Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wiki Syntax/Archive 1

Double prime
In the section What do I do if I encounter valid unclosed square brackets, or other wiki syntax?, the page says:
 * The use of '' as a symbol for inches or arc minutes

which I believe to be wrong. The two apostrophes should be a double prime symbol (Unicode U+2033 DOUBLE PRIME, HTML &amp;#8243; or &amp;#x2033;, looks like ″, as in a 15″ screen). Shouldn't this be fixed, even though the error's common? (I don't propose we go through and change all the nowiki'd versions, but that future versions, instead of being nowiki'd, are &amp;#8243;'d or ″'d.) Felix the Cassowary 10:44, 1 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. I've updated that description, and suggested that people replace these with  which renders as &Prime; and is probably easier to remember than &amp;#8243; -- All the best, Nickj (t) 03:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Bad table format
This page has a big table box for Completed items that does not render properly in Firefox. It does the right thing (aligning to the right with the long box down the right-hand side of the page) only if the Firefox Sidebar is dismissed. When the Sidebar is open (displaying my bookmarks, e.g.) the Completed box overlaps the right-hand box. Oops. Someone should fix this. 216.237.179.238 00:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * well, i fixed it; the "nowrap" attribute on every row was making the first column take up way too much space; but now it makes the center column pretty narrow on most window widths... but at least it's readable in firefox on screens less than 1280 wide. 216.237.179.238 20:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * okay, i put back the nowrap style on the center column; looks cleaner now. it still has overlap problems on the right when the window gets very narrow, but it's much better than it was; if i knew how to limit the center column to three columns of numbers or so, i'd do that and make it about as good as it could get... hope it helps whomever starts the next round of syntax edits. 216.237.179.238 21:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I asked at Template talk:Active Wiki Fixup Projects if anyone knew how to fix this (as I didn't know how myself), but drew a blank, so it's great that you were able to find a way to fix this. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 23:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Things for the bot to remember on double brackets
It needs to recognize line breaks (&lt;br&gt;) in links, as well as when the &lt;nowiki&gt; tag is used inside links (certain characters mess up links, requiring this usage). Ral315


 * Can you possibly please give me an example to illustrate? -- All the best, Nickj (t) 04:58, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Open quotes in infoboxes
There are about 20 pages listed in double-quotes-009.txt with open double quotes inside infoboxes. Closing the quotes adds a blank line to the infobox, which is probably what the articles' authors wanted to avoid. The Infobox_templates page suggests using "some_field=&amp;nbsp;" for empty parameters but this also adds a blank line. Is there a preferred method of handling these? - Gimboid13 23:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * An example of this is Ballindine, and deleting the unbalanced italics quotes in the "motto_latin" and/or "motto_english" fields. It uses Template:Ie citytown infobox. I just inserted some extra quotes, and that seemed to display OK (no extra blank lines), and it's valid wiki syntax, so maybe see if this works elsewhere too? -- All the best, Nickj (t) 03:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Election Summary Begin leading to unopened |}
The Template:Election Summary Begin, used on several dozen elections-related pages, includes an opening {|, but no closing |}. This seems to be because the table needs to continue beyond the template, and is only closed after including some other stuff. See, e.g., Hinckley and Bosworth Council election 1999 for an example. Hence, the closing |} is always included explicitly in the article itself, obviously resulting in incorrect Wiki syntax. I'm not yet experienced enough here to know of a good solution. Anyone else have any ideas? &middot;&middot;&middot; rWd &middot; Talk &middot;&middot;&middot; 11:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The same thing happens with Template:Election FPTP begin, used on some 280 pages, and Template:Election box begin, used on 1000+ pages. The solution is simple, really, as mentioned on Template talk:Election box: use Template:Election box end to close the table, rather than |} . &middot;&middot;&middot; rWd &middot; Talk &middot;&middot;&middot; 12:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I noticed this as well. I'm not sure this project is workable for me at the moment. The first page I went to (GeForce 4) was huge and would be time consuming to find the error, if it still existed. The second I very nearly I made removed an opened |} that would have completely broken the page. If extra unopened/unclosed brackets don't break things, is there really a strong argument for removing them all? Stevage 22:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I suppose the argument is that most of the syntax problems are real; Most of the rest are at least messy (e.g. using {| to start a table, and to end it). In the case you mention, I suspect the solution would be replacing |} with, which will most problably result in the number of {| matching the number of |}, and the number of  , which is what the syntax checker is looking for in this category. As for whether this is a strong argument, I'll leave that value judgement up to you, but there are 3 things that I should point out:
 * The braces/tables category is the trickiest and fussiest category, and if you don't enjoy it or see the value then by all means don't do that category.
 * Problems that aren't fixed will pop up in the next run, so on one hand it's good to fix them so they don't come up again; but on the other it's a case of just do you best, and if there's something that gets missed, then don't worry about it because if it's something we check for it will get listed again.
 * Braces/table problems can be the ones that cause the most content to be hidden (e.g. I've seen malformed tables lead half of the content in an article to not be visible; and fixing them brings that content back). They may have updated the MediaWiki parser though to make it more tolerant of malformed tables, but I've certainly seen this happen in previous runs.
 * Hope that helps answer your question. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Similar problems with pages that use Template:election dual-member and Template:CanElec1 - fixed by creating Template:election dual-member end and Template:CanElec1 end   Kcordina 10:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The template contains the requisite characters to close a table, although intended primarily for succession boxes, it could also be used for other templates that need tables closing Kcordina

Question
This one appears to be a false positive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Biology

The |} seems necessary for formating. So either it should be done another way to avoid the false positive or the script should handle this case as valid. Perhaps the template at the top of the section needs editing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WilliamKF (talk • contribs) [moved from project page by zenohockey 23:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)]


 * This was fixed by Kcordina, and the problem was that the table was started with, but ended with |}. Changing the end to instead results in the number of {| equalling the number of |}, and the number of  , which is what the syntax checked is looking for (i.e. it wants a table to end the way it is started - either with the wiki table syntax for the start and end, or with templates for both the table start and table end). -- All the best, Nickj (t) 01:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion - Category redirects
Maybe you want to add this to the next go-round. AFAIK, Category pages should never be redirected in the normal way (i.e. with #REDIRECT ). They should be redirected with the category redirect template. I've come across various ones that are not done the way they should be. It seems like it would be easy to generate a list of these bad Category redirects, and post them for people to run through and fix. Or this might even be done by a bot, if there aren't any sneaky corner cases to worry about... JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi JesseW, This might be best as a query on the live database (it might be called asksql now, but I'm not sure). Here is the query I used, and the results (I'm using a MediaWiki 1.4 database, and a dump from the start of december, so some of this stuff may be out of date, but hopefully most will be current and should give the general idea):
 * Thanks, I'll get cracking on this... (I'll delete the ones as I fix them.) JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

mysql> select cur_title, left(cur_text,80) from cur where cur_namespace = 14 and cur_text like "#redirect%";
 * Original list replaced with list checked against the current database, as of 03:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC).

--All the best, Nickj (t) 02:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Category:Battles of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78
 * 2) Category:Beatles children
 * 3) Category:Bemani Artists
 * 4) Category:Bemani video games
 * 5) Category:Bloodhound Gang albums
 * 6) Category:Bodybuilders by nationality
 * 7) Category:Bosnian football clubs
 * 8) Category:Bosnian history
 * 9) Category:Bosnian people
 * 10) Category:Bosnian political parties
 * 11) Category:Bremen (state)
 * 12) Category:British World War II weapons
 * 13) Category:Byzantine history
 * 14) Category:CSD
 * 15) Category:California Musicians
 * 16) Category:Canadian Armed Forces
 * 17) Category:Canadian Olympians
 * 18) Category:Canadian government run museums
 * 19) Category:Categories that are not self-inclusive
 * 20) Category:Catholic schools
 * 21) Category:Child labor
 * 22) Category:Chilli peppers
 * 23) Category:Chocolate bars
 * 24) Category:Choral Music
 * 25) Category:Classification
 * 26) Category:Coastal towns in France
 * 27) Category:Coat of arms of Sweden
 * 28) Category:Coats of arms of Sweden
 * 29) Category:Cognitive Psychology
 * 30) Category:Colecovision games
 * 31) Category:Colleges in the United States
 * 32) Category:Colour stubs
 * 33) Category:Companies traded on KSE
 * 34) Category:Computer Olympiads
 * 35) Category:Creation Science
 * 36) Category:Criminal organisations
 * 37) Category:Crusade Cast and Crew
 * 38) Category:Culture of Europe
 * 39) Category:Czech geography stubs
 * 40) Category:D & D creatures
 * 41) Category:Dance computer games
 * 42) Category:Dance mats
 * 43) Category:Dark Horse comics
 * 44) Category:Dark horse comics
 * 45) Category:Deceased Cardinals
 * 46) Category:Defunct American Football Teams
 * 47) Category:Desktop backgrounds
 * 48) Category:Dialects of Sweden
 * 49) Category:Disc Jockeys
 * 50) Category:Disney TV shows
 * 51) Category:Donuts
 * 52) Category:Dungeons & dragons
 * 53) Category:Dungeons and Dragons creatures
 * 54) Category:Dutch rivers
 * 55) Category:Earls
 * 56) Category:Economy of China
 * 57) Category:Edinburgers
 * 58) Category:Elections in China
 * 59) Category:Employees of the U.S. Congress
 * 60) Category:Estonian municipalities
 * 61) Category:Etrurian history
 * 62) Category:European rivers
 * 63) Category:Famous Historical Bears
 * 64) Category:Fictional Drugs
 * 65) Category:Fictional royalty
 * 66) Category:Fifth Dimension albums
 * 67) Category:Filipino poets
 * 68) Category:Fokida
 * 69) Category:Folk Music
 * 70) Category:Folk Music Groups
 * 71) Category:Fonts
 * 72) Category:Football competitions
 * 73) Category:Football managers
 * 74) Category:Former students of Lincoln College, Oxford
 * 75) Category:Formicine subfamilies
 * 76) Category:Four Campaigns
 * 77) Category:French astronauts
 * 78) Category:GTA screenshots
 * 79) Category:GameBoy Color games
 * 80) Category:Game Boy Colour games
 * 81) Category:Gay pornography
 * 82) Category:Gdansk
 * 83) Category:General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 * 84) Category:Georgian history
 * 85) Category:Government in Ohio
 * 86) Category:Greek history
 * 87) Category:Gundam characters
 * 88) Category:Guns
 * 89) Category:Guns n' Roses albums
 * 90) Category:HIM Albums
 * 91) Category:Henson
 * 92) Category:Heresies
 * 93) Category:High Schools in Illinois
 * 94) Category:High schools in Washington, DC
 * 95) Category:History of Education
 * 96) Category:History of Luxembourg
 * 97) Category:History of U.S. Congress
 * 98) Category:History of asronomy
 * 99) Category:History of iran
 * 100) Category:Home-build aircraft
 * 101) Category:Hong Kong Online Community
 * 102) Category:Hong Kong actresses
 * 103) Category:Hong Kong politics
 * 104) Category:Human
 * 105) Category:Human memory
 * 106) Category:Hurricanes
 * 107) Category:Ice Cream
 * 108) Category:Illinois high schools
 * 109) Category:Image pages with missing or corrupt images
 * 110) Category:Imposter pretenders
 * 111) Category:Incan deities
 * 112) Category:Incarcerated Celebrities
 * 113) Category:Indian Models
 * 114) Category:Indian directors
 * 115) Category:Indonesian food and drink
 * 116) Category:Instant messaging server software
 * 117) Category:InterActiveCorp subsidiaries
 * 118) Category:International organisation flag images
 * 119) Category:Isolating languages
 * 120) Category:Italian food
 * 121) Category:Italian food and drink
 * 122) Category:Italian geography
 * 123) Category:Jazz Bassists
 * 124) Category:Jewish History
 * 125) Category:Jewish youth organisations
 * 126) Category:KCRC Light Rail stations
 * 127) Category:KCRC lines
 * 128) Category:Kido Senkan Nadeshiko
 * 129) Category:LISP programming language
 * 130) Category:LISP programming language family
 * 131) Category:Languages of DRC
 * 132) Category:Lao Cuisine
 * 133) Category:Latina Politicians
 * 134) Category:Law enforcement television series
 * 135) Category:Leeward Islands
 * 136) Category:Legend of the Mystical Ninja
 * 137) Category:Legend of the Mystical Ninja games
 * 138) Category:Leon Bakst
 * 139) Category:List of Bulgarian monarchs
 * 140) Category:Lists of generic names of political parties
 * 141) Category:London Docklands Light Railway stations
 * 142) Category:London School
 * 143) Category:London schools and colleges
 * 144) Category:Los Angeles Musical Groups
 * 145) Category:Lost cities
 * 146) Category:Low-cost carriers
 * 147) Category:Luxembourg history
 * 148) Category:MTR templates
 * 149) Category:Magical and fictional creatures
 * 150) Category:Marilyn Manson Songs
 * 151) Category:Markup Languages
 * 152) Category:Marvel Comics Supervillains
 * 153) Category:Marvel comics
 * 154) Category:Medical schools
 * 155) Category:Members of the U.S. Congress
 * 156) Category:Mental disorder
 * 157) Category:Mental illness
 * 158) Category:Merrie Melodies characters
 * 159) Category:Metaphysical writers
 * 160) Category:Metropolitan Areas
 * 161) Category:Midair aircraft crashes
 * 162) Category:Middle earth
 * 163) Category:Military formations
 * 164) Category:Mmorpg
 * 165) Category:Moscovites
 * 166) Category:Musical technology
 * 167) Category:NPR affiliates
 * 168) Category:N Ireland
 * 169) Category:Napolitan history
 * 170) Category:Natives of Barcelona
 * 171) Category:Natives of Beijing
 * 172) Category:Natives of Berlin
 * 173) Category:Natives of Gdansk
 * 174) Category:Natives of Hamburg
 * 175) Category:Natives of Leicester
 * 176) Category:Natives of Moscow
 * 177) Category:Natives of Paris
 * 178) Category:Natives of Southampton
 * 179) Category:Natives of the West Midlands
 * 180) Category:Natural phenomena
 * 181) Category:Nature reserves in South Africa
 * 182) Category:Neapolitan history
 * 183) Category:Neopolitan history
 * 184) Category:Norwegian schools
 * 185) Category:Noted Sikhs
 * 186) Category:Officers of the U.S. Congress
 * 187) Category:Official Residences of Australia
 * 188) Category:Orders of Knighthood
 * 189) Category:Otakon
 * 190) Category:Oxo cations
 * 191) Category:PBS network affiliates
 * 192) Category:Pages with maps produced with EasyTimeline
 * 193) Category:Palme d'Or
 * 194) Category:Palme d'or
 * 195) Category:Paranormal phenomenon
 * 196) Category:People from Cincinnati
 * 197) Category:People from Cleveland
 * 198) Category:People from Columbus
 * 199) Category:People from Dallas
 * 200) Category:People from Dayton
 * 201) Category:People from Edmonton
 * 202) Category:People from Indianapolis
 * 203) Category:People from Kansas City
 * 204) Category:People from Louisville
 * 205) Category:People from Newfoundland
 * 206) Category:People from Northern Ireland
 * 207) Category:People from Phoenix, Arizona
 * 208) Category:People from Regina
 * 209) Category:People of DRC
 * 210) Category:People of the DRC
 * 211) Category:Philosophy of art
 * 212) Category:Physical Oceanography
 * 213) Category:Physicist wikipedians
 * 214) Category:Pioneers
 * 215) Category:Pittsburg Steelers players
 * 216) Category:Plastic
 * 217) Category:Pokemon
 * 218) Category:Pokemon stubs
 * 219) Category:Polish companies
 * 220) Category:Polish villages
 * 221) Category:Political Writers
 * 222) Category:Portmanteaux
 * 223) Category:Possible successors to Benedict XVI
 * 224) Category:Post punk
 * 225) Category:Prime Ministers of Sudan
 * 226) Category:Profession
 * 227) Category:Programmer stubs
 * 228) Category:Programming Language
 * 229) Category:Programming language stubs
 * 230) Category:Programming tools
 * 231) Category:Protist
 * 232) Category:Protists
 * 233) Category:Protoctista
 * 234) Category:Psychiatric disorders
 * 235) Category:Psychiatric medication
 * 236) Category:Public Safety
 * 237) Category:Punk Band
 * 238) Category:Punk Bands
 * 239) Category:Punk Groups
 * 240) Category:Punk Rock Bands
 * 241) Category:Punk Rock Groups
 * 242) Category:Punk Rock bands
 * 243) Category:Punk Rock groups
 * 244) Category:Punk band
 * 245) Category:Punk bands
 * 246) Category:Punk groups
 * 247) Category:Punk rock
 * 248) Category:Punk rock Bands
 * 249) Category:Punk rock bands
 * 250) Category:RAW Diva Search Contestants
 * 251) Category:RDF
 * 252) Category:RPGs
 * 253) Category:Religions
 * 254) Category:Republic of Ireland Politicians
 * 255) Category:Republic of Nicaragua
 * 256) Category:Requests for mediation
 * 257) Category:Residents albums
 * 258) Category:Revolution games
 * 259) Category:Rhode Island Sports
 * 260) Category:Rhode Island cities
 * 261) Category:Robert Zelazny books
 * 262) Category:Robert Zelazny novels
 * 263) Category:Rochester NY People
 * 264) Category:Rock Music Groups
 * 265) Category:Roger Zelazny books
 * 266) Category:Roman Catholic Cathedrals
 * 267) Category:Roman Catholic Church History
 * 268) Category:Romania Municipalities
 * 269) Category:Romanian companies
 * 270) Category:Royal Air Force bases
 * 271) Category:Russian political groups
 * 272) Category:Saint Mary's County, Maryland
 * 273) Category:San Francisco
 * 274) Category:Sao Paulo
 * 275) Category:Science Fiction Novels
 * 276) Category:Scientific societies in Poland
 * 277) Category:Scientology-related stubs
 * 278) Category:Scottish history
 * 279) Category:Scottish villages
 * 280) Category:Seaports
 * 281) Category:Sega Master system games
 * 282) Category:Seperatist characters
 * 283) Category:Serb-Canadian
 * 284) Category:Sicilian history
 * 285) Category:Slovak authors
 * 286) Category:Sonic the hedgehog
 * 287) Category:Sophomore albums
 * 288) Category:Spanish cities
 * 289) Category:Speedy
 * 290) Category:Stadia
 * 291) Category:Star Wars organizations
 * 292) Category:Sulphides
 * 293) Category:Sulphur compounds
 * 294) Category:Super Nintendo games
 * 295) Category:Swiss geography
 * 296) Category:T.A.T.u. Albums
 * 297) Category:Telford New Town
 * 298) Category:Temples of Kerala
 * 299) Category:Terminology of restaurants
 * 300) Category:Terpenes
 * 301) Category:That 70's Show
 * 302) Category:The Farm releases
 * 303) Category:The Farm singles
 * 304) Category:The Four Campaigns of Admiral Yi during the Imjin Year (1592)
 * 305) Category:The Sims characters
 * 306) Category:The Visions of Escaflowne
 * 307) Category:Theaters
 * 308) Category:Timeline
 * 309) Category:Tiny Toon Adventures video games
 * 310) Category:To Village Pump (assistance)
 * 311) Category:To Village Pump (miscellaneous)
 * 312) Category:To Village Pump (policy)
 * 313) Category:To Village Pump (proposals)
 * 314) Category:To Village Pump (technical)
 * 315) Category:Tonga professional wrestlers
 * 316) Category:Towns in Carlow
 * 317) Category:Towns in Galway
 * 318) Category:Towns in Leitrim
 * 319) Category:Towns in Mayo
 * 320) Category:Towns in Roscommon
 * 321) Category:Towns in Sligo
 * 322) Category:Traditional Counties of Scotland
 * 323) Category:Transportation in Hong Kong
 * 324) Category:Transsexual men and women
 * 325) Category:Tropical cyclone lists
 * 326) Category:Tsimshian languages
 * 327) Category:U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
 * 328) Category:U.S. Congressmen election results by state
 * 329) Category:U.S. State Supreme Courts
 * 330) Category:U.S. architects
 * 331) Category:US television
 * 332) Category:Ukrainians
 * 333) Category:Unbelievably awesome people
 * 334) Category:United States Congress
 * 335) Category:United States Congressmen by state
 * 336) Category:United States Senate candidate
 * 337) Category:United States of America cities
 * 338) Category:United States singers
 * 339) Category:Universal Century series
 * 340) Category:Universities in the United States
 * 341) Category:User leet-0
 * 342) Category:User leet-1
 * 343) Category:User leet-2
 * 344) Category:User leet-3
 * 345) Category:VW
 * 346) Category:Velvet Revolver albums
 * 347) Category:Verbandsgemeinde in Rheinland-Pfalz
 * 348) Category:Villages in Galway
 * 349) Category:Villages in Leitrim
 * 350) Category:Villages of Hong Kong
 * 351) Category:Villages of Poland
 * 352) Category:Visceral motor system
 * 353) Category:WAMP
 * 354) Category:WAPP
 * 355) Category:Wards of Kawasaki
 * 356) Category:Wheel of Time Characters
 * 357) Category:Wikipedians in Wikipedia
 * 358) Category:Youth organisations


 * Should this list be on the main project page? --zenohockey 03:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, truth be told, I should have just looked harder before asking for this. Hard category redirects already exists, and I should just move this list there... JesseW, the juggling janitor 04:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Line breaks
I just fixed a bunch which were all caused by line breaks somewhere between column 60 and 80, in wikilinks or in templates. Isn't there some way to automate the detection? A big hint is when a missing ]] occurs on a line right before a line with a missing [[. I'm sure everything I just fixed could have been automated. --James S. 05:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You are absolutely correct that many of those of the form  line X malformed with unbalanced + line X+1 malformed with unbalanced   can by fixed by removing the line break, but to be honest I know that I'm not going to have the time to write such a bot. The syntax checking source code is out there (and I can get an updated version to anyone who is interested), so if anyone out there is thinking of writing a bot like this, please let us know. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 05:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Newlines in wiki links
These comments were moved here from WikiProject Wiki Syntax/miscellaneous-000.txt.


 * Arsenic trioxide : Unopened or unclosed [[ : On line that starts with: | [[Standard enthalpy change of formation|Standard enthalpy&lt;br/&gt; of
 * Arsenic trioxide : Unopened or unclosed ]] : On line that starts with: formation]] &amp;Delta;&lt;sub&gt;f&lt;/sub&gt;H&lt;sup&gt;&lt;s&gt;o&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;solid&lt;/sub&gt;
 * Arsine : Unopened or unclosed [[ : On line that starts with: | [[Standard enthalpy change of formation|Standard enthalpy&lt;br/&gt; of
 * Arsine : Unopened or unclosed ]] : On line that starts with: formation]] &amp;Delta;&lt;sub&gt;f&lt;/sub&gt;H&lt;sup&gt;&lt;s&gt;o&lt;/s&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;gas&lt;/sub&gt;

NB - These four errors result from the appearance of a &lt;br/&gt; in the middle of a link declaration - removing it makes the right table far too wide, and this usage does actually seem to be supported by the current parser - perhaps we could declare this not to be an error with the syntax checker? -- comment added by Bosmon


 * They need a "&lt;br/&gt;" but it can be in one line, i.e. " Standard enthalpy of formation ". r3m0t talk 17:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yep, it's the newline ('\n') that is upsetting the syntax checker, not the &lt;br/&gt;. Some wiki links will display OK with newlines, some do not. For example, [[this will

stuff up]], and [[this-will stuff-up]]-too, but This will not stuff up, although This will stuff up too. I.e. if there is a pipe ('|'), and the new line appears in the label text, not the link text, then it will render correctly. However, my feeling is that removing the line break is the way to go, because it: -- All the best, Nickj (t) 00:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) makes the wiki text more readable.
 * 2) removes the idea that newlines in links are a good idea (usually they're not, because as can be seen above out of the 4 possible ways of using newlines in wiki links, only one renders - and IMHO the renderer is being too tolerant of input in that one case).

Broken links
So I was going through the contributions of OleMaster, and she seems to "fix" a lot of wikilinks like this first one I noticed: Femme fatale (disambiguation) → Femme fatale (Disambiguation), thus breaking the link. I checked a few of the first few pages, fixing where I could see obvious ones, but they got buried. This has been addressed on her talk.

So my suggestion is to fix redlinks of the form Ambiguious-article-name (Capitalized stuff) where the uncapitalized actually points to an existing article. I imagine this is a common problem with newbies. --Christopherlin 07:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The syntax checker isn't concerned about redlinks, so changing capitalization won't have any effect on whatever it was unhappy about. The edits you're talking about, do you think they were made because those pages were listed by the Wiki Syntax Project? If not, then those redlinks will probably get caught by WikiProject Red Link Recovery, which looks at links that are redlinks, but which are very similar to non-redlinks, and suggests that maybe the link should be changed accordingly. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 05:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Question about the syntax of disambiguation links
I have seen numerous articles with a disambiguation link like this (from Bugsy): :For the Pokémon character, see List of Johto Gym Leaders. Some others use (from Changeroom): I think that the latter form is correct, and the former form is wrong. Although it might not look wrong to someone looking at it using a graphical browser, it is semantically incorrect. If you look at the HTML output, it is actually being represented as a definition list, not as a disambiguation link (class="dablink"). I have concern that this could cause accessibility problems for users with screen readers such as Jaws. Am I correct? Invitatious 03:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Look closer at the source for Changeroom. The indenting there is accomplished the same way. It's just how the wiki translates ":" indenting .. --Q Canuck 00:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

spelling problem
Hi, I'm not sure I should post that here but I don't know where to go. I'm trying to translate articles from french to english. I'm sure I'm making spelling and style mistakes. Is there a category to put into the article in order to make sure some people will have a look at it and correct the mistakes? I looked for some kind of Category:Spelling_to_check or Category:Grammar_to _be_checked but I didn't find out. Thanks for your help. --Ajor 17:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Try looking at copyedit. I think that is equivalent. --Gwern (contribs) 18:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)