbox (actually, I want to scan other pages, but I'm still learning the ropes) for string matches, but I can't figure out how to do that. If I write this:

p=wikipedia.Page(s,'Wikipedia:Sandbox') p.get print p

The output I'm given is

'Wikipedia:Sandbox'

rather than the contents of the page itself. What am I doing wrong? Xaxafrad 04:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, in this instance,  is an object, in the OOP sense. You set   as 'Wikipedia:Sandbox', and then used the object's   method, which is all correct; however, the   method only returns the content of the page, and as you are running   without assigning the returned text to any variable, it just disappears into nowhere.


 * What you actually want is:, and then  , which will return the actual contents of the sandbox, as it assigns the returned text to the variable  . Jude (talk) 06:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Unable to manually reset sandbox
For some reason I am unable to use the manual reset links for the Sandboxes. I was able to do this until last night, and also last night, I decided to list my monobook.js page for speedy deletion under db-user}} because of a failed attempt at trying to find my edit count. Should that have altered my ability to use the reset, is it just some new software, or is it something else entirely different? [[User:Ryulong|Ryulong 02:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It appears to be an error in Jason's script. You might try letting him him know. --Splarka (rant) 04:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia e-mail newsletter hyperlinks include ending ")"
the e-mail I get for Wikipedia each day includes a URL to the entries for the articles. For all articles after the main article in the newsleter of the day, this URL is surrounded by parantheses, and lately, the html I've been getting has been including the final ")" as part of the URL, which causes Wikipedia to display the page with the message "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." plus the usual suggestions. It's a small matter to remove the ")" and get the intended article, but having to do it again and again becomes. . . . irksome.

Can this be fixed? tharkun860 20:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * How do you get a "Wikipedia e-mail newsletter", anyway? Is this one of the Wikipeda-related mailing lists? If it's in plain text form, any hyperlinking is done by your mail program, not by the sender, and things like whether trailing punctuation is considered part of the URL would be decided by the receiving mail program based on its own rules. It's best, when writing URLs in e-mail, to set them off with whitespace to avoid the risk of unwanted punctuation being appended. *Dan T.* 21:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The newsletter I refer to is more formally known as "The Article of the Day" by e-mail, the sign-up page of which can be found at

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l

As you will note from the included part of today's (Sunday, 16 July 2006) e-mail, it is not plaintext, it is html, and the offending punctuation is, in fact, included inside the HTML Anchor tag, and the behavior extends down to the WikiQuote, as well.

- copied from "The Article of the Day" e-mail _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

622: Beginning of the Islamic calendar. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar)

(snip)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"If you build it, he will come." -- "The Voice" in Field of Dreams (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams)

tharkun860 23:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Also: We got a complaint on OTRS that "The mail is formatted using 0x0A (LF) which is fine for Unix mail clients, but not for others. (the which use 0x0D - CR)." Could this be fixed? --Timichal

Unable to remain logged in
For some reason, I am unable to remain logged in. Sometimes, I am able to remain logged in, most times, I am not. Martial Law 17:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Youve already sought help for this several times; as you know, it seems to be a bug with Hughes Satellite internet, nothing on Wikipedia's side. I know someone suggested you post here about it, but they probably didn't realize you've been posting here, there, and everywhere about it already :-) &mdash; Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Odd image problem
An image is not displaying when sized to a certain pixel size, but seems to be fine for everything else, possible bug? Perhaps this is related to a math error in the resziing calculation? For an example please see: Talk:Strong_Bad. —  xaosflux  Talk 15:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Works now, after a cache purge. Don't know if that fixed it or if it was some other transient issue. — Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, though I purged cache on the image, article, template, eveywhere else I could think of, had the same issue in sandboxes with this image. Must have been a temporary problem somewhere. —  xaosflux  Talk 21:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiProjects and Bots
I've noticed a recent issue with WikiProjects. I've noticed it in the one I work on, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga, but it probably applies to all WikiProjects. When an article is declared a "Good Article" or any other article class, editors add the appropriate tag on the Discussion page, but they often forget to add the appropriate Wikiproject tag that says "this is a good article for Wikiproject whatever". This means that the Wikiproject statistics page that shows how many Good Articles and the like the Wikiproject has may be drastically off, and the categories sorting the Wikiproject's articles may show tons of "good articles" and the like in the "unassessed" section.

Would it be possible for a bot to regularly peruse the Wikiproject article discussion pages and find ones that have a GA tag but no Wikiproject GA tag, and the same for all article assessment tags? Dark Shikari 12:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a very possible thing for a bot to do. I'd be happy to make a bot to do exactly that, right after I figure out how to make my bot download a specialpage. (Did you post this on the bot request page?) Xaxafrad 03:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, this may be a rather impolite thing to do in some circumstances. While I don't doubt that most of these cases are simply due to someone forgetting to update the tags, it's also quite possible for a project to make a conscious choice to avoid the use of the GA "level" in its own rating. If this were to be the case, a bot that tried to force the project templates into this configuration would likely be distinctly unwelcome. Kirill Lokshin 05:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In that case, the bot could simply be programmed to only affect Wikiprojects that allow it to. Dark Shikari 15:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding my image
Can someone please help me? I am trying to put a picture up of Billy Yeager it doesn't work, well actually I will rephrase that, I am not working!@


 * Have you read Picture tutorial? If not, please start there. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Image not displaying in infobox??
In the Infobox afl player template, there seems to have been a problem with the image in the image field not displaying (see the Owen Abrahams article for an example). It seems the user User:Ed g2s may have removed that functionality. If anyone could help, please drop me a line or explain on the talk page of the template.  R o  gerthat  Talk  04:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is fixed now. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Reporting Another User
Hi. I think I may be posting this question in the wrong section but I was hoping you could tell me how to report another user for abuse? Thanks!Jack30491 00:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * See WP:AN and read the "Are you sure this is the page you are looking for?" section to figure out where your complaint belongs. If you think that the complaint may be better described as a dispute than outright abuse, give WP:DR a look also. --iMeowbot~Meow 00:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Why isn't this redirect working?
Bundelkhand Institute of Engineering and Technology - Is it not working because of the ampersand in the redirect? What can be done to fix this? --Spring Rubber 19:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Never mind, turns out the person who originally created the redirect messed up the title. --Spring Rubber 20:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation Etiquette
Not sure if this is in the right place or not. I've been developing the articles on Jonatan Cerrada, his songs are all in French. Is it worth adding English Translation of his song names? Tipexcom2 18:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC) tipexcom2
 * Not sure whether there's a specific convention/policy on it, but I would, following this sort of format:
 * Rien Ne Me Changera ("Nothing Will Change Me")
 * Libre Comme L'Air ("Free as the Air")
 * etc...
 * BTW, in future, this sort of question would probably be better for the Help desk than here! :)
 * PS - I hope my French is OK! :)
 * Grutness...wha?  01:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is okay, but carefully note in the text that the translated titles are by the authors of the article and are not "official". Deco 04:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Fact not showing up in printable version
Thoughts? Can this be easily fixed (class="noprint"), or substituted with something like "citation not provided" in the printible version? Thanks, GChriss 14:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a particular link to a page showing the problem? --Brion 18:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure. In my case, compare the fourth paragraph of Penn State and the same article using the "Printable version" link in the toolbar. The difference is that the citations needed don't display. GChriss 12:40, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

How to get rid of article NOT on my watchlist but turns up there anyway?
Leo Steel and the Aztec gold is togged not to be on my watchlist but turns up anyway? How to get rid of it? KarenAnn 12:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I figured it out. It was a redirect page, and the page that it was redirected from was on my watchlist. Learn something new every day! KarenAnn 12:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Beta Software Image
What is the correct tag, template, or catagory to add to a screenshot of beta software? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.38.174.97 (talk • contribs) 08:51, July 15, 2006 (UTC) From Image copyright tags There isn't a specific one for betas of software, but the conditions of Fair use criteria still apply if the software isn't under a free license. For reference, Microsoft Windows is not under a free license. Kevin_b_er 09:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Software-screenshot — for screenshots of copyrighted software
 * Linux-software-screenshot — for screenshots of Linux software
 * Mac-software-screenshot — for screenshots of Macintosh software
 * Web-software-screenshot — for screenshots of software with a web-based user interface.
 * Windows-software-screenshot — for screenshots of Windows software.
 * free screenshot Use this if the software itself you are screenshotting is under a free license, and note the software's license. Again, check out Image copyright tags for more.

Can't block or unblock
I can't block or unblock. When blocking it, it tells me it's already blocked. When unblocking it, it says it's already unblocked. -- King of ♥   ♦   ♣   ♠  05:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm particularly interested in this one, but not due to the technical aspect. As the blocking admin, I'm wondering why this is the first I'm hearing of this. Additionally, as one of two checkusers who have checked the edits coming from this IP (you know, the ones you can't see with Special:Contributions/195.188.152.16 because they were done by logged in users with usernames like User:I vandalize using an Intel Core Duo, User:Stop giving google blowjobs you wikislut!, User:The admin raping championchips, User:Get ready for a WoW attack!, and User:Wikipedians are FUCKING BASTARDS, among others), I'm wondering why you're overtuning my checkuserblock without consulting me; surely the big template that says "This IP is blocked because it's being used to create vandal usernames" would indicate that perhaps I know something more about the situation that would be worth asking about. Could you indicate which of the legitimate users listed above (and it has to be one of them, because I just checked again and there are no legitimate users on this IP in the last month, period) emailed you and made such a convincing arguement as to warrant unblocking without discussion with the blocking admin or either of the two checkusers involved? Essjay  ( Talk )  08:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Should be resolved now. There was a slight slave desync on the blocking table, and a different block record was listed for this IP. --Brion 08:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nicely done. -- King of ♥   ♦   ♣   ♠  18:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Another transwiki question.
A how-to article from WP was just transwikied to WB, where I'm working on re-wikifying and standardizing it for a WB chapter.

My technical question is this: The article's former namespace here (Proper_care_of_a_cactus, now tw'd to this page) just shows a deleted article, though the talk page is still there. Shouldn't there instead be a pointer to the WB chapter? After all, someone worked on the article to begin with, and might wonder where it went. SB Johnny 01:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No. Cross-namespace redirects are denigrated, cross-project redirects would be howled down. Put a link in the Talk page, put it on the original author's Talk page, but don't redirect to the Wikibooks page. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Wasn't necessarily thinking about a redirect, just a different template for deleted pages that have been tw'd (so instead of saying "Wikipedia has no article...", it would say "Because (reason), this article was transwikied to (project), etc." and then have the redirects on the other project if needed.
 * The problem is that I can't find the original authors, because it was deleted. (I did leave a link on the talk, but I'm a little confused about how the talk page is still there even when the article has been deleted). SB Johnny 02:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You could always try asking at WP:DRV if you want to find the original authors. -- Daduzi  talk  04:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The original author was .-gadfium 05:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Doesn't show up on Eknudsen's contribs... why do you say that?
 * I suppose this might be more of a policy question after all, since this would involve leaving the article up (with it's history intact), but providing a pointer-link to WB, and locking the page. SB Johnny 17:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Page deletions remove themselves from contributions. Gadfium checked the deleted page history with his admin powers.
 * Actually, it's an interesting point. W3C recommends that when you change a URI, you should always HTTP redirect the old page. Implementing such a policy, however, may not be possible in a wiki environment. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang (Talk) 22:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Caption issue
How do I make the caption appear at the center below the image? The caption usually appears at the left. If you know where I can find this help topic, please tell me. Thanks for your help.--Wikindian 23:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The help is at Extended image syntax, but as far as I can tell there is no convenient way to center the caption.  seems to work, although I really don't think it's worth the trouble. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * How do I insert this into the [[Image:|right|thumb|px|"Title"]] format? --Wikindian 01:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px| "Pump" ]] [[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px| "Pump" ]], produces what's shown. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks a whole whole lot Rick!--Wikindian 19:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to make the caption box go away when the caption is in the center? --Wikindian 18:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, if I'm understanding what you mean, you can use a table. Like to the right. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, is there way to keep the caption inside the frame/thumb, but without the rectangular box around it?--Wikindian 22:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean, get rid of the white background on the table? --Splarka (rant) 23:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I was refering to the box around the caption only, not the larger box around the image.--Wikindian 02:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * How's that? Just edit the color in the border: parameter. Also you can change the table background color via the background-color: parameter. --Splarka (rant) 07:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I was refering to the very first image, the one that was a thumb and had the caption in the center at the bottom. I thought that the entire image would look better without a rectangular frame around the caption (I mean only around the caption, I still want the image to be a thumb), but I still wanted the caption included in the thumb frame, and not outside it or below the rest of the thumb frame, like in the image that you had shown me earlier.--Wikindian 20:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px| "Pump" ]]


 * OK, I finally figured it out. You have to use [[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px| "Pump" ]] As in the image to the right. Wikipedia definitely needs to improve its image syntax, and create better help pages. Thanks a whole lot for helping me!

How do I get my signiture to be a link?
I have checked and unchecked my "raw signiture" box. Nothing makes a difference. Trunk 18:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Type --~, and leave the "raw signiture" box unchecked--AOL user 18:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * :: I have already done that but it makes no difference. Trunk 19:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It just did--AOL user 19:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

New tools for everyone to play with ..
--AOL user 17:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Which has now been worked into Template:Blockeduser (: AOL user 17:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ditto for Template:Indefblockeduser --AOL user 17:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * and also Template:Userblocked --AOL user 17:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Awe crap, the block log is linking to example user --AOL user 18:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * all better now--AOL user 18:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Undeletion problems
A move war a few months back left Template:ASUE organisation at a different title. Somehow, when trying to move it back, the good version has been lost, leaving two redirects pointing at each other. I tried restoring the deleted page, but although it says the restoration has occurred, the histories have not merged, and the template seems to have been lost. Can I get it back anyway? smurrayinch e ster(User), (Talk) 14:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I managed to get the source code back from Special:Undelete, but I still can't see where the history has gone. smurrayinch e ster(User), (Talk) 14:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Just a comment, but since the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events is American, shouldn't organization be used? Also, I do not see anything wrong with the history, try clearing your cache. Prodego  talk  17:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Image won't show...
Hello, I recently uploaded this an image to Bromo-Seltzer. All I see is a white box instead of the image. If I click on the box, the image appears. What might the problem be? Thanks, 68.225.92.197 07:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The wiki software seems to be having trouble generating resized images. I guess there's nothing we can do but wait for it to be fixed. ~ Booya Bazooka 09:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

shortcuts
Is a shortcut the same as a redirect? I ask because we are told not to use double redirects from Wikipedia articles, but at the same time the WP namespace seems to be full of "shortcuts". The linked page then comes up with "redirected from name of shortcut", so these links to other WP namespace articles appear not to be formatted correctly.--Shantavira 07:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Shortcuts are, indeed, just redirects with a particular form of name. However, these aren't necessarily double redirects unless the Wikipedia-space page gets moved and the shortcut isn't updated accordingly. Zetawoof(&zeta;) 09:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Image doesn't work
Hi. I'm trying to add a photo to the Susan Blackmore article but it doesn't want to work. It simply will not display and I can't see what I'm doing wrong. I've left the link on Talk:Susan Blackmore/Archive. Can someone help? Thanks, A bit iffy 07:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC) It's OK now. Obviously it was the same temporary Wikipedia image problem as reported further below. A bit iffy 11:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

XFF Headers
Hi, I've been reading about some breaking news in which AOL has began using XFF headers or something like that. Now I've read the XFF article several times, gone to other resources, and it's still way over my head. So, what exactly is going on with these "XFF headers"? (Keep in mind that I know nothing about computers). Thank you for your help in advance AdamBiswanger1 03:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If I understand it correctly, it means AOL users will be identified by their IP address, and not by their proxy address (which keeps on changing). In other words, AOL users will have the same IP address, at least for their login session. Again, I'm not an expert, so I'm not sure if this is right. --  Where  04:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Here's a non-technical explanation - every computer has an IP address which is sort of like your home phone number. Everyone has one, including AOL users. When AOL users connect to web servers (like Wikipedia), they connect indirectly through a bank of "outside lines" (proxy servers) which have their own IP address. There are fewer of these "outside lines" than AOL users, so each one is used by one user for only a very short period of time. Web servers (like Wikipedia) can always see the IP address of who is directly connecting, but for AOL users it's the IP address of the proxy server (outside line) rather than the actual user. If the XFF header is provided, we'll be able see both the proxy server's address (in the existing, normal, way) AND the actual end user's address. Unlike home phone numbers, most IP addresses aren't really permanent (if you use a dial-up connection your computer may get a new one every time you connect to the internet, if you have a broadband connection you might get a new one when you turn your computer's power on), but I suspect you get the general idea. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What it really means is that we now have the means to block individual vandals who are doing their dirty work from behind AOL proxies. Before, an AOL vandal might get a new proxy IP address every time s/he viewed a new page, making him/her almost impossible to block effectively. Also, any blocks that were put in place were almost guaranteed to affect innocent editors who happened to be assigned a proxy IP that had been previously used by a vandal. Therefore, blocks on AOL proxy IPs had to be given short durations to minimize collateral damage.


 * Now we can track and treat vandals from AOL like we do any other vandal, without inconveniencing all the helpful editors! This, combined with the recently added ability to allow registered users from a blocked IP address to log in normally, is removing the technical hurdles that have kept us from dealing decisively with some problem users in the past.


 * Thank you, thank you to Tim Starling and all the devs for helping to solve these problems! &mdash; Catherine\talk 07:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's great. Thanks guys : ) AdamBiswanger1 12:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem with the Hendrik Wade Bode article
Hi, I am the original author of the Hendrik Wade Bode article. I have noticed lately that the edit buttons of every section of the article now appear in German. So instead of edit they appear as bearbeiden. The problem is the article is in English and in English Wikipedia. Any idea why this happens? Thanks. Dr.K. 02:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Odd, I saw it to, but a prescription of action=purge cleared that right up. --Splarka (rant) 07:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Great stuff. Thank you very much. Take care. Dr.K. 10:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Images in galleries not appearing
I ran into this problem over at Wikimedia Commons, but I have seen it here, also. In a gallery, some of the images do not appear, nor is there a workable link to them. I know the images exist, because I can copy and paste the script to the search box and it goes to the image page. I was told at commons that the problem is at my end because they can see my gallery without difficulty. I use Internet Explorer 6.0, and yes, I have purged the browser cache. --Joelmills 01:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm encountering somewhat of the same problem. As of this writing, on New York State Route 131, the NY 131 and NY 37 shields will not display even though the images exist. I've tried everything, purging the images, purging the NY 131 article, with no luck. -- T M F T - C 06:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC) The issue I described earlier has since been fixed. -- T M F T - C 17:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Cross-wiki template
Is there any way to transclude something from one wiki to another? Clearly, the normal curly-brackets method does not appear to be working... ~ Booya Bazooka 17:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Interwiki transclusions here are limited to images and image descriptions from commons, I believe. --Splarka (rant) 07:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * On a related note, is it possible to include the WikiQuote QOTD in, say, my User page? Thanks! -- SatyrTN 02:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Updating an image's File Links list
The File Links list for Image:Climbing-stub.saa.gif still contains some articles from which it was removed yesterday. Is there a way to force an update? ~ Booya Bazooka 17:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The job queue is pretty low (see Special:Statistics) so it should be gone pretty quick. You sure it was removed from all the pages listed there? It is still part of Template:Climbingbio-stub. --Splarka (rant) 07:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it isn't; Check Template:Climbing-bio-stub. It got replaced with the svg version, now two days ago. ~ Booya Bazooka 17:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm.... then it seems to be because that template is actually a redirect to another template. This is apparently fooling the job queue in the image links department. What you can do is null edit all those articles. However, since that involves editing them anyway, you might as well change the template tags to the proper link like this. I'll leave a note on your talk page. --Splarka (rant) 00:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Changing this table
I want to know where/how do fix the type of table, like the one i create in this post:

Where/how do i change the CSS fo the table that this text is in, in my wiki wildboyz_211 09:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is called a  tag. You can find that out by viewing the html source of a rendered page and see that it is wrapped in pre. Now, to see where the CSS is, view the same source and look for CSS pages loaded. In this instance it is via this line:

/*<![CDATA[*/ @import "/skins-1.5/monobook/main.css?9"; /*]]>*/


 * Going to that location shows all the default css that comes with your mediawiki install. A few pages down we see:

pre { padding: 1em; border: 1px dashed #2f6fab; color: black; background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 1.1em; }


 * Now, you could go to the skins directory and change that, but usually one doesn't have such access on a wikimedia wiki (unless you have a local install or direct access) so, one edits MediaWiki:Common.css (or optionally the default skin css which is usually MediaWiki:Monobook.css, but as this is an in-content element, Common.css is more appropriate, unless you are on an older version of mediawiki where it does not exist). Go to the editable css file you chose (probably Common.css), and copy that block of css in, and edit it as you wish.


 * If however, you are not an administrator, you'll have to a) be content to edit your user CSS, or b) edit the tag directly each time, example:

Pre with magneta border and yellow background
 * --Splarka (rant) 09:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Splarka, you have given me greate advice, now i have one more question for you how do i, without using the tag or hitting enter, make the text wrap around, instead of continuing on the page, like your pre box started to. wildboyz_211 09:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed...i went into main.css because im using the monobook skin, and added white-space: normal; to the pre class -wildboyz_211 10:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you completely miss the point of , the point being that it stands for pre-formatted text, meaning, it should never wrap text itself. If you want wrapping text with proportional spacing, you can use <tt> or  ; I would like to amend it to  .)

Also, I have made some editbuttons that have images less than 23px wide. It would be nice if someone could edit http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/wikibits.js to add an option to control the image width of the  function. Ingoolemo talk 01:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

And last of all: is there a MediaWiki page for the classic/standard quickbar? Ingoolemo talk 01:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There is no message to change that, you'd most likely have to convince the devs of the need to change mediawiki. Tangent: The easiest way I found to suppress the default toolbar output is to add an overwriting addButton to my user .js (warning, bad hack). --Splarka (rant) 07:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

function addButton(imageFile, speedTip, tagOpen, tagClose, sampleText) { whatever you wanna do here (for each button) if(!(speedTip =="Bold text")) return; whatever you wanna do here (once) }

Article "Disappeared"
I may have shot myself in the foot by getting too fancy. Here's what I did: (1) Moved the article "Pennies from Heaven" to "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)"; (2) Changed (or tried to change; maybe this is what went wrong) the redirect page that was created in the previous step to a disambiguation page; (3) listed "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)" as one of three items on the disambig page. The result: (1) somehow another redirect page "Pennies from Heaven" was created to point to the "Pennies from Heaven" disambig page, and (2) clicking on the link "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)" brings up the "Wikipedia does not have an article..." page for editing. Stranger, in another browser (Firefox) window, if I go to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennies From Heaven (1978 television drama)", the correct page comes up (after the URL is at some point encoded)--and sometimes it doesn't! I tried in a different browser, as well as reloading pages from the server. Same problem. Most of the time the article seems to have disappeared, and of course we don't want that. Could somebody please help me understand what is going on here so this can be fixed? --Alan W 23:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * When you moved the original article, you named it Pennies From Heaven (1978 television drama) with a capital "f" in from and not lower case as you linked it on the disambig page. -- JLaTondre 00:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It's always some silly little thing you overlook, isn't it? I've spent half my life catching such mistakes made by others, but of course one is too often blind to one's own similar slips. I appreciate the help! --Alan W 01:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

External articles
Why does the homerunner wiki, which is nothing to do with the wikipedia foundation apart from its use of media wiki get to have links of the form pagename ? It means the links come up as blue rather than the external grey/blue I would expect. -- SGBailey 22:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * They get interwiki links, like, wich is a slightly different shade of blue to an internal link. For the full list of interwikiable wikis see Interwiki map. -Splash - tk 22:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

How to create a template?
I am presently consulting on a new template here. If this finds acceptance how do I create it, please? BlueValour 20:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You create a template just like you would create any other article. If you want to create a template, you create an article named "Template:Foobar". Kickaha Ota 21:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, thank you. BlueValour 21:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Editing a list
I'm sure this is a question that is easily answered, unfortunately, I don't know it so, here is the question: How do I add a name to the "20th Century Philosophers" page? The "edit this page" tab does not get me to the list.Bob em 16:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a category. See Help:Category. Items are not added or removed on the page itself, but each individual page decides whether to include itself in the category or not.  To add a new page to the category, add   to the bottom of the page that should be included in the category. --Interiot 16:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Blocked user's sockpuppet
Hi, Is there somewhere to report a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user? I can't find anywhere to note this or anyone to inform. Thanks. AllanHainey 15:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That would be Suspected sock puppets. Kickaha Ota 15:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC) (not a sockpuppet)

Wikipedia Logo
I am seeing that the Wikipedia logo on the top left appearing in all pages has been replaced by "A WIKIMEDIA project" logo. Are they finally changing it, or is it some other issue. &mdash; Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is? — Omegatron 06:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Javascript pop-ups for audio links


Audio files are treated a lot like images by Mediawiki, but this has some disadvantages. Images are displayed right in the article and don't require any special/external software to play. Clicking on the image shows the image description page and shows license information, which is mandatory functionality. Audio files, on the other hand, require you to be able to: In order to get all of these functions for a single file, we are resorting to multiple links, so the beginning of an article might look something like this:
 * 1) download the file directly, just like you can see an image directly in the article
 * 2) view the license information
 * 3) get help on how to download and play the file, since we don't have an inline player yet and we use unpopular, but free formats.
 * Bordeaux is a port city in...

One link goes directly to the file, one goes to the description page, and one goes to media help. A lot of people complain that this is cluttering up articles and that the links can be confusing. I've proposed that we keep the speaker icon and the direct link to the file, and hide the rest with javascript until the reader hovers over it. Then a little pop-up "tooltip" will appear, allowing them to view the image description page or the media help page. It could even have a sentence or so of media help in the tooltip itself, to explain that they are looking at a sound file, and "click here to get more information on how to listen to it, or to see information about the file itself".

I made a little mock-up javascript to demonstrate the idea, and User:Lupin filled in the cracks to make a workable demonstration. You can try it out by adding it to your user javascript file and visiting an article with lots of inline audio links. The style and behavior can of course be tweaked if people don't like certain aspects of it; I'm just asking how people feel about the general idea. Here's a site with a very complex javascript "tooltip" system, which might give you ideas about functionalities these audio links should or shouldn't have.

It would obviously be designed to degrade gracefully for people who don't have or want to use javascript. The current mock-up uses the audio template exactly the way it is, and then uses js to remove the parentheses and rearrange things a bit. Users without JS would just see the regular template as it is now.

If there is a strong consensus that this is a good idea, we can tweak the style to make it more consistent with the rest of the site and then I want to deploy it site-wide. Please leave comments here or in Template_talk:Audio. — Omegatron 04:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Featured article at ka:
The template refuses to place the star on the featured articles... is there anything else we need to implement (e.g. any mediawiki, etc.) apart from placing the Featured article template at the end of the article (we tried it everywhere....)? would appreciate. tnx. - Alsandro (T / ka-T) 02:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, you have to add this to your default skin CSS at ka:MediaWiki:Monobook.css.

/* For positioning icons at top-right, used in Templates "Spoken Article" and "Featured Article" */ div.topicon { position:absolute; z-index:100; top:10px; display: block !important; }


 * The div is not displayed by default, and then is re-displayed for users of the default skin, so that it only appears for them (otherwise it can appear quite out of place). With that it should work --Splarka (rant) 07:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * thanks much, very helpful. - Alsandro (T / ka-T) 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

How to report a vandal
There is a vandle hitting a large number of articles... Buddy the Bird is the id.--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 01:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * First of all, well done for spotting this vandalism. To report vandals, add them to Admin Intervention Against Vandalism [follow the instructions there, it's very simple]. Thanks again. >< Richard 06  12  UW 14:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

date math
Ever since we lost the bots for running CfD (by AllyUnion) and TfD (by Cryptic), I've been the daily bot there (by hand). AllyUnion refused to release his code.

As a consequence, I've been devising ways to make it easier. One of my ideas (and I've found entire categories of Category:Date math and Category:Date computing templates that try to do the same thing the hard way) is a set of simple parser functions to do the Year, Month, and Day calculations. I've posted code at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6692 and http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6693.

Anybody have improvements?
 * --William Allen Simpson 21:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Why does the "pipe trick" not work on place names?
I have found the "pipe trick" to be very useful when linking to state highways. For instance, to link to State Route 40, one only needs to type State Route 40 (Georgia)|, and the software expands the link when saving. This however does not apply to place names like Folkston, Georgia; one cannot type Folkston, Georgia| and get a link like Folkston. Why is this so? Should the articles be at titles like Folkston (Georgia) to make the "pipe trick" available?
 * Sounds like ytou only know half the "pipe trick", as you call it. Piping will automatically remove the bit in parentheses but nothing else if you do it the way you mention. BUT that is not the only way to use it. To pipe "Folkston, Georgia" to "Folkston" you'd type Folkston . Anything written after the vertical bar appears on the article, which is how I could link to the Main Page of Wikipedia like this if I wanted to. As for what the article should be called, there is a convention that all towns in the US (and in most other countries) take the form "Town, State" (see Naming conventions for more info). Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  01:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I know that. But I have to type the city name twice to link that way. Would it be valid to create a redirect like Folkston (Georgia)? --NE2 01:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Probably not a good idea - it'll make people who use the naming conventions regularly think that Folkston is something other than a town. In any case, linking to a redirect will only make more work for the folks who go around changing redirect links to article links. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  02:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect says that people should not go around changing redirects like that. --NE2 04:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Additionally, Help:Pipe trick gives Bush (41) and Bush (43) as an example. That seems to be a very similar case, making a redirect specifically for ease of linking. --NE2 04:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * it may be a Wikipedia guideline not to change links over like that, but a lot of people do. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  06:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections, I'm going to start creating redirects and linking to them. Is there any preference between Folkston (Georgia) and Folkston (GA)? Wait... the latter already exists; it looks like I'll go with that then. --NE2 19:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Still don't like the idea, but still. As to which to use, that depends - is the place in Georgia or is it something connected with Garuda Indonesia airline, Gamblers Anonymous, Geoscience Australia, General Atomics, Geographical Association, Genetic algorithms, General Availability... Most people outside the US wouldn't have a clue GA is short for Georgia, so I'm not sure that's a wise thing to use. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  06:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this objection; this is something that would be hidden by the pipe. We also have a large number of redirects like Folkston, GA in Category:Redirects from US postal abbreviation, apparently created by User:Sethbot. --NE2 06:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, hopefully a few examples should help. Say you were looking for an article on Kingston, Pa Province, Burkina Faso. If you type in "Kingston (PA)", you might well expect to go there, not Pennsylvania. And would "Milton (WV)" go to the Milton in West Virginia or the one in Wolverhampton? And those are just place names. Since commas are uually used for towns, but parentheses are usually used for anything and everything except towns, it would be natural for someone typing, say, "Post (TX)" to looking for an item about posting transmissions in telegraphy, rather than Post, Texas. Admittedly these confusions wouldn't apply with a town name like Folkston, Georgia, but it's not really wise to have a system applying to some places but not to others (that's why we have naming conventions in the first place). Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  00:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Would the same argument not apply to the existing Kingston, PA and Milton, WV redirects? --NE2 13:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes it would, but it is relatively rare for a name to be that of a town in two places with similar abbreviations - it is far less rare for a name of a place to also refer to something else in a general context outside geography, and the number of non-geographic uses for two-letter abbreviations is often considerable. For every case like "Milton, WV", you are likely to find quite a few instances like "Post (TX)". Differentiating between town names and general terms (by using a comma or parentheses respectively) makes such confusion far less likely to occur. Which is one of the reasons why (as I said before) we have naming conventions for such things. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  13:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Where are the naming conventions relating to redirects? --NE2 14:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That trick is apparently only applied to: Interwiki links ( Foo ), Interlanguage links: en:Foo, namespaces ( User:Splarka ), and the standard disambiguation syntax of containing clarification in parentheses (as you mention). These are all intuitive to parse. It probably wouldn't be appropriate to apply it to comma separated links, as links can contain commas for various reasons beyond town/state combinations, which would be hard to parse correctly. --Splarka (rant) 01:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem like it would be hard to parse to remove everything after and including the last comma. Or the first, whichever's easier to code, really. If it didn't work for a particular multi-comma title, it doesn't really matter, since you never have to use the pipe trick. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I sure wish there was a pipe trick for place names concatenated with a comma. It'd make editing much easier. If, for example, Brentwood, Los Angeles, California resolved to just "Brentwood" it'd be super. -Will Beback 08:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've written a patch to fix this, and have submitted it to bugzilla as bug 6826. I don't really want to apply it before I've had some more feedback on this, though. In particular, if this change goes in it'll affect all the Wikimedia projects, and ultimately all sites using MediaWiki, not just the English Wikipedia. Due to the way this syntax works this isn't likely to as much of a problem as one might think (see the bugzilla entry for details), but I'd still like to see some cross-language and cross-project feedback. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting. How would this affect "Foo (bar), Baz" and "Foo, Baz (bar)"? --NE2 21:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm. The way I wrote it, a comma anywhere in the title takes precedence, so those would become "Foo (bar)" and "Foo" respectively.  I'm certainly open to changing it, though, if you think some other behavior would be better.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Some towns are disambiguated af Foo (bar), Baz - for instance Salamanca (town), New York and Salamanca (city), New York. In that case, it might be better to simply use Foo. As for Foo, Baz (bar), current behavior would make it Foo, Baz, which is expected for the entries on Me, Myself, and I. --NE2 22:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've uploaded a new patch that works like you suggest. See the test cases included in the patch for examples.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks good - thanks for taking this on. --NE2 06:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

svg files
How do you turn on SVG file uploads for MediaWiki. Thanks, Gerard Foley 22:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * m:Help:Images_and_other_uploaded_files --Splarka (rant) 00:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Mysterious (to me) page
Can anyone tell me: What is ? My user page does not link to that image, and AFAIK it never has done. And isn't there something fishy about the file history? Where is the history page? Is this putative image page really a blank page? If so, why does it does not appear to be blank? ---CH 22:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The image is in a template at the bottom of your page, and the image itself is being served from Wikimedia Commons which is why the image page looks odd. Dragons flight 22:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense, I think. Thanks! ---CH 15:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

2
and if I went and edited "section one" and pressed save, the software will make it look like I was the one who removed the lines even though I had no idea it would happen, so I then have to edit te entire page. It is not like null edits when you add new lines to the bottom and your edit doesn't show up in history or RC, this is the opposite, where you expect nothing to happen and it does. GeorgeMoney (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Due to the way it's implemented, section editing always normalizes the number of blank lines at the end of the section. It's an implementation quirk.


 * If you are trying to make a null edit, edit the whole page to be sure. --Brion 09:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you're just trying to fix the spacing before a new header, after a table or image, use - (or clear if that's easier to remember) -- both force the next header to begin below the bottom of the block item.  &mdash; Catherine\talk 02:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Section one
blah

spaces to make it more seperate for various reasons

new lines
sometimes when I make a null edit to a section of a page with multiple new lines at the bottom which are there to seperate it from the next section more, it automatically deletes the lines when I save without me doing anything. For example if there was

Template inclusion categorization isn't working in one case
I just created Category:WikiProject Kentucky State Highways, and then I updated the Kentucky State Highway WikiProject template to categorize a talk page to this category if included. However, all the pages currently using this template aren't showing up in the category. I've already done things like this before, and it worked out perfectly, but this time, not. Somebody have a clue for me? &mdash; Stevie is the man!  Talk 19:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nevermind. It's all catching up now.  I thought I was losing my mind for a little while there. :) &mdash;  Stevie is the man!  Talk 20:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I did null edits (saving without any change) to the pages that include your template. They are now in the cat. --Ligulem 20:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help! I had no idea that doing that was necessary. &mdash; Stevie is the man!  Talk 20:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * They should not usually be necessary. The categories will update when the job queue at Special:Statistics can get to it (currently it is very high), which invalidates the cache page for things like Whatlinkshere, categories in templates, and image usage links. However, a null edit still sometimes needs to be done for categories in redirected templates, or if you are too impatient to wait for the job queue ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 00:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Using sub-pages
I have been working on an article ( Lynton and Barnstaple Railway ) which I think is about complete as a general introduction to the subject. I have also been working on a much more detailed item listing each of the 80 bridges five stations and various other features along the line, with locations, dimensions, descriptions current state etc. This may be of interest to enthusiasts, but most likely not to the casual browser, so I don't want to blur the focus of the main article. The sub-page is currently in my Sandbox. I have worked out how I can link the two by saving the new section as a sub-page from the main entry, ( e.g. Lynton and Barnstaple Railway/detailed route features ) BUT I'm not sure if this is (a) allowed by policy, (b) good practice or (c) the best way of providing this additional information. Can anybody advise? Many thanks Lynbarn 19:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Subpages within the article namespace are not allowed per Subpages, and in fact the feature has been disabled. Daughter, or spin-off, articles are fine, however, and the typical format is to title the article "...of (main article name). In this case Route of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway would be a good name. That being said it may be worth considering whether detailed information would be sufficiently noteworthy to a general audience to warrant inclusion in a general encyclopaedia (have a look at Notability to see whether it would meet the typical crtieria). In any case, really good work with the article, though there's a few issues which I've raised on your talk page. -- Daduzi  talk  20:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your input, and your comments about the article - I'm working through them, and will be making more changes as I go! (the article is also 33kb, so I need to cut back a little somewhere!) Lynbarn 11:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There might be some templates around for the route. For example, see Bundesautobahn_60. SB_Johnny  | talk 12:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC) (Nevermind, you have that already).  SB_Johnny  | talk 12:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia search field in separate website
Is there any way I can incorporate a wikipedia search field in my website? I want someone who is reading my site to be able to type in an unfamiliar term and have it open up a new page with the search results on wikipedia. John


 * Sure, just view the page source and copy the form code for the search box. All you should need to change is the action="" parameter to be external instead of internal. Simple example:

<form action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search" id="searchform"> <input id="searchInput" name="search" type="text" accesskey="f" value="" /> <input type='submit' name="go" class="searchButton" id="searchGoButton" value="Go" /> <input type='submit' name="fulltext" class="searchButton" value="Search" />


 * You can style it up from there with css, remove or rename buttons, etc. --Splarka (rant) 00:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Uploading source files
I've created a line drawing logo using the program xfig, and exported the logo in svg format for wikipedia. It would be great if wikipedia users had access to the xfig file, so that they can make minor changes or improvements to the logo without having to redraw it. Where can this xfig file be uploaded so it's available to the community? It would be a shame if wikipedia didn't allow this. Klafubra 15:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Anything that is freely licensed and could be useful in any Wiki projects can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. You might also want to consider uploading the logo itself there, though you should be careful to make sure the logo isn't copyrighted (in which case you'd also need to change the copyright of the image on here to a fair use license). -- Daduzi  talk  16:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia Commons doesn't allow me to upload this file type. What do I do? Klafubra 00:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I should have looked at File types before making my genius suggestion. It seems that the file type isn't supported. If the file type in question is free (ie not subject to patent) then it might be worth asking at Commons talk:File types where, if anywhere, it can be uploaded. Sorry for the lousy initial advice, that'll teach me not to assume. -- Daduzi  talk  22:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Signature Problems
Due to my inability to Fix my signature, I must ask help from you. Please! I buggered it up beyond recogniton!

[User:Dfrg.msc|User:Dfrg.msc]   (Exept with double ]['s) and a date and time.
 * I want it to be this:

&#91;&#91; User:Dfrg.msc &#124; User:Dfrg.msc   &#91;&#91; Image:DFRG. MSC.jpg &#124; 45px ]]]] 07:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What it is:

I enter it into the My preferences box and save it. When I type my signature it just adds all the dashes ect.

Please help.

My signature is broken so follow the link. User talk:Dfrg.msc


 * Be sure to check [x] Raw signature just below that input box. Otherwise it auto-links it to your user page (seems to be the problem you have) --Splarka (rant) 08:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Dfrg.msc 10:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Vanity signatures get overused already. A signature with an image four lines high? Please don't! Femto 13:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Hiding the page header?
Hey, I was thinking about proposing an improvement to the Portuguese Wikipedia Main Page, and i would like to know: How does the main page hide the article header? (How there's no... Main Page - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on it) Is it something you can do with wiki markup or is it set by an admin control panel?

Thanks. --201.17.164.229 22:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is done via some evil JavaScript code at MediaWiki:Monobook.js, which adds a few extra style hacks when the page title matches the Main Page. There's no way to do it with wiki markup. --cesarb 22:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! --201.17.164.229 00:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You can also remove the text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Many Wikipedias are not using that sub-title. I suspect that those community think that there visitors will know that the are on Wikipedia because of the logo so there is no need to put it on every page again and again. --Walter 21:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Locating boxed sections at end of some articles
I've come up against a couple of instances where the content of a box of information at the bottom of an article does not appear in the article itself when edited. From what I've seen, it appears both and &#123;&#123;info id&#125;&#125; are used to create these. I haven't been able to find out how to get at them. Would anyone be able to explain that for me and, if possible, explain the difference between the two (why use one vs. the other) or explain what's actually going on and why if my guesses are wrong.

I did a good amount of searching for answers to both questions unsuccessfully. I realize I could very easily be unaware of how to get to the info I need. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Richard G. Shewmaker 19:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * is ever increased). --cesarb 16:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer! That's a little weird, tho. I already wondere why the tiny mario-template is hidden, while the big half-life one is not. Why not hide all templates with a hide/show button by default? --Conti|&#9993; 16:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Like cesarb said, the templates only hide when there's more than one on the page. So if there were two Half Life templates they'd hide like so:


 * -- Daduzi  talk  17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

What about using HTML commenting code, i.e., &#060;!-- newline content newline //--&#062; and indicate this in appropriate part of the article? This seems too simple, so it's probably a bad idea, lol. Richard G. Shewmaker 19:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I may be wrong, as I have only two days experience at using Navigation bars, but wouldn't the following code force the template over the nav bar threshold and make it hide?
 * This would avoid the need for duplicating the templates, as shown here. Before I make use of this code though, can anyone see any flaws with this approach? Thanks. Road Wizard 22:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This would avoid the need for duplicating the templates, as shown here. Before I make use of this code though, can anyone see any flaws with this approach? Thanks. Road Wizard 22:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is nothing more than the "ugly hack of using it twice in the same place" I mentioned above. It is using two nested s, which happens (possibly by chance) to not have any negative effect other than being counted as two uses by the code. --cesarb 01:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the advice, and sorry if I regurgitated 'nothing more than the "ugly hack of using it twice in the same place" [you] mentioned above'. I misinterpreted your 'using it twice' comment to mean the way Daduzi showed above, whereas mine avoided duplicating the same template. However, as the use of the code still seems to be frowned upon, I will make sure not to use it. Thanks again. Road Wizard 18:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Google question
Can anyone answer the following question: if my userpage has been deleted, and a redirect created in its place, will the old revisions, currently visible in Google, go away after Google crawls again? - CrazyRussian talk/email 05:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. --cesarb 16:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * google search in an algorithmic manner, meaning regardless if its new or old page, as long as its in the web, itll still be visible <span style="border:1px;border-style:solid;padding:0px 1px 1px 1px;color:red;background-color:black; font-weight:bold">Bloodpack  11:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Bug?
Can anyone explain the appearance of Maruti nandan in Cat:Proposed deletion as of unknown date 2006? Thanks. - CrazyRussian talk/email 05:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The job queue (from what I have seen) sometimes has trouble with redirects. A null edit to the redirect cleansed it. --Splarka (rant) 07:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You did wha? :) - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Null edit. --cesarb 16:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING attempt to move a page
Well, I tried to move "Coup d'état" to "Coup d'État" and wound up in Unicode Hell.

Somewhere between Windows XP Home, Character Map, Firefox 1.5.0.4, and Wikipedia several non-visible characters got inserted into the "move target" box. So I actually moved the page to Coup_d%27%C3%89%C2%90%C2%90%C2%90tat which seems wrong somehow.

I believe I have now repaired all the damage but somebody more experienced with the pedia should check it over just to be sure.

And when the dust settles Coup d'état should be moved to Coup d'État, which is currently occupied by a redirect page, so I couldn't have moved it over anyhow.

--Eleland 01:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You did repair all the damage; I deleted the broken redirects, did the correct move and fixed all the double redirects. --cesarb 01:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't feel bad, unicode hell happens to all of us at one point or another due to the way symbols in URL's seem to not work. Pegasus1138 Talk 03:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Port scanning
I'm wondering why I'm getting this.

16:55:56	Port Scanning has been detected from 207.142.131.228 (scanned ports:TCP (4749, 4748, 4746, 4742, 4744, 4745))

15:59:46 Port Scanning has been detected from 207.142.131.228 (scanned ports:TCP (3179, 3146, 3181, 3184, 3182, 3183))

(timestamp is in gmt-4) This is a Wikimedia IP. I've been getting this intermittently for the past 12 hours. Just thought I'd make a note of it someplace. — Natha  n  ( talk ) / 20:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This is almost certainly a false alarm caused by broken firewall software. Please provide exact details of the 'scan'. --Brion 23:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * My firewall is certainly not "broken". Outpost Firewall's logs are just as I've pasted; I have no further information. I don't have any sort of ultra-sensitive/paranoid options enabled. Can we please deal with the problem rather than point fingers and blame the software, which is certainly not the case? I don't make outrageous claims of portscanning for no reason, nor am I in the habit of falsifying information. Let's deal with the immediate problem. If you are unwilling to deal with the problem, just say so instead of telling me my firewall software is "broken". You can contact me on my talk page, I don't feel like sticking around here in case I get accused of manufacturing this just to cause trouble (which is probably what will happen next). If you're unwilling to deal with this, I can always report it to the upstream ISP. — Natha  n  ( talk ) / 23:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * False positives to port scan detectors aren't unheard of; see for instance . These log lines are also useless; they don't specify if what was detected was RST packets (which can happen legitimately), FIN or FIN/ACK packets (which can happen legitimately), ACK packets (which can happen legitimately - see a pattern here?), SYN packets (the ones more likely to be a real port scan), or something else. Even in the SYN case, the source IP address can be easily spoofed, so it cannot be trusted (the only way to be sure would be to complete the three-way handshake, which your firewall probably does not do). Given all that, I find it unlikely that it isn't a simple case of your software crying wolf. The best way to know the truth would be to run a sniffer, which will probably show the stray packets to be nothing more than leftovers of connections you recently made to the Wikimedia image servers. --cesarb 01:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's another example of a false positive with the firewall software you're using: In this case, the likely instigation was that the user had installed some trojaned software on his own computer. If you'd like us to investigate, we really need more details about what these 'port scans' look like; please contact the manufacturer of your firewall software and tell them you need to provide more detailed logs including source ports, packet types (SYN, ACK, etc) and if possible actual packet captures. --Brion 06:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I should point out that the manufacturer would most likely like to know about and fix any false positive problems. Please do contact them. --Brion 07:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * And for what it's worth, I have done some quick packet sniffing checks on our end and see no unexpected outgoing connections from the address you give. The port numbers look like normal random port sequences on the client end, as expected from the connections from the client to the server. --Brion 07:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, a second account, sort of. Sorry, no details, it was several months ago and I didn't sniff further. I tried whether a newer version of the Kerio firewall would be an improvement to my ancient system. It also gave me port scan alerts that resolved coming from a Wikimedia image server. (A hyperactive firewall being more likely than an attack from the Wikisevers, I finally 'solved' that problem by staying with the more stable older version which doesn't give such detailed warnings&hellip; :) Femto 15:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

search function
i would just like to note that the wikipedia search function sucks balls. like, completely and utterly is a total piece of shit. if you misplace a single letter, the actual thing you are looking for will not be found in the list of options. as well, i searched BJAODN, and couldnt find the (massive) article for the life of me. why is it such a piece of crap? thanks-- Benji64 19:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

if i had a admin power i would give you a warning any ways. soeone who dose plz do!!!


 * Nah, the person just needs to learn civility. You're more than welcome to write a new search function, if you'd like.  Our programmers are, with only a couple of exceptions, all volunteers who do the work for free in their spare time.  User:Zoe|(talk) 20:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Try searching for "WP:BJAODN" (a lot of the commonly accessed articles in the inner workings can be found using WP: codes). That or when the search results come up go to the bottom of the page and where it says "Search in namespaces" check "Wikipedia". Articles about the running of Wikipedia are found in that namespace, which is not searched by default as the majority of users are looking for articles about things in the real world rather than in the inner workings of Wikipedia. In any case, ball sucking is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice and is even being considered as a possible Olympic sport for the 2012 games, please don't besmirch it by comparing it to the Wikipedia search engine. -- Daduzi  talk  20:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Now that you've had a chance to calm down, try using this search engine. --hydnjo talk 20:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

hahaha no im not angry, and i didnt mean to offend anyone (sorry), i should have used more appropriate language. anyways, its just that after prolonged use the function, it becomes increasingly clear that it is deficient. im not a programmer, and i dont know anything about it, except what ive noticed (if i was a programmer, with an understanding of the principles, i would certainly attempt to remedy the situation). i thought the issue was something which merited mentioning, as it is something that is so essential to the functioning of the encyclopedia. Benji64 21:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

What does it mean when a sockpuppet plaque appears on your page?
It is suspected that this user might be a sock puppet or impersonator of SirIsaacBrock.

This was put on my page. What is a sock puppet? Is it O.K. if I remove this from my page or not? Capit 19:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Discuss it with the editor who put it on your page first. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Infobox issue
In this infobox, I am trying to find a way to list both the estimated population of 2006, as well as the population as per the 2001 census. Currently, only the 2006 population comes up. I'll appreciate your help.
 * You're overwriting the result of the <tt>population_as_of</tt> and <tt>population_total</tt> parameters, and as a result, it only reads one. Tito xd (?!?) 18:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Is there a way to put both population figures into the infobox without them conflicting? How do I change the syntax for this? --Wikindian 20:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a few options, none of which are particularly good:
 * You could modify the Template:Infobox Indian urban area template itself, adding new "population_total_2" and "population_as_of_2" parameters. But modifications to widely-used infoboxes like this one should be made with extreme caution.
 * You could replace the {{Infobox with {{subst:Infobox and save the article. That would replace the infobox template in the article with the actual wikicode used to display the infobox. Then you could add new rows to the table to hold your additional population info. But that would be A Bad Idea for two reasons: it will mean that the infobox in this article will not get updated if the template for the infobox gets improved later, and it will make it harder to correctly update the figures in the article in the future.
 * I would suggest that you reconsider whether trying to do this is a good idea to begin with. There's a constant temptation to shove more information into an article's infobox; but doing too much of that undermines the point of having the infobox to begin with -- namely, to present the most basic information about the subject in a consistent, easy-to-read format. Putting two sets of population figures in an infobox is probably overkill in this regard.  I would stick to one set of population figures in the infobox (whichever is considered to be more important), and place the other set in a footnote. Kickaha Ota 02:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation, I don't think I will add the second population figure as yet. --Wikindian 18:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

How to speedy delete
I can never find the pages I want when I need them! Now I want the one that lists the different templates for Speedy Delete -- can't find it. Massmato 17:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Start at WP:CSD? --Golbez 17:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Level 2 headings
Have the lines underneath level 2 headings changed? I don't remember them running through tables in the manner they are now doing. This is affecting articles in the en Wikipedia, but the effect can be easily seen for example in this de article: Arconciel. The line underneath 'Geographie' runs right through the middle of the table on the right. I don't remember it doing that. As I say, it's affecting en as well, and with both IE and Firefox. (Bugzilla report 6035 seems to be related.) --BillC 12:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

2 questions only

 * cant remember the exact date/time i registered here in wikipedia, any clue as to where to find it?
 * how do i change the style of my signature (colors, fonts, etc.)

thanks

- Bloodpack 12:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The User Creation Log has the information about account registration times. For information on customizing your signature, I would recommend you take a look at  WP:SIG and WP:SIGHELP.  Looking at the markup code used by various user's signatures (use the edit function to view signatures on talk pages) can also help provide useful ideas on how to do things. --Allen3 talk 12:43, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * thanks, finally figured it out, all you have to do is to check the RAW signature option so you can insert your codes  <span style="border:1px;border-style:solid;padding:0px 1px 1px 1px;color:red;background-color:black; font-weight:bold">Bloodpack  10:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

"Main Section"
I didn't know whether this was too technical for the other pump, so I posted it here.

Please note here. If you look at the main article feature, it currently reads: "A-League 2006-07#Pre-Season Challenge Cup". Is there any way I can still make it link to that article and section whilst having it simply read "2006-07 Pre Season Cup" (like the feature when you can write " Daniel.Bryant's user page ?" Thanks in advance, <font face="tahoma" color="#086F9A">Killfest2 (Talk)  04:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * 2006-07 Pre Season Cup — Omegatron 04:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I believe the answer is "don't do that then". It's "main article", not "main section". In fact, details might be even better in this case. --cesarb 04:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

A side effect of the database issues earlier?
See Molly Moon Stops the World. If you go to the page's history, you'll see that the lastest edit was from me, where I added the tag to the page. The oddity is that the current page does not have the stub tag I added, meaning that the original version of the page is still showing. I tried clearing my cache and using the purge function for the page, but the original version is still showing. Is simply re-applying the edit the only way around this? --Spring Rubber 02:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Killikkurussimangalam also has a similar issue. --Spring Rubber 02:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Look at the page history of Molly Moon Stops the World! Titoxd reverted edits by someone TWO edits behind him to an edit ONE edit behind him. That's impossible. Crazy. --Lord Deskana (talk) 09:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Formatting issue (indentation)
I have pasted below a section from the article Term symbol. The second bullet point, starting "Fifth..." appears to be indented more than it should. (In the actual article, the text following this section also appears to be indented more than it should.) I have been working on trying to get it at the same indentation as the previous bullet point; I have tried things like adding whitespace and breaks, but I have not been successful. It seems that the colon used for indenting the tables is causing the problem, but this problem did not seem to occur with a simple test I did without complex table formatting. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.--GregRM 22:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Looking at the HTML that's generated, there's an open <dl> that's not closed. Adding a close dl after the table (which I did in your example, below) "fixes" it. This seems like it's a wikimarkup problem of some sort. I've entered this as 6776. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Great! Thank you very much for the help.--GregRM 00:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * item 1


 * an embedded table || with one row
 * }
 * }
 * item 2 should be aligned with item 1
 * }
 * }
 * item 2 should be aligned with item 1

(can't see it but the next line is </dl> ) </dl>


 * Fourth, extract smaller tables representing each possible term. Each table will be (2L+1)(2S+1), and will contain "1"s as entries. The first table extracted corresponds to ML ranging from &minus;2 to +2 (so L = 2), with a single value for MS (implying S = 0). This corresponds to a 1D term. The remaining table is 3&times;3. Then we extract a second table, removing the entries for ML and MS both ranging from &minus;1 to +1 (and so S = L = 1, a 3P term). The remaining table is a 1&times;1 table, with L = S = 0, i.e., a 1S term.


 * width="150px" |
 * width="250px" |
 * width="150px" |
 * }
 * }

(another </dl> line follows) </dl>
 * Fifth, applying Hund's rules, order the states by increasing order of energy:
 * 3P0 < 3P1 < 3P2 < 1D2 < 1S0

Clearing autoblocks
Does blocking a range for 1 second really work, or is it just a Wikipedian urban myth? If it does work, then how? -- King of ♥   ♦   ♣   ♠  04:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It should work, if it doesn't, you can unblock yourself if it is you that blocked yourself &mdash; M in <font color="#ffcc00;">un  <font color="#ffcc00;">Spiderman 11:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It doesn't work long standing urban myth.Geni 14:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The block code has been changed recently; the reason it worked was that an expiring block in an IP address cleared all blocks for that IP address. So, if you blocked a IP for an year and the same IP for a second, the shorter block would expire first and clear the longer block. The correct way to clear an autoblock is to unblock the IP address, which clears all blocks on it including autoblocks. --cesarb 15:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes
Can somebody point me to a tutorial on infoboxes? I want to know how to create one and how they work. Thanks! --Bookgrrl 03:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you read Help:Infobox and look at the existing infoboxes? --Splarka (rant) 07:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

How come infoboxes don't have their own "edit" tab/link/button? - ChaChaFut 02:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's anything that can clearly be triggered on, like there is with sections (eg. not all &lt;div&gt;s should have an [Edit] link, and not all should have an edit link either).  In the general case, edit the page, and see the "Pages transcluded onto this page:" list at the bottom.  Alternatively, infoboxes can force an [edit] link to be displayed .  --Interiot 02:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

edit conflicts with self
I notice sometimes if I edit something, and it gets submitted and I decide to go back to the previous page to change something one more time, it may or may not give me a edit conflict if no one else has edited it in between. Is there a reason whether it might not or might? Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 02:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You'll notice this more often than not on talk pages, because of the signature ( ~ ) expanding (using subst: could also cause this). I think if all you do is edit lines not edited before, the edit merger can handle it. (maybe?) --Splarka (rant) 07:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Natalina (or Elle?), this happened to me once. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Updating pages, watchlist
On my computer here, my watchlist and page versions have not been updated for about 2 days. This is not true for another computer on which I operate. Anyone know why? Sincerely, AdamBiswanger1 20:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Try pressing cntrl-F5. Voice -of- All  20:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Wow I have no idea what the hell that just did, but it worked. Brilliant! AdamBiswanger1 01:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It purged your browser's cache. Tito xd (?!?) 01:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

formatting error with "chick" style
I guess this is the place to post this... Well when the chick skin is chosen for me, the search box and the "go" and "search" buttons on the main page are not formatted correctly. They stick out into the page and block out some of the news content. Should this be changed? Am I the only one with this problem? Is perfection necessary here on wikipedia?

Wikipedia causes problems with Opera
I am using Opera 8.5. Today, and only today, Wikipedia regularly crashes Opera, usually by clicking on a "diff" link in my watchlist.

This reminded me about a complaint posted on the My Opera Community forums, by a user who could not access Wikipedia using Opera (but succeeded IDing as Mozilla). 

Advice or comments on both issues are appreciated.

P.S. I posted on the My Opera Community Forums regarding a plan to collate a list of websites that work with Opera. If Wikipedia is verified to work and render well - without any problems - in Opera, we can add Wikipedia to the list. So have you noticed any problems using Wikipedia with Opera, or can you certify Wikipedia as an Opera-friendly site? So far, I've not noticed any significant problems except for today's crashes.

If you want to download Opera to verify, the download link is http://opera.com.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I dare say this is Opera's problem (another try), though a friend of mine who uses Opera has reported repeated problems with accessing Wikipedia in Opera. I'm thinking it's a bug in Opera. —BorgHunter (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Certainly the crashing part is Opera's issue (no webpage, no matter how broken, should be able to crash a browser). --Interiot 16:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * A crash in Opera is a bug in Opera. Report the bug to Opera, and/or upgrade to a non-crashing version. --Brion 04:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm glad that Wikipedia adheres to W3C standards. However, I don't know why Opera crashes only when clicking on Wikipedia links - other websites don't have this problem. I agree it could be an Opera bug. I've posted on the My Opera Community Forums regarding this issue, so several anons or new users may reply here. The link to the thread: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=149179 (I'm Ace Jack Neo). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 06:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Websites should not be able to crash your browser. If Wikipedia can do it accidentally, then a malicious website could figure out how to do it intentionally, so hopefully the crash issue is or will be fixed in a newer version of Opera.  That's true regardless of whether the pages on Wikipedia are standards compliant or buggy.  --Interiot 06:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I am editing Wikipedia using Opera 9.0, and it doesn't seem to crash. Possibly an 8.5-specific bug. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So far, no crashes in Opera 9. I'll try editing with Opera 8.5 and see if it still crashes. Opera 9 has another problem. If I go to another site for a while, and come back to Wikipedia, it will log me out! This doesn't happen in Opera 8.5. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia logs you out automatically after some time; it's not specific to Opera. Try checking the "remember me" box and see if it makes any difference. --cesarb 16:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I must have forgotten to check "Remember me" when logging in with Opera 9. I did check the box when using Opera 8.5. I'll try it and see if it helps. I noticed another problem: sometimes the editing toolbar doesn't seem to load, or when it does, it takes too long to load. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 02:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

History order bug?
Is there a clock-synch problem or something? Several times today I've thought I've seen my Watchlist acting funny, and just now, looking at this history page, It's showing my two July 27th comments in the wrong order, with a timestamp on the "earlier" (actually later) one that's got to be 30 minutes to an hour behind what it should be. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The Server admin log says a clock sync problem with two of the servers was fixed this morning. --cesarb 16:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatlinkshere on Images incomplete/nonexistent/odd
So refuses to acknowledge that the image is included in two articles, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and Karazhan Tower. Image:KarazhanInterior01.jpg otoh, tells the whole truth and has the files in the "linked to" section. Is this a known 'feature' of WLH for images, that I happen to have been ignorant of, or did something slip? It's a little inconvenient because it prevents the use of WLH to see if an image is orphaned or not. (Clearly, the image page would do, and has to be visited anyway, but it makes the process more mistake prone. This image got deleted, for example.) -Splash - tk 02:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * WLH and Image file links have worked this way for quite some time... (for what it's worth, category links work the same way, they don't show up in WLH but instead show up at the bottom of the Category: page).  --Interiot 04:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe it is fairly well known that whatlinkshere does nothing for images, wich is why we have the not orphan template to alert people about media that are linked but not inlined. Images displayed inline in the article should show up as file links though, if they don't it's usualy the result of an image added to a transcluded template rather than to the article directly, though in the later software versions the job queue should take care of that eventualy. Otherwise making a null edit (or a normal edit for that matter) to the article(s) in question will normaly fix such problems. --Sherool (talk) 06:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Right, thank you both. I can now add that fact to the list of things I know. -Splash - tk 16:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Search
Firstly, can someone please add a id="SearchSearchButton" (or something) to the search box, such as the "go" button (<input name="go" class="searchButton" id="searchGoButton" value="Go" type="submit">) because I rarely use the "search" button (I don't like the on-wiki search feature) and would like to hide it through css, but can't.

Also, would there be a way to bypass special:search when you press the go button. I just want to add my query to /wiki/MyQuery or /w/index.php?title=query (which would be possible) and remove the name="go" from the go button or else it would be ?title=query&go=go. I want to do this because sometimes I want to go to a page that i know doesn't exist and don't want to go to a search page and click on the redlink to the page and cut off &action=edit in the url. Or if I want to edit a page or view the history directly from the search (maybe by searching "page?action=edit or "&" "). I think this should be an option in "my preferences".

GeorgeMoney (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You can hide it in many ways, the laziest (put in monobook.css):


 * 1) searchform input#searchGoButton + input {visibility:hidden}
 * Or if that doesn't work:


 * 1) searchform input.searchButton {visibility:hidden}
 * 2) searchform input#searchGoButton {visibility:visible}
 * Now, to change the action and the name of the rest of the form, you need javascript:

function customsearch { document.getElementById('searchform').action = "/w/index.php"; document.getElementById('searchInput').name = "title"; }; window.addEventListener("load", customsearch, false);


 * Removing the go=go from the url however would not be as easy. Changing the name to "" just results in &=go. Changing the value to "" as well results in &=. However, with the css and js above, it is functional and almost what you seem to want. --Splarka (rant) 08:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the code! And, the css was a little ugly because the go button was sitting there on the left, so I changed it to the following and it worked great:

<pre style="overflow: auto;">
 * 1) searchform input.searchButton {display:none}
 * 2) searchform input#searchGoButton {display:inline !important; font-weight: normal; /* I didn't like the bold */ }


 * Also, about the go=go, I didn't mean changing name="go" to name="" or value="go" to value="", I meant totally removing both parameters and I have tested it and it works.


 * Also, the only problem with the JS code is that if I try to do bob&amp;action=edit, the search form will automatically urlencode the '&amp;' (well, it does in Firefox), and it won't work. If only there was a way to reconvert the urlencodes back into non-encoded and meta-refresh to the article. I am pretty sure it could be done in php, but the only php i know is <?php echo $something ?>. I will work on that........


 * GeorgeMoney (talk) 15:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I just solved the go=go and the '&' problem by making http://wikipedia.georgemoney.com/search.php . It redirects search.php?title=bob to en.wp(short for full url)/w/index.php?title=bob and search.php?title=bob%26action=edit to en.wp/w/index.php?title=bob&action=edit. It also ignores any go=go. GeorgeMoney (talk) 15:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm. That seems a bit overly complex. I think I found a much easier way (at least it seems to work for me), try this:

<pre style="overflow: auto;"> function customsearch { document.getElementById('searchform').action = "/w/index.php"; document.getElementById('searchInput').name = "title"; document.getElementById('searchGoButton').name = "action"; document.getElementById('searchGoButton').value = "view"; document.getElementById('searchform').elements[2].name = "action"; document.getElementById('searchform').elements[2].value = "edit"; }; window.addEventListener("load", customsearch, false);
 * This changes the go button to view, and the search button to edit (the value and label should stay at these words), and the name of both to action. The consequece of this is: clicking edit takes you to /w/index.php?title=WHATEVER&action=edit, and clicking go *should* take you to /w/index.php?title=WHATEVER&action=view ... however, it takes me (at least) directly to /wiki/WHATEVER, even if the page does not exist (and not to the edit page). Note that this still does not let you manually type &action=edit but it does let you just click 'edit' instead. You could of course add more buttons for history, raw, etc (but that uses advanced javascript inserts). Also note: To see or use the edit button, you'll have to remove the display:none from the above css. --Splarka (rant) 01:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

403 Forbidden when fetching wikipedia articles
When I try to fetch and parse a wikipedia page I get 403 Forbidden no matter which page I try. I use the URL "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ". I can fetch "http://en.wikipedia.org" and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki" but no further. For example, if I try to fetch "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux" I get 403 Forbidden, even though I can see it in my web browser. How can I make this work?

I am fetching with C#, although I have heard of similar problems with people fetching with Perl. 143.48.80.209 20:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a lot of folks out there who write stupendously stupid bots, which happily churn out hundreds of requests per second with no concern on how this affects our ability to serve other people. A number of default User-Agent strings, as well as the lack of one, are blocked to reduce the impact.


 * Please set a User-Agent string which is specific and if possible includes contact information for you (e-mail address and/or URL). --Brion 02:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:BART logo.svg keeps appearing in C:CSD
Why on earth does Image:BART logo.svg keep popping up in CSD? Even more spookily, it refuses to disappear even after it is deleted and the C:CSD category page purged. Do we have a ghostbuster that kills ghost images around here? Kimchi.sg 11:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I just went and looked in Special:Undelete/Image:BART logo.svg, and the histories alternate between each reload. Kimchi.sg 11:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Possibly leftovers from the database borkage last week. I've taken that server back out of rotation, and it'll get rebuilt again in a couple days. --Brion 21:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

reverting images doesn't show up in list of contributions
For example, see. I (inadvertantly) reverted it once and reverted it back, again. Neither, however, should up in Special:Contributions/TerraFrost.

Also, say I wanted to link to the above image without making it a remote link. How would I go about doing that? TerraFrost 00:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Regarding the image link, just add a colon to the start of the link (i.e. Image:Hatak.jpg results in Image:Hatak.jpg). As to the contributions issue, I can't say why it happened, just that given some of the comments on here and Help Desk it seems something screwy is going on. -- Daduzi  talk  00:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Try clicking on "Logs" after you click on My Contributions...it is towards the top of your contributions page (at least with the default skin). I think this may be what you are looking for.--GregRM 01:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Converting images
Might be a bit of a noob question here, I'm converting the images at from JPG to PNG, so we don't have to use ugly thumbnails. The images in question are: I have PNG versions ready offline, but how do I replace the old JPGs? Do I upload the new images into new image pages and have the old ones deleted? Or do I simply upload the new as a new version of the old images? My concern is that the latter route will monumentally screw things up. CaptainVindaloo t c e 22:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Image:Swat 3 0004.jpg
 * Image:SWAT3 loadoutscreen.jpg
 * Image:Swat 3 0005.jpg


 * Why are you converting these images? If it's to get rid of JPEG compression artifacts, you need to take the screenshots again, not simply convert the JPEG to a PNG. Converting these images straight to a PNG will result in no improvement in image quality, and a much larger file size. (In fact, by the nature of these pictures, even the original screenshot saved as a PNG will probably have a larger file size than a JPEG.) I don't understand what you mean about thumbnails. —Bkell (talk) 22:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not trying to remove artifacts, and I have originals in BMP anyway. The images are currently in the article as thumbnails (code: [[Image:Example.jpg|thumb]] ), because when they are placed into the article in frames ( [[Image:Example.jpg|frame]] ) they for some reason ignore any scaling parameters and fill the entire page with the full size image. All I'm trying to do is get a scalable image in a frame really, so if you can tell me how to do that with the current JPGs, then all's well. As PNGs, unless I am mistaken, can be more easily scaled than JPGs, PNG seems a good way forward. CaptainVindaloo t c e 23:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If I'm reading you correctly, you can acheive what you want by adding a size parameter. So, for instance, you could change [[Image:Swat_3_0004.jpg|thumb|right|Engaging a suspect]] to [[Image:Swat_3_0004.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Engaging a suspect]] . I've added an example of this syntax in action to this section so you can see what I mean. All the various things you can do with images are covered at Extended image syntax, which is an actually comprehensive and useful tutorial on Wikipedia (which can sometimes be a rarity). -- Daduzi  talk  23:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * PNGs and JPEGs can be scaled equally well (though if a JPEG is rescaled and saved as a JPEG again, it will gain more compression artifacts). Both are raster formats, which represent an image as a collection of pixels. Perhaps you're thinking about SVGs, which can be cleanly scaled to any size? You're not going to be able to save a screenshot as an SVG, though, since a screenshot is a raster image. —Bkell (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Gah! I see what I'm doing wrong now! I'm just arranging the image parameters in the wrong order! And I must be confusing PNG with SVG, although being Bitmap-based (according to the article), I would have expected PNG to be a bit more tolerant than JPG. Graphics is not my area of expertise. Thanks, CaptainVindaloo t c e 15:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Unless "bitmap" has a meaning beyond "raster", then JPEG is a bitmap format too. —Bkell (talk) 15:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Like I said, I'm no expert! :-) If I remember the GCSE IT lesson about three or four years ago now, don't JPGs just use, in effect, slightly larger pixels than bitmaps? The article is fixed now though, thanks! CaptainVindaloo t c e 15:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * JPEG compression works by dividing the image into "blocks" of pixels; usually these blocks are 8×8 pixels in size. It compresses each block of pixels independently, I think. Perhaps this is what you're thinking of. The underlying pixels, though, are the same pixels you would have in a PNG image. The primary difference between JPEG and PNG is that JPEG compression is lossy, which means that the image after JPEG compression is not quite the same as the image before. This difference is usually unnoticeable in photographs, but can be quite visible (as "fuzz") in images with large blocks of solid color; see Preparing images for upload for an example. PNG compression is lossless, so the image that comes out is exactly the same as the image that went in. This means that PNGs can be edited and resaved over and over with no loss of quality, whereas doing this with a JPEG will cause a decrease in image quality each time the image is saved. JPEG compression tends to work best for photographic images; PNG works best for flags, maps, diagrams, logos, line drawings, charts, and so on. Another difference between JPEG and PNG is that PNG images can have transparency (and even different amounts of transparency), but JPEGs must be completely opaque. The underlying image in both formats, though, is composed of the same pixels; this is why it's possible to convert an image from either format directly to the other. —Bkell (talk) 15:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)