Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Editing/Archive 1

This page basically duplicates material in the help page... I suggest it is removed. Any thoughts?Enchanter


 * I agreePatcat88 21:26, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

which help page? We made it because the Contributing FAQ page was too long. I don't think all teh stuff has been moved over yet -- Tarquin 18:23 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I'm famous. That last one (how do I find the size of an article?) was me. Even down to the slightly idiosyncratic transfer of the colloquial use of "see" into text and the fact the question was about the knot theory article. So that just goes to show I'm the first person stupid enough not to have worked it out on my own. Yay me. Bagpuss


 * no, I wouldn't have known either; it's just I've always gauged article length by eye ... -- Tarquin 00:53 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Ditto

-

Please help me in tables
Please help me with this table! How make a space between table and other text!??? You can find this page here >> European Hit Radio



Thank You!!!!!!! BTW - it's very hard to find here some place where to ask a question! :/

01
The question "How do I figure out how big an article is?" seems misplaced under the redirect question, it doesn't have a proper heading so it doesn't appear in the TOC, and the answer depends on the availability of the search results, which are disabled... --Shallot 13:58, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Pages without edit tabs
Hi,

I'm having some problems figuring out what to do about pages without "Edit" links. For example, I'm at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin , and I have some comments about it, and I'm trying to figure out where to put these comments, but there's no link on the page itself, and it's not covered in the Editing FAQ. Would "How do I change pages without an Edit tab?" be an appropriate FAQ entry? Thank

How to open link in new window?
can't use target what else can i do?

Unicode to HTML -- Huh?
Someone might want to elucidate on the third step of how to convert Unicode to HTML. "While keeping broken characters, type articles" isn't at all clear to me.

British English or North American English, or does it really matter?
For en.wikipedia I'm wondering if there's a "standard" so to speak on which English to use.

Sometimes I see Briton Wiki users edit entire pages to change "color" to "colour", "favor" to "favour", and other miscellaneous Britishisms. Do some situations legitimately call for this cross-pond nitpicking by some actual written Wikipedia-decided standard, or are some people just being a smartass when they do this? Or is Wikipedia located in England somewhere and articles are indeed supposed to be written in British English, with North American English being "wrong" grammar?

Sorry if this question is in the wrong Discussion, I wouldn't know where else to ask this.


 * I suppose they think their correcting spellings. The most logical thing to do would go for the british spelling as thats where the language comes from.


 * See Manual of style. Zarniwoot 23:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Why wont my changes show on a page?
I wrote information for a word that only redirected to another page, whats going on, why wont my changes show?

The "pipe trick"
Under the "How do I make links?" section, the following appears


 * page name (disambiguation) -- the "pipe trick": the part in parentheses will not be displayed.

First, what I think of as the "pipe trick" is shown on the line above this. Second, this does not appear to work. Is it out of date syntax? -- Mwanner | Talk 22:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It works fine, so long as the link exists. Here are a couple of examples (edit to see the link invocation):


 * Tolerance
 * Tolerance
 * Pol098 12:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

A Question
I've got a bit of a query regarding Images. I'm writing an article about an educational system, and I would like to include a picture of the system's crest. Now I understand from reading this FAQ, and other pages that the creator of the image is required to release it to free domain for it to be able to be included. I remember from a discussion on another article's talk page (the name escapes me now) that such a declaration can be requested for in an e-mail and is valid. As this is the first time that I'm doing this, I'd appreciate a bit of advice as to the type of e-mail request to write and what exactly is required. Thanks in advance. Kaushik twin 19:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Diacritics missing
A day or two ago, the diacritics down below the edit screen, used for insertion into articles, formerly numbering in the dozens (including caron, hachek, Greek letters, etc.) have been whittled to a mere few. Inquiries at the Village Pump and elsewhere have garnered no responses. Who made this (bad) change and when will the missing diacritics be restored? Badagnani 08:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Explanation at WP:GC. They're now available through the dropdown box at the screen foot, where it says "Wiki": open it and pick the language you want. I think it actually is better, EXCEPT THAT there is no entry for French, although the French accents are by far the commonest. They also occur in Catalan, however. Staffelde 14:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I do not see this as a good thing, however, seeing that as an experienced user I was not able to find these after many, many, many hours of searching and hard work (and no responses at the Village Pump, Help, or many other pages where I had asked about this). It's a very bad problem. See English Wiktionary which has a quite logical drop-down menu, and yet English Wikipedia is in the Stone Age with an unexplained change to a system where nobody (especially new/novice editors, let alone experienced ones) can easily find the diacritics? This shows quite a level of presumptuousness on the part of those who are making these changes unilaterally, and not deigning to explain themselves or even listen to the opinions of hard working editors. Badagnani 08:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I have just checked and there is no such drop-down box, as described. This is a problem; whoever you are who has made this change, please fix it! Badagnani 08:50, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, the drop down box containing all the diacritics (even more than before) is now there, just below the edit screen. The top line is labeled "Wiki"; click on that or the arrow just to the right of it to drop down to other character sets and diacritics for various languages. Badagnani 09:45, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Help with image file...
Hey, I've uploaded my picture and entered the appropriate command... And this results... -->

What is up with that?

-- JFB

How to rename or delete a uploaded image. Can't seem to find the info! Fernvale 02:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Use piped links sparingly?
I picked up the use of piped links by seeing and copying examples, and have just come across the FAQ entry that says "Use piped links sparingly". Why sparingly? It is a very useful trick, and one that is very widely used indeed. I'm not trying to criticise the recommendation, just to find the reason behind it (I may then either criticise or conform).

As an example (not a good one, as there is a redirect from "blood pressure meter" to the article on sphygmomanometer), why not
 * blood pressure meter

or


 * average

or


 * 7&nbsp:July&nbsp:2005

(with ; instead of : &mdash; I don't know how to display the string I want)

Pol098 13:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)