Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive Z

iframe
Iframes are very powerful aspect of HTML. Is there any way of enabling them (if only on user pages)? Stephen B Streater 08:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't necessarily make sense, because the inner frame would have the wikipedia icon and tabs and such too. Transclusion is an on-wiki feature that does roughly the same thing.  You can use style="overflow:auto" if you want the scrollbars.  --Interiot 08:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So how would I iframe this video using your technique? The HTML is:
 * 
 * You do not appear to have iframe support. 
 * Stephen B Streater 09:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised it's not a FAQ question, but in general, it's not possible to include off-site images, sounds, or movies as part of a Wikipedia page. You can add a link that users click on to start an off-site video...  --Interiot 10:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As I suspected. I think this is an unnecessary restriction, particularly for user pages. Stephen B Streater 17:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It is necessary to prevent abuse, including but not limited to attempts to exploit a certain browser's lack of security. --cesarb 17:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * We could fix this with a white list of servers which could be iframed from. Stephen B Streater 18:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As long as we don't allow offsite images, we aren't going to allow offsite anything else, especially things that could cause exploits. You have yet to demonstrate a use for this. --Golbez 23:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, there is no way and never will be. --Brion 02:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Never is a long time. Stephen B Streater 09:34, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a potential use for it. My interest is in video. One limitation at the moment is the cost and resources required to serve video. With an iframe, the video does not have to be served from the standard Wikipedia servers. Stephen B Streater 09:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That limitation does not seem to be that much of a problem currently, since the Wikimedia servers already serve several videos; see for instance commons:Category:Video. --cesarb 16:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * So can you suggest an automated way to publish my videos onto the Wikipedia server? These are generally shot on my mobile phone; the editing and published is through my web browser (a bit like text is on Wikipedia) on my Mac at home and PCs at work and other computers in various locations. As I use a lot of different computers, editing over the web is a great benefit - I use FORscene for this. Stephen B Streater 16:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * But, how would putting video on your user page help improve Wikipedia? Notinasnaid 07:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Not many years ago, web pages were devoid of graphics. When the first images appeared, these were not supported by typical browsers. Images were controversial because they took up a lot of server capacity and bandwidth. Just imagine today if every web browser had to install multiple incompatible image plug-ins to look at pictures. Wikipedia would use Ogg for pictures, and hardly anyone would be able to see them. In reality, WP would have almost no pictures and be much poorer for it.
 * Fast forward ten years and we are in the similar position with video. There are multiple incompatible video players and WP is worried about the server load if video is added to articles. But there are differences:
 * With Java applets, almost anyone can play video without having to install any software, suddenly making it accessible
 * With iframes, video can be served from anywhere, without putting any load on the Wikipedia servers
 * Wikipedia in the future will include a wide range of video, just like it now contains pictures. This could happen right now, but for the technical iframe restriction added in a completely different context. So adding iframes to my user page will help by opening people's eyes to the future. Removing the iframe restriction would make video immediately accessible. To put this in context, my personal videos have been watched over 8,000 times. This is a popular example. Stephen B Streater 08:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * But still, what about the user pages? How could putting your personal videos on your user page benefit Wikipedia? I'm struggling to understand how this can fit in with what user pages are for. Notinasnaid 10:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Some user pages are rather minimalist, but over the project their uses range widely. One use is to communicate information about the user to other editors. Trying things out away from article space out is often helpful too - for example using the built in wiki editing functions to develop an article to Wikipedia standards. Many editors have a sprinkling of useful links. Significantly, they can also be used for demonstrating to other Wikipedia editors the possibilities within Wikipedia. Editors can re-use something they like on a user page elsewhere in Wikipedia. This is where adding iframe videos comes in. It is not the content of the videos which is important (and videos need be no more personal than images), but the fact that videos can be edited over the web and published here. Stephen B Streater 12:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If it were to be done, it wouldn't be with (explicit) iframes; it would be with the Image: syntax (whether it uses  or   or even   to do so is immaterial). We already use animated gifs on some articles, so there's no opposition to the use of animation (the videos, however, are usually linked to via the Media: syntax). The main problem would be the sound; while the moving images are contained in a small square area of the screen, the sound isn't (imagine what would happen with a page with three different videos running at the same time). As for Java, it cannot be allowed for security reasons (the same reasons why JavaScript isn't allowed); and much less loading inline content from other sites (nobody wants to allow someone to be able to make one's computer load something like Last Measure or worse; MediaWiki's content filters only allows the use of "safe" file formats, but that restriction cannot be applied to foreign sites; any whitelist would contain only this wiki and Wikimedia Commons, both of which can already be acessed via the image syntax). On the other hand, adding a Java player to the site (not arbitrary Java code, but a fixed code carefully checked for security issues, which could be invoked by the Image: syntax when a video format is detected, and starting playing the video only when an action is made) could be an interesting project (but, since most people would already have to install Java, it wouldn't gain much over making them install a native video player with the appropriate codecs). --cesarb 19:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for this comprehensive answer. We can still bring Wikipedia into the 21st century: Stephen B Streater 10:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * iframes are a means to an end with the advantage that WP could have wiki-style editing of video today
 * Animated gifs are a help, but are hard to create and edit compared with videos - modern mobile phones come with video cameras these days
 * Sound is not a problem as the video wouldn't start playing until requested. There is also be a mute button for those in a quiet environment
 * Java is secure - that is its point. It should not be confused with JavaScript
 * A Java applet can only access the server it came from, so a white list of sites would avoid the issue of rogue sites being downloaded
 * Java applet code is a safe format
 * Almost everyone has Java installed these days
 * As Java itself is carefully checked for security issues, each player would not need to be


 * We have plans to put a video player on the site, for things like Apollo program videos, so people don't have to download the videos to play them. I have yet to see a reason why you should be putting video from your camera phone on your user page, however.  This has nothing to do with moving into the 21st century.  It has to do with "why do you want to put video from your camera phone on your user page?"  This isn't YouTube. — Omegatron 15:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC) Fixed link. --cesarb 17:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd like editors to be able to add videos directly to Wikpedia articles. I'd like people to be able to edit them like they can currently edit text - without needing to install software on their computers. As you point out, this isn't YouTube, it's an encyclopaedia which has unnecessarily poor video support. It has an arbitrary and restrictive requirement for platform specific plug-in installation and lack of cross platform editing functionaility, neither of which are necessary or desirable these days. Stephen B Streater 16:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Around 90% of video is now shot on mobile phones, and this figure is rising. It would be hardly surprising if video added to Wikipedia by its teams of editors was largely shot on mobile phones. Stephen B Streater 16:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, Omegatron's link was broken. I've now corrected it; take a look at Media plugin, where a lot of discussion on this issue has already been made (including some discussion on using Java at m:Talk:Video policy). --cesarb 17:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've seen some of that before, but I'll refresh my knowledge. One reason for discussing it here is that it might be possible to sidestep all the discussion about video plug-ins, which are as odd an idea to me as image plug-ins would be, and just add video to Wikipedia. Stephen B Streater 17:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Any system for video on Wikipedia has to be easy to use for it to be of any real use. Or perhaps I should say, the easier it is to use, the more use will be made of it. Not just easy for the viewer but for the publisher too. Text definitely sets the benchmark. It is very easy to do, no special software download, you just open up your browser and everything is there. The closer video gets to this the better the system is IMO.

Practically nobody has ogg so practically nobody will watch any of the ogg format videos placed on Wikipedia - so there is no incentive for video to be placed on wikipedia. Java is as good as anyone will get for cross platform support so for video it is a good choice. In this day and age plugins are a waste of time, not only are they a hassle there is also a trust issue - i.e. is one downloading malicious software. mk 22:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this sums up the current issue pretty well. Video should be as easy as text to view and edit. Stephen B Streater 20:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

A related discussion is taking place on my RfA. Stephen B Streater 07:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

About uploading images
I just created a new account here at Wikipedia, and I decided to add some cover images to articles about manga. I found one image on the Internet under the "Fair Use" policy and saved it on my own computer in a folder with a .jpg extension. On the Upload Files page, I put the address of the image saved on my computer in the Source field, typed in a description, but when I tried to upload the file, I got an error message saying that the file was corrupt or having a wrong extension. I'm positive that the image isn't corrupt. I tried the same thing with another image, this time with a .jpeg extension, and got the same error message. What should I do? Thanks for reading this. Breed Zona 01:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem with .polytonic class @ MediaWiki:Common.css
As changes to Common.css must be proposed here @ Village pump, I would like to call your attention to a bug: Template talk:Polytonic. To fix this (if a fix is possible at all), the "polytonic" class @ MediaWiki:Common.css will most likely have to be changed. --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 22:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Network outage info
A quick note on our recent downtime: --Brion 20:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

And a report on it -. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Linking Photos on other WP languages
I'd like to link from the German WP back to an image here on English WP. Is this possible? Eg. I'd like to use a photo of the University of Adelaide on the equivelant article on the German WP page. Any suggestions? Ozdaren 00:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it needs to be re-uploaded at the German Wikipedia. Just make sure (if it is fair use on the English Wikipedia) that it also classifies as "fair use" on the German Wikipedia (I'm not sure if there even is "fair use" on the German Wikipedia) — Mets 501  (talk) 00:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not put it on Commons and link to it from both articles? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Only if it's not copyrighted. Only free images allowed on commons. — Mets 501  (talk) 03:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If the Commons didn't accept copyrighted images, it wouldn't have a huge amount of content. The licence restrictions require a free licence. Most works that people create are copyrighted; see Berne Convention et al. It's the terms of use and redistribution that are important. 86.134.116.228 21:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * So what is the German Wikipedia's policy on linking to copyrighted images? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * As the IP user rightly pointed out, it's not about copyright, it's about licenses. German Wikipedia image policies are nearly identical to Commons policies, so PD images and images under free licenses are accepted. Fair use is not. &mdash;da Pete (ばか) 09:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Special:Newimages now redundant?
Now that Special:Imagelist has been revamped, is Special:Newimages redundant? I notice that Imagelist now defaults to showing newest images by date, and it has a better look than Newimages. The only difference that is apparent is that Newimages shows previews and Imagelist doesn't yet - I'm sure the developers can add preview ability to Imagelist and then scrap Newimages altogether. Kimchi.sg 14:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No real point in removing it altogether, it still serves its purpose. 86.134.116.228 21:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

textarea css
I'd like to propose that the following CSS be added to the appropriate files: textarea {font-family: monospace} input#wpSummary {font-family: monospace} This would force the edit text area and the summary field to use monospaced fonts. Browsers like Safari don't use monospace fonts in input fields by default. Thoughts? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * For the proposal, go to Village pump (proposals). For the technical question implied, you can add this to your personal monobook css (which will just affect you). For skin-wide implementation on this wiki this would go in MediaWiki:Monobook.css, or MediaWiki:Common.css for a more global effect (suggest at VP/P or the talk pages of those messages). For a request for change on all wikimedia (and future mediawiki releases) this would have to go into bugzilla. --Splarka (rant) 03:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. I will paste this there. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I forgot to mention I've been testing it there. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Instrument
Can someone help me with Infobox Instrument? It works great when all parameters are used (as shown on the Violin page), but when just the required parameters are used, there is space at the bottom of the template (as is shown on the template page). Why? — Mets 501 (talk) 15:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The table preprocessor is sensitive to line feeds. When using   to generate optional rows, you have to be very careful about where the line feeds end up.  "Extra" row indicators seem to be ignored, so in this case changing the template so there's an "extra"   for each optional row seems to have fixed it.  -- Rick Block (talk) 18:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Great! Thanks for fixing it! — Mets 501  (talk) 02:22, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

IP requests
Hi, I wanted to know how I would go about getting an IP check on an editor that I suspect is using a sock puppet to support his point of view on a discussion page thanx Mammal4 17:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * See Requests for checkuser for the criteria in which a checkuser may be run. --Interiot 17:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

change default display font
In firefox 1.5.0.4, wikipedia displays in Arial by default. I'd like to change the font to Tahoma or Verdana because they have flags on the capital i (arial doesn't) so capital i and lowercase L can be distinguished more easily. This would be convenient for me because vandals often create usernames with capital i in place of lowercase L and they are indistinguishable in Arial. ~  crazytales 56297   -talk- 17:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Create a file called User:Crazytales56297/monobook.css and add the following

font { font-family:Tahoma; }

If it doesn't work, please contact me on my talk page, cheers &mdash; M in  un  Spiderman 19:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The user has now been taught how to do it, see me message on his talk page if you want to learn, cheers &mdash; M in  un  Spiderman 19:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You can also just set the default font in your browser, I believe. Wikipedia doesn't specify a font face, so whatever you use as the default will be used for Wikipedia. — Omegatron 16:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

IP address
I edited a site and mistakenly left my IP address visible. Can I correct this - delete my edit and re-edit after logging in to my account?


 * Nope. I hope you can live the rest of your life knowing that a single edit is not attributed to you. If you really need attribution, make a null edit to the article saying "the previous one is mine". And if you're concerned about privacy, as long as you don't tell us the IP address in question, then it remains private. --Golbez 23:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Golbez. That's eased my mind. Internet privacy was my concern, not accreditation.


 * It's an important question. Brian Chase lost his job after John Seigenthaler tracked his IP after a prank edit and raised a stink.  You can have such edits removed from history, but you have to talk to someone with database access, and they don't have much time for it.  See Right to vanish. — Omegatron 16:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

user renaming not showing up in the log?
It seems that was recently renamed to, but nothing about this shows up in the user rename log. Is there something that I'm missing? --Ixfd64 02:54, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's there (August 23), but I'm not sure how the search fields work. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I saw Glen S editing as GIen until today. I guess that it takes a while for username changes to take effect. --Ixfd64 05:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There was a problem with that rename, a dev finally had to be called in to finish the change manually (last night). --Splarka (rant) 07:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Re-direct vs. Article statistics
It seem to me some years ago that there could be a routine to scan the logs once a month for:
 * any re-directs which are being directly accessed more often than the article to which the re-direct points

This could pickup articles which have been placed under uncommon or even odd titles rather than the more common English names for the subject.211.30.222.139 02:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Could you give me some references?
I have trouble finding information here. I need to know how to disappear from Wikipedia. The ramafications of having my User page completely removed, etc. I know there are pages on this; I just can't find them.

I need to know how to best get out of here and leave no remiments. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 22:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The right to vanish page might be useful to you. Icey 23:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Cameron White
Am I the only one who sees

var skin = "monobook"; var stylepath = "/skins-1.5"...

in very small print in this article, and no actual content? And if someone else sees it, can anyone tell me what's up with it? Sam Vimes | Address me 19:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see it. This is the first lines of Javascript in the Monobook skin.  Does the text go away if you refresh/hard refresh?  Sam Korn (smoddy) 19:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorted now. Never mind. Sam Vimes | Address me 20:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Font size
The font size has reduced on the whole. Is it only in my browser? I once changed the size in preferences but it was perhaps Mozilla. Now I can't find such a thing. --Brand спойт 10:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's your browser. In IE, hold down the control key and move the scroll wheel on your mouse an you can change this (I think it takes affect when you release the control button).  There are other ways to set this, but that is how I usually accidentally change this, to my confusion. RJFJR 16:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If you use FireFox, just press ctrl-0 and it should be fixed. — Mets 501 (talk) 16:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Editing a Page Under Discussion
I want to add information to a page under discussion. Someone wants to merge it with another wikipedia topic. I don't think it is a good idea, and I would like to expand the article to show why I think both topics should be separate. But, there is no link to edit the information. Is it possible to edit a page under discussion? How? Thanks, --Aims3Bor 09:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * At the top of your screen is a set of tabs that relate to the current page. "Project page" will take you to the article, "discussopn" take you tot he talk page about the article.  In addition to any edits on the article, you should list your arguments about merging on the talk page. RJFJR 16:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Show as a tree / Show as a list in Catgegories
When did this come about? Any additional info available? older ≠ wiser 01:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you like it? Duesentrieb volunteered to make an announcement, since he did most of the work. He announced it on commons, de and the category tree page, saying that he wasn't active on en. I've now followed that up with a post to wikitech-l, which is hopefully a more visible forum for Wikimedians generally. Here is the archive of my post: . -- Tim Starling 05:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Haven't had a chance to play with it very much yet, but my initial impression is that it will be very useful. older ≠ wiser 12:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It could be useful (though I suspect I shall mainly stay with list), but it was very confusing when Cats started showing as a tree without my having selected it. DuncanHill 12:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I find it very confusing, mainly when many subcategories exist, and I'm totally opposed to the fact that categories appear as a tree by default. DeansFA 12:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I like that new feature. Kudos to Duesentrieb and Tim! --Ligulem 14:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

In response to some criticisms, Duesentrieb has just implemented a "unified view", which combines the strengths of both the tree view and the list view. There's apparently also an override parameter for bots. -- Tim Starling 14:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Categories are now appearing as a tree by default with no apparent means of over-riding this - help please! I find the list view much easier to read and navigate. DuncanHill 15:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

One potential problem is that people who click on the "+" sign and get the "nothing found" result, might think that is the end of the road: no articles there. Of course, it really means that there are just no subcategories. But will new users realise they need to click on the category link to see the articles inside the category? Carcharoth 16:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Another problem is that it is slower and less intyitive than the list, and depriving users of the choice (as appears to have happened) will discourage editors from exploring the categories to find the best ones for articles. DuncanHill 16:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I might (eventually) prefer the option to switch between views, rather than this "unified" version in use at the moment. But please, where was this discussed? It could be a great feature, and I use many of the Category tools, including the awesome Category Ladder, but I really want to see a debate about this rather major change (or be pointed to one if I missed it). There is also a post by Tim Starling here that explains some of this. Also, Tim's comment above was "In response to some criticisms" - well, where can I read these criticisms and add my own? Thanks. Carcharoth 16:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

If anyone is still reading this thread, I eventually found the right pages myself. See CategoryTree extension and Special:CategoryTree. Carcharoth 02:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi all - sorry for not showing up here earlier... I have a lot of places to be at, right now. That it got enabled on all projects so soon surprised me too - Tim seems to like to do stuff more than to talk about it, I guess :P

Anyway - I don't quite understand the talk about a "major change". With the new unified view, nothing changed except that you have a [+] widget for each subcategory, that will expand the view of it. If you just ignore it, everything is as before. To hide it completely, put .CategoryTreeBullet { display:none; } into your personal CSS.

Feel free to comment at meta:Talk:CategoryTree extension. And thanks for pointing out the "nothing found" issue, I'll try to fix it soon. Regards -- G. Gearloose (?!) aka Duesentrieb 19:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit toolbar buttons won’t load (except [#R])
I’ve been unable to edit any wiki page from one particular computer running IE6 and XP sp2. Logged in, logged out or cleared cache, has no effect. This problem is roughly 1 month old, it all worked fine before, and I can’t remember to have changed anything significant on that installation for a long time.

The problem
Reading pages goes okay. Edit window will load till it hits the toolbar buttons, it will load the Redirect button ([#R]), but non of the others (it’s trying to load it from …/skins-1.5/…etc. but will never happen). From that moment on that particular IE window is locked. Other IE windows will ‘http 404’ on all wiki sites, but not on anything else. Closing IE has no effect; I have to reboot to be able to read any wiki content again.

The closest bugzilla report I could find is Bug 5324: No edit toolbar and related/duplicate reports, but I’m running IE6 on XP, not mac/safari. Anyway, I haven’t been able to solve it. Has anybody a suggestion where I should look to solve the problem? Thanks. --Van helsing 14:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The [#R] button is being added via MediaWiki:Monobook.js (the section under . Odd that that would work as an onload, but that javascript in the page wouldn't. I can suggest a few things to try, maybe, to narrow down the problem. Try these to see which stop the lockup:


 * 1. Try disabling javascript, this should obviously work (but maybe not?).
 * 2. Try going to the edit window of a user style page, these don't load the toolbar: User:Van helsing/monobook.js. Also try going to the view-source of a protected page, eg MediaWiki:Monobook.js (if you aren't sysop).
 * 3. Try disabling the addbutton function temporarily. Put into User:Van helsing/monobook.js and then clear your cache:

function addButton { // do nothing };
 * 4. Try other Wikis for the problem:
 * A. Wiktionary
 * B. Wikia
 * C. Uncyclopedia


 * Report results here (anyone else have any ideas?), this will help narrow down the cause. --Splarka (rant) 07:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Splarka, thanks a lot for your response. Silly thing is, I only was able to test your suggestion 1&2 since your post, sorry (reason being: comp and me too short in each other’s neighborhood since then).
 * Results:
 * 1. Try disabling javascript, this should obviously work (but maybe not?).
 * Works indeed, no toolbar (don’t use it anyway), but also no locking IE
 * 2. Try going to the edit window of a user style page, these don't load the toolbar: User:Van helsing/monobook.js. Also try going to the view-source of a protected page, eg MediaWiki:Monobook.js (if you aren't sysop).
 * Works as well, same result
 * 3. & 4.
 * Will test as soon as I have a chance


 * Can my Java plug-in be corrupted, where an update could resolve things? Thanks again. --Van helsing 11:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Technical inability for sysops to unblock themselves
Since it is already discouraged for sysops to unblock themselves, this inability should be "codified" in the MediaWiki software, in order to prevent intentional and unintentional abuse. Perhaps only bureaucrats and stewards should be allowed to unblock any sysop.Peter O. (Talk) 14:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There are good reasons to be able to unblock oneself, technical reasons. As long as we are willing to desysop admins who improperly use this ability (on a case by case basis, due to mitigating factors), there is no real need to codify it. NoSeptember  14:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sometimes it is necessary for a sysop to unblock themself, such as if they are autoblocked due to someone else's vandalism. — Mets 501 (talk) 14:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Try being behind AOL and not be able to unblock yourself. Tito xd (?!?) 17:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

If you tried Googling the fucking mailing list archives, like it says at the top of the page, you'd see that there was a discussion about this there, or on BugZilla, when several other permission oversights were fixed up. 86.143.70.12 14:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Assistance needed at Wikiversity
Over at the English Wikiversity, we're working on a new main page design. It contains some bugs that need to be eliminated, and I'm hoping to recruit an experienced coder to take on the task. In particular, we need to add and elements to the headings in the right-hand column, and the image is off-center (and lacking the right-hand border) in IE6. Also, the original designer used a complex system of transclusion that hopefully could be simplified, and I'm sure that plenty of our code is sloppy and inefficient.

Thanks in advance! &mdash;David Levy 09:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No one has responded, so I'm bumping this to the bottom. If anyone can help, please step forward.  &mdash;David Levy 08:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Out of desperation, I'm bumping this one more time. We have consensus to implement the new Wikiversity main page, and only the need to fix these bugs is stopping us.  Is anyone able and willing to help?  &mdash;David Levy 18:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * might be worth trying th contact people listed at here or here.Geni 18:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but that won't be necessary. An anonymous editor responded to my third post almost immediately.  The bugs have now been fixed.  :)  &mdash;David Levy 23:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

wikify template
Um, is something up with the wikify_date template? I think someone messed with it, and I don't know how to fix it. Thanks. Schwael 17:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please ask User:Bluemoose . --Ligulem 18:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps also point out that the Wikify template now appears to use the first optional parameter for two things, the date and whether the template is being used on an article or section. Icey 18:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Namespace question
Hi! Quick question: If I make an edit to User:Example/sandbox, then in which namespace would my edit be counted to be in&mdash;user space or article space? TIA!-- thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph 14:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * User space. It is a subpage of page Example in namespace User. RJFJR 14:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks! I was beginning to wonder why I was having so many user space edits. This explains it. Thank you.-- thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph 14:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Odd article names
I was looking through the dump of the database looking for some words for the wiktionary when I ran into a whole bunch of odd article names:
 * AmericanSamoa
 * AppliedEthics
 * AccessibleComputing
 * AfghanistanHistory
 * AfghanistanGeography
 * AfghanistanPeople
 * AfghanistanEconomy
 * AfghanistanCommunications
 * AfghanistanTransportations
 * AfghanistanMilitary
 * AfghanistanTransnationalIssues
 * AssistiveTechnology
 * AlbaniaHistory
 * AlbaniaGeography
 * AlbaniaPeople
 * AsWeMayThink
 * AllSaints
 * AlbaniaGovernment
 * AlbaniaEconomy
 * AfroAsiaticLanguages
 * ArtificalLanguages
 * AbbadideS
 * AbbevilleFrance
 * AtlasShrugged
 * ArtificialLanguages
 * AtlasShruggedCharacters
 * AtlasShruggedCompanies
 * AyersMusicPublishingCompany
 * AfricanAmericanPeople
 * AdolfHitler
 * AbdominalSurgery

Notice that these are article names with the space(s) removed. They are redirects. Any idea why these exist? (Someone at wiktionary asked about finding a list of all single word WP article names that didn't have entries in Wiktionary.) RJFJR 14:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No idea. Maybe initial typos that were moved later? — Mets 501  (talk) 14:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Early versions of MediaWiki used CamelCase to generate wikilinks, and other wiki softwares still do. These are probably very old articles or had such redirects made to catch links created in that style by users who are used to link like that from other wikis. --Sherool (talk) 15:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, these are old CamelCase redirects. They probably need to be kept for historical reasons. Carcharoth 16:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, that's interesting. Thank you. RJFJR 17:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

To confirm this, you can look back to the date of creation. For example, see the 31 May 2001 initial article for 'As We May Think'. Carcharoth 17:32, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Listing redirects to a template
I've just moved a heavily used template (WikiProjectSongs→the much easier to remember Songs).

My problem is that this template is used on over 13000 talk pages and the what links here list is very large. Is there any way of finding out which pages redirect there only, so I can check for double redirects? --kingboyk 11:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There are no double redirects. I set the limit to 5000 (Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Songs&limit=5000&from=0), which covered all links/transclusions, and looked for the word "redirect", it was only found once, so there's no double redirects. — Mets 501  (talk) 14:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks - and thanks for the tip. --kingboyk 17:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Job queue
A couple of things I've observed about the job queue at Special:Statistics:
 * 1) If only text is edited in a template, which of course has no affect on pages transcluding it, the job queue still grows. In the case of very heavily used templates like WPBiography this can add a 6 figure number to the queue unnecessarily. It would be better if Mediawiki were able to filter our changes of this kind.
 * 2) It would seem also that if a template is edited, and then changed again whilst the first round of changes are in the job queue (not desirable, but sometimes a bug is found or an edit reverted) the job queue grows again. Wouldn't it be better to queue up articles only once and perform all changes when the article reaches the front of the queue. --kingboyk 15:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) *This is a harmless illusion. The later duplicates are removed when the first one is run, which means that the size of the queue will go down twice as fast. This is much less expensive for the template saves than doing the dupe checks at first save time. --Brion 21:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Could it be that you meant text in &lt;noinclude>? If yes, Template doc page pattern solves that problem.
 * Would be nice, but is nothing to make us bothered, as this is the job of the developers to optimise the servers as far enough as needed to support what is allowed. Or disallow by technical restrictions (example: Template limits) what is unwanted and will never be tolerated. Of course this as an ideal ;-). --Ligulem 14:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Whoops, I did mean . Thanks. --kingboyk 17:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Using images from other wikipedia
I usually write in CAtalà viquipedia and sometimes I need an image that it's not in Commons but I find in GErmany wiki, for instance. The only solutions I know is copy this image to Commons and, then use it from Català wiki. Is it possible to use an image from English, French or whatever wikipedia without move it previously to Commons?. What should be the sintax to display the image?.Thanks. --Amadalvarez 09:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think that there is a way to do that. You either have to copy it to your local Wikipedia if it's under fair use or put it on commons for everyone to use if it's under a free license. — Mets 501  (talk) 14:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If the image only needs to be referenced rather than displayed, it can be wikilinked as any other article on another wiki, like so. (Code:   like so  ) Good for use in links and footnotes. Gimmetrow 02:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Zero section editing
Hello all. I suggest adding a feature to display '[edit]' link for zero section as this is done in Russian Wikipedia. You should append /* Making "edit" link for zero section */ var disable_zero_section = 0; function edit_zero_section { if(disable_zero_section != 1 && (document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML.match('class=\"editsection\"'))) document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML = "[edit] " + document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML; } addLoadEvent(edit_zero_section); into MediaWiki:Monobook.js and .editsection { float: right; margin-left: 5px; } into MediaWiki:Common.css. This link looks like all other '[edit]' links. If doubt, please test in your own monobook.css & monobook.js. In Russian Wikipedia this is a default. Edward Chernenko 07:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Full support. If the specialists don't find any no-go's I would love to have this. I tested it in my user js/css and found a bug. The js should be:

/* Making "edit" link for zero section */ var disable_zero_section = 0; function edit_zero_section { if(disable_zero_section != 1 && (document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML.match('class=\"editsection\"'))) document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML = "[edit] " + document.getElementById('bodyContent').innerHTML; } addLoadEvent(edit_zero_section);
 * --Ligulem 10:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * If that means what I think it does (having an edit box for the lead/intro, the text before the first section header) I most definitely support that. --kingboyk 11:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Aye, you can see it in action on the Russian article for 2006. However, if we decide to have this, I think it would be better to write it directly into the software, because:
 * No Javascript would be used. This means less downloading and some people don't have Javascript enabled.
 * It seems like a simple task to write it into the software.
 * It would work with all the Wikipedias.
 * It could respect, or maybe this does that already?
 * Icey 12:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Arguments against Javascript are too common, not related to this idea. The fact is that we need this feature right now (it provides great traffic economy when zero section should be edited in big article). Also, this code supports NOEDITSECTION: it only appends edit link for zero section if there is already at least one edit link (so it will not be displayed for articles with NOEDITSECTION or protected articles, for article without subtitles or when user disables edit links in preferences). Edward Chernenko 12:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Cool, that's good that it works like that. I disagree that we need it "right now". Wouldn't it be better to wait a bit longer to get it implemented directly into the software so that it can benefit everyone, instead of rushing it in just for us? Icey 12:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that increasing global JS in size isn't so bad for users while it is cached by browser. Yes, you'll be forced to reload about 3K after this change but you spend much more reading your watchlist once :). About engine implementation: MediaWiki developers are too busy; haven't you seen number of unresolved reports in mediazilla? ;) So, I think that's not good idea to place some fixes on our side right now... Edward Chernenko 12:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it is okay to get it written in like this for now, and then a permanent solution could be implemented in the future. I doubt it'll save much bandwidth, but it's useful at least. Do you know why the pages don't have [edit] links written into the top already? There may be a valid reason for that. Icey 13:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Using an old version of Safari, article text becomes smaller and gray, and whole sentences and paragraphs look like links (but go nowhere when clicked). The same issue is there on the Russian article for 2006 page.  I really like the idea of having the edit link there though. Carl Lindberg 01:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I strongly support this being added to the site js and css. Why not common.css and common.js though? — Mets 501  (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There is no MediaWiki:Common.js. See 4178. --cesarb 15:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That would explain it then :-). — Mets 501 (talk) 22:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

There is, of course, an existing workaround for this already. You just click another section edit link, and then change the number at the end of the URL to zero (0). Simple. Carcharoth 22:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It works, but it's a lot more time consuming than just clicking one link. — Mets 501 (talk) 22:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * ...and it is, as you say, merely a workaround - quoting from the wikipedia article: A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed. I support this change wholehaertedly.  Lynbarn 23:15, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh sure, the change is no problem (see my comment below). I just got the (probably wrong) impression from a few people here that they thought this was desperately needed. Yes, I was right, Edward Chernenko said: "we need this feature right now". So I mentioned the workaround to show that it is not needed "right now" (though if this does work, it would be nice). Carcharoth 00:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

A couple of days ago, I discovered a script for this purpose, which I edited to tweak its appearance and eliminate some bugs. It seems as though this was a waste of time, as the above code is much cleaner and appears to essentially duplicate the more complicated script's functionality. The one minor issue that I've noticed is that the edit link often appears after the rest of the page loads (for me, anyway). If this turns out to be the only bug, I strongly support the code's implementation. &mdash;David Levy 23:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * All scripts installed in on-load handlers work after everything is loaded. For another example, see title and wrongtitle implementation in ruwiki: here. Edward Chernenko 06:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that the lead section editing was turned off for some reason, rather than just "not there". Probably aesthetic. I know there is a preference that can turn edit section labels on and off (presumably for those who just want to read, and not bother with this 'tiresome' editing business...). Would this code mess up that preference or not? Hang on, just re-read the above - I see that this question has already been answered and it is not a problem! Carcharoth 00:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This code adds zero section edit link only when there is at least one edit link. So if someone disables this links in preferences, he will not see this link. Edward Chernenko 06:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

There is also a discussion at MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js. GeorgeMoney (talk) 01:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit summary stubbornness
Occasionally, I get the message warning me of no edit summary, even though I've provided one. Cute workarounds, like previewing again and then saving, with or without copy-pasting the edit sum, sometimes work and sometimes save the page without any edit sum. I feel it's vital to edit with good summaries, so this is an issue for me. John Reid 02:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it counts the section that you are editing as part of the edit summary (the part of the summary that's like ).  Could that be your problem? — Mets 501  (talk) 14:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Expunging block log entries
Anyone know offhand if there's already a BugZilla bug about the idea of expunging bogus entries from the block log? I looked, but didn't see anything that fit. This came up in this thread: User_talk:Lar an offshoot of Requests for adminship/Carnildo 3 Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 21:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I oppose. Two things can be done in cases like this. First, the user can save the links to the discussions (talk pages, ArbCom, WP:ANI) where the community agrees that a block is improper. Second, a respected admin can add an unblock to the log with an explanatory summary, so anyone viewing the log is notified of the situation. NoSeptember  13:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In certain cases, I think, pointing to history and so forth, and even a cancelling unblock, are insufficient to properly expunge a record. Specifically, in Giano's case (whatever I may think of his general civility of late) I feel he has been unfairly labeled with having committed "hate speech". In another case, we have an admin that blocked a user for one second "because they said they had a clean block log". In another case, we have an admin who blocked a user ACCIDENTALLY and labeled it with the warning he meant for the troll he was trying to block. The block log is very significant and very permanent. I do not think that expunging should be done lightly, or by just one person acting alone, but there ought to be a way to get rid of entries that clearly should not be there in the first place. I'd like to see this more widely discussed but I am not sure where exactly. I note that I have been told by several old hands that there HAVE been cases of block entries being expunged in the past, but that it took direct developer intervention and was potentially error prone, and not easy to carry out. This new interface would make it easier but I do not advocate that it have wide availability. ++Lar: t/c 14:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Unlike oversight removal of edit summaries with personal information, improper block log entries will remain very rare. We would desysop an admin who deliberately added personal info to a log, for example. An interface would seem a very low priority, and its existance would encourage increased use of the option. Mistakes can be explained away as I mentioned above, it doesn't really besmudge one's record if the record shows that the block summary was in error. As for increasing discussion, you can link to this thread from WP:ANI. NoSeptember  14:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with NoSeptember, particularily because if there is something truly egregious, then a developer can remove it, and if there's an interface, we'll go in a slippery slope, removing entries that really aren't that objectionable. (and for the record, I could benefit from this, just look at my block log...) Tito xd (?!?) 17:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There is already, I believe, a facility to really delete an edit, available to a subset of admins (arbitrators and a few others). I think the facility Lar proposes might be useful, and would support it if it doesn't involve too much work. And, for the record, the case which prompted Lar's enquiry did of course result in a desysopping - but the block record remains. --kingboyk 18:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[Back to margin.] In an extreme case like this, where someone has been seriously defamed in a way that could cause real-life harm in easily-imaginable scenarios, I think there should be a way of getting an item out of a block log. I don't think it should be easy or routinely available, and nor do I think that the wrong suffered by Giano gives him a free pass forever to be as uncivil as he likes to whoever he likes, but I DO think he has been seriously wronged and that Wikipedia should find a way to do something about it. And it should do likewise in any other rare and extreme case. Metamagician3000 09:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that this is a good idea, but should only be available to users with the oversight permission. (As it happens, this consists mostly of current and former ArbCom members, and also includes two developers, three bureaucrats, and Jimbo Wales). Oversighting blocks should probably only be done on ArbCom decision, however. --ais523 12:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Totally support the idea of improper blocks being expunged from block logs. Particularly ones with false and defamatory block summaries. (→ Netscott ) 12:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Not knowing this thread existed, I posted a very similar idea on WP:AN.

I think there is a problem with NoSeptember's objection in that the way the web works does not guarantee that people will always go to a user's page to check whether he's left a note of some previous block being unjust, or the block comment inaccurate. Worse, you could have some users who are very active on contentious topics and get hit by several unjust blocks. Explaining all that is going to make for dreary reading. Much better to purge the record in good faith. It's always good to be aware that what's created on Wikipedia may always be taken outside of Wikipedia. And I can't remember a time that the defeatist position turned out to be the right one with respect to Wikipedia conduct. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree, I think that it would be nice to have a (restricted) ability to purge log entries. People digging for stuff are probably going to look at the block log first, and having to maintain stuff on your user page explaining in detail why a certain block was unjust is probably not the best way to counter that.  I'd like to see this for all log entries as well.  This functionality might also help when some malcontent, frustrated by his edits that violate libel/privacy/copyright/obscenity/etc. laws being removed by oversight, starts putting this junk in the titles of articles, in usernames, etc.  JYolkowski // talk 20:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with this proposal, administrators make mistakes and there needs to be a form of oversight to these logs. I just gave myself this while trying to put an end to a bunch of socks doing this .  DVD+ R/W 06:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree also. Although purely accidental blocks are often easy to discern (such as the block I accidentally gave DVD R W a few moments ago :(), those accusing the blockee of hate speech and other horrendous acts leave a black smear across a user's record, harming their reputation. - Tangot a ngo 07:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it would be acceptable to restrict it only to oversighted users, as they're were granted that permission to deal with these kinds of things. Tito xd (?!?) 07:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that oversight is probably the correct level of authority for this privilege. JYolkowski // talk 18:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Workarounds for browser problems displaying tables and Thumbed images.

 * Undoubtedly these are known bugs, but I am interested in workarounds to achieve the resulting format in both Firefox and IE. My versions are the latest as of this date: Firefox for Windows, 1.5.0.6. -Mak Thorpe 23:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)



This line should be below table 2. Under Firefox and Konqueror it will display beneath Table 1. Using Safari, it appears beneath Table 1 not overlaid on the image. Under IE, it will appear to the right of the second table.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mak Thorpe (talk • contribs).


 * I took the liberty of adding Konqueror behaviour to this section.-Mr Adequate 04:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps what you're looking for is this? My guess is it will display consistently across all browsers. with some text following the table. Using Safari, this text is below the end of the image, creating a visual gap following the table. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey- I wish it were that easy. Does your solution answer the issue?  Nope.  Not at all.  The goal is that the table be able to utilize 100% of the screen space without regard to whatever thumbed images may or may not have appeared before.  Surely there is some way to tell the renderer- Kill all previous states- clean slate.  User wants 100% of the width of the client subwindow reserved for articles.  I don't care how ugly it is- I just need it to work on all major browsers.  -Mak Thorpe 15:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Then, you mean like the following? -- Rick Block (talk) 17:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Text sort of goes along for a while, but now we want a full width table.  And, here's some text following the table.


 * There are worse cases. See SpyAxe.  Try changing the window width; some widths look good, and for some, images overlap text.  Sometimes, even the "edit" text button overlaps other text.  Now that's a clear CSS bug.  Remember HTML "tables", when nothing ever overlapped? --John Nagle 18:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Rick. br clear all looks like it kills the float state that was confusing Firefox or IE.  Hopefully others will confirm this solution (Table 4) works just fine on Safari and Konqueror. Regards, -Mak Thorpe 23:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In Konqueror, Table 3 appears with normal wrap not overlapping the image but beside it. Table 4 appears below the image.-Mr Adequate 01:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm almost 100% certain  works for all browsers (it works for Safari as well as the others previously listed). I would have suggested this originally, but didn't understand what you were attempting to do.  -- Rick Block (talk) 02:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This also seems to work   , and doesn't introduce an extra line break. I have no idea if it is proper, but experimentation suggests it also has the same affect as br clear all on this anomalous behaviour. -Mak 18:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

talk/contribs links in signature
Please explain how I can set up my user name to include the talk/contribs links when I use four tildas to sign a message. I probably wouldn't want to do this every time - is there a way of toggling it on/off (five tildas, perhaps?) I find these quick links incredibly useful. Many thanks, Lynbarn 07:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The short answer is no. You can change your sig but you can only have one at a time. I'll tell you how to do this and show you a workaround.


 * Go to Preferences and put any text you like in the Signatures box, including links to your talk or contribs. It's a small box but will hold plenty of text anyway. Please, out of respect for other editors, don't get too cute. Images and templates are forbidden; colors and weird characters are usually ugly and make you look silly, not cool. Check the box Raw signature; this removes your default sig, which is just a link to your user page. Insert your new sig plus timestamp anywhere with four tildes.


 * Five tildes inserts only the timestamp. You can make this work in your favor. Create a subpage within your own userspace (e.g, User:Foo/sig1). Put your sig there and from that point on, sign your talk page posts like this:




 * Obviously, you can create a sig2, sig3, sig4 page. But please note well that all your sigs should include, at a minimum, your username and a link to either your user page or your talk page. It's probably unwise to avoid overelaborate sigs in general and avoid using widely different sigs from page to page.


 * There's a generic template you might consider, user. To show you how it works, I'll sign this post with it. Good luck! User:John_Reid (talk • contribs) 03:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Any documentation on the various #if functions?
Hi folks, I'm trying to play around with the #if, #ifeq, and other commands. Is there any published documentation on how to use these things? I've been going at it blind, but I'd like to go at it with a better idea of the syntax. Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 17:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See ParserFunctions. --Interiot 17:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See also Category:Templates using ParserFunctions for practical examples of usage. -Mak 19:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Wonderful. Thanks, guys. --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Unicode font selection
(moved from Wikipedia Help Desk) Hello. I have several Unicode fonts installed on my computer, for use with various typefaces in some graphics work I do. (For example, there is a Unicode font resembling Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, etc.) Anyway, when IPA characters in a Wikipedia article appear, they are in one of the very light fonts I have installed, and are difficult to read. Is there any way of telling Wikipedia which Unicode font I want displayed, or does it always default to something? Thank you. — Michael J  08:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes. If the IPA is properly tagged, you can edit your user CSS (user/monobook.css if you are using Monobook; for other skins, see the list at WP:CLASS) and add the following:

.IPA { font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans" }


 * replacing "Bitstream Vera Sans" by the name of the font you want to use. As for the default, if you are using IE, it defaults to a fixed list of fonts; if you are using anything else, it uses your browser's default (all browsers but IE are able to get characters from other fonts if they do not exist in the current font). --cesarb 15:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

my contribs aren't being recorded!
for some reason, many -- most -- of my contributions aren't listed on my 'my contributions' page. does anyone know why an edit wouldn't show up there? thanks, --Il hamster 08:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Could you point to some examples? A common reason might be that you made edits while logged out. --Brion 08:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Another common reason is that the contribution was to an article which was subsequently deleted. --cesarb 15:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Delay on Search function seems to just get longer
Having made enquiries at Wikipedia:Searching about the long lag for the search index (the answer seems to be that the search index is updated whenever someone can get around to it, and as the Search function is not considered a priority, this is quite infrequently), I'm wondering at what point the Search function becomes so out of date that it's considered an urgent problem. From my own experience it currently seems to be over three months since it was last updated (question: is this for the Wikipedia as a whole, or is the search index more up to date for some articles than others?), which is more like several months than the "weeks" mentioned in your FAQ at the top. Is there a way we can petition those who can update the search index to somehow set a regular timetable to do this (in principle, the oftener the better, but I recognise they are busy with a great many things, so perhaps weekly or fortnightly at least is practicable)? Thylacoleo 01:47, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You can ask, but that won't actually help. I just need to sit aside for a few hours without being asked to do other things and get it fixed up. --Brion 08:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I suppose I'm just hopeful that the necessary-but-not-always-urgent job of updating the search index could somehow be squeezed into the regular schedule of jobs amidst all the important-and-urgent ones that demand attention. I fear that it has a tendency to fall by the wayside until it too becomes urgent (as perhaps is the case now). I appreciate that updating the search index is a dull, onerous, time-consuming and thankless task. I can't do anything about the first three, but I can with respect to the last one: thank you! Thylacoleo 01:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

How to use Block log?
Someone put a sign on my page saying:	It is suspected that this user may be a sock puppet, meat puppet or impersonator of Shravak. Then it says go to block log for evidence. How do I use block log to find out the evidence against me? Dattat 16:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Go to your contributions page (from the links at the top) and there will be some links under the title. One of them will take you to your block log. &mdash; D a  niel  (‽) 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't get it. I am supposed to enter something in there in the middle box? I aready removed the sockpuppet thing because the directions said that if there was no evidence entered on the red link, I could. That's correct, isn't it? Dattat 17:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You did not answer me and now 999 has put it back. I am going to take it away because where is the evidence? There is nothing at the block log page. Dattat 19:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's the evidence. Icey 19:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * But I made one edit to that page. Why am I being lumped in with someone else? 999 has already received warnings from Netsnipe and Dan which he erased from his talk page when  Netsnipe specifically told him not to do any more erasing or change of his comments. Dattat 19:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks like 999 has misunderstood the methods of determining sock puppets and then reacted offensively to the consequences. So relax, if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about. Icey 12:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't up load an image
I try to upload a small jpeg and get the error:

"." not valid file format

any ideas? hza 12:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe name's wrong. Is your computer configured to see known file extensions? If not, configure so, and, if file name ends in ".", ".jpeg" or other strange extension, change it to ".jpg". If it hasn't extension, add ".jpg"

Userpage Work
Hi, I'm a small time user and I wanted to add some spice to my userpage. I really don't think I have enough content on my page or enough experience here that it is worth someone who is good at this to overhaul my userpage (like Sango, Master of Puppets or Phaedriel), but I thought of adding a border, some new font color (I just found out how to do that by reading above), or some show/hide stuff. Is there a place I can visit or do I just have to stare at the complicated formatting on a well done page and try to figure it out? --Clyde Miller 21:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Most effects are done using CSS, which you can research elsewhere in the web; for instance, for a black 1 pixel border, surround the content by  and  . To hide a section, you have to use magic classes parsed by a magic code at MediaWiki:Monobook.js; see hidden to see how it's done (you can use  directly if it fits your needs). --cesarb 21:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks I'll look into that. I'm not really sure what I want to do yet, but this really helps. --Clyde Miller 02:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Or you can do what everyone else does; find a page you like and copy the layout :). &mdash; D a  niel  (‽) 20:00, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah I've seen people do that. I'm not sure, but I'll consider it. --Clyde Miller 20:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki linking
Is there a page about interwiki linking/external linking and how it should be, especially in regards to wikia and how Smallville_(Season_1) links to this. - Peregrinefisher 20:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * These pages might be useful to you: Interwikimedia_link, Interlanguage_links, meta:Help:Interwiki_linking, meta:Interwiki_map, list of prefixes. Icey 21:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess I mean what are the rules about what's appropriate, not what' the syntax. - Peregrinefisher 22:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a question for Village pump (policy), not (technical), actually. External links might give you some directions. (Liberatore, 2006). 15:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

text color
How do you add custom text color? 206.176.119.180 18:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Like this: TEXT replacing COLOR with the color of your choice (either in English or the hexadecimal code) and TEXT should be the text you want to change the color of. — Mets 501  (talk) 18:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

However, please avoid doing this as it will break the consistent nature of articles on the site. In addition, forcing text to be a specific colour harms accessibility. 86.134.92.120 19:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Basically, colored text is good for signatures, user pages, portals, and a few other things. Other than that, though, it should not be used. — Mets 501  (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ...and some might argue against even many of those. Certainly signatures that look like angry fruit salad can be distracting and annoying.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes problem fixed
Since there's five million duplicate threads above, I won't respond in any of them individually.

The problem should now be fixed; use action=purge on any remaining affected pages or just edit them again. --Brion 11:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See 7162 (status: fixed). Thanks. --Ligulem 11:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What about the spurious entries on category pages and What links here pages? As suggested elsewhere, editing an article causes it to disappear from listings it does not belong to, but it could be years before the listings are correct again. Alan Pascoe 13:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Are those from editing of templates? Wait for the templates to clear, or edit the pages. --Brion 15:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Animated GIF too big for thumb?
I uploaded this Image:Hurricane Katrina LA landfall radar.gif (6MB animated gif) file to Commons earlier. However, MediaWiki fails to produce a thumbnail (like to the right), making the image useless. Is there a hard limit on the max size to animated gifs for thumbs?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * fixed, any ideas what happened?--Nilfanion ([[User

talk:Nilfanion|talk]]) 22:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a limit on time and memory usage for image thumbnailing. If thumbnailing the image comes close to the limit, then some servers may be able to scrape under it while others fail. I wouldn't recommend using animated GIF as a storage format for large videos, Theora is probably better. Some day we might even have support for embedding it in wiki pages. You could generate a small animated GIF thumbnail offline, for temporary use in articles. -- Tim Starling 11:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, thats just what the producing program outputs in ...--Nilfanion (talk) 12:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Bot access funniness
I've recently reactivated the rambot and in the process of testing it I made these changes. This is not normally a problem, except every time I make a successful change, I get a "403: Forbidden" response code. This despite the fact that the edit happens anyway. I have no idea why and would like to know if anyone else is aware of this particular problem. &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 15:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't speculate about why it allows you to edit and then gives you a 403, but I know Wikipedia 403's a variety of user agent strings that look like bots it doesn't like. Given the venerable age of Rambot, it might have been contructed before those restrictions were put in place.  Dragons flight 01:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That seems likely. It was totally restricting me when I had no user agent specified, so when I made one up, this was the result.  I could spoof another bot's user agent string, but I'd rather get this one to be used, since it is unique and would be easier to block in the event of problems.  Interestingly, getting a 403 is more efficient in terms of bandwidth than receiving a success with the new page included. I'm pretty sure I don't get a 403 on any other errors.  Nevertheless, for all I know this could be a bug in the user-agent filtering. UPDATE: Strike that.  I changed my user agent to spoof that of the pywikipediabot, with the same result.  Apparently a 403 success :). &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I may know what the problem is. Because the rambot predates current bot policy, and it has been running approved for years (besides being inactive for the past ~1.5 year period) without any regard to the forming/changing policy that has affected new bots.  I've never been listed on Bots/Approval log, so my guess is that the software is filtering out any account with the bot flag that are not on the approval log, or something similar to this.  I'm unfamiliar with the "recent" technical limitations, but I think the rambot was the first bot with the bot flag, so any newer approval changes might not have been applied.  This bug may be limited to the rambot only if that is the case, since any other new bot would have the flag AND be approved. &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 12:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's listed as a bot in Special:Listusers, so there's nothing on the MediaWiki side of the equation. AFAIK, there's no "approved bot" flag in the database, and there's no interface to do so. Check the bot's IP, if you're running it from a different computer. Is it blocked? Are you trying to access a URL in Wikipedia's root folder or something similar? Tito xd (?!?) 16:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm to understand there's blocks on various useragents in the squid proxy cache servers to prevent poorly coded bots from running amok. Perhaps a developer would know what user agent you could specify to avoid the 403. Kevin_b_er 19:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I suspected that it had nothing to do with "approval" and as for the user agent stuff, I spoofed the user agent to match the ever popular pywikipediabot, so it should have been none the wiser. And I'm editing from the same IP address and the addresses used in the bots seem like they should also work using a web browser.  I don't know what the difference is. &mdash; Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Try something completely unique, and ideally put contact information (a URL, or even a wikilink would work) as part of the User-Agent string, and try it again... if it doesn't, then you are requesting a link, after page save, that is blocked by Apache (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/.htaccess). Tito xd (?!?) 20:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The user-agent string that I'm using *is* unique, since I just invented it to make it work at all. And the "request" is a page submit, which returns 403.  If I view or edit the page (i.e. with "&action=edit") it works fine and I get a standard 200.  When I view the SAME link with "&action=submit", that's when I get the 403.  The only difference (besides the POST data being sent) is "edit" vs. "submit".  -- RM 21:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Arata Kochi — MediaWiki bug?
Does anyone know what's up with Arata Kochi? The page gives the boilerplate page-does-not-exist message, but the "article" tab-link is blue, and if you go to edit the page, you see the article's current text. You can also go into the page history and find the current version — revision as of 01:01, 15 August 2006.

Is this a bug in MediaWiki?

Ruakh 14:42, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Same as above message. Prodego  talk 14:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I still think it's a bug, though; the article hadn't been edited for over a month, and no purging should have been necessary. Further, as I noted, the "article" tab-link was blue; that is, the software "knew" (so to speak) that the page existed, and still displayed the boilerplate page-does-not-exist message. Ruakh 15:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

It seems to appear fine for me. Try this link.-- thund e rboltz<sup style="color:green;">(Deepu) 14:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That is because I purged the page cache of the page, see above. Prodego  talk 14:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason why purging is not a bug is that MediaWiki is lazy: if it can retrieved a cached version of the page, it will. That means that templates aren't automatically updated on other pages unless you manually purge it. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang <sup style="font-family:serif;">(Talk) 19:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That's what it's supposed to do, but that's not what it did here. Ruakh 20:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The same thing happened on Ziad Jarrah see Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. --Salix alba (talk) 21:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Templates are automatically updated on pages that use them, however this sometimes takes a while (particularly if there are tens of thousands of such pages to touch). --Brion 07:53, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've entered this as 7401. There's clearly a problem of some sort causing existing pages to look like they don't exist.  If anyone runs into another instance of this, please don't purge the page but report it (add it to the bugzilla report would be best) so the devs have an example to look at. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Strange latency problem
Lately I have been experiencing huge (i.e. on the order of tens of minutes) delays when it comes to viewing and editing pages. The lag stays around for ten or so minutes, goes away and comes back again later. Traceroute tells me nothing - packet loss at the Wikimedia servers is sometimes 75%, 50%, 10% or zero yet it still lags. There is often no other activity from my LAN. My RC patrol program still downloads from the IRC feed at browne.wikimedia.org without a problem. In fact, the IRC feed indicates business as usual. Other sites load without hassle. It seems to be consistantly happening at 13:00 utc, but today was happening as early as 08:00 utc. I am running Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Linux 2.6.13. I live in Perth, Western Australia. Could you please explain? MER-C 13:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know what's happening either, but it happens to me on Internet Explorer on a public IP too (and from a different country than Australia); it happened yesterday in the early afternoon UTC, probably about the same time you had. So I don't think its your browser, IP, or local Internet conditions. --ais523 13:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not getting multiple minute delays, more like 30-90 seconds per page, but it is pretty bad. --Interiot 14:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * From #wikimedia-tech:
 * [9:48am CST] brion has changed the topic to: PLEASE DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT WIKI BEING SLOW. Peak hours are coming up, and ongoing network maintenance means SOME people may see things slower than others.
 * --Interiot 14:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * On #wikimedia-tech just now, a user consulted with a Wikimedia server tech over the problem of latency and timeouts to en.wikipedia.org and upload.wikipedia.org. The problem was found to be a cached dns in the user's firewall (Agnitum Outpost) pointing to the outdated IP addresses. If you are experiencing connection problems, it may help to traceroute or dnslookup the wikimedia servers you frequent. If you get an IP somewhere in the 207.142.131.192/26 block, your ISP, firewall, or router may be to blame, as well as a local hosts file. This obviously will not be the only problem with slowdowns, but may be one common recent cause. The tech in question also suggests you replace your "broken" firewall or router ^_^ --Splarka (rant) 09:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The IP I get is 66.230.200.110. And there's nothing like a bit of latency (as in about a minute) when the vandals show up en-masse. MER-C 13:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Namespaces
I remember reading before that the ability to add namespaces in MediaWiki was going to be added. (The ability to add them through the inteface instead of having to edit localsetting.php). I can't see this option anywhere in version 1.7. What is the status of this option? 83.71.86.177 11:45, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The namespace manager was not merged into the development branch prior to the release of MediaWiki 1.7. Check the mailing list archives for wikitech-l for recentish discussion about it, or if there is none, ask on the same list. 164.11.204.52 22:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Adding "nofollow" to links?
Any though to adding a means whereby a URL can be encoded (other than &lt;nowiki>) such that its "nofollow" setting will be false? Or more controversially--making all outbound links nofollow--reducing Wikipedia's value as a target for spammers and search engine optimiziers?

A discussion on the village pump policy page concerning extremist websites cited as sources (someone proposed enclosing them in nowiki so that Wikipedia doesn't boost their page count) prompted the question.

--EngineerScotty 17:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * nofollow on all outgoing links was enabled briefly and met with huge opposition, if we are saying our links are not good enough for robots aren't we saying that they are not good enough for humans as well (in which case why would we be including them at all). Plugwash 18:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * if we are saying our links are not good enough for robots aren't we saying that they are not good enough for humans No, not at all, robots have a rather different interest in our links than humans do. Martin 19:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * nofollow is automatically applied to all external links not appearing in the main article namespace. It is assumed that articles are watched with sufficient care that link spam gets cleaned up.  Dragons flight 19:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to see  on all talk pages. Google doesn't seem to make much of a difference between namespace main and main talk. If you do have a page somewhere on the web with your name on it, you'd better not sign with that name on talk pages. Wikipedia beats everything else, even if it's only on a talk pages. --Ligulem 19:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Nofollow is already on talk and wikipedia and maybe a few other namespaces. This wasn't the case earlier this year, but it's now in place.  Noindex has been discussed before (especially with respect to AFD discussions for BLP), but has been decided against so far.  Personally, I want to be able to search talk pages with Google.  --Interiot 20:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I just checked the main_talk, Wikipedia, and Wikipedia_talk; none of them has noindex tags anywhere. —Jared Hunt September 22, 2006, 06:43 (UTC)
 * Correct. Noindex isn't used anywhere.  Nofollow is used on some namespaces.  --Interiot 15:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * AFD is excluded in robots.txt. Dragons flight 06:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not images/media/template for deletion? Anyway, if that's the case, all the redirects to AfD should be in the robots.txt as well, since search engines usually can't determine that it was a redirect (because URL is kept in Wikipedia redirects). —Jared Hunt September 22, 2006, 11:25 (UTC)
 * Because AfD discussions that go overboard can sometimes turn into commentaries on how a specific person or organization is inadequate, and those people/organizations don't like to see those pages show up in Google search results. IFD/TFD don't tend to do that.  --Interiot 15:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * True, but wouldn't you agree about adding the redirects to the robots.txt too? Read the above for explanation why. —Jared Hunt September 23, 2006, 06:58 (UTC)
 * Most redirects are from the old name at VfD, and as such are already there; I don't think there are many redirects to VfD/AfD subpages from outside VfD/AfD. Do you have any examples of such problematic redirects? --cesarb 13:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * All but one from this simple Googling: —Jared Hunt September 23, 2006, 20:26 (UTC)

Panorama
I've made a Panorama template for displaying panoramas in articles and elsewhere on Wikipedia. Example use:

New (thumbnail-like):

Simple:

I haven't tested it on many platforms (just firefox on several OSes), but it's based on code found elsewhere on Wikipedia (with additional documentation and liberal use of #expr maths tags to make it easier to use) so I think it should generally work. Any feedback/testing appreciated; or I'd like anyone familiar with templates and div tags to check it over and make any changes or give any needed polish. —Pengo talk · contribs 11:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC) (my current RfA)
 * Works fine in IE too. I'd suggest removing the hardcoded 'title' on the div altogether; as it's hardcoded and in German it isn't really helpful, and as it doesn't show up anywhere it's pointless making it a parameter. --ais523 11:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, removed. —Pengo talk · contribs 13:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Brilliant work! One note is that in the example on Panorama, when the image doesn't take up 100% of the screen width (eg. that one is only 950px wide...  a 1280/1600/1920 wide browser will have some whitespace to the side), in Firefox, the image is left-justified (which looks out of place next to the other center-justified images on that page), and the line-box extends all the way to the right (encompassing a lot of whitespace, rather than just the image). The outer div should probably have an explicit width set, and have "margin:0 auto" whenever center justification is appropriate.  --Interiot 15:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Same thing happens in Opera 9, but apart from that it works fine. Icey 17:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks fine in Safari. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * For me it shows a vertical scrollbar... you might want to give it a bit more vertical space. Shinobu 18:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks great in Firefox 1.5.0.7, SeaMonkey 1.0.4, and Mozilla 1.7.13. Excellent addition!  — EncMstr 19:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

That's fantastic (Camino 1.0.2 on Mac OS X). Cedars 06:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok I've revamped it to take into account Interiot's suggestions. It's a bit more hackish now, so it might need another round of checking :) Please let me know if there's probs on your browser. I've given the vert a tiny bit more room so hopefully the vertical scrollbar issue is resolved (What browser/platform does that happen on?) It'd be good if I could have it include a caption like an ordinary thumb image too, but I might leave that for another time. —Pengo talk · contribs 11:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I've made a thumbnail-like version, and named it Template:Panorama, and renamed the original one to Template:Panorama simple. The thumbnail-like version doesn't shrink as well when the screen is too wide. —Pengo talk · contribs 12:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No scrollbar in the thumbnail version for me. --ais523 15:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * which browser + version are you using? —Pengo talk · contribs 09:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"Did you mean...?" service after search.
Many times I end up mispelling a certain country's name, or a scientific term. Instead of getting a screen with commonly mispelled words that might associate with what I was talking about, I simply get a, "Sorry, this article does not exist." Wikipedia should implement a "Did you mean..." service, similar to that of Google.

Just a suggestion.

And hopefully this is the right place to be putting suggestion.

Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Safesaxa (talk • contribs) 17:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * First, please type ~&#126; after comments you make on discussion pages, to insert your signature. I believe that much more advanced search functions exist on MediaWiki than are currently available on Wikipedia, but the search function is deliberately kept simple for sever load reasons. One possible workaround is to use a Google search instead (you can type site:en.wikipedia.org in the search box to limit the search to Wikipedia). --ais523 16:19, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * More specifically, use google with site:en.wikipedia.org as one of the terms. If you get no hits, remove the site:, and Google will give you a "did you mean?".  Click on the term you meant, and add site: back to the search term, and you should get the Wikipedia hits you're looking for.  Granted, that's kind of involved, but it gets reasonably high quality results, and gets them now.  (as an aside...  why doesn't Google give you a "did you mean?" when you use site:?  sure, maybe it's doing a site-specific did-you-mean, but if that gets no hits, it should fall back to the generic data set)  --Interiot 16:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Google does "did you mean?" for me... actually... that's because i do a site search in a different way. This is my browser home page: google (you might want to scrap the .au). Though I agree with the original poster, that Wikipedia's own search feature could be much improved, but I guess that'd take someone to do some work on it. —Pengo talk · contribs 09:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC) (my RfA)

Numbers in image url
What is the purpose of the numbers /#/##/ in the url of images, for example: /4/f5/ or /3/14/ ? Shinobu 14:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it's to spread the load amongst the various image servers. I know from experience that no matter which numbers you enter there, the image works. You may get a more detailed or more correct response at WP:VPT. --ais523 14:48, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * WP:VPT redirects here, it's a shortcut to this page. Also, changing the numbers doesn't necessarily work. Example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Firefox_logo.png shows the image, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/66/Firefox_logo.png doesn't. The numbers represent folders. However, I don't know how the images are sorted, how they get into the folders they're in. I've always wondered this myself, and hope that somebody who knows will answer this. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 21:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * These numbers are the first nibble and the first byte of the MD5 hash of the filename; see includes/ImageFunctions.php. --cesarb 01:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

@WP:VPT redirects here: Yes. That's why the question is re-asked here :-)
 * Sorry, I didn't know that it was copied from elsewhere, it didn't say. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 20:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone seems to have copied my answer from WP:HD, which does not redirect here... It seems that changing the numbers works on svg files but not png files, which is what confused me (I've tried changing the numbers around in svg file URLs and it always seems to work). --ais523 15:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I assume the folders are used to prevent ill effects from folders containing too many files? But how come that sometimes a wrong number still works? Shouldn't you technically speaking receive a 404 in that case? Shinobu 02:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you have an example? I don't think that should ever work.  Dragons flight 02:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, they are to prevent performance problems which can happen when a directory has too many files. It's a common technique on Unix (it's used by the squid cache, for instance). A wrong number should never work; the file simply isn't there. --cesarb 13:47, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Arial_sample.svg/220px-Arial_sample.svg.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Arial_sample.svg/220px-Arial_sample.svg.png

Shinobu 15:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That's strange. Every number combination works. But that is a thumbnail, I wonder if that has something to do with it. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 20:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I recall reading somewhere that, when a thumbnail is not found (404), a script automatically generates the thumbnail. That script probably doesn't care that you are in the wrong directory. In fact, checking just now, the first one has a date of Sep 18, while the second one seems to be dynamically generated. The first one is the one in the correct directory. --cesarb 18:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Downloadable skins
Is there anywhere that I can download more skins for my wiki? I want to create my own skin, but I want to see some other skins first for ideas. Thanks, Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 21:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There's a bunch at Gallery of user styles. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 20:13, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I need LocalSettings.php file
Hi, I installed mediawiki to my pc. I want to get enwiki´s LocalSettings.php file. help! Who can help me? I think that english wikipedia or other language wikiproject admins can help me. I need LocalSettings.php file in wikiproject servers for references. --  WonYong ( Talk /  Contrib ) 09:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You don't want that file, at all, given that it doesn't contain a huge amount of useful information. In fact, it doesn't contain a huge amount, full stop. Nor would the Wikimedia settings initialisation files be of use; the setup here is so incredibly different from most other wikis that you're really better off getting on the mediawiki-l mailing list and asking for help there. 164.11.204.52 22:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Articles truncated during editing
Several times recently I have made a minor edit to some lengthy article, only to notice later that my edit has somehow truncated the article (chopped it at some random point, in mid flow, so that the last part of the article is completely lost). I am fairly certain I didn't do this by accident, but that it's a bug somewhere. I recall seeing a note somewhere that this was a known bug in some browsers, but I can't find it now and I don't recall IE being mentioned (I use IE 6). It's very annoying, and a couple of times has only been spotted by other editors who have fortunately reverted. (Incidentally, to anyone reading: when you revert an edit PLEASE explain why in the edit comment). Does anyone know the status of this bug as far as IE is concerned, and what, if anything, can be done about it? Matt 12:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC).


 * Do you use Google Toolbar? --Splarka (rant) 07:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The Google Toolbar bug involved a particular version of Mozilla Firefox, IIRC, and has already been fixed (it doesn't show up when you download the latest version of Firefox and the Toolbar, so I assume it is fixed). I never heard anything about it involving Internet Explorer. Which articles where you editing? Which browser, OS, etc. do you use? That can help us pinpoint the issue. Tito xd (?!?) 07:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I don't use Google Toolbar. I'm using IE 6 under Windows XP. Two edits that truncated that I can remember now were: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_human_spaceflights%2C_1961-1986&oldid=77337817 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sharon_Osbourne&oldid=76618513 (The first of these was a formatting change that actually didn't really do what I wanted anyway; don't worry about the buggy syntax in the formatting change I made, it's only the truncation I'm querying.) Both edits were later fixed by reverting, one by me and one by another user. Matt 10:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC).

Nothing showing up in "What links here"
The image Image:Vacuum polarization.png is linked to from (at least) the pages Virtual particle, Quantum electrodynamics, and Vacuum polarization, but when I click "What links here" in the toolbox on the image page, I am shown: "No pages link to Image:Vacuum polarization.png". What's up? A database problem? --Lambiam Talk 15:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Image:Vacuum polarization.png is the image description page, not the image itself. "What links here" from the description page shows pages linking to the description, not pages including the image.  There's a list at the bottom of the description page of pages that include the image (which I assume is generated from the "what links here" database).  Other than this list on the image page, I don't know how to get a list of pages including an image (although there is almost certainly some syntax to do this with Special:Whatlinkshere).-- Rick Block (talk) 16:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have seen that, except there is so much junk on that page... --Lambiam Talk 21:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Stub category alphabetization of firstname/lastname problems
Category:Japanese artist stubs sorting is screwed up. For example the first entry, Akihiro Yamada should be under Y not A (Yamada is the family name). I went to Akihiro Yamada page and made sure that all the stubs and cats had a |Yamada, Akihiro inside the braces, but it didn't help. Does anyone know how I can fix this? Thank you Zargulon 15:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Template:Japan-artist-stub does not take a sort key as an argument (and looking at a few other stub templates, they don't seem to either). This has been brought up before at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting and is apparently viewed as not worth the trouble.  -- Rick Block (talk) 16:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Featured star disappears
Elagabalus is a featured article: I added the template for the star to show in the upper right hand corner, , but the star disappears. Sandy 16:23, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Same problem at Formula One. Can anyone figure out what technical glitch is making the featured star go away?  Sandy 16:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The star is only displayed in the default skin (monobook). Is this the skin you're using?  -- Rick Block (talk) 16:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've never changed a skin, so I must be using the default, and I'm going through all of the (400 +) FAs without inline citations, and those are so far the only two which don't show the star. Sandy 17:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Another one - Ido. I think it has to do with the infoboxes in the articles.  Sandy 17:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It must be a browser problem. For me, the stars are there in Firefox and not in Internet Explorer. — Mets 501  (talk) 17:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I use IE6: all the other articles show the star fine.  Sandy 17:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Got it. The stars on far right..beyond the screen. Scroll further right to see. This happens with pages with wider than screen boxes or text. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem is only with IE 6.0 and not firefox. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Then it's no real problem... nobody with any sense uses (bleccch) IE anyway! :-)  But, while I was investigating this myself, I attempted validating one of the pages in question, to ensure that it was using valid code in the first place, and found that there's a validation error in the table code for the infobox: it had valign="center" where "center" is not a correct value for "valign"; it should be "middle". *Dan T.* 18:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I fixed the template code (Infobox sports league); the Formula One page validates now. *Dan T.* 18:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. What is making those three article screens so wide?  Sandy 18:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Found the problem: I fixed the first, but the second two have tables that are too wide:  shouldn't those be changed ? Sandy 18:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Here are the tables causing the problem:

Activating the mapsource extension on Wikipedia
Kvaleberg.com seems to be downs these days, thus I suggested we activate the extension on Wikipedia. Based on coordinates, the extension leads to a list of links to maps, similar to the ISBN links based on Book sources (see WikiProject Geographical coordinates for full details]]). -- User:Docu
 * Something for Bugzilla instead... I don't see how this would be objectionable here. Tito xd (?!?) 22:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Konqueror problems
- somehow, it won't display the text properly. ~iNVERTED | Rob (Talk | Contribs) 16:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Googling WP
I ignore the built-in search; it's difficult, slow, occasionally disabled, and not what I'm accustomed to use -- which is, naturally, Google. I add site:en.wikipedia.org to my search terms and off I go. I have trouble, though, in 2 circumstances:


 * I often want to search within namespace. Mostly, I want to constrain to projectspace, which has the unfortunate prefix of "Wikipedia:". Well, every page contains this word, so the constraint fails. Can we have some sort of unique namespace tag in every page's HTML META tag?


 * I often want to search for existing images with Google's Image Search. This generally balls up in 2 ways. First, WP breaks furiously out of Google's frame, which disrupts my process; second, I usually end up on the internal storage page for some thumbnail -- and since I'm out of frame I'm guaranteed not to have a link to anything better. This means much direct editing in the location bar. If we're going to f*ck with Google anyhow, why don't we supply the image description page?

Sure would like help here. John Reid 18:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A wikipedia namespace search can be done by adding  to the google search.  I'm not sure what you mean about the image search.  -- Rick Block (talk) 19:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I use <tt>inurl:wiki/category</tt>, though somehow even that picks up other namespaces sometimes. --Interiot 23:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

MARKUP CRISIS: NEW http://wikipedia.org/ INTIAL PAGE MISSING SEARCH BUTTON IN SOME BROWSERS
The initial http://wikipedia.org/ page (puzzle globe) as viewed in Netscape 7 and Safari 1 now lacks a submit button next to the search field and language pulldown.

There is also a spacing problemm with the logos (Wiktionary, etc.) at the bottom of the page.

It is a true scandal in Wikidom that this most prominent of pages could go live without excruciatingly thorough QA testing!

What happend to watermark image id="EnWpMpBook2"?
It dissappeared this weekend systemwide in all wikis. It's used on alternative mainpage designs here, but at ka: it was on the frontpage. Does someone know the reason? Would appreciate. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 14:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

math symbols & pictures problem
Pix may be blocked - will recheck. Recent problem. I have RH9, Mozilla.

Math symbols in text, sometimes in LaTex etc often are distorted into what looks like random hashmarks or bird scratch. Many formulae can't be read because symbols in Greek, or special math symbols (like Intercept symbol, logical Not-, etc) are dropped. - I can read generic PDFs with same symbols etc.

wikipedia and wiki quote....
Is wiki pedia and wiki quote are the Same ...?? I just want to put my website link to wiki Quote... How can I do that....

deletedpage
deletedpage has been vandalised to remove a new feature which would identify the date which the template was added. Could someone who actually understand how these things work please revert the vandalism. &mdash; Dunc|&#9786; 17:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I do not see any vandalism on that template. (Liberatore, 2006). 17:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) It's not vandalism, it's a wheel war (as editing protected pages is an admin action). It seems multiple administrators are using rollback on each other's edits there (also an admin action). You could always try to calm down the debate on the talk page, or join the wheel war yourself (not recommended); probably the best venue is Template talk:deletedpage. (I know you know that already; still, someone else reading this might not.) --ais523 17:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, User:Duncharris is the one using admin rollback repeatedly in order to implement his contested brand-new change, and accusing administrators of all sorts of bad-faith actions. —Centrx→talk &bull; 17:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems that there's rollback on both sides (although not from Centrx) on this; the wheel war seems to have stopped for now, so just take it to talk/test it in a personal sandbox to sort it out. --ais523 17:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There was one at the end from Phil after it had been clearly explained to Dunc that his change was based on an erroneous understanding of template transclusion. —Centrx→talk &bull; 18:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand how it works, and it won't work, at least not as well as you think it does, duncharris. To my understanding, the  -like magic words may not be perfectly real time, but not what you want.  You may be thinking of how Special:Cite works, where in MediaWiki:Cite text those time variables are the time of the last edit of the article, but it only works there!  There the time variables are only current if enclosed in tags.   But trying to use them outside the cite text won't do anything besides show the current time/date, esspecially not on a simple template.  --Kevin_b_er 03:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

My cache administrator is nobody?
I wouldn't have brought this error here and just ignored it, if it wasnt for that claim. So far today, I have recieved the following message when I click the preview now button on Wikipedia 3 times now today. ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CFPL-FM&action=submit

The following error was encountered:

* Zero Sized Reply

Squid did not receive any data for this request.

Your cache administrator is nobody. Generated Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:01:35 GMT by sq13.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE4)

Nobody is also made as an email link. Normal? Just thought I'd point it out. -- Reaper  X  00:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for dealing with collateral damage: Flag IPs as shared.
Collateral damage is a major problem affecting many editors, including myself. Allowing anonymous edits causes problems when shared or dynamic IPs are blocked, and autoblocks are also common.

A simple solution would be to prohibit anonymous editing and removing autoblocks. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be implemented, as admins seem to welcome anonymous vandals, and the consensus is that autoblocks do more good than harm, since the majority of IPs are static (though I believe the majority of users edit from dynamic/shared IPs).

Although the situation has recently improved with the new blocking options, autoblocks are still common, and sometimes admins forget to use the new blocking options when blocking a shared/dynamic IP.

Hence my suggestion: allow bureaucrats to flag and unflag IPs as shared. This is how flagging IPs as shared will help solve the problem of collateral damage:

When an admin attempts to block a shared/dynamic IP, a notice will appear informing the admin that the IP is shared, and the new blocking options will be enabled by default (the admin can disable them if he wishes to). When blocking a static IP, the new blocking options will be disabled by default, but the admin can enable them if he wishes to.

When an admin blocks a registered user, they do not know the registered user's IP, but the MediaWiki software knows. A notice will appear informing the admin that the registered user is editing from a shared/dynamic IP, and the autoblock will be disabled by default. When blocking a registered user editing from a static IP, the autoblock will be enabled by default.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds interesting. As a first step, there should be good guidance for admins. As a newbie admin, can someone point me to the best page where the new blocking options are documented in detail (options "Block anonymous users only" and "Prevent account creation" in restricted page Special:Blockip)? I started at m:Help:Administration and found nothing about these options. Is this underdocumented or am I just a dumb newbie :). These options should also be explained in the guiding text of Special:Blockip (at least there should be a pointer). --Ligulem 16:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The blocking policy has some information about the blocking options. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 11:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be nice if the autoblocker would turn off when blocking AOL IPs (this can by done with a simply PHP regexp) and some code, rather than having our few crats have to flag thousands of IPs. Voice -of- All  18:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Not all shared/dynamic IPs are from AOL. I use StarHub, a Singaporean ISP, and my IP is shared by 300,000 users. However, I agree that it may put a strain on bureaucrats (perhaps let all admins flag and unflag IPs). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 11:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * CIDR's come to mind. 'crats (or whoever) could "flag" whole ranges. This would cover the AOL case. So this would probably end in doing a list of ranges. --Ligulem 21:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Allowing bureaucrats to flag and unflag IP ranges (not just single IPs) would make it more convenient for them. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 11:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Strange problem
I hope someone can help me with this. Whenever I go to Commons, almost always the links to my user page, talk page, preferences page, watchlist, and contributions are moving to the upper left corner if I move the mouse arrow over them. When I go back to en.wikipedia I have the same. Only when I restart IE everything is ok again. Reloading or clearing my cache doesn't help. I don't encounter it with other Wikimedia sites, only when I go to Commons. I use IE 6.0 and both on Commons and here I use the default skin. Garion96 (talk) 17:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: Don't use IE, because it is terrible. ~iNVERTED | Rob (Talk | Contribs) 18:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Is perhaps Village Pump on Commons a better place to ask? Alan Pascoe 19:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a bug in Internet Explorer which causes this behavior intermittently. Please contact Microsoft for technical support. (Try the IE 7 beta, perhaps it's fixed.) --Brion 21:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, so it's IE's fault. I will try the beta and see how it goes. Thanks, Garion96 (talk) 00:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * BTW, IE7 in Windows Vista has a similar problem, it always aligns the the personal tools to the left. This doesn't affect me though, since I use Firefox. Just thought I'd mention that. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 21:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Strange maths glitch
I've noticed a few mathematical equations have reciently had a tiny little dash after them, for example $$A + B = 0$$ renders as $$A + B = 0$$, with a tiny little dash after the 0. However $$A+B=0$$ renders as $$A+B=0$$, note no spaces in equation this time. --Salix alba (talk) 08:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I only see this with MathML enabled, not in the other math modes I tried. Kusma (討論) 08:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed seems to happen when it renders in html and not PNG. See bugzilla. --Salix alba (talk) 11:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright tag
I hit the button too early on Expbolt.jpg, and didn't put in my tag. A few attempts later and I still couldn't put in a tag. I made a new one with a tag, and would like to have this one deleted. Muchos. --Zeizmic 16:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Tagged . For future reference, you can request deletion of a mistakenly created page or uploaded file by adding to it if you are the only contributor. --ais523 16:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Deleted. --Ligulem 16:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Unexpected talk page redirect
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_spaceflights, click on the "Discussion" tab, and you'll see that you're actually taken to Talk:List of human spaceflights by program, which is the talk page for a different article (and one that the original page does not actually redirect to). Has something got screwed here, or is this by design? If by design then it's very confusing isn't it? How would one go about turning off this redirection?


 * This is a redirect. You can remove the redirect instruction by editing . Just delete the " #redirect ... " and reclaim that talk page by adding your talk comments as you see fit. Technically, talk pages can be redirected separatley from article pages (although, this is normally not done). --Ligulem 23:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Ligulem, that's great, thanks for your help. Matt 01:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC).

Spaces around parameter pipes or not--is this standardized?
I recently ran into a problem regarding spaces around parameter pipes. When doing references (footnote format with "ref" tags), spaces around the pipe characters were just fine. However, when I had spaces around the pipe characters for parameters with an image, the parameters no longer functioned. Is this asepct of pipes for parameters standardized or not? If so, what is the MANDATORY standard usage--the one that must be used or things will not work? If it is not standardized, why is it not standardized?Dogface 17:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For template calls, you can do  where   represents an arbitrary number of white space chars (including zero). White space chars are spaces, newlines (!), tabs and the like. There is no standard for putting whitespace chars. Use just common sense (if nobody disagrees with your style on an article then that is the standard :) --Ligulem 20:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It didn't work because the Wikipedia software assumes the whitespace part of the parameter. As far as I can tell, not using whitespace is standard in most shortish templates. Infoboxes are the exception. - Mgm|(talk) 09:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A problem with HighBeam Research?
I think there may be a problem with links to articles on HighBeam Research (www.highbeam.com). When I attempt to load an article that used to load in the past, my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.7) stops working. Normal operation is restored only by rebooting my computer. I cannot tell if this is just a problem with my equipment and software. I have been able to fix the link in question by linking to a copy on Find Articles (www.findarticles.com), which works fine. Alan Pascoe 13:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Some HighBeam links are OK. As an example of the problem:
 * FindArticles version
 * HighBeam version
 * Alan Pascoe 16:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Try the computing reference desk. - Mgm|(talk) 09:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Upgrade to edit tools
Is there a page that details all of the functions of the improved edit toolbar I now find myself with ? --Charlesknight 20:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The major new one is the table tab. The rest are wiki markup, many repeated in the "wiki markup" section below the edit window. Some description can be found at User:MarkS/Extra_edit_buttons. Gimmetrow 20:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Some of the extra buttons should really not be there, for example, coloured text is generally discouraged, so why have a button to make it easier to insert? Also, there are so many buttons now it is confusing, particularly as many of them are very basic in function. If you ask me, the only useful extra one is the table one (which is very useful). Martin 21:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The colored text button was removed almost immediately for that reason. Perhaps you need to reload the javascript. Gimmetrow 21:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * May I make a suggestion? When I click the "Make Table" button a window opens to set the alignment you type the appropriate word in, may I suggest making this a drop down menu instead?  --pjb007 11:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Return in Edit Summary should not submit form
True, this could be a browser issue. (Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6) Twice today I've accidentally hit "return" in the Edit Summary box and had the page prematurely submitted. If a change was recently made which caused this behaviour (I'd guess that would be making the revision comment a form on its own with a single text variable as its only contents), it should be reverted or adjusted for. True, it's also not impossible that this is a new quirk of mine. But even if this is not a new feature, the user should need to reasonably positive indicate the submission of a form; accidental hitting of "return" (mistyped for the quotation marks beside it, I believe) ideally would not cause form submission. Just something to investigate and think about, and improve if easy. --SportWagon 19:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Hitting "return" in the "Edit Summary" definitely does submit the form--not ideal
 * 2) I cannot confirm if this is new, nor immediately how browser-specific (possibly option-specific) it is
 * --SportWagon 19:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes it should. Type the edit, press tab, type edit summary, hit enter. Done. If enter didn't work on the edit summary box, it would require a lot more tab-presses (or shock horror, moving the mouse). ~iNVERTED | Rob (Talk | Contribs) 19:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is the standard behavior of html forms, as far as I know: typing enter on any element that is not a textarea is equivalent to pressing the submit button (or the selected button, if any). I find it quite useful. (Liberatore, 2006). 19:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, now I've confirmed what you say at other places I wouldn't expect it. Given the ease with which return can be typed instead of single or double quote, I'm surprised I don't run afoul of it more often.  When there are multiple submission choices, it seems defaulting to an invalid choice might be the appropriate thing to do (making sure no contents are lost).  But that's debateable, so I hereby remove my complaint/suggestion.  I just started hitting return instead of quote today, I guess.  Most of the time I don't run afoul of this, here or elsewhere. --SportWagon 19:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

1) It's a super time-saver for some people, so it won't be going away. 2) Even though it's a standard browser feature, I think it's possible to override it with some Javascript...     individual users should be able to tweak their monobook.js to do what they want. 3) since it's a feature that works on most browsers, and on almost all websites, I don't think we should change the default unless there's a really good reason. --Interiot 21:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This is not only the standard behavior of web forms, it's extremely useful and is how I make every single one of my edits. I'd be extremely annoyed if this were changed, as I suspect would thousands of other Wikipedia users. --Brion 21:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * One simple workaround is to learn to use a UK keyboard; in the design I'm using at the moment, double-quote is safely tucked away above the 2 and single-quote is two keys away from Return (with # in between). The main risk here appears to be wikilinks, because ] is right next to Return (luckily, in a way that makes Return harder to hit by mistake). --ais523 07:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Should this section be deleted now? Or perhaps title changed to Return in Edit Summary submits form, with a trivial section indicating "That's not a bug! That's a feature!". In my defence, the references given indicate that the feature becomes less desirable as the form becomes more complex. IMHO, browsers should make it easy for me to turn the feature off. (Problem: then it becomes impossible to submit some pages--not here, but in general). I nearly always preview before submitting, and often change the Edit Summary early in the process to make sure I don't forget.--SportWagon 17:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Just a simple suggestion, but maybe this could be an option in a user's preferences. I agree that this is useful, and should definitely be activated by default, but since there are some users that don't like this, maybe there should be an option to turn it off. I realize that some javascript could turn it off, but a lot of people don't know javascript. Also, even if somebody does write a script, some users know only how to view and edit articles, and would be too confused to edit their monobook.js (or any other skin js) file. A preference option would be easy for them to disable it. This is just a suggestion. I like this behavior, and don't care either way whether this suggestion gets implemented or not. It might be useful though. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 21:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

A user can adjust his or her Preferences so that when an edit is about to be posted without an edit summary, the user is prompted to first enter a summary. Would selecting that setting address this issue? Newyorkbrad 21:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I doubt it. At this point, they are already in the edit box. It probably still submits the article when you press enter. If it didn't, I'm sure it would be considered a bug. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 00:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW, that preference would not have helped me. I had composed a partial summary, and accidentally hit return (Enter) when I meant to hit a quotation mark.  I think you could avoid javascript, and have the user profile on the CGI side decide how such a "Submit" is processed (first make sure it is identified differently from each of the three buttons).  "Save", "Preview" or "Changes" would be easy to implement, but also desirable might be "Refresh".  That last option would be reasonably equivalent to not submitting, except for a slight delay.  Of course, at this point, this is a wiki issue, not a wikipedia issue.  (I.e. I should contemplate Mediawiki Support Desk.--SportWagon 17:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Preference Show preview on first edit sounds promising; but isn't really. It simply shows the page above the edit box first time.  I like that.  (since my silly browser won't find in text box!)  But it doesn't mean "always preview first edit" as I thought it might.--SportWagon 19:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary did not seem to work when I first tried it. But it works (but previous comments still apply).  Perhaps you need a logout before preferences take effect?--SportWagon 19:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Software update history?
Is there a place on WP that announces updates to the software on which WP runs? Was there a recent change that adds more buttons above the edit box? Finell (Talk) 18:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Per the second question: there was a recent change at MediaWiki:Monobook.js, which added buttons. --Ligulem 18:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I would still appreciate, from someone, knowing where one can go to see recent changes to the software. For example, a software rev in late 2005 clobbered my signature, which used the documented Signature box trick on my User profile page. It took me quite awhile to find out what happened. Thanks again. Finell (Talk) 19:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You can see the recent changes to MediaWiki by looking at the release notes in subversion. The developers keep a pretty good track of what they've updated. Hope this is what you're looking for. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 22:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Special:Version, which also lists the revision number from SVN. SVN root is http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/phase3 (browsing ). --Ligulem 22:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That is what I was looking for. Thanks. Finell (Talk) 16:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Catagory list...
The catagory list at the bottom of each page sometimes obscures the articles. I once seen it in the middle of a few of these. Martial Law 07:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Just looked here. Its now in the middle of this page. Martial Law 17:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Now it is back where it belongs. What is going on ? Server acting up ? Martial Law 17:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I usually get this when I'm scrolling, try reloading the article if it's a problem . - Mgm|(talk) 09:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

New feature doesn't seem to work
Hi. Just now, I tried to use one of the new buttons in the edit box, namelly the "make table" button (first from the left). Well, it tried to open a new window in my browser, then froze my computer and caused me to loose a lot (and I mean a lot) of work. Needless to say, I have no intention of going anywhere near that button again. Has anyone else had problems, or was it just me? Regards, Redux 18:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, I tried it in Internet Explorer and it crashed. Normally, I use Firefox but don't want to try, and crash it and lose my other tabs.  What browser are you using? --Aude (talk) 18:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Internet Explorer as well. Seems that it is not compatible with IE, then.  Redux 19:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that's right. I just tried the table button in Firefox, and thank goodness it works and didn't crash my browser.  Nonetheless, I think the table button should be removed from those edit tools until the bug is fixed. --Aude (talk) 19:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It's reported on Bugzilla. --Aude (talk) 19:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Great. Thanks.  And I agree with your suggestion, especially since IE is still the #1 browser in use throughout the world.   Let's hope that it gets debugged soon. :)  Redux 19:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've disabled the button for now. Bypass your cache [Mozilla/Safari: hold down Shift while clicking Reload (or press Ctrl-Shift-R), IE: press Ctrl-F5, Opera/Konqueror: press F5]. --Ligulem 21:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * At fr. when I press "table" in IE7 CDR1, nothing happens, possible some kind of exeption handeling. It may be useful to add a clause to the function that adds the button to test for window.ActiveXObject and return if true. Voice -of- All  21:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * We could just add a simple IE blocker thingy:

var if = (self.navigator.appName.indexOf("Explorer") == -1); if(if) { do stuff; }


 * or to be even safer and only use it on Firefox:

var if = (self.navigator.appName == "Netscape");
 * So we can still use the table maker, but not on IE. GeorgeMoney (talk) 00:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

DEAD SIG !
The No wiki template on the Montauk Project article has killed my sig. I don't know if this will function here. Martial Law 00:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See the mess on the Montauk Project talk page, Re.:"Removal of Black Projects banner". That template has killed my sig on that talk page, but NOT on the history page. Martial Law 00:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Can this be fixed ? Appreciate it. Martial Law 00:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like there is simply an unmatched tag on the page, a < /nowiki> tag should fix it. —  xaosflux  Talk 01:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Corrected glitch w/ this info. Again, appreciate the assisstance. Martial Law 01:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Update Special:Statistics page
"WikiCharts: 100 most viewed pages" link needs to be updated to this. - RoyBoy 800 03:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Done --Ligulem 08:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Sig help
As my sig shows-i need help with it. Where would i find it or how do i do it?&#91;&#91;Mitchazenia .2]] 18:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You need to add  tags around the the first 2   so that it doesn't close the link yet. Right now, your code looks like  . It should look like  . That will display &#91;&#91;Mitchazenia .2  ]] If that's not how you want it to show, just tell me how you want it to look and I will help you fix it. Hope that helps, Shards of  metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 20:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * And for colors?&#91;&#91;Mitchazenia .2]] 20:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you wanted your name to be green, you would put  around your name (or the part you want green).   will show  &#91;&#91;Mitchazenia .2   ]]. However, you should use the hexadecimal code for a color instead of it's name. You can find colors and their hexadecimal values at List of colors. Feel free to ask if you need more help. Shards of  metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 00:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have a new sig as you see, but i need to know how to split it into sections with different links.1998&#39;s Mitchazenia (joking) 14:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want to have your username blue, linking to your user page, and (joking) green, and linking to your talk page, the following code should do the trick:  That produces  1998&#39;s Mitchazenia   (joking)  If you still have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Sorry it took so long for me to reply. Shards of  metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 02:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks.&#91;&#91;User:HurricaneCraze32&#124;&lt;span style="color: red"&gt;HurricaneCraze32&lt;/span&gt; &#91;&#91;User talk:Mitchazenia&#124;&lt;span style="color: maroon"&gt;aka Mitchazenia&lt;/span&gt;]]]] 13:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Modifying the navigation menu on the left
Hi there, guys. We have our own WikiMedia running at work. We need to modify the 'navigation' menu on the left. Is this menu actually a special page written in wiki markup and then parsed into HTML, or is it written differently? How can we edit the menu? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zajcev (talk • contribs) 11:36, 27 September 2006.
 * Hi Zajcev, the sidebar can be a way to customise the links in your MediaWiki installation. But as of the current version, you can only customise the links above the search box using the MediaWiki namespace. --Shinjiman &#8660; &#9832; 14:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your answer. I'm sorry I forgot to sing my post. So if I understand you well, in next version of MediaWiki, we will be able to directly edit MediaWiki:Sidebar? If yes, I see that as a very user-friendly way of doing what I need. So for now, I should modify the menu via namespace, but I have no idea how. Is this what I should read to learn about it? --Zajcev 14:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Have you looked at this page? --Aude (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I haven't. Thank you very much! --Zajcev 09:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * We can use the Pagename to link a page which links to the MediaWiki website. --Shinjiman &#8660; &#9832; 13:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Searching
I created an article entitled "Pinkham Notch". However, the article does not show up when the word "Pinkham" searched. How can this be fixed? -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sturgeonman (talk • contribs)


 * If you mean the search box on Wikipedia, that can be achieved by redirecting Pinkham to Pinkham Notch. --Interiot 00:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Coordinates templates not working
The coordinates templates have not been working for a couple of days. Clicking a link produces an error page. Alan Pascoe 21:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * These templates depend on an external wiki, since the required extension isn't installed locally. That wiki seems to currently be broken. --cesarb 22:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Mystery watchlist addition
The article Great Computer Challenge has mysteriously appeared on my watchlist. I can see from Talk:Great Computer Challenge that this happened to others as well. What's going on? -- SCZenz 21:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Not sure. It appears as if it's related to the page move vandalism. — Mets 501  (talk) 21:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Somebody worked out the details, apparently. See Talk:Great Computer Challenge. -- SCZenz 23:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

rollback oddity
Check the deleted history (administrator access required) of talk:Web 2.0 on wheels. It seems clicked the rollback button right after I reverted the page-move vandalism by. However, the rollback button isn't supposed to work unless at least two different users have edited the page. Strange, huh? --Ixfd64 19:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit links being bumped out of position by a series of right aligned images
I'm not sure why the edit links seem to get shifted out of position by a series of right-aligned images.

Originally the images were zig-zagged left and right throughout the article, but it was messy to look at, especially when printed out, so I aligned them all to the right, but now thesection 'edit' links do not line up with the right sections. Please see RepRap Project.

Is this a bug, and how do I get around this? - CharlesC 17:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a VPT FAQ; see How to fix bunched up edit links. --ais523 17:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

thanks.

At the risk of asking the obvious...
... any though to giving admins the capability to block specific users from specific articles, rather than the coarse mechanisms of page protection and user blocking? Or would this be too much of a headache for the servers, and the current means of "don't touch this page/subject or you'll be blocked" adequate?

--EngineerScotty 00:39, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know about the technical aspects of it, but if a person is so disruptive to one article that they must be blocked from it, they will probably be similarly disruptive to other articles as well. —Centrx→talk &bull; 01:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Arbcom has handed out bans like this in the past, without needing the techinical bits to back it up (see, Requests for arbitration/Admin enforcement requested... if the person ignores the ban, then they're blocked from all articles for some time).  A community/admin initiated ban like this was recently given, see Community probation.  The technical bits certainly aren't necessary to do this sort of thing, but they might be useful if the ban is related to a small handful of pages rather than the more usual "all pages related to X" bans.  --Interiot 05:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * (In reply to EngineerScotty) Good idea. Maybe also per namespace. Another interesting thing would be the exact opposite: Specifically allow user U to edit fully protected page P. Could be useful for high use template pages or stuff in MediaWiki (like MediaWiki:Common.css). Probably not so useful for main space, though. Idea for implementation: a special page per user (User:Ligulem/editaccess ?), editable only by admins, containing something like (example):

ALLOW: MediaWiki:*.css template:cite web template:cite book User:Ligulem      #See below DENY: Bicycle helmet    #user is obsessed with this article, otherwise useful edits <signed by admin XX> User:*            #per request of the community <signed admin YY>
 * The ALLOW clause would enable the user to edit the listed pages even if they are fully protected, while the DENY would protect the listed pages against edits by this user even for unprotected pages. Entries in ALLOW should override entries in DENY. --Ligulem 08:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion page not properly moved during page move
Not long ago someone moved "Jay Cohen" to "Jay R. Cohen" ("Jay Cohen" and "Jay R. Cohen" are two different people). New article text was posted at "Jay Cohen." However, the discussion page did not get moved correctly. When I click on the "discussion" tab in the "Jay Cohen" article, I am taken to the discussion for "Jay R. Cohen." If I click on the "article" tab next, I am taken to the "Jay R. Cohen" article. How do I fix this? SmartGuy 15:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * By default, moving a page redirects its talk if it exists. To fix it, go to Jay Cohen, click the 'discussion' tab, go back on the redirect (using the link in the 'Redirected from' line near the top of the page, and edit that talk page to not be a redirect (for instance, blanking, replacing with, or replacing with a comment). --ais523 15:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Got it, thanks. SmartGuy 15:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What you described originally, by the way, seems to be exactly how a discussion page is properly moved. What did you expect to be left in the place of the discussion page when it was moved? Something besides a redirect to the new location? *confused*. --Splarka (rant) 07:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I expected that nothing would be left in place of the discussion page. In the instance that an article is replaced by a #REDIRECT, then I would expect that the old discussion page would be replaced with a #REDIRECT to the new discussion page.  In this case, where the old article was replaced with an entirely different article, I expected that a new, blank discussion page would have been created. SmartGuy 20:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Q Demographics
Hi! I'm wondering if anybody has a free! program to create those nice population charts. I mean where you have the ages 0-100(?) in the middle (y-axis) and the data as bars from the middle to the left or right (girls in red, left; boys in blue, right). I couldn't figure out how to do that in Excel. Maybe that works too? Thanks! -- Hedwig in Washington (TALK) 02:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If I'm wrong HERE, please give me a little hint! 8-) -- Hedwig in Washington (TALK) 11:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The HINT is there = WP:RD/C, general computer / IT questions (Wikipedia related stay here at the Village).
 * HINNT n° 2 = the same applies for the next section. -- DLL .. T 18:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Sorry for being OT! -- Hedwig in Washington (TALK) 00:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia very slow
Hi, I'd like to know if anybody is having the same problem as I: Wikipedia is taking ages to load. This has been happening only recently, and I think it is either my Internet connection, or a sudden rise in popularity of Wikipedia, so that there are too many Users using it at the same time. For example, the main page took me exactly 68 seconds to load, the others seem almost as long. |  AndonicO 00:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Never mind, it's better now, I wonder what it was. | AndonicO 00:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This has been happening on at least 3 other wikiprojects (wikibooks, wikiversity, and now wikicommons) over the past few days too. Anyone know what's going on? -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 00:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Same here, what I do is just open up a lot of tabs on FireFox, and then go away from the computer and come back a minute later and most are open. — Mets 501 (talk) 01:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * See for a possible reason. --Splarka (rant) 09:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Undelete images
How is this featre set up on a wiki (MediaWiki 1.7.1). I can't find any info about it on Meta or mediawiki.org tnx &mdash;213.94.235.190 22:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, once images are deleted, they're gone. You may be able to still view them if Google or some other search engine has cached the pages on which they appeared, although it most likely won't be the original, full-resolution version.  The only option left would be to re-upload the image, having determined why it was deleted in the first place by searching the Deletion Log.  If the image is inappropriate or violates a copyright, it will simply get deleted again by an administrator. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 17:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * See DefaultSettings.php for all configurable options; the relevant bit is:

/** * By default deleted files are simply discarded; to save them and * make it possible to undelete images, create a directory which * is writable to the web server but is not exposed to the internet. * * Set $wgSaveDeletedFiles to true and set up the save path in * $wgFileStore['deleted']['directory']. */ $wgSaveDeletedFiles = false;
 * Obviously you need to set this up before you delete an image you want to be able to undelete. --Brion 21:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, so I have the folder ("/deletedimages") which is writable. I set $wgSaveDeletedFiles = true; Now what do I set $wgFileStore to? 83.70.211.156 22:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Never mind - I got it 83.71.86.177 22:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

seeking information
What is Utility chargeback program?
 * Do you mean like this ? Does this have anything to do with Wikipedia?  -- Rick Block (talk) 04:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist - erroneous additions
Not sure if this is the place to discuss etc but

When I click on the

"You have XXXX pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages); you can display and edit the complete list."

link to display all linked pages I have numerous page names in red ( where no page exists).

Looking at the titles they are obvious spoofs and unliklely to have been pages that have ever existed (and I wouldn't have linked to them. Names include:

‎Blamebush ‎Blog ‎Bobby Boulders Presents Bobby's World Starring Bobby Boulders ‎Bobby Boulders Presents The Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit ‎Bobby Boulders Presents Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit ‎Epistemology on undeniable wheels! ‎GOD HATES JEWS (Talk) ‎Kittypedia:5 pillars ‎Kittypedia:Five pillars ‎Kittypedia:Policies and guidelines ‎LOLLOLOLOL (Talk)

and multiple versions where standard page names have ON WHEELS appended

Any idea where they came from or got into my watchlist ?
 * There are two possibilities. One is that the browser caches have been muddled; press Control-F5 (Command-F5 on a Macintosh, or just F5 on some browsers) and look again. If they're still there, then it's a case of pagemove vandalism (which has occasionally been known to add pages to peoples watchlists), and you can sort it out by just removing the entries from your watchlist. --ais523 16:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Doing a reload would do nothing; these are obviously pagemove vandalism leftovers. Just remove them from your watchlist. --cesarb 00:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Centering Equations
How do I center equations in Wikitext? Is there a comprehensive list of Wikitext commands? I browsed the web but could not find anything. I am a novice but it seems to me that Latex is better. Scot.parker 15:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC) Use HTML &lt;center&gt; tags around them. --ais523 15:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Strange IP (66.230.200.125)
I made an edit in an article 30 minutes ago. The edit history says that it was User:66.230.200.125 who edited the article. That is not my IP address, but an address in Tampa, Florida? /82.212.68.183 12:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's possible that you and the Floridian IP were trying to make the same edit, and the Floridian IP got there first. If the edit was exactly the same, the edit-conflict merger would have ignored your edit entirely in that situation (as it made no difference to the page), leaving only the Floridian IP in the edit history. --ais523 13:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is one of our caching proxy servers. The problem was resolved yesterday, shortly after being reported. --Brion

What is a reply path SMS ?
JJ5358 10:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I fear you are in the wrong forum here. This forum is about technical issues regarding Wikipedia. --Ligulem 11:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

spam?
I had a notice of a message. The message mentioned something about a test I performed relating to some trashy Hollywood movie. Never did that. What is going on?
 * Were you perhaps logged on under a different account or not logged in at all (editing anonymously)? — Mets 501 (talk) 01:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[OT] Tim Starling
A pointer for those that don't read the mailing lists. Get well soon! --Ligulem 15:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Special:Ipblocklist and localization
Any idea why the top entry on http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Ipblocklist&offset=20060918112208 isn't in English? --ais523 11:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Now no good following the link above, it was an autoblock and seems to have gone now. --ais523 12:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Apparently the blocklog checks what language the User sets as their Preference default language, and writes the autoblock message in that language. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Watched page
Is it possible to know if a particular page is watched by someone? (not necessarily knowing exactly by who). And if a paged is watched it is possible to know by how many? (again not necessarily knowing exactly by who) Tavilis 10:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Not for "normal" users. There is a page in the Special: namespace that lists unwatched articles, but that's only for administrators. If it was possible to see if a page is watched, spammers and vandals could easily target pages nobody's watching. &mdash;da Pete (ばか) 10:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

A majority of thumbnails not showing.
Not on Wikipedia, but on my wiki. I posted a help request on the proper page on the Meta-Wiki but got no response.

"Images show up fine otherwise, but when I put them into a thumbnail they disappear and link is left in its place. They won't even show up in the gallery. It also seems as though this was not always the case. No images are showing this problem until October 14, 2005.

http://www.khakain.com/wiki2/index.php?title=Special:Newimages"

Apologies if this is not the right area to put this.--150.243.206.139 05:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The only thing I can think of is that maybe you had ImageMagick or the GD library installed, and around October 14, 2005, it/they got removed, leaving you unable to create thumbnails. The only images that show in thumbnails since that date are images that are smaller than or equal to the size of the thumbnail MediaWiki wants to show the images at. That's all I can think of. Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 01:44, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

User page on google
In looking up something on Google I turned up a Wikipedia User Talk page in the Google listing. The link goes to User talk:Pagesofindia. How can this be? And is this O.K.? Mattisse(talk) 00:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, why not? Your talk page and other pages on Wikipedia are indexable. --jh51681 03:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course these particular pages were copyvio spam, so bye bye Mr. Pagesofindia. Dragons flight 03:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I noticed that. Mattisse(talk) 12:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Article gone missing
The article for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has gone missing. Looking it up in WP goes to a "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." page. Now, I know this article existed. The Talk page still exists, and I can even get to its history page, just not the article itself. This isn't vandalism; the most recent diff shows a minor change. There are lots of pages that redirect to it: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and University of Illinois at Urbana are just a few examples. It doesn't appear to have been deleted, at least it's not in the deletion log. So at this point, I can only throw up my hands and say, "Huh?" eaolson 14:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weirdly, the Avoid neologisms project page appears to be in the same state. Talk and History are present, but the main page is not. eaolson 14:08, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Better? I purged the cache for both pages, and it works fine for me now. Prodego  <sup style="color:darkgreen;">talk  14:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks. Didn't know you could do that. I do now. eaolson 14:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I have same on Ziad Jarrah. Sandy 21:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Template Question
I asked this question a little while back and didn't get a satisfactory answer; I thought that maybe since there are different people manning the pump at different times, I might have more success now. Anyway, here is the question:

I am working on another wiki which is being used for a private project. It is using MediaWiki, so the template markup is the same as for WP. Essentially, we are trying to use our wiki to write a book. Some pages on the wiki are sources we are going to use for the book, others are actual book chapters.

I would like to setup a template that I stick at the top of every "book chapter" page, say by typing. The page would then be formatted as follows: the text entered in the rest of the page would be compressed so it was around 80 characters wide, with a margin on the left of about ten or so characters. Then, in the big gap on the right of the page, there would be a "toolbox" which contains various links to different parts of the wiki.

I have been able to do this using  tags, but doing it that way clutters up the page. I would rather just be able to add the template tag at the top, and have the page automatically formatted. Do you have any idea how I could do this?

If there is a better place I could ask this, such as the talk page of a world-renowned template expert, I'd really like to know where that place is. Thanks! --Jim (Talk) 11:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Most likely, you would need to add two templates, one at the top, and another one on the bottom, or modify your sitewide CSS to change the properties of the page (see fr:MediaWiki:Monobook.css for an example of changing background colors, in this case). Tito xd (?!?) 21:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you looking for something similar to the toolbox used at User page, for example? The template is calls, Guideline list, has a table that floats to the right of the page. I've included a similar box right here. Here is a sample of code that will hopefully help you.

<pre style="clear: both;">
 * Please tell me if this helps you, or if you were looking for something different. Hope this helps, Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 21:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is an alternate thing you could try. In your MediaWiki:Sidebar add a new navbox called "* pagename" with subsection including the needed links. Then add a custom namespace for your purposes (this could be Page: or whatever). Then add this code (if your new namespace is ns-100, change the numbers if it isn't) to your MediaWiki:Monobook.css (or a variant thereof).

body.ns-100 #p-pagemenu {display:block;position:absolute;left:65em;top:2.7em} body.ns-100 #content { margin-right: 12.2em; border: 1px solid #aaaaaa; width:50em; } body.ns-100 #bodyContent {font-family: monospace; }
 * 1) p-pagemenu {display:none}
 * This takes a bit of advanced css and wiki know-how to tweak, but requires basically nothing in the way of templates, the pages are automatically handled by just putting them all into the specific namespace. An even better method might be to edit your skins at their core, but that wouldn't allow them to be so editable. --Splarka (rant) 08:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Alignment of templates
(also on the Help desk) How can I make one template go under the other on 1940 Virginia state highway renumbering like images? I tried various changes to Template:Highway renumbering series but they either shifted the text down below the first one or shifted the next section below the second one. --NE2 11:03, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Pipe trick with commas
A while ago I asked why the pipe trick does not work with commas (like City, State -> City, State|City). Ilmari Karonen wrote a patch, but nothing has happened since then. Is more comment needed? --NE2 11:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Image formatting
One image at the FA Joan of Arc breaks up the text on my browser (Explorer 6.0) and I can't explain why. The image of a tower under the "Capture" subsection is longer than the subsection text and creates a block of white space. However, a similar image of a church at the "Execution" section doesn't break up the text: the start of the next subsection wraps around it. Both images seem to be formatted the same way so I can't explain the difference. Please assist. Durova 02:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It was the div clear tags. I've removed them. — Mets 501  (talk) 05:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Something inside cquote prevents it from working right
Here's a passage from Henri Poincaré:


 * The essential point, established by Lorentz, is that the equations of the electromagnetic field are not altered by a certain transformation (which I will call by the name of Lorentz) of the form:
 * $$x^\prime = k\ell\left(x + \varepsilon t\right),$$$$t^\prime = k\ell\left(t + \varepsilon x\right),$$$$y^\prime = \ell y,$$ $$z^\prime = \ell z,$$$$ k = 1/\sqrt{1-\varepsilon^2}.$$

Here's the same passage inside cquote:

The essential point, established by Lorentz, is that the equations of the electromagnetic field are not altered by a certain transformation (which I will call by the name of Lorentz) of the form:
 * $x^\prime = k\ell\left(x + \varepsilon t\right),$$t^\prime = k\ell\left(t + \varepsilon x\right),$$y^\prime = \ell y,$ $z^\prime = \ell z,$$ k = 1/\sqrt{1-\varepsilon^2}.$

The "math" tags are not the problem, as I ascertained via the sandbox. Is it the "rf" thing? Should I report a bug? Michael Hardy 00:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * ... now I see that it was the "rf" template:


 * The essential point, established by Lorentz, is that the equations of the electromagnetic field are not altered by a certain transformation (which I will call by the name of Lorentz) of the form:
 * $x^\prime = k\ell\left(x + \varepsilon t\right),$$t^\prime = k\ell\left(t + \varepsilon x\right),$$y^\prime = \ell y,$ $z^\prime = \ell z,$$ k = 1/\sqrt{1-\varepsilon^2}.$


 * In this case, I think one could safely put "rf" after the "cquote". But I can see this being a problem in future situations. Michael Hardy 01:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

...and that doesn't work either---try it and see. Michael Hardy 03:15, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I suspect the basic nasty problem you are experiencing here is one that is inherent in numbered template parameters (See Equals sign in parameter value). You will need to do the call like this: text for cases where text itself contains one or more equal signs. Check:

The essential point, established by Lorentz, is that the equations of the electromagnetic field are not altered by a certain transformation (which I will call by the name of Lorentz) of the form:
 * $x^\prime = k\ell\left(x + \varepsilon t\right),$$t^\prime = k\ell\left(t + \varepsilon x\right),$$y^\prime = \ell y,$ $z^\prime = \ell z,$$ k = 1/\sqrt{1-\varepsilon^2}.$


 * Does this render correctly? General comment: that's why I prefer named parameters for templates, although numbered parameters are easier for usage. "1=..." is not very intuitive. However, we could change template:cquote to additionally allow "text=..." (an additional optional paramter named "text") --Ligulem 10:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Template for substing the name of a variable, not its value
How can I make a template A which when substed (" ") returns -- among other things -- the 12-character wikitext " " by itself (i.e. two brackets followed by PAGENAME followed by two brackets, with no other tags) ....

Rather than the value of at the time of substitution (which is basically " ", not what I want) ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.92.32.246 (talk • contribs) 16 September 2006.


 * A template with content  when substed should leave only code>  in the wikicode of the page (and seems to, in practice). A template with content   when substed should leave only the text of the pagename in the wikicode. Or do you mean something else? It seems like the default action is what you ask for. --Splarka (rant) 07:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Image distorting printable version
Although I have several images in Tourette syndrome, I am having problems with only one image distorting the text when I print from Printable version. I can't figure out what is causing the problem. The image of Jean-Martin Charcot in the History section causes distorted text when I print the article using the Printable version, but that is not happening with any other image. Part of the text is cut off, and text shows in the margins around the image, so it seems to have something to do with a frame or a border. Any help is appreciated: thanks! Sandy 21:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Nothing's distorted for me. — Mets 501 (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mets ... it doesn't show in the printable version on-screen: it only shows when you actually print it.  Sandy 14:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is going to be hard to diagnose, because how a web page prints for you depends on your browser and printer settings. Jkelly 16:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Subcategories
The new subcategory "system??" simply doesn't work for me. I no longer have any clue which subcategories exist under a given main category. When I click on the "+" all I get is the word "loading" and nothing more. Nice try, but no cigar. Please revert to the old tried & true system. --- Michael David 16:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I use Internet Explorer on a Mac --- Michael David 13:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I second this complaint (it's on other wikimedia projects too, BTW). Why did someone try to fix what wasn't broken? -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 17:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please provide details of your browser: which operating system, browser, browser version, and any customized settings you may be using. Note that Mac versions of Internet Explorer are known not to work at this time; we hope to correct this soon. --Brion 09:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm using Safari 1.3.2. -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 10:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Older versions of Safari unfortunately are pretty buggy, and I don't have a Panther partition to test with right now. If you can't upgrade (and don't want to use another more up to date browser like Firefox or Opera), just don't click the little button until we have a chance to investigate it. --Brion 10:47, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Something's happened...
Is it just me or is Wikipedia running on a deprecated version of MediaWiki all of a sudden? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - &lt;*&gt; 16:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * According to Special:Version, Wikipedia is running on "MediaWiki: 1.8alpha (r16506) ". Nacon kantari  16:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

GAH! Firefox, regardless of whether or not one is signed in, is displaying pages in either a messed up skin or as if it was an older version of mediawiki. It looks fine in (yuck) I.E... anyone else having this problem? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - &lt;*&gt; 16:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, what the hell, now it looks fine... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - &lt;*&gt; 16:48, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Experienced some oddness too around that time (broken rendering and missing pages). Seems OK now. Femto 20:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Reference glitches in Hilary Duff
There seems to be something wrong with a couple of the references on Hilary Duff; one of them shows up in all boldface, with one of the single quotes within the title missing; the next reference after that shows up with error messages saying that some fields are missing. I can't find any obvious syntax errors in the references. *Dan T.* 02:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Should be fixed now. — Mets 501 (talk) 02:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

reverting a vandal
is there an easy way to revert a spam, vandal or edit? or do we manually have to type the words in an article all over again? <span style="border:1px;border-style:solid;padding:0px 1px 1px 1px;color:red;background-color:black; font-weight:bold">†Bloodpack† argh! 19:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There are several easier methods to revert.  See WP:REVERT.  At first it seems like a lot to do, but after a few times doing it, it's quite straightforward.  Once you're used to that, you might look into tools like VandalProof and Navigation popups.  — EncMstr 19:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * thanks! <span style="border:1px;border-style:solid;padding:0px 1px 1px 1px;color:red;background-color:black; font-weight:bold">†Bloodpack†  argh! 19:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Obsolete upload menu selection results in unexpected file deletion
In Special:Upload, the pull-down list for "Licensing:" still includes the option to select ("The copyright holder only allows this work to be used for non-commercial and/or educational purposes"). According to Wikipedia policy, any images uploaded and thus tagged after 19 May 2005 are subject to speedy deletion. I don't believe it makes sense to keep this licensing option in the menu any more. If a contributor selects this option in good faith, it may result in speedy deletion of the upload at some time in the future, thus wasting the time of the uploader and other contributors who link their article contents to the file(s). I propose, therefore, that this option be stricken from the menu. (I submitted this to Bugzilla yesterday, but it was rejected as not being a "bug". The reply I received was: "'This is not a Bugzilla issue. The list is maintained locally by enwiki admins at MediaWiki:Licenses, and any proposed changes should go to the appropriate talk page/village pump/etc.'" &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 17:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It's continued presence is intentional. Removing the noncommercial option resulted in people who wanted to upload noncommercial works picking other inappropriate licenses.  This way they at least get a message explaining that there is a problem.  It is much harder to track down license fraud then it is to deal with these unwanted noncommercial uploads.  Dragons flight 17:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Is is all right to remove a REDIRECT?
I did't think ahead so I caused this problem.

I moved Noyyal to Noyyal River. Then I realized there was an article on Noyyal, the place, tacked onto the bottom of the Noyyal River article.

So now I want the REDIRECT to disappear so I can use Noyyal for the place and Noyyal River for the river. Can I just remove the REDIRECT or will the river article be lost in Wikipedia ether if I do? Mattisse(talk) 15:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Go here, click on edit, remove the redirect and start typing -- Lost (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 15:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Easily center text in table
Is there an easy way to center the text in a column without having to put "align="center"" on each cell? Something like modify the table header cell for that column and it would then apply to the rest of that column? Can anyone give some ideas please? -- MECU ≈ talk 19:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It can be applied by the row (eg  or , or for the whole table   or  , but without access to a sitewide style sheet, I don't think it can't easily be applied to just one column. What you could do is make the one column continuous and put another table inside it (messy), or apply it to the whole table and remove it from the cells that don't need it (messy), or use   ("!" in wikitable) which are bold and centered in monobook (see below). --Splarka (rant) 07:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * For complex tables I like to prepare them externally using an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver. The Composer component of Mozilla Suite may work fine, too.  Adjusting alignments by cell, row or column is quick and easy with such tools.  When it looks the way you want it, go to HTML source view mode, cut-and-paste the table code into your Wikipedia editing window.  Wikipedia can interpret standard HTML fairly well.  However, don't use Microsoft Word for this task &mdash; it produces a horrible, non-standard HTML mess. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 17:20, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Lost backgrounds and borders
Recently, I've seen both backgrounds and borders disappear in a number of places; for example, notabilityguide and guideline. I can't identify the common element; these two examples are CSS classes "infoxbox" and "messagebox". This does not seem to have anything to do with skin. CSS seems to be involved; MiniAWFP (which does not declare a class) still displays okay; however divbox ("boilerplate metadata") also works fine.

This is highly annoying, visually disorienting. If this was done deliberately, please steer me to the discussion. If inadvertantly and the cause is known, please reverse the change that led to this problem. If the bug "just cropped up", then I ask for someone knowledgable in this area to look into this soonest. I have plenty of general CSS knowledge but I have not worked on this project's style sheets. John Reid 03:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * To trace the bug, you can try digging through the style sheets (listed at Catalogue_of_CSS_classes). For monobook these are: 1. monobook/main.css 2. common/commonPrint.css 3. IE fixes 4. MediaWiki:Common.css 5. MediaWiki:Monobook.css 6. user/monobook.css. The local (editable) ones have histories you can view like the histories of any wiki page, and changes to the hardcoded ones can be traced via: svn. --Splarka (rant) 07:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have the specific local expertise to go fooling around here. Will you please look into this and report? Or are you suggesting that this is a purely personal problem with my own user stylesheets? John Reid 11:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * As I don't see any missing backgrounds and borders, you'll either have to find someone that does or figure out what has changed. You should be able to find the problem if you have general CSS knowledge. There are only a finite number of places the problem could exist on a mediawiki install. If you are using the Cologneblue skin (which I am guessing you are), check these css histories in this order (at or around the dates you noticed the change):


 * wikiprintable.css
 * common.css
 * cologneblue.css
 * MediaWiki:Common.css
 * MediaWiki:Cologneblue.css
 * User:John Reid/cologneblue.css


 * If this yields no useful results, try checking the histories of the templates involved. If this yields nothing, try another browser, or try copying these templates to another project's sandbox, like test.wikipedia.org or meta.wikipedia.org. It very well could be a personal problem *shrug*. --Splarka (rant) 07:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't see how it could be my problem and mine alone. I did not fiddle with my interface files, nor with my browser or system. I see the problem is now past. I suspect it had something to do with the recent, buggy MediaWiki upgrade. John Reid 21:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't confirm my email address in "my preferences"?
Hello, I've been trying to confirm my email. However everytime I click in my preferences the "send confirmation" I never receive the email. I recently ask wiki to send me a new password and that worked. Why can't I receive the confirmation email to confirm my email address? Thank you for your help. --CyclePat 03:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Have you checked your spam folder? --Brion 08:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Yes, I've check all my spam folders and subfolders as well as verified my Outlook rules. Again, I can receive an email from wiki@wikimedia.org to renew my password but I can't receive the email to confirm my email address so I can communicate with others. --CyclePat 16:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * OMG! Many a year ago I set up my email to filter for my wikipedia email. The problem is that I was using the internet explorer web-mail GUI instead of outlook. The filter placed all my wikipedia emails into a special folder. Once I re-enialized my pop email via outlook the folder was obviously not transfered. All my wiki emails are still on the server. I hope this helps anyone else that may have a similar email problem --CyclePat 00:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC).

Long pages stop 'rendering' so to speak in long pages
This is kind of strange, but ever since I got my new computer, long pages (like exceptionally long, this page works) will turn into a massive blob of HTML and on extremely long articles simply stop showing the blob HTML. This is extremely annoying. It does this with IE and Firefox. Anyway to fix this? Thanks Userpie 01:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you have Google toolbar or Google desktop installed? On the edit page of really long articles, it says that updating those programs, if you have them installed, might fix the problem. Hope that helps, Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 23:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Nasty note from Wikipedia for article I wrote from (aeropagitica)
I wrote my first article. First I searched for the article's name in various forms. The article did not turn up and Wiki asked if I wanted to create it. So I did.

Then I get a nasty note from a person who has his talk page locked down so there is no way to reply to him, telling me I should have been smart enough to search for the article before I wrote it and he was instantly deleting it.

This is the first time I have used Wikipedia, that was my first attempt to do anything, and the nasty note was the first contact with Wikipedia. I feel my good will evaporating, after all that be nice stuff I read when I first read your welcome pages. Tip02 23:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Replied on your talk page. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang <sup style="font-family:serif;">(Talk) 23:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Although doubtful, I hope that this can be a wake up call for rude wikipedians. I wounder why rude adminstrators don't lose their sysop privleges. I remember once, about a year ago, when I was fairly new, and seeking help on this page. Cyrius, in about the rudest way possible, told me that I was in the wrong place to ask the question. I was lucky, however, becuase Angela, completely ignoring his message, gave me the answer I was looking for. Cyrius' user and talk pages were also protected, so I couldn't ask him to be more polite in the future. The way he responded, I completely understood why someone would want to valdalize his page. I also know why he didn't want to hear what people had to say to him. The point, however, is that the actions of a few rude wikipedians hurt the overall reputation of Wikipedia, and scare off new, potentially helpful people, and I think something should be done about it. Please tell me what you think. You may contact me on my talk page. Thanks, Shards of metal  [ Talk •  Contribs  ] 23:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Please add interwiki links to recent changes
I don't know if the bureaucrats have the right to change special pages, or if I should apply to a steward. Anyway, can someone add interwiki links to the recentchanges; Since it is the most frequently used page by all Wikipedians in all Wikipedias, it would make it easier to them to move between different laguage versions; there wouldn't be any need to go at the Main Page, then to the list of the different laguage versions of Wikipedia and finally to the desired version. Just one click away. --Dead3y3 Talk page 03:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * (Moved from WP:BN) — xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  03:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is certainly something that can be done, but not sure where, can't find it in the MediaWiki space, anyone? Several other proejcts have it in place, see: simple:, fr:, and de: for some examples. —  xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  03:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like 2 of us found this at the same time in MediaWiki:Recentchangestext, thanks User:Dragons flight! — xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  03:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Apparently! Dragons flight 03:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot guys! --Dead3y3 Talk page 04:35, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Designing a template
I want to design a simple template for some subpages of my Userpage. The template would do the following: (1) Force the actual "contents" of the page into a column of around 60 characters in width, with a left-hand margin of six to ten characters; (2) Include a "toolbox" in a column on the right hand side of the page, kind of like the column which is at the left of every page on WP but customisable by me. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to how I might do this, or where I could find information that could help me? Thanks, --Jim (Talk) 14:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * With due respect: I would propose not to ask about user page design problems here. My advice: ignore your userpage. It's not important. Or just ask a userpage artist directly or steal an existing design. I'm sure you find someone :P --Ligulem 15:59, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. The subpages on which I intend to use this template are not just listing a load of userboxes; they are more like sandboxes where I will be writing articles before releasing them to the main Wikipedia. I therefore think that the problem is perhaps more worthy of an answer here. --Jim (Talk) 19:47, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, probably I didn't quite get what you want to do then. You can create any kind of subpage in your userspace. For example User:James Kemp/x1 or whatever. You can create a whole tree of supages. If your're done with it, just blank it and put on it, an admin will then delete it (However, deleting does not release storage on the servers, it just hides all revisions of a page from non-admin users).
 * I have my sandbox tree under User:Ligulem/work. If it comes to template testing, you can for example put the test template content into User:James Kemp/x1 and insert some test transclusions into User talk:James Kemp/x1 (the talk page of a subpage is a handy place for test transclusions). To call your template, just write into User talk:James Kemp/x1 (nearly any page can be transcluded into another page).
 * If you forget any of your user subpages, Special:Prefixindex/User:James Kemp lists them all (ah well, so you already did).
 * I hope this might be useful for you. Sorry for being a bit snappy first ;-). Feel free to ask more on my talk. --Ligulem 21:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Clicking replaces selection
When editing an old text, I have a habit to first mark the text I want to replace, then type/paste over it (without deleting text explicitly first). However, the "Insert" box at the bottom doesn't behave that way. For example, if I want to replace a dash (-) with an em dash (—), I'd normally select the dash first and then click on "—"; however, it will end up next to the dash instead of replacing it. It's a minor annoyance, I admit, but I'd like it fixed if cheap (I don't see that it contravenes common user expectations).

I assume it's up to Wikimedia software so I'm not sure if this is the right place, but just to check...

...and, if fixed, it would be lovely if "Wikimarkup" symbols would be an exception, i.e. should enclose the selection rather than replace it. For example, clicking on &lt;nowiki>&lt;/nowiki> on:
 * bar foo baz boo

should result in
 * bar &lt;nowiki>foo&lt;/nowiki> baz boo

Duja 11:46, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The relevant code is in wikibits, starting at  . You could probably copy the function to your personal js and customize it as you wish, which would supercede the wikibits.js code. No, I won't rewrite it for you, it is evil (javascript). ^_^ --Splarka (rant) 07:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll try it (maybe) & report back if I succeed. So, you recommend to others what you wouldn't do yourself? :o) Duja 07:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Location dot oddness
Most location dots seem to have worked for me in the past. However, certain british ones are showing me the yellow dot out in the middle of the infobox, outside the image. I have traced the problem to an extra div in such templates as: Template:UKcountythumb Template:GBthumb-bare Template:GBthumb2.

Examples: gives:

161

Which shows the yellow dot off the image. This expands to which does the same thing for me.

However, removing the   producing: works perfectly for me:

Which leaves me wondering, why is the extra div there? Does it serve a specific purpose, other than to break these location dots just for me? ^_^ --Splarka (rant) 08:09, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What browser are you using? Both your examples look the same to me (with Safari on a Mac).  I don't know the purpose of the "extra" div, but the rendering issue could be a browser bug.  -- Rick Block (talk) 02:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I am pretty sure it is a browser bug (using an old Mozilla), but as Wikipedia makes concessions to may lesser browsers (it even supports IE!), I am just wondering what use the extra div is serving. --Splarka (rant) 07:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Login does not "stick"
I can successfully login to Wikipedia, but as soon as I browse to any page after this, the login (red username, top right on page) disappears and Wiki forgets that I just logged in.

- this happens in Opera, Firefox, and Explorer

- i am using Hughes satellite - maybe this has something to do with it?

- on rare occassions, the password information sticks. most of the time (95%) it doesn't.


 * Seems to be a common problem with Hughes Satellite. Try contacting them and complaining. --Splarka (rant) 07:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You can also try the SSL server at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page, which while much slower will probably bypass whatever is causing the problem (which is probably a transparent proxy of some sort; unless they use a MITM attack, it cannot change the content of encrypted SSL connections). --cesarb 20:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot. I also use Hughes/DirecWay, and coming in through SSL seems to fix everything up for me.  Hey look, a real signature: Gleneivey 04:49, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Help with AutoWikiBrowser
I am having trouble using AWB. After having set up my procedure, when I press "Start the process", I keep getting the error message "You are not enabled to use this." It then opens a window to AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, on which I am clearly listed as a registered/enabled user. It is not a problem with my .NET framework either, as I just downloaded the most current version. I have not gotten any response so far on the Computing Reference Desk or the talk page. Can anyone help me? --Ginkgo100 talk · e@ 00:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You should probably direct this question to the AWB area as you are more likely to get a response from there. Lcarsdata (Talk) 17:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

unicode
hey all, having a problem with my browser seeing unicode. i'm using IE6, and on some pages with lots of unicode instead of seeing the glyph i see a little square box. anyone know how i can fix this? please keep in mind that im not allowed to download anything onto this computer because its not mine. thanks. it would also be helpfull if you left a message on my user talk page if you want to reply because i'm still having trouble finding these deep help pages. thanks. - Patrickjsanford 21:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Userbox layout glitch
I've been adding userboxes to my user page, and recently my page has been glitching up a bit. Right above the word "Zodiac" is a gap, but I don't know what's causing it. Sometimes the gap only appears after changing the browser's text size. (I'm using IE6.) How do I fix this? Also, is there a cleaner way to show two columns of userboxes than the way I did it? --jh51681 04:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

How to fix a REDIRECT problem
I wrote an article Kukke Subrahmanya Temple in which I put a link to its location in Subramanya. But that link goes to Murukan through a REDIRECT. So I wrote an article called Subramanya (village) and use a pipe to get rid of the village part.

However, since there is no disambiguation page, should I make one? And if so, how? Or is there another way to deal with this? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 23:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I created a disambiguation page for you with links to both the village and the deity at Subramanya. Feel free to change around the wording if you'd like. — Mets 501  (talk) 23:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I wonder if I could add to that page Subramanya (god) because I need the old name before it was routed to Murukan because of the temple's name. Otherwise it is to confusing for readers, I think. I'm trying to think in my head how to do that -- write a much smaller page and call it Subramanya (god)?  Mattisse(talk) 23:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

aluminium
''Moved to Reference desk/Miscellaneous. --cesarb 15:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)''

Recentchanges for what links here?
I'm looking for something similar to Special:Recentchangeslinked/foo but instead for the pages listed at Special:Whatlinkshere/foo (those that link TO foo), rather than the ones linked FROM foo. --Gherald 20:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You have to collect up all the links, dump them on a separate page, and run whatlinkshere on the new page. User:WatchlistBot does this for various wikiprojects, for what it's worth.  --Interiot 22:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Finding subpages
The category "Wikipedia vandals" was recently deleted. As a result, I can no longer determine what subpages of WP:LTA exist. I still have the ones in my history (WP:'T, WP:LTA/MG and others), but is there a way to see all such subpages? If not, I'm worried that there might be totally orphaned pages sitting under there that noone knows about, are never updated, etc, etc... 68.39.174.238 22:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Example (Special:Allpages). Enter common prefix of the page name in "Display pages starting at" and select namespace. --Ligulem 22:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * A much easier way is Special:Prefixindex. See this example. — Mets 501 (talk) 23:08, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, kewl. It might be good if we could have a link on the top of Special:Specialpages to some documentation about all these nifty special pages. --Ligulem 08:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I have added a short description with a link to Help:Special page to MediaWiki:Specialpages-summary. Kusma (討論) 11:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Very good. Thank you! --Ligulem 11:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahem. Next question would be a help description/link on each of the special pages themselves.... For example there is no description on Special:Prefixindex. --Ligulem 11:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Where should the description page be? I know that the one for Special:Allpages is at MediaWiki:Allpages-summary (by comparing with de:MediaWiki:Allpages-summary), but do we have a list of all possible MediaWiki pages somewhere? Kusma (討論) 12:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Special:Allmessages. Policy #1: Look in Special pages. Because everthing is somehow special :] --Ligulem 12:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Those are just the nonempty ones. How do I find the empty ones? Kusma (討論) 12:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No. These are all. The empty ones do have a red link. Entry point on this wiki here seem to be MediaWiki namespace, which also has a talk page. What I miss is a description for Special:Allmessages (answering the question "Where is that message used?"). Do we have to dig into the MediaWiki code for this? Links wanted! ;-) --Ligulem 12:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No. The redlinked ones appear to be those where the non-empty default is not overriden by a custom message. The ones with an empty default such as MediaWiki:Specialpages-summary do not appear at all (it might appear once the special page is updated). Kusma (討論) 13:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I finally digged into the MediaWiki code. I think I found something. Look at SpecialPage.php there is function

function outputHeader { global $wgOut, $wgContLang;

$msg = $wgContLang->lc( $this->name ). '-summary';                         # <- look at this line $out = wfMsg( $msg );                                                         # <- fetch MediaWiki message with name $msg if ( ! wfEmptyMsg( $msg, $out ) and $out == '' and ! $this->including ) $wgOut->addWikiText( $out );

}
 * (I added some comments above) I guess that code looks for a "MediaWiki:" page under the name "name of the special page" + "-summary" and uses that as the header line. So the header line for Special:Specialpages is at MediaWiki:Specialpages-summary and I bet the header line for Special:Prefixindex is at MediaWiki:Prefixindex-summary. These references are constructed by the MediaWiki software and thus they do not appear at Special:Allmessages. But no warranty for this info (I'm a developer but not a MediaWiki developer). --Ligulem 18:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Hot damn! I didn't know some of those subpages EXISTED! Thanx dudes. 68.39.174.238 00:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Removal of an underline from a link
Is there a way to remove the underline from a specific link, i.e. one where you changed the color. The underlined link wouldn't bother me so much, except that my green link has a blue (or red) underline. Is it possible to remove the underline? Thanks, Shardsofmetal [ Talk 20:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose there's a javascript you personally could run to do this, but there's no way to do it within the link I don't think, so that it shows up un-underlined for everyone else. --Golbez 20:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a CSS class you can use to do this (even works for red links). class="nounderlines" .. --Splarka (rant) 07:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected and slightly annoyed. --Golbez 10:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Is it just me, or...
Is everyone else suddenly seeing all of the wikilinks underlined?

This isn't happening on wikibooks or wikiversity, so I assume it's local. Was something changed in monobook? It's really not so nice on the eyes. -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 17:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Have you tried the suggestions from the third bullet item at the very top of this page? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that a while ago i saw somebody say that links were now going to be underlined by default, so that newbies can easily find them. However, I still the weird effect that half the time links are underlined, and the other half they aren't. Right now, they are underlined for me. Shardsofmetal [ Talk 20:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Nothing has changed, links still aren't underlined by default. I just tested it by logging out and refreshing. &mdash;da Pete (ばか) 20:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, thanks Rick Block! (I wonder why the browser did that, but apparently it did). -- SB_Johnny |talk|books 08:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Right to left language wikis and editing
Hi, I'm not sure where best to post this; the en. pump seemed most appropriate. As a Commons admin involved in routine non-controversial deletions, I have to edit on a large number of wikis, including those for which I cannot read the language at all. Mostly these are straightforward enough; setting my user language to English gives a usable interface and I can perform the minor edits I'm there to do. However with the languages which work from right to left, Hebrew for example, the fact that the code does some rather strange things is annoying (see the image). Both the edit window and the interface text are annoying, making things awkward for me. This is with the default monobook css, at any rate. Is there anything I can do client side to make editing on those wikis less frustrating? Is there somewhere more appropriate for this question?--Nilfanion (talk) 17:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I recall seeing a similar question in this very forum some time ago. The answer involved some CSS on the text area (I don't recall which one, but I'd try something like ), which overrides the Unicode bidirectional algorithms. --cesarb 23:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Requesting a photo
For the article I just wrote Chidambaram Temple, I found a template to put on the Discussion Page to request a photo. However, I can't figure out the right combination of categories to get this article to show up in a category. I have looked at other similar articles, and I have copied the categories of the category that I want to be in. But nothing works. The category remains red on the Discussion page with the Request a Photo template.

So, how does that Request a Photo template work? Mattisse(talk) 19:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Where is Wiki Commons where I can look for photos to use? Mattisse(talk) 19:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The syntax is, where someplacename might be (for example) India (see template:reqphotoin).  The main page for Wikimedia Commons is at Main page. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I understood your explanation but misunderstood the instructions on template:reqphotoin. Mattisse(talk) 12:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Static HTML Dumps
I was interested in the WP:MF project three months ago so I contacted Tim Starling about when Wikimedia is planning to update the Static Wikipedia site with no replies. Is anyone planning on updating the static copy? It's been nearly a year since the last update, and as I have written on Tim's page, pages like Godseye are not complying with the GFDL standards by not linking back to the original page without JavaScript. (much of the research and discussion done by Superm401 and WB in Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks and Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks) Thanks. —Jared Hunt September 10, 2006, 04:18 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is currently technically possible. Due to the size of the english Wikipedia's database it fails every time they attempt a dump as far as I know. Lcarsdata (Talk) 12:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Even cutting up in to pieces or something? Because those static ones need some work with copyrights. I'm not even sure why we need them. —Jared Hunt September 10, 2006, 20:14 (UTC)
 * Prehaps, but a developer would have to do that and considering the date of the other static copies on that page I don't think anyone who has the ability too currently wants to try and do it. 19:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know who to exactly ask though. Any ideas? —Jared Hunt September 12, 2006, 09:06 (UTC)

A new static HTML dump is now in progress. The static HTML dumps, including the one hosted at godseye.com, do link back to the original page without javascript, they do so via the "current revision" tab at the top. Note however that this is not a requirement of the GFDL. The static dumps were designed for the case where the reader has no internet access, thus they contain the necessary attribution and license information within the dump itself. -- Tim Starling 02:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Changing the skin
I can't figure out how to change my skin. I went to My preferences but it won't let me click on Skin so I can't change it. Thank you.

Nemato 21:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, first of all, I don't recommend changing the skin since a lot of code on articles are less-than-friendly to non-Monobook skins. That being said, what browser are you using? Give the name and version. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang <sup style="font-family:serif;">(Talk) 23:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See the fifth bullet point at the top of this page.-gadfium 03:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Code unfriendly to skins other than Monobook should be replaced by more accessible code. Personally, I am forced to use Cologne Blue; Monobook simply screws up for me. Intricate code should be previewed and checked on all skins available to users. 02:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Template trouble again
I was trying to use parser functions to make the "Preceded by" and "Followed by" entries optiona for Template:Animorphs, but somehow messed up. Not quite sure what happened and I can't fix it. Can someone run through it and fix it up? Thanks. Hbdragon88 03:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: automatic identification of links to geodis
Links from articles that point to could be collected automatically, by some bot, and in most cases quickly fixed. For the rest a geographical wikiproject could be notified or a note added on article's Talk page. Pavel Vozenilek 01:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Trying to fix flag template
I have created a replacement image for the now missing Image:Bangladesh1971Flag.png (the new image is Image:Flag of Bangladesh (1971).svg) but I am unable to replace it in Template:BGD-1971. Help appreciated! -- Himasaram 22:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Some table help
As Template:Animorphs was a mess, I attempted to tidy it up. I've neve been very proficient at table markup (especially MediaWiki type), and for some reason the blue background on the "Minor characters" and "species" headers doesn't show, even though the markup is exactly the same as the first three ones. Can someone fix it up and tidy up the table code so I can model future tables after that?


 * I think you just had some misplaced semicolons. I fixed these and it looks OK now.

Also, Template:Mario series has been bugging me for the longest time. The first two blue sidebar headers are left-aligned, yet everything after that is center-aligned. how can this be fixed? Hbdragon88 22:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * They all appear left-aligned for me.
 * I left aligned the text in these boxes. The difference was the use of "!" (TH) vs. "|" (TD).  There's a stylesheet setting somewhere that centers table headers (TH) but not table data. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

WP not accepting Edits
Everytime I do a edit, any edit, press the Save page icon, it says "Wikipedia Has a Problem", then it sometimes states that I have a Edit conflict - with myself. Martial Law 18:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I am facing the same problem too often for the last 30 minutes. Looks like there is some problem with the servers today -- Lost (talk) 18:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"User is blocked"
Hi - for a couple of months I've been having repeated problems editing, as I keep getting "User is blocked" notice when I try to edit any page. The problem goes away after I try a couple of times, but recently it has become persistent. Today I've gotten a notice saying that this IP was used by user:Fucker09, who was blocked by user:Malo. Fine, but my IP is something like 70.XX.XX.XX, and not the User:64.233.173.77 that was reported. I've tried purging my browser cache and deleting temporary files, but to no avail. I seek the advice of folks who know about this or maybe experiencing similar problems. Rama's arrow 15:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The IP resolves to Google, which explains the whole thing. You must be using the Google toolbar, or web accelerator, or the Google desktop, right? Whatever you are using is re-routing everything via google's open proxy. On of the proxy must be blocked, and that's why you are getting the email. Please remove whatever accelerator or toolbar you are using, this should solve the problem. Thanks. --Ragib 16:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe that I have removed the block that you were experiencing. See My list of autoblocks.  I am partially responsible for your block.  When I blocked this user account, either your IP or a google IP must have been the next account to visit wikipedia, which in turn caused the auto block.  Sorry for the inconvience.  -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 22:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Application & System Software
Why the terms 'Application' and 'System' software do not have an 's' in the end (for depicting plural) while there are more than one system software and application software in the system? Why we don't write these as Applications Software and Systems Software?
 * I'd suggest you ask this at Reference desk/Language. This page is for questions about technical issues encountered using Wikipedia.  -- Rick Block (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Formatting Problems
Take a look at this article and scroll down to the picture captioned "Overlooking Sandy Ground, Anguilla". On my PC (Windows XP, IE, browser window full screen 1024 x 768) the picture obscures part of the adjacent text in the "Climate" section, rendering parts of it unreadable. I've encountered similar problems before, and I'm not sure if it's a bug in IE, a bug in Wikipedia's HTML generation, or incorrect use of Wikipedia syntax. By moving pictures around at random I can usually find a way to make the problem go away, but the effects are very dependent on browser window size, so one never knows if the problem is actually fixed properly or just happens not no manifest itself because of the particular setup of one's own PC. Does anyone know anything about this problem and what to do about it? Matt 13:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC).


 * I set the screen to 1024x768 and looked at that link with SeaMonkey 1.0.4, FireFox 1.5.0.6, and IE 6.0. I had the opposite experience from usual:  it looked fine in IE 6, but the other browsers show Sandy_Ground_Anguilla.jpg partly obscuring the climate text.  With the screen at 1280x960, the problem goes away, probably because the climate paragraph isn't long enough to reach the image.  I could achieve the same effect by making the browser window narrower (didn't have to change screen resolution).  The simple fix seems to be putting the pair of images into a table, as I left it. — EncMstr 20:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that seems to be an improvement. What I see now is one line partially clipped (the bottoms of the letters are missing) but it is at least legible. The fact that the same problem occurs in other browsers suggests that it's not an IE bug per se, but either Wikipedia generating dodgy HTML or trying to do something that HTML doesn't really properly support. Anyway, thanks again for your help. Matt 21:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC).

Help with link problem
on the page Provisional Confederate Congress I have created the page Richard Johnston (politician), from Virginia (which is his correct name see ) but cannot get it to link corectly (even after reading the piped link help suggestion)from that page. I can get it to link from First Confederate Congress and Second Confederate Congress It won't even link correctly from here! Can someone help? thank you.Iwalters 12:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * At the article, you had the piped link syntax the wrong way 'round. The above link is red because the chap's name appears to be Robert, not Richard. :)  Alai 13:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Help deleting old images
Can an admin delete all the old versions of this Image:Spectrum of blue flame.png image that I uploaded? Something is screwy with wikimedia or something and it only shows the old crappy version. None of the older versions are relevant anymore so can someone just delete them leaving the newest one?--Deglr6328 08:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You're probably just seeing some delay due to thumbnail caching. Butane seemed to be displaying the "old" version (without the "Swan bands" annotation) until a few minutes ago, but seems to be OK now).  Doing a browser refresh at the thumbnail, and/or a page-cache-purge at the transcluding page can help in such cases.  Alai 08:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Bot problem (korean language)

 * I have a question.
 * I input 스모그 to interwiki.py in WIN XP's cmd.exe console.

C:\pywikipedia>interwiki.py -start:스모그 -autonomous


 * following is result...


 * Checked for running processes. 1 processes currently running, including the current process.
 * NOTE: Number of pages queued is 0, trying to add 60 more.
 * Retrieving Allpages special page for wikipedia:ko from %C2%BD%C2%BA%C2%B8%C3%B0%C2%B1%C3%97, namespace 0
 * Getting 60 pages from wikipedia:ko...


 * and, I input 스모그 to web wikipedia (ko:)
 * thus, connected to link as follows:

http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%8A%A4%EB%AA%A8%EA%B7%B8


 * Why? is different?


 * %EC%8A%A4%EB%AA%A8%EA%B7%B8
 * I input 스모그 to web wikipedia (ko:)
 * %C2%BD%C2%BA%C2%B8%C3%B0%C2%B1%C3%97
 * I input 스모그 to cmd console


 * It is a bug??
 * and, I input by file method...


 * C:\pywikipedia>
 * C:\pywikipedia>copy con aa.txt
 * 스모그
 * ^Z
 * C:\pywikipedia>interwiki.py -file:aa.txt
 * Checked for running processes. 1 processes currently running, including the current process.
 * NOTE: Number of pages queued is 0, trying to add 60 more.
 * Dump ko (wikipedia) saved
 * Traceback (most recent call last):
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1467, in ?
 * bot.run
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1200, in run
 * self.queryStep
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1174, in queryStep
 * self.oneQuery
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1132, in oneQuery
 * site = self.selectQuerySite
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1114, in selectQuerySite
 * self.generateMore(globalvar.maxquerysize - mycount)
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\interwiki.py", line 1050, in generateMore
 * page = self.pageGenerator.next
 * File "C:\pywikipedia\pagegenerators.py", line 162, in __iter__
 * for pageTitle in R.findall(f.read):
 * File "C:\Python24\lib\codecs.py", line 481, in read
 * return self.reader.read(size)
 * File "C:\Python24\lib\codecs.py", line 293, in read
 * newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
 * UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xbd in position 2: unexpected code byte
 * C:\pywikipedia>


 * korean lanuage is broken...:(
 * help~!! :( --  WonYong ( Talk / Contrib ) 06:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Category moves?
I realize that there are obvious issues with category moves in the general case, but in the instance where a category is being renamed, and has been "emptied" for that purpose, wouldn't it be convenient if the move-tab were enabled, to allow a history-preserving move? Now that category redirects have been implemented, I can't think of any obvious technical reason not to do this... Alai 06:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Weird red link
I made an edit and the edit summary comes up as a red link. But if you scroll down to the message itself, it shows a blue link, like it should be. I was starting a new header (where the edit summary is the new header), so I don't know what's going on here... Hbdragon88 03:29, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Probably because in the edit summary it has the colon (<tt>:Image:Mergist-logo.png</tt>), but in the actual thing it's recognized as <tt>Image:Mergist-logo.png</tt>. —Jared Hunt September 11, 2006, 04:40 (UTC)

Can't move page and don't understand directions on how to request help.
This refers to the three different spellings of Indian districts above. I believe I have messed it up. The correct name of district is Kendujhar District. A page also exists for Keonjhar District. There is a prior redirect in April from Kendujhargarh District.

Plus I made some mistakes in not capitalizing District, and then accidently leaving a period on the end that prevented links from working. Net result is that it will not let me redirect Keonjhar District to Kendujhar District.

I looked at the directions for asking for admin help, but I cannot follow them at all. I have no idea what those directions mean. Mattisse(talk) 21:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That was confusing...I hope I did what you want. The page is now located at Kendujhar District, and Keonjhar District and Kendujhargarh District now redirect to there.  The page history is now all located at Kendujhar District. Is this correct? — Mets 501  (talk) 21:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. It should all go to Kendujhar District. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 21:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem :-) — Mets 501 (talk) 21:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Two articles on same place
After a lot of confusion I have discovered that Kendujhar District and Keonjhar District are the same district in India. The first spelling is preferred. The second article is basically a copyvio of the district's website anyway.

Would it be O.K. if I removed the info (copyvio anyway) and redirected the alternative spelling to the preferred spelling? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 20:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I found another spelling Kendujhargarh District with some redirects. I'm getting very mixed up. Mattisse(talk) 20:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe that is the standard handling. You might also note in the article's introduction about alternate spellings, such as is done with Kava and Platter lift, though those aren't necessarily alternate spellings.  — EncMstr 20:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * O.K. Thanks! (Just wondering about all the redirects piling up.) Mattisse(talk) 20:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about redirects—they are inexpensive and extremely helpful for locating articles. Have a look at Special:Statistics.  The second-to-the-last link, Detailed tables and charts of Wikipedia statistics, shows 1.3 million articles, plus 1.2 million redirects (third column from right).  Doing the arithmetic, this makes 3,061,491 non-article, non-redirect pages, most of which must be discussion pages:  Now there's something to really worry about!  :-) — EncMstr 21:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you hide the external link arrow?
When you make an external link with single square brackets you get an arrow/square symbol after the piped name, like this link to a page. Is there a way of suppressing this symbol? My aim is to make one-way links to internal Wikipedia articles in a series box by using the external link mechanism (unless anyone can tell me how to use ordinary double square bracket links which do not cause an entry in the what links here of the target page). This may seem a perverse thing to attempt. What I am trying to achieve is a compromise in a potentally huge series box (which I am not promoting myself) which makes quality checking of real back-links in article body-text impossible. See discussion here. Any help or comments would be appeciated. Thanks. Oosoom <sup style="color:red;"> Talk to me 15:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, [linky], like this , alternately w:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) like this: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).  --Interiot 15:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Very may thanks. A perfect and rapid answer. Oosoom <sup style="color:red;"> Talk to me

I think you could keep the code simpler by adding the class to an existing element, such as the navbox table, as below (multiple classes are separated by a space).

{| class="toccolours plainlinksneverexpand" —Michael Z. 2006-09-10 16:54 Z 


 * or you could add in your monobook.css:

a.external {background: none;}
 * GeorgeMoney (talk) 17:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

JavaScript help
I am trying to get the JavaScript which allows you to change certain parts of the page: document.getElementById(id).childNodes[0].href=url q=document.getElementById(id).firstChild; q.removeChild(q.firstChild); q.appendChild(document.createTextNode(name)) to work so I can change the links of the navigation bar, however no matter what I have tried it doesn't seem to work. The words in bold are the variables and I found it at WikiProject_User_scripts/Techniques. Thanks. Lcarsdata (Talk) 13:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Spam blacklist broken
I've noticed that the spam blackist is no longer working, possibly due to a size restriction. Please check User:Naconkantari/sandboxtest to confirm, as it currently includes links that are blacklisted. Thanks, Nacon kantari  23:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:ChoralWiki
In Template:ChoralWiki, the link assumes that the ChoralWiki article has the same title as the WP article. That is not always the case. Hubert Parry is at ChoralWiki as Chrales Hubert Hastings Parry. So, can someone blessed with template skills please introduce an optional parameter? Thanks. Guy 21:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed. —Jared Hunt September 10, 2006, 04:35 (UTC)

Images - purging cache
I need to do a purge to get a replaced image to display. Would someone remind me how to do it, please? TerriersFan 20:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See Purge... use action=purge. (or a null edit works sometimes too?) --Interiot 20:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Great, many thanks. TerriersFan 03:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

How can I delete a file that i uploaded?
Hi .. i was just wondering about two things .. 1) How can I delete a file that is on my contribution list, and i dont want to share it anymore?

2) why is this site not very user friendly? it's SOO complicated.

Thanks a lot :)


 * 1) As long as you're the only one who's made substantial edits, tag the article with db-author, and someone will be around to delete it. 2) Wikiwyg?  --Interiot 18:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

and how can I tag the article with that ? I really feel that everything is here very complicated :S does a person need to be a professional programmer to use this website ? thanks a lot


 * Just cut and paste  to the top of the page, and save it.  It will expand to be some prepared text that notifies an admin that the article should be deleted.  --Interiot 18:27, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * To learn how to edit on Wikipedia, try Tutorial. It's linked on the main page near the top, as "Editing".-gadfium 23:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Icons
I was interested, where are the icons used on wikipedia, like the one that symbolizes a .pdf file?--//Mac Lover TalkC 17:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Mac Lover. Here's the pdf icon, which can be seen on it's description page. It's automatically placed at the end of links which go to pdf files by the MediaWiki:Common.css file. Search for PDF and you'll find the relevant bit. Icey 18:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. But what about the rest of them?--//Mac Lover TalkC 21:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Which do you want to know about specifically? I don't think there's a page which lists them. Here's a few more: FA Star, Spoken Article icon, thumbnail icon, list item bullet, external link icon, etc, etc Icey 00:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd probably be able to find more myself, where did you find them?--//Mac Lover TalkC 02:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Mac Lover. I use Opera+Privoxy, so I went to some articles that would contain icons and then looked to see what had been download. If you use Firefox, you can right-click on a page, go to View page info and then click on Media to see everything that's been download, it's pretty useful :) Icey 12:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:TLAs from AAA to DZZ
TLAs from AAA to DZZ is one in a series of articles that are in the project workspace. Before I consider proposing them for deletion, I wonder if anyone can help me - do they actually serve any purpose? BlueValour 22:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You might as well put them up for deletion. If they serve a useful purpose, people will let you know in the ensuing discussion. Icey 01:00, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The talk page has info about previous deletion requests, that might be useful to you. Icey 12:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't edit a page
Whenever I click the 'Save page' button when I'm editting Dead external links/301, my computer crashes. 0plus minus0  22:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ooh, that's pretty huge. What edit do you need to be done? &mdash; Edward Z. Yang <sup style="font-family:serif;">(Talk) 23:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I need to remove the bullet points referring to Aubrey Smith, Audley, Staffordshire, and Audrey Marnay. However, for some reason, it will not work when I try to do it. 0plus  minus0  14:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Trouble Staying Logged In
I'm having an awful time trying to figure out why I can't stay logged in. I thought it had a connection with some software on my computer, and it seemed to be OK yesterday, but now today, I can't stay logged in beyond navigating to another page.

Anyone have any idea

I have made sure to enable cookies

I have the same problem on both my wife's computer and mine

I have the same problem with Mozilla Firefox and IE

I DON'T have the problem at work

I have updated Java and Macromedia Flash

I thought that there was a conflict with Kodak Easyshare software, because disbling it seemed to work yesterday, but it doesn't help today. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.82.9.76 (talk • contribs) 12:24, August 13, 2006 (UTC).

Check you privacy settings (Tools>Internet options). Sometimes, if the setting is too high, cookies will not be saved even if they are enabled. ~  Porphyric Hemophiliac   §  02:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I hear that Hughes satellite connections are doing this. Do you have a Hughes or Direcway satellite connection? If so, you might be out of luck.

Link to image's page.
I really need some help making a link like this that goes to an image's information page.

--I am BrainiacOutcast and I approve this message.
 * Just place a colon before the namespace. For example, to link to the description page for Image:Example.jpg, type  . — Mets 501  (talk) 01:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

United States
Sorry If I am posting in the wrong place, someone needs to go to the "United States" page. Someone has filled it with "SORRY NO GAYS ALLOWED!!!!!"
 * It appears someone has already taken care of the problem. Please see Reverting for how to take care of this type of issue in the future. --Allen3 talk 18:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

try to get css to work
I'm playing around with User:Theresa knott/monobook.css and I cant see what I'm doing wrong!

The tools on the LHS of the page labelled "navigation", "search", and "toolbox" have their labels as a h5 heading. So I changes the css to h5 { font-size: 200% ; color: green; font-weight: 900; }

Now the colour changes but the font size and weight don't. Why not? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 05:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You have to be more specific. This is from the default monobook css (the first sheet loaded):

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { color: black; background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0; padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .17em; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; } h1 { font-size: 188%; } h2 { font-size: 150%; } h3, h4, h5, h6 { border-bottom: none; font-weight: bold; } h3 { font-size: 132%; } h4 { font-size: 116%; } h5 { font-size: 100%; } h6 { font-size: 80%; } .portlet h5 { background: transparent; padding: 0 1em 0 .5em; display: inline; height: 1em; text-transform: lowercase; font-size: 91%; font-weight: normal; white-space: nowrap; }


 * The  is defining a size and weight, overwriting yours (as it is more specific), but only the   is defining the color (so yours takes preference). You are also trying to change all H5 headings for yourself on this wiki. Try this instead:

.portlet h5 { font-size: 200% ; color: green; font-weight: 900; }


 * Which only defines the side-bar H5. --Splarka (rant) 08:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! It worked. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Misleading sub-subcategory widgets
I just noticed the new subcategory hide/reveal widgets. Where was this discussed? I didn't vote for it. It doesn't seem like it was very thoroughly thought through before implementation. It really degrades the appearance and usability of category pages:


 * 1) Now each item in the list of subcategories has two bullets: a standard blue square and a bracketed plus sign.
 * 2) The bracketed plus sign says "click me, there are sub-subcategories".  So each subcategory listing is now a shell game to see if any of the dozen on the page have sub-subcategories.  What a pain.

Who do we talk to to get this turned off, at least until it's fixed so that childless subcategories don't show the misleading plus sign? —Michael Z. 2006-09-08 02:13 Z 
 * I'd suggest bugzilla. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Pages disappear!
Whenever I try to go to The Wild Boys (novel) the page appears for a second, then is replaced with a 'can't find server' message from IE. I also get this problem when I go to the William Burroughs article. I haven't had this problem with any other articles. Anyone know what's happening? DuncanHill 00:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

How to wikify
I have made a page, and want to Wikify it...I get alot of defintions of the term, but no practical help on HOW to do it...I do not even know HOW to see an answer to this question...PLEASE, you guys, you have to DUMB IT DOWN and make some simple navigation for us computer-literacy-challenged Wikipedians. my personal email is email address removed  PLEASE let me know how I wikify a page, or give me the direct link to the instructions. PLEASE don't just tell me to contact a help page, they do not help. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnjlenick (talk • contribs) 10:39, 7 September 2006


 * To add a link, just surround it in double brackets. Like Mexico would create a link to Mexico. --Golbez 10:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Email address removed to prevent spam. --cesarb 16:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Difficult to switch language on Wikipedia
Hi

A suggestion for improving Wikipedia.org:

As a non-native english speaker I often do seaches in other languages than english (most often Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian in my case). However once at the language specific sites (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forside, http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huvudsida) I have found no other way to switch search language than going back to wikipedia.org and choose a new language. It would be really, really useful to have a "switch language link" on each language specific site, that would give a list of all the other language specific sites. So please....

Best regards, Jens Lund, Denmark

PS: I am aware of the "in other languages" side box. However, this box only appears for searches that give results for the same words and only list languages with results for the current search. The cases where I most often want to switch language is when my search do NOT return a useful result, and then the side box is not available!

(This has also been posted as Ticket#2006090510004272 to info-en-o@wikimedia.org where I got a reply to make the suggestion here.)

193.3.225.210 09:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting suggestion, but sadly, not in very high demand. If you are using Firefox, there's a way you can sort of clear it up: create a bunch of Keyword Shortcuts to each language you want: wp.en, wp.no, etc. &mdash; Edward Z. Yang <sup style="font-family:serif;">(Talk) 23:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have a script that could possibly be adapted to this need: User_talk:Splarka/wikialink.js... to link the alt+1 hotkey to no.wikipedia.org into your toolbox for example: <tt>addwb("toolbox","no.wp","no.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=","1");</tt> ... the only limitation is that it mostly only works from the article pages (editing, history, etc), and probably won't work as-is from searches. --Splarka (rant) 07:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip on Keyword shortcuts. That might actually be helpful and (almost) solve my problem. Jens. 193.3.225.210 10:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Subcategories
Has anyone else had trouble loading the new subcategory links? Justin Foote 23:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Tons. I can no longer use subcategories at all. All that shows in a category for me are a series of [+] s, none of which do anything when you click on them, and none of which indicate what the names of the subcategories actually are. I've tried changing preferences and nada. As far as I'm concerned, subcategories no longer work at all - I've had to resort to "recent changes" to see which subcategories are actually listed in a category. Whatever has been done to the categories, please can it be changed back to the old system? Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  02:10, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Wikitech-l thread mentioning the new feature.--Commander Keane 05:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've followed the Wikitech link above and I haven't noticed a “show as list” option on any category pages. Justin Foote 00:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The [+] s are what happen with me when it's shown as a list. Nothing appeared at all when it was shown as a tree. Now the option of switching between these two (equally useless) options has gone, by the looks of it. I repeat, as far as I'm concerned, it is a complete and abject failure which has rendered subcategorisation unusable, and the sooner it is changed back to a system to the old system - i.e., one that works - the better. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  06:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please provide details of your configuration (operating system, web browser, any special settings in them, any proxies or "ad-blockers" etc). Also try clearing the cache (something like "delete internet temporary files" in IE). The problem may be specific to your computer or temporary. --Brion 10:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * IE 5.2.3 on Mac 10.2.8. I know, but I can't change - it's at work, and at any case it's a common enough combination that it will probvably be causing problems for other users too. I clear my cache regularly and it has had no effect. No special settings or ad blockers. Grutness...<small style="color:#008822;">wha?  23:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Mine is IE 5.16 on Mac 9. Bet you didn’t know there was any of us left. I have several unique reasons for avoiding versions 10 and up but so far its worked for almost everything I really need to do with my internet computer. This is the first it has been an issue here on Wikipedia. Justin Foote 00:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'll see if we can get Mac IE tested and some sort of workaround set up... --Brion 12:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)