Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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Latest comment: 18 years ago by Gmcfoley in topic svg files
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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.

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Adding things to the bulletin board

How do I add the following notice?Can someone do it for me?

Disney fans rejoice, WikiProject Disney has been propsed, just add your name to the category of interested Wikipedians to join here(it's at the bottom). Make sure to spread the word and bring the project to a good start! Julz

reclaiming deleted articles

I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but...

A list article was deleted, with the major argument being that it was redundant to a category. This is untrue as there is no similar category. I'd be happy to create it, but I don't know what was on the list. Is there any way for anyone to see the deleted article? -Freekee 20:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

admins can - but to redo a deleted article you need to go to WP:VFU first otherwise it'll be speedy deleted. also, if the argument was "redundant to a category" then it would make more sense to make the category than to remake the list wouldnt it? BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I don't think Freekee means to undelete the article permanently, only temporarily so that he can add all the listed articles to a new category. If the list is very long, maybe there's a bot that could help him? SeahenNeon Merlin 23:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I only need the text of the list article in order to start the category. There were less than 40 subjects listed, but I can't remember all of them, and it took a few weeks to find them all. I'd rather not lose that work, but it's not the end of the world if it's all gone. On the other hand, there's a question about the impropriety of the deletion, and it may get reinstated on those grounds. -Freekee 03:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
If you give me the name of the article, I will pull up the deleted history and get the list out for you. Prodego talk 03:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Got it temporarily reinstated, through Deletion Review. Thanks for your offers/help! -Freekee 01:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Obnoxiously animated GIFs.

I don't know if there's a more specific place to put this, but someone should look at the images Image:London.gif and Image:Tax court.gif and do something about them... they're animated for, as far as I can tell, no reason at all... 68.39.174.238 04:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

This is an somewhat interesting situation, since the images are official logos, which we generally shouldn't alter. Of course, presumably there are official non-animated versions of these logos as well. Incidentally, neither of these images has been properly sourced; presumably they're from a website somewhere, but it's hard to tell. I've tagged both as lacking source information and notified the uploaders. — Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I find it next to impossble to belive that either London or part of the Federal Judiciary would have a flashing logo... 68.39.174.238 22:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
As hard as it might be to believe both the London Authority website and US Tax Court website give the obnoxiously animated gifs pride of place on their front pages. --Daduzi talk 03:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well, here's an unoffical, unanimated one. As to the offical sites, I think that some of them don't entirely understand web design, or the people they hire to do it don't, or they did it back when more flashy things were fashionable. I've seen some governmental organizations who definately should've known better go down that road ugghhhhh... 68.39.174.238 05:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Citing using ISBN or key only

Moved from Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles

Is there a standard way I should cite a book giving the ISBN or a key only, something like {{cite isbn=1234|page=56}}, and then modifying a single entry for this book somewhere? Do you have to create a template yourself? -- Nils Grimsmo 21:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but I don't think there is a way to specify a book by the isbn and have all the details come up. If you want to cite a single book, just use {{cite book}}, if you need to do the same book several times, you could create a page in your userspace, which contains the specific use of {{cite book}} you need for that book, and then wherever you need to use it, use subst:, eg {{subst:User:Nils Grimsmo/mybook1}}. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 12:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your answer. Keeping something like this in my user space strikes me as a bit odd. Would not others hesitate to change it then? I think it would be great if there was a standard "built-in" way of doing this, as some books are cited many hundred times, as for example Introduction to Algorithms. Assume that somebody would want to make a page about a specific author. Instead of finding all references by searching, and updating them by hand, she could just update the template. Having one instance of the {{cite book}} would also minimise the number of unfixed errors. Citing by ISBN avoids misunderstandings with mismatching page numbers in different versions and such things. Considering the amount of trafic on this page, I assume it was not the right place to ask. What would be? Village pump (technical)? -- Nils Grimsmo 16:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Magnus has a toolserver tool that you can give just the ISBN to, and it will search various databases, and produce wikitext markup for what it finds. --Interiot 06:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
It does not give the references using the {{cite}} templates though. And my main issue is not finding the information, it's just that I am allergic to redundancy :) Nils Grimsmo 18:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Did you delete the talk page?

One thing I've run foul of two or three times when deleting pages is forgetting to check whether there was a discussion page... sometimes leaving a lone talk page floating in the void. Is it possible to put a message in large friendly letters on the "page deletion complete" page which will come up if there's an undeleted talk page that needs dealing with? Grutness...wha? 06:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

MediaWiki:Deletedtext could be modified, but I don't know how you'd parse (with wikicode) $1 -> Talk:$1 for any namespace but main (I tried {{#ifexist:Talk:$1|You may wish to delete [[Talk:$1|the talk page]] as well.}} but it does not parse). So, all you could do is add Something like "[[Talk:$1|talk page]]?" and it would only work for main article space. Other than that, it'd need to be a feature request most likely (either a parser function or edit to the mediawiki code to return a talk page as $3). --Splarka (rant)
A {{TALKSPACEE}} tag might help, but I'm not sure how to work it in. Tito xd(?!?) 00:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, good idea, one could modify the current magic word (or make another) to take parameters, like {{MAKETALK:$1}}, where $1 is any string (if it contains a colon and if Namespace of Namespace:Pagename exists as a real namespace, insert _talk after it. If not, prefix string with Talk:). Ok, someone write it! ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 00:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well.. duh Splarka! The MediaWiki:Deletedtext message is shown on the same url as the delete confirmation page, so {{TALKPAGENAME}} will work fine. Someone change this line --Splarka (rant) 00:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Depending on the reason for deletion, you may want to remove [[Special:Whatlinkshere/{{FULLPAGENAME}}|links to this page]] and the [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk page]].

This is sort of like CSD-R1 (redirects to articles that have been deleted). When I last looked, there weren't many CSD-R1, I presume that others are running queries on offline dumps and periodically cleaning them up? --Interiot 12:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Special:Brokenredirects shows them and some people run bots to delete them (redirect.py). On orphaned talk pages, someone has a huge list somewhere in userspace I'll try to find it. Sadly, people are rather overzealous in deleting them (and I'm not exactly sure why they need to be deleted?) and numerous pages with old VFDs or even talk page archives get deleted. User:R3m0t/Reports and User:Rory096/orphanedtalks, but they are a little out of date. Kotepho 12:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

If there are enough people going round cleaning up then it's not as urgent an iea, though it could still be worthwhile eventually. Grutness...wha? 00:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

What this feature would allow/force, though, is for the decision to be made when the subject is deleted. This would insure that most orphaned talk pages remaining would have some value (at least, in the eyes of the person who deleted the subject), and not 'accidentally' left over and needing cleanup. Perhaps, once a feature is worked out, a policy (excluding User space) of placing a template on spared talk pages like {{deletedsubject}}, allowing the non-deletor to briefly state why the page wasn't deleted, might be handy. Eg: {{deletedsubject|this page is continually VFD'd and recreated}} => The subject of this talk page was deleted, however, this talk page might still have value. The reason given: this page is continually VFD'd and recreated. 2 cents. --Splarka (rant) 07:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Mm. Good point. Perhaps this idea has legs after all. Grutness...wha? 00:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
See above. --Splarka (rant) 00:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Update: Sannse just added a note (using the above-mentioned magicword) to the message. Someone test it now ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 07:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Update #2: Ok, after some consultation with gurus, there is a way to make parserfunctions work: as an include. This could be in a sub page like MediaWiki:Deletedtext/include or it could be in a template like Template:Delete_talk_check. It could be added to the top of MediaWiki:Deletedtext and/or MediaWiki:Confirmdeletetext (as a simple {{MediaWiki:Deletedtext/include}}). The contents of the include should be something like:
{{#ifexist:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|{{#ifeq:{{SUBJECTPAGENAMEE}}|{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}|'''Note: A [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk page]] exists for this page.'''<br />}}}}
This checks if the talk page exists, and also checks to make sure you are not *on* the talk page of course (the inverse could be done too for subjectpage, but not really as useful). However as it is now technically possible (and more drastic), it isn't really a technical point and should probably be moved to the message talk pages, or to the proposals portion of the Village Pump ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 08:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I've added it to VP (proposals). Thanks everyone. Grutness...wha? 00:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Changing this table

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

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

That is called a <pre> tag. You can find that out by viewing the html source of a rendered page and see that it is wrapped in pre. Now, to see where the CSS is, view the same source and look for CSS pages loaded. In this instance it is via this line:
<style type="text/css" media="screen,projection">/*<![CDATA[*/ @import "/skins-1.5/monobook/main.css?9"; /*]]>*/</style>
Going to that ___location shows all the default css that comes with your mediawiki install. A few pages down we see:
pre {
padding: 1em;
border: 1px dashed #2f6fab;
color: black;
background-color: #f9f9f9;
line-height: 1.1em;
}
Now, you could go to the skins directory and change that, but usually one doesn't have such access on a wikimedia wiki (unless you have a local install or direct access) so, one edits MediaWiki:Common.css (or optionally the default skin css which is usually MediaWiki:Monobook.css, but as this is an in-content element, Common.css is more appropriate, unless you are on an older version of mediawiki where it does not exist). Go to the editable css file you chose (probably Common.css), and copy that block of css in, and edit it as you wish.
If however, you are not an administrator, you'll have to a) be content to edit your user CSS, or b) edit the tag directly each time, example:
Pre with magneta border and yellow background
--Splarka (rant) 09:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thank you Splarka, you have given me greate advice, now i have one more question for you how do i,
 without using the <br> tag or hitting enter, make the text wrap around, instead of continuing on the page, like your
 pre box started to.

wildboyz_211 09:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

I think you completely miss the point of <pre>, the point being that it stands for pre-formatted text, meaning, it should never wrap text itself. If you want wrapping text with proportional spacing, you can use <tt> or <code> ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 07:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

The job queue is pretty low (see Special:Statistics) so it should be gone pretty quick. You sure it was removed from all the pages listed there? It is still part of {{Template:Climbingbio-stub}}. --Splarka (rant) 07:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
No, it isn't; Check Template:Climbing-bio-stub. It got replaced with the svg version, now two days ago. ~ Booya Bazooka 17:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hmm.... then it seems to be because that template is actually a redirect to another template. This is apparently fooling the job queue in the image links department. What you can do is null edit all those articles. However, since that involves editing them anyway, you might as well change the template tags to the proper link like this. I'll leave a note on your talk page. --Splarka (rant) 00:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Cross-wiki template

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

Interwiki transclusions here are limited to images and image descriptions from commons, I believe. --Splarka (rant) 07:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
On a related note, is it possible to include the WikiQuote QOTD in, say, my User page? Thanks! -- SatyrTN 02:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Images in galleries not appearing

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

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

Problem with the Hendrik Wade Bode article

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

Odd, I saw it to, but a prescription of action=purge cleared that right up. --Splarka (rant) 07:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Great stuff. Thank you very much. Take care. Dr.K. 10:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

XFF Headers

Hi, I've been reading about some breaking news in which AOL has began using XFF headers or something like that. Now I've read the XFF article several times, gone to other resources, and it's still way over my head. So, what exactly is going on with these "XFF headers"? (Keep in mind that I know nothing about computers). Thank you for your help in advance AdamBiswanger1 03:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

If I understand it correctly, it means AOL users will be identified by their IP address, and not by their proxy address (which keeps on changing). In other words, AOL users will have the same IP address, at least for their login session. Again, I'm not an expert, so I'm not sure if this is right. -- Where 04:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Here's a non-technical explanation - every computer has an IP address which is sort of like your home phone number. Everyone has one, including AOL users. When AOL users connect to web servers (like Wikipedia), they connect indirectly through a bank of "outside lines" (proxy servers) which have their own IP address. There are fewer of these "outside lines" than AOL users, so each one is used by one user for only a very short period of time. Web servers (like Wikipedia) can always see the IP address of who is directly connecting, but for AOL users it's the IP address of the proxy server (outside line) rather than the actual user. If the XFF header is provided, we'll be able see both the proxy server's address (in the existing, normal, way) AND the actual end user's address. Unlike home phone numbers, most IP addresses aren't really permanent (if you use a dial-up connection your computer may get a new one every time you connect to the internet, if you have a broadband connection you might get a new one when you turn your computer's power on), but I suspect you get the general idea. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
What it really means is that we now have the means to block individual vandals who are doing their dirty work from behind AOL proxies. Before, an AOL vandal might get a new proxy IP address every time s/he viewed a new page, making him/her almost impossible to block effectively. Also, any blocks that were put in place were almost guaranteed to affect innocent editors who happened to be assigned a proxy IP that had been previously used by a vandal. Therefore, blocks on AOL proxy IPs had to be given short durations to minimize collateral damage.
Now we can track and treat vandals from AOL like we do any other vandal, without inconveniencing all the helpful editors! This, combined with the recently added ability to allow registered users from a blocked IP address to log in normally, is removing the technical hurdles that have kept us from dealing decisively with some problem users in the past.
Thank you, thank you to Tim Starling and all the devs for helping to solve these problems! — Catherine\talk 07:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
That's great. Thanks guys : ) AdamBiswanger1 12:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image doesn't work

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

shortcuts

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

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

Image won't show...

Hello, I recently uploaded this an image to Bromo-Seltzer. All I see is a white box instead of the image. If I click on the box, the image appears. What might the problem be? Thanks, 68.225.92.197 07:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

Undeletion problems

A move war a few months back left Template:ASUE organisation at a different title. Somehow, when trying to move it back, the good version has been lost, leaving two redirects pointing at each other. I tried restoring the deleted page, but although it says the restoration has occurred, the histories have not merged, and the template seems to have been lost. Can I get it back anyway? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 14:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I managed to get the source code back from Special:Undelete, but I still can't see where the history has gone. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 14:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Just a comment, but since the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events is American, shouldn't organization be used? Also, I do not see anything wrong with the history, try clearing your cache. Prodego talk 17:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

New tools for everyone to play with ..

{{subst:User:AOL user/cab|{{PAGENAME}}}}--AOL user 17:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Awe crap, the block log is linking to example user --AOL user 18:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

How do I get my signiture to be a link?

I have checked and unchecked my "raw signiture" box. Nothing makes a difference. Trunk 18:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Caption issue

How do I make the caption appear at the center below the image? The caption usually appears at the left. If you know where I can find this help topic, please tell me. Thanks for your help.--Wikindian 23:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

The help is at Wikipedia:Extended image syntax, but as far as I can tell there is no convenient way to center the caption. <div style="text-align: center;">caption text</div> seems to work, although I really don't think it's worth the trouble. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
How do I insert this into the [[Image:|right|thumb|px|"Title"]] format? --Wikindian 01:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
 
"Pump"
[[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px|<div style="text-align: center;">"Pump"</div>]], produces what's shown. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks a whole whole lot Rick!--Wikindian 19:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Is there a way to make the caption box go away when the caption is in the center? --Wikindian 18:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
 
"Pump"
Well, if I'm understanding what you mean, you can use a table. Like to the right. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well, is there way to keep the caption inside the frame/thumb, but without the rectangular box around it?--Wikindian 22:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
You mean, get rid of the white background on the table? --Splarka (rant) 23:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
 
"Transparent Pump 2"
No, I was refering to the box around the caption only, not the larger box around the image.--Wikindian 02:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
How's that? Just edit the color in the border: parameter. Also you can change the table background color via the background-color: parameter. --Splarka (rant) 07:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I was refering to the very first image, the one that was a thumb and had the caption in the center at the bottom. I thought that the entire image would look better without a rectangular frame around the caption (I mean only around the caption, I still want the image to be a thumb), but I still wanted the caption included in the thumb frame, and not outside it or below the rest of the thumb frame, like in the image that you had shown me earlier.--Wikindian 20:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
 
"Pump"
OK, I finally figured it out. You have to use [[Image:Villagepump.png|right|thumb|150px|<div style="text-align:center;border:none">"Pump"</div>]] As in the image to the right. Wikipedia definitely needs to improve its image syntax, and create better help pages. Thanks a whole lot for helping me!


Another transwiki question.

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

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

No. Cross-namespace redirects are denigrated, cross-project redirects would be howled down. Put a link in the Talk page, put it on the original author's Talk page, but don't redirect to the Wikibooks page. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Wasn't necessarily thinking about a redirect, just a different template for deleted pages that have been tw'd (so instead of saying "Wikipedia has no article...", it would say "Because (reason), this article was transwikied to (project), etc." and then have the redirects on the other project if needed.
The problem is that I can't find the original authors, because it was deleted. (I did leave a link on the talk, but I'm a little confused about how the talk page is still there even when the article has been deleted). SB Johnny 02:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
You could always try asking at WP:DRV#Requests to see the content of a deleted article if you want to find the original authors. --Daduzi talk 04:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
The original author was Eknudsen (talk · contribs).-gadfium 05:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Doesn't show up on Eknudsen's contribs... why do you say that?
I suppose this might be more of a policy question after all, since this would involve leaving the article up (with it's history intact), but providing a pointer-link to WB, and locking the page. SB Johnny 17:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Page deletions remove themselves from contributions. Gadfium checked the deleted page history with his admin powers.
Actually, it's an interesting point. W3C recommends that when you change a URI, you should always HTTP redirect the old page. Implementing such a policy, however, may not be possible in a wiki environment. — Edward Z. Yang(Talk) 22:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Can't block or unblock

I can't block or unblock 195.188.152.16 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). When blocking it, it tells me it's already blocked. When unblocking it, it says it's already unblocked. -- King of 05:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm particularly interested in this one, but not due to the technical aspect. As the blocking admin, I'm wondering why this is the first I'm hearing of this. Additionally, as one of two checkusers who have checked the edits coming from this IP (you know, the ones you can't see with Special:Contributions/195.188.152.16 because they were done by logged in users with usernames like User:I vandalize using an Intel Core Duo, User:Stop giving google blowjobs you wikislut!, User:The admin raping championchips, User:Get ready for a WoW attack!, and User:Wikipedians are FUCKING BASTARDS, among others), I'm wondering why you're overtuning my checkuserblock without consulting me; surely the big template that says "This IP is blocked because it's being used to create vandal usernames" would indicate that perhaps I know something more about the situation that would be worth asking about. Could you indicate which of the legitimate users listed above (and it has to be one of them, because I just checked again and there are no legitimate users on this IP in the last month, period) emailed you and made such a convincing arguement as to warrant unblocking without discussion with the blocking admin or either of the two checkusers involved? Essjay (Talk) 08:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Should be resolved now. There was a slight slave desync on the blocking table, and a different block record was listed for this IP. --Brion 08:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Nicely done. -- King of 18:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Beta Software Image

What is the correct tag, template, or catagory to add to a screenshot of beta software? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.38.174.97 (talkcontribs) 08:51, July 15, 2006 (UTC) From Wikipedia:Image copyright tags

There isn't a specific one for betas of software, but the conditions of Wikipedia:Fair use criteria still apply if the software isn't under a free license. For reference, Microsoft Windows is not under a free license. Kevin_b_er 09:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

How to get rid of article NOT on my watchlist but turns up there anyway?

Leo Steel and the Aztec gold is togged not to be on my watchlist but turns up anyway? How to get rid of it? KarenAnn 12:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Nevermind, I figured it out. It was a redirect page, and the page that it was redirected from was on my watchlist. Learn something new every day! KarenAnn 12:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Template:Fact not showing up in printable version

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

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

Translation Etiquette

Not sure if this is in the right place or not. I've been developing the articles on Jonatan Cerrada, his songs are all in French. Is it worth adding English Translation of his song names? Tipexcom2 18:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC) tipexcom2Reply

Not sure whether there's a specific convention/policy on it, but I would, following this sort of format:
Rien Ne Me Changera ("Nothing Will Change Me")
Libre Comme L'Air ("Free as the Air")
etc...
BTW, in future, this sort of question would probably be better for the Wikipedia:Help desk than here! :)
PS - I hope my French is OK! :)
Grutness...wha? 01:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think this is okay, but carefully note in the text that the translated titles are by the authors of the article and are not "official". Deco 04:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Why isn't this redirect working?

Bundelkhand Institute of Engineering and Technology - Is it not working because of the ampersand in the redirect? What can be done to fix this? --Spring Rubber 19:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Never mind, turns out the person who originally created the redirect messed up the title. --Spring Rubber 20:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Reporting Another User

Hi. I think I may be posting this question in the wrong section but I was hoping you could tell me how to report another user for abuse? Thanks!Jack30491 00:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

See WP:AN and read the "Are you sure this is the page you are looking for?" section to figure out where your complaint belongs. If you think that the complaint may be better described as a dispute than outright abuse, give WP:DR a look also. --iMeowbot~Meow 00:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image not displaying in infobox??

In the {{Infobox afl player}} template, there seems to have been a problem with the image in the image field not displaying (see the Owen Abrahams article for an example). It seems the user User:Ed g2s may have removed that functionality. If anyone could help, please drop me a line or explain on the talk page of the template. Rogerthat Talk 04:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

This is fixed now. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Adding my image

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

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

WikiProjects and Bots

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

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

That sounds like a very possible thing for a bot to do. I'd be happy to make a bot to do exactly that, right after I figure out how to make my bot download a specialpage. (Did you post this on the bot request page?) Xaxafrad 03:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Strictly speaking, this may be a rather impolite thing to do in some circumstances. While I don't doubt that most of these cases are simply due to someone forgetting to update the tags, it's also quite possible for a project to make a conscious choice to avoid the use of the GA "level" in its own rating. If this were to be the case, a bot that tried to force the project templates into this configuration would likely be distinctly unwelcome. Kirill Lokshin 05:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
In that case, the bot could simply be programmed to only affect Wikiprojects that allow it to. Dark Shikari 15:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Odd image problem

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

Works now, after a cache purge. Don't know if that fixed it or if it was some other transient issue. — Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, though I purged cache on the image, article, template, eveywhere else I could think of, had the same issue in sandboxes with this image. Must have been a temporary problem somewhere. — xaosflux Talk 21:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Unable to remain logged in

For some reason, I am unable to remain logged in. Sometimes, I am able to remain logged in, most times, I am not. Martial Law 17:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Youve already sought help for this several times; as you know, it seems to be a bug with Hughes Satellite internet, nothing on Wikipedia's side. I know someone suggested you post here about it, but they probably didn't realize you've been posting here, there, and everywhere about it already :-) — Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

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

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

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

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


copied from "The Article of the Day" e-mail

_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:

622:
 Beginning of the Islamic calendar.
 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar)" target=_blank >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar)</a>

(snip)

_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:

 "If you build it, he will come." -- "The Voice" in Field of Dreams
 (<a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams)" target=_blank >http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams)</a>

tharkun860 23:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

Unable to manually reset sandbox

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

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

How do you write a bot?

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

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

The output I'm given is

'Wikipedia:Sandbox'

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

Well, in this instance, p is an object, in the OOP sense. You set p as 'Wikipedia:Sandbox', and then used the object's get method, which is all correct; however, the get method only returns the content of the page, and as you are running p.get() without assigning the returned text to any variable, it just disappears into nowhere.
What you actually want is: q=p.get(), and then print q, which will return the actual contents of the sandbox, as it assigns the returned text to the variable q. Jude (talk) 06:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Semi-automated AfC edits

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

Here's an example lame article submission:

==Fox==
A fox is a type of canine.
===Sources===
www.fox.com

And here's how it would be edited to decline it:

==Fox==
{{subst:afc top}}
A fox is a type of canine.
===Sources===
www.fox.com
{{subst:afc exists}} ~~~~
{{subst:afc b}}

The {{subst:afc exists}} might be replaced with another template depending on the reason for the rejection, but other than that the format is always the same.

To me, this jumps up and down and screams for some sort of semi-automated solution, where a reviewer could click on a section on the AfC page, choose a reason for the decline (exists, dicdef, etc.) from a menu, and have the section automatically edited to insert the appropriate templates. Are there any existing Wikipedia automation tools that could be adapted for this task? Kickaha Ota 12:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

What about a bot that automatically closes any AFC entry that asks for an article that already exists, or is put up by a registered user? I notice there are a lot of these, and such a bot would probably lower the workload of the Wikipedians on that page by at least 10-15%. Dark Shikari 17:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
A bot that closed AfC entries that already existed would be cool, but the consensus of a recent AfC discussion seems to be "If registered users want to prescreen their dubious articles through AfC, so much the better." :) Kickaha Ota 17:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
While we're at it, why not have a bot that auto-closes empty submissions or those with an empty source selection? I've already dealt with four unsourced AfC's today and it is very repetitive (and that's during one of the quietest times around here). MER-C 10:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Writing musical notes

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

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

62.0.92.190 12:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

password won't reset

I am user Desertsky85450 but I have lost my password, and the 'email new password' button on the login page is not sending me a new password. Could some one please get it to send me a new password, or my old one? 216.161.151.90 15:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

A sneeky way to do logging

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

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

This could be done much simpler than that (on a purely temporary basis). If you had, for example, a template that was used exclusively on those 10k math articles (such as for a category or navigational template across the math project), you could add something like <span id="math-log">&nbsp;</span>. And then a similar something to the MediaWiki:Monobook.css: #bodyContent #math-log {background: url(http://some.site.with.referrer.logging.on.images.com/spacer.gif) center right no-repeat; }. However, there are three problems with this: 1) You'd need a host that was trustworthy *not* to divulge IPs, and you'd need to convince a checkuserer that it was trustworthy, as they are the only ones trusted to check IPs. It might be easier to make one of them perform this logging by setting up the site and css themselves, but good luck with that ^_^. 2) You'd need a host that could serve the image and log the referrers *and* take the pounding. 3) You'd have to add the template to all the articles, which is ~10k edits. Good luck convincing anyone that this needs to be done ^_^. But really, it is much less invasive than trying to add something to the javascript (which would, at least, have to execute 'if()' on every single page load by every user, to check if it was a math article (unless it was going to do all page hits... up to a few thousand per second...)). --Splarka (rant) 23:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
There's a hit counter feature in MediaWiki, but it is disabled due to performance reasons. Invitatious (talk) 02:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
dewiki has something like this working already... [1] Visitors to dewiki sometimes (1/10 or 1/100 chance due to load problems) load a 1x1 .gif from the Toolserver with something like ?title=..., and then Leon has a tool that combs through the resulting Apache logs. I think they changed the logging to discard IP addresses because that was certainly a concern (people on-wiki don't necessarily realize their IP addresses are being given away to another host). The folks at #wikimedia-toolserver would probably be willing to discuss it more.... the dewiki version just got started, and they're working the kinks out. --Interiot 02:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Edward Chernenko also has similar hit-counting code running for ru.wikipedia.org as well. [2] --Interiot 05:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hiding references

Myself and a few others were wondering if its possible to hide references that take up a large amount of space, specifically on the 2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict page, as there are almost 150 references as of now. Thanks! Frinkahedr0n 20:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It might be a bit too non-traditional, but you could use a <div style="overflow:auto">...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

Like this...

--Interiot 02:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'd see the almost 150 references as a sign of a very well done article rather than a problem to be solved, myself (though there's still a few inline references in the "International reactions" that need formatting). That being said, so many references sugggests that the article may be too long, and indeed at 71k it is. I'd suggest looking at what parts could be spun off into separate articles (the "historical background" section is an obvious place to start), and the introduction is too long as things stand. Other than that, though, I really don't think it's something that needs worrying about, especially not with the 2 column format for the references. --Daduzi talk 03:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
The 2-column format is only supported by a few browsers. Specifically, it doesn't work in Internet Explorer. But some of the non-technical solutions sound better anyway. --Interiot 04:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Posibly simpelest to just use a show/hide mechanish as for example in Wikipedia:Version 0.5. By default the content for some sections is hidden. The user can click a link which expands the section. --Salix alba (talk) 17:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Any solution would have to make sure that the references do appear when printed. The overflow:auto div doesn't print in full for me, but this could be changed with a bit of css. (I personally find that quite ugly, though). Lupin|talk|popups 13:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

date math

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

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

Anybody have improvements?

--William Allen Simpson 21:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

How to report a vandal

There is a vandle hitting a large number of articles... Buddy the Bird is the id.--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 01:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply


{{Featured article}} at ka:

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

Yes, you have to add this to your default skin CSS at ka:MediaWiki:Monobook.css.
/* For positioning icons at top-right, used in Templates
   "Spoken Article" and "Featured Article" */
div.topicon {
  position:absolute; 
  z-index:100; 
  top:10px;
  display: block !important;
}
The div is not displayed by default, and then is re-displayed for users of the default skin, so that it only appears for them (otherwise it can appear quite out of place). With that it should work --Splarka (rant) 07:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
thanks much, very helpful. - Alsandro (T / ka-T) 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
 
What it currently looks like
 
What it could look like

Audio files are treated a lot like images by Mediawiki, but this has some disadvantages. Images are displayed right in the article and don't require any special/external software to play. Clicking on the image shows the image description page and shows license information, which is mandatory functionality. Audio files, on the other hand, require you to be able to:

  1. download the file directly, just like you can see an image directly in the article
  2. view the license information
  3. get help on how to download and play the file, since we don't have an inline player yet and we use unpopular, but free formats.

In order to get all of these functions for a single file, we are resorting to multiple links, so the beginning of an article might look something like this:

Bordeaux (Audio file "Fr-Bordeaux.ogg" not found) is a port city in...

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

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

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

If there is a strong consensus that this is a good idea, we can tweak the style to make it more consistent with the rest of the site and then I want to deploy it site-wide. Please leave comments here or in Template_talk:Audio#Javascript_solution.3F. — Omegatron 04:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

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

Monochrome PNG image does not show correctly

When I link to this Image:Edmund Street strip map 1937.png using //Image:Edmund Street strip map 1937.png|centre|thumb|300px|1937 Ordnance Survey map of Edmund Street// (brackets for slashes) in an article, all I get is a few black and white dots one or two pixels high. It is a somewhat wide image in 2-bit monochrome, produced withn Paint Shop Pro V7. Is the image corrupt? (it shows fine on its Image page). Can I use this technique for large width/small pixel depth images? Thanks Oosoom Talk to me 14:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Blocked user's sockpuppet

Hi, Is there somewhere to report a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user? I can't find anywhere to note this or anyone to inform. Thanks. AllanHainey 15:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

That would be Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. Kickaha Ota 15:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC) (not a sockpuppet)Reply

Editing a list

I'm sure this is a question that is easily answered, unfortunately, I don't know it so, here is the question: How do I add a name to the "20th Century Philosophers" page? The "edit this page" tab does not get me to the list.Bob em 16:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It's a category. See Help:Category. Items are not added or removed on the page itself, but each individual page decides whether to include itself in the category or not. To add a new page to the category, add [[Category:20th century philosophers]] to the bottom of the page that should be included in the category. --Interiot 16:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

How to create a template?

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

You create a template just like you would create any other article. If you want to create a {{foobar}} template, you create an article named "Template:Foobar". Kickaha Ota 21:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good, thank you. BlueValour 21:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

External articles

Why does the homerunner wiki, which is nothing to do with the wikipedia foundation apart from its use of media wiki get to have links of the form [[HRWiki:pagename]]? It means the links come up as blue rather than the external grey/blue I would expect. -- SGBailey 22:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

They get interwiki links, like HRWiki:, wich is a slightly different shade of blue to an internal link. For the full list of interwikiable wikis see m:Interwiki map. -Splash - tk 22:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Umm, where did all the images go

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

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

Article "Disappeared"

I may have shot myself in the foot by getting too fancy. Here's what I did: (1) Moved the article "Pennies from Heaven" to "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)"; (2) Changed (or tried to change; maybe this is what went wrong) the redirect page that was created in the previous step to a disambiguation page; (3) listed "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)" as one of three items on the disambig page. The result: (1) somehow another redirect page "Pennies from Heaven" was created to point to the "Pennies from Heaven" disambig page, and (2) clicking on the link "Pennies from Heaven (1978 television drama)" brings up the "Wikipedia does not have an article..." page for editing. Stranger, in another browser (Firefox) window, if I go to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennies From Heaven (1978 television drama)", the correct page comes up (after the URL is at some point encoded)--and sometimes it doesn't! I tried in a different browser, as well as reloading pages from the server. Same problem. Most of the time the article seems to have disappeared, and of course we don't want that. Could somebody please help me understand what is going on here so this can be fixed? --Alan W 23:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

When you moved the original article, you named it Pennies From Heaven (1978 television drama) with a capital "f" in from and not lower case as you linked it on the disambig page. -- JLaTondre 00:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thank you! It's always some silly little thing you overlook, isn't it? I've spent half my life catching such mistakes made by others, but of course one is too often blind to one's own similar slips. I appreciate the help! --Alan W 01:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Id tag in toolbar

I've been doing some work on User:MarkS/extraeditbuttons.js, and I would like to add some buttons into the standard toolbar order. In order to do this, however, I think I will need to use CSS to suprress the standard toolbar and rewrite the toolbar script at my local js. I can't seem to find a MediaWiki file for the toolbar? Is there any way I can access it to add a second id tag, or can someone else do it for me? (It currently says <div id='toolbar'>; I would like to amend it to <div id='toolbar'><div id='toolbar_standard'>.)

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

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

There is no message to change that, you'd most likely have to convince the devs of the need to change mediawiki. Tangent: The easiest way I found to suppress the default toolbar output is to add an overwriting addButton() to my user .js (warning, bad hack). --Splarka (rant) 07:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
function addButton(imageFile, speedTip, tagOpen, tagClose, sampleText) {
    whatever you wanna do here (for each button)
    if(!(speedTip=="Bold text")) return;
    whatever you wanna do here (once)
}

Ford Anglia in Hebrew

Hello all,

I would like to announce that Ford Anglia is now available in Hebrew Wikipedia ( http://he.wikipedia.org ), under the title פורד אנגליה . Please help me and add "Hebrew" to the languages list of that entry, for I didn't succeed in doing so (How it's done, by the way?). Thanks and have a nice day.


Well, i succeeded at last.Thanks anyway.

Why is Volta (Tekken) in CAT:CSD?

For some reason, Volta (Tekken) is appearing in CAT:CSD even though no speedy template is in the article, nor does said category appear as the bottom of the article to indicate the article's inclusion in said category. Why is this, and what can be done about it? --Spring Rubber 01:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It's gone now. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with a deleted tempate that was just removed from the page. I suppose that's all there is to it. --Spring Rubber 02:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

TOC and Section Numbering

The automatically generated TOC is great - it provides order in a document. For a large document it would be good to be able to reflect the automatically generated TOC numbers in the actual section titles appearing within the document eg (within the body) 5.1.2 network neutrality. That way readers of hardcopy versions would be able to refer to the TOC and then find the appropriate section within the hardcopy document relatively easily. To simply insert them into the section or sub-section title creates a duplication of the numbers in the TOC eg you would get 5.1.2 5.1.2

I have been unable to find any "magic words" or HTML fix to accommodate this capability. Any thoughts?

203.9.200.3

Don't know if this is acceptable to you, but 1) Create an account. 2) Log in. 3) Click on "my preferences", 4) then "Misc" and, 5) check the option "Auto-number headings". —EncMstr 04:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Superb - solved the problem thank you very much. 203.9.200.3

linking to wiki commons pictures

I uploaded three pictures of Mt. Shasta and can get two of them linked into the article, but the third one is being stubborn, and I can't get the article link to "see" the picture. Also, linking the second picture took forever before the article "saw" the link to the picture.

I followed the exact same procedure all three times. Is there some built-in lag or delay that's keeping the article from seeing the third picture (and what caused the delay in seeing the second picture)?

Any suggestions?

Shasta Pix 18:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Now it's working . . .

Shasta Pix 18:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

What happens when you nominate an article for deletion

Then when you get to step 2 (reasons) you find out that you can't put your reasons down because the same article was nominated May 5 and the discussion closed? Thus the templete is on the article, but I can go no further. KarenAnn 18:15, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

The instructions for doing that are at Template talk:Afdx (haven't tried that, however). (Liberatore, 2006). 18:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! Works like a charm. KarenAnn 18:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Favicon broken

I've noticed for the past 15 or so minutes that Wikipedia's favicon seems to have disappeared. (If you're wondering, I'm still getting pictures everywhere else on Wikipedia). IMacWin95 21:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I still see it... can't replicate the problem. Titoxd(?!?) 23:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Might have been accidently cached with a broken favicon... Ctrl-Shift-R'ing got the favicon back. IMacWin95 13:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Automatized Pages

Is it possible in Wiki to make an automatized page which will take certain parts from certain pages and add them end to end in itself? Say, for instance, there are a number of articles about albums of a music band which all have "Professional Critics" section in them (==Professional Critics==); and our automatized page (title:Professional Critics on band X) will take what writes under that section in all those pages and list them in a single page? I don't have much clue about coding, all i've been doing is editing pages and trying to figure out whats going on; maybe i'm asking too much? Thanks. --Farukahmet 00:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It sort of depends on what you mean. There are a variety of people who write Wikipedia:Bots which do automated edits. If you mean in real time, whenever the "derived page" is displayed Wikipedia templates (see Help:Template) do this, but they basically are meant for content that is repeated on many pages. Perhaps it might help to explain exactly what you want to do and on which articles. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Okay. It's for another wiki called SuWiki which is for a 3d modeling program. There are seperate pages dedicated to program's "tools". For instance: Eraser Tool. In that article (and all other tool articles), as you see, there is a "Tips and Tricks" section. I want to gather all Tips and Tricks section in one page which is now being updated manually: Tips and Tricks. I want this page to be updated automatically. Whenever anybody adds something to the Tips section of any tool, it will be displayed properly in that page. Thanks for the reply. --Farukahmet 00:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I think I'd probably do this with a bot that reads all the relevant articles and generates the Tips and Tricks page, and then schedule it to run as frequently as you want the Tips and Tricks page updated. I do some things somewhat like this here, at Wikipedia, but not quite with a bot (see, for example, Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations or the by month archives at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Archive debates). These are done with scripts (that are posted) that read a collection of articles and process them into some other form (they're not quite bots because the output is not automatically posted). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I have no idea how to do that right now, but i guess i'll have to learn! Starting with your script...At least now I know it is possible, i was not hopeful.Thanks for the help --Farukahmet 03:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
You could make a template that does what you want, but you'd have to have all the tips on that one template. If you had (or may be able to get?) m:ParserFunctions you could have a parameter that showed the appropriate trick when called:
{{#switch:{{{1|}}}|all|1=<div style="border:1px solid green;background:#eeffee">This is tip number one</div>}}
{{#switch:{{{1|}}}|all|2=<div style="border:1px solid green;background:#eeffee">This is tip number two</div>}}
{{#switch:{{{1|}}}|all|3=<div style="border:1px solid green;background:#eeffee">This is tip number three</div>}}
If the template was called with {{templatename|1}} it would only show trick #1, if it was called with {{templatename|all}} it would show them all. You could give them names instead of numbers too, or use {{PAGENAME}} if you only ever had one per page.
However, after a few dozen of these it would get quite full. So, something else you could do (IF you have m:DynamicPageList) is make a template for each individual trick, like Template:Tricks/Some_Article_Title, Template:Tricks/Some_Other_Article_Title, then create Template:Tricks as:
{{Tricks/{{PAGENAME}}{{{1|}}}}}<noinclude>[[Category:Tricks]]</noinclude>
Which would transclude the trick subtemplate named after the page, plus a paramter, eg: {{tricks}} would call the one with the exact title (Template:Tricks/Some_Article_Title), and {{tricks|2}} would call the one with the exact title with the number 2 appended (Template:Tricks/Some_Article_Title2). Then, when all the tricks are categorized, you could maintain a list of them with m:DynamicPageList (although they wouldn't automatically transclude).
As it looks like you don't have either of those installed, and as it looks like you just have one trick section on each page, what you might try instead is making a template for each trick based on the exact page name:
  1. Link to it as [[Template:Tricks/{{PAGENAME}}]] on the article, click it, create it (with <noinclude>[[Category:Tricks]]</noinclude> at the end!
  2. Change the link to a transclude on the article: {{Tricks/{{PAGENAME}}}}
  3. Use the special transcludable special page: {{Special:Prefixindex/Template:Tricks/}} to automatically generate a list of up to 200 (not much better than a category, but can be put on any page as a block).
Alternately, you could keep a manually updated transclusion list of all such templates (by putting them on an index at the same time as you put them in an article, but without duplicating any text, just a transclude). Probably easier than the current method. --Splarka (rant) 07:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hello, I run the Wiki in question here (suwki.org) and am interested in this topic. Faruk has been helping out a bunch getting things up and running. Currently there various articles about different tools the the program offers. Some articles have a Tip that we want to put on the page. So it's being done with a ==Tips and Tricks== heading. Then we list with bulleted lists under that the different tips. I've got a category called "Tips and Tricks" that every page that has a tip on it is supposed to get filed into that category. Then on the main page of the wiki, there is a link to [[:category:Tips and Tricks|Tips and Tricks]] which takes people right to the Category page. This is what we are currently doing and prehaps trying to overcome. I think Faruk would like to find a better replacement for the way we have the category page acting as a menu system. I can certainly install any extensions needed to get things going. I'm just not sure if any of these options are better than simply using the category page the way it's set up right now over there. Go to The Sketchup Wiki main page and click on the Tips and Tricks category to see how it is right now. Thanks everybody! --Clf23 00:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

How to create an infobox from scratch?

I'm planning on writing an article about a certain music website and I'm trying to figure out how to create an appropriate infobox. Does anyone have a quick guide to creating them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreeLance FoX (talkcontribs)

  • Find a suitable existing infobox template (perhaps starting here category:Infobox templates)
  • Modify the article with a call to the template with appropriate info and use subst like this:
    {{subst:infobox whatever|parameter1=whatever|parameter2=etc}}
  • After using "show preview" and editing as necessary to get the correct effect, use "save page".
  • Edit the article again, but now the template contents appears in the wikimarkup, so you can change any and all of it.
It might be preferable to create a new template if this infobox is going to be used in any other articles. Indeed, even if it is used in one article, separating the box logic from the article makes some sense and is useful. —EncMstr 06:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Leave away the subst. Especially if your template ends having #if's & Co or default parameters, which are not substed. (→WP:subst#Templates that should NOT be substituted. Substing detaches the usages of your box from future upgrades of the template, which is a maintenance problem. (See also bugzilla:2777 for a substall proposal)--Ligulem 07:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Help with Tables

Hey, I've been working on List of two-letter English words and need some help making the graphs in the "Scrabble" section. For more details, see the talk page. Thanks! JianLi 05:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I've fiddled it a bit, see the talk page. --Splarka (rant) 07:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Exporting / Migrating

We have an internal wiki for our club, but its sitting on a windows machine using a hacked together PHP/MySQL/MediaWiki (MW 1.6). We've just got ourselves a linux machine that we want to use for the website and wiki, and are wondering what the best way is to migrate a wiki from one comp to another. Any thoughts? --Kdmurray 06:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Manchester

Can someone take a look at this? Manchester. It appears to be a totally different article! The only problem is, the revision that it's on now is nowhere in the page history and whenever I try and revert to an earlier version I get an edit conflict. This is crazy. --Lord Deskana (talk) 10:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I seem to have fixed it. I protected the page, reverted to an earlier version, and unprotected. What a hunch! I took a screencap of the weird page version, I'll upload it in a minute. It's pretty crazy. --Lord Deskana (talk) 10:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
See Image:Wtf1.JPG. You'll find that that page version isn't in the page history. --Lord Deskana (talk) 10:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
And look at this [3]. That's what happened when I protected the page? The only thing is, it was like that before I protected the page. I think we all know that doesn't happen when you protect a page. Something is seriously wrong here. Is that the software's weird way of coping with a peculiar problem? --Lord Deskana (talk) 10:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
The same thing seems to be happening to Tom Cruise, who has suddenly become a book about the Third Reich. — QuantumEleven 10:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

See below; it is probably the same issue. --cesarb 14:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Something broken

Not sure where to report this, so I don't know if it is already in hand. The history and watchlist features are not working reliably. At least not for me; as it may be an issue with proxies at Wikipedia, some people may see it differently. Consider Tom Cruise. When I visit I see that it has been replaced with the text of the article on the book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Ok, go to the history. The last edit shown is at 22:47, 20 July 2006, a revert. Click on Compare selected versions. We see the last edit was benign. But we also see an unexpected "Newer edit link". Click on it, and we get an error (The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "Tom Cruise (Diff: 64926897, 0)".) My attempts to actually revert fail with an edit conflict. Notinasnaid 10:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I had the same problem when I tried to revert vandalism to evolution. My edit seemed to be accepted, and the page reloaded with the reverted text, but the history didn't show my edit, and a reload of the page brought back the vandalism. I retried several times. Finally, after a few hours, someone else managed to do what I tried to do. -- Ec5618 10:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
This has the potential to require a restore of the database back to before the problems started. I recommend keeping copies of any significant contributions! Notinasnaid 11:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Actually, it could be a slave out of sync issue. Ask a developer to take a look; he can recreate the slave database if needed, and nothing is lost (since all edits can be found at the master database). --cesarb 14:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
In fact, I just noticed an entry at the Server admin log saying Tim fixed it already. --cesarb 02:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

IP address confusion

Over the last two days, I am suddenly getting messages that I am blocked due to an IP address; the user name Nookdog - a blocked user - frequently comes up and an IP address that is not my own. If I retry, the block disappears, only to come back at some random time later. I am the only one to use this computer, I always use the user name Hgilbert, the IP address doesn't match anyway...any clue what's going on? Hgilbert 12:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Check if you are using any proxy (possibly even a transparent proxy). If you are not, it might be a caching problem somewhere (the pages with the message getting cached). --cesarb 14:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
It could also be a pool of random proxies (such as used by some ISPs, like AOL, NTL and pol.co.uk, although AOL is no longer blocked by proxy IP). Try going to whatismyipaddress.com about 10 times, and see if the IP is the same each time, or different. If different, you might have to request that the autoblocks on Nookdog be lifted. --Splarka (rant) 07:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Inclusion problems

My monobook file (see history) was getting unwieldy, so I decided using includes would be useful. It appeared to work at first after refreshing and purging each change, but near the end, I suddenly started losing the purge tag and extra edit buttons. What am I doing wrong? - Mgm|(talk) 15:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Adding article name to category

I'm new to WP so I'm sorry if I missed the answer to this somewhere. My article's name is a person's name. There is a category that I'd like to link to showing other similar articles. When I click on edit the category page, the entries on the page do not show up and there doesn't seem to be a way to add my title to the category page. Thanks for any suggestions. Also, how does the date/time and the "edit" button get added to this post? Joschus

See: Wikipedia:Categories and Help:Categories. Basically, you just add [[Category:Foo]] to the very end of the article and it will automagically be added to Category Foo. Dragons flight 16:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
... and if you type four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment, the software replaces them with your signature and the date/time. See Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages which is linked from the welcome message on your talk page (User talk:Joschus). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Underlining

Is it just me, or have all the links in Wikipedia suddenly become underlined? Joziboy 18:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It's a preference setting, under "Misc." I think underlining is the default. Are you logged out? — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Ah okay, thanks :) The lines are gone, and it looks so much better. Thanks guys Joziboy 18:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Formatting issue (indentation)

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

Looking at the HTML that's generated, there's an open <dl> that's not closed. Adding a close dl after the table (which I did in your example, below) "fixes" it. This seems like it's a wikimarkup problem of some sort. I've entered this as bugzilla:6776. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Great! Thank you very much for the help.--GregRM 00:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
  • item 1
an embedded table with one row
  • item 2 should be aligned with item 1

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

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

S=0, L=2, J=2

1D2

  Ms
  0
Ml +2 1
+1 1
0 1
−1 1
−2 1

S=1, L=1, J=2,1,0

3P2, 3P1, 3P0

  Ms
  +1 0 −1
Ml +1 1 1 1
0 1 1 1
−1 1 1 1

S=0, L=0, J=0

1S0

  Ms
  0
Ml 0 1

(another </dl> line follows)

  • Fifth, applying Hund's rules, order the states by increasing order of energy:
3P0 < 3P1 < 3P2 < 1D2 < 1S0

A side effect of the database issues earlier?

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

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

"Main Section"

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

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

2006-07 Pre Season CupOmegatron 04:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) I believe the answer is "don't do that then". It's "main article", not "main section". In fact, {{details}} might be even better in this case. --cesarb 04:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

2 questions only

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

thanks

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

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

Level 2 headings

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

How to speedy delete

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

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

Infobox issue

{{Infobox Indian urban area |
native_name=Nagpur |
latd = 21.06|longd=79.03|
locator_position=right|
state_name=Maharashtra |
district=[[Nagpur district|Nagpur]] |
Leader_title=Mayor |
Leader_name= Naresh Keshaorao Gawande (2005)|
altitude=310|
population_as_of = 2001 | 
population_total = 2,129,500 | 
population_as_of = 2006 est. | 
population_total = 2,420,000<ref name="Estimated Population of Nagpur urban area in 2006, Nagpur 114th largest city in world in 2006/"> {{cite web |url=http://www.citymayors.com/features/largest_cities_2.html|title="The world's largest cities"|publisher=[[City Mayors]]|accessdate=2006-06-26}}</ref> |
population_density = <br>12,300 |
area_magnitude=1 E? |
area_total=218 |
area_telephone= 91-712 |
postal_code= 4400xx |
vehicle_code_range= MH-31 |
footnotes = | 
}}

In this infobox, I am trying to find a way to list both the estimated population of 2006, as well as the population as per the 2001 census. Currently, only the 2006 population comes up. I'll appreciate your help.

You're overwriting the result of the population_as_of and population_total parameters, and as a result, it only reads one. Titoxd(?!?) 18:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Is there a way to put both population figures into the infobox without them conflicting? How do I change the syntax for this? --Wikindian 20:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
There's a few options, none of which are particularly good:
  • You could modify the Template:Infobox Indian urban area template itself, adding new "population_total_2" and "population_as_of_2" parameters. But modifications to widely-used infoboxes like this one should be made with extreme caution.
  • You could replace the {{Infobox with {{subst:Infobox and save the article. That would replace the infobox template in the article with the actual wikicode used to display the infobox. Then you could add new rows to the table to hold your additional population info. But that would be A Bad Idea for two reasons: it will mean that the infobox in this article will not get updated if the template for the infobox gets improved later, and it will make it harder to correctly update the figures in the article in the future.
I would suggest that you reconsider whether trying to do this is a good idea to begin with. There's a constant temptation to shove more information into an article's infobox; but doing too much of that undermines the point of having the infobox to begin with -- namely, to present the most basic information about the subject in a consistent, easy-to-read format. Putting two sets of population figures in an infobox is probably overkill in this regard. I would stick to one set of population figures in the infobox (whichever is considered to be more important), and place the other set in a footnote. Kickaha Ota 02:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the explanation, I don't think I will add the second population figure as yet. --Wikindian 18:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

What does it mean when a sockpuppet plaque appears on your page?

It is suspected that this user might be a sock puppet or impersonator of SirIsaacBrock.

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

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

search function

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

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

Nah, the person just needs to learn civility. You're more than welcome to write a new search function, if you'd like. Our programmers are, with only a couple of exceptions, all volunteers who do the work for free in their spare time. User:Zoe|(talk) 20:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Try searching for "WP:BJAODN" (a lot of the commonly accessed articles in the inner workings can be found using WP: codes). That or when the search results come up go to the bottom of the page and where it says "Search in namespaces" check "Wikipedia". Articles about the running of Wikipedia are found in that namespace, which is not searched by default as the majority of users are looking for articles about things in the real world rather than in the inner workings of Wikipedia. In any case, ball sucking is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice and is even being considered as a possible Olympic sport for the 2012 games, please don't besmirch it by comparing it to the Wikipedia search engine. --Daduzi talk 20:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Now that you've had a chance to calm down, try using this search engine. --hydnjo talk 20:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply


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

Port scanning

I'm wondering why I'm getting this.

16:55:56 Port Scanning has been detected from 207.142.131.228 (scanned ports:TCP (4749, 4748, 4746, 4742, 4744, 4745))
15:59:46 Port Scanning has been detected from 207.142.131.228 (scanned ports:TCP (3179, 3146, 3181, 3184, 3182, 3183))

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

This is almost certainly a false alarm caused by broken firewall software. Please provide exact details of the 'scan'. --Brion 23:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
My firewall is certainly not "broken". Outpost Firewall's logs are just as I've pasted; I have no further information. I don't have any sort of ultra-sensitive/paranoid options enabled. Can we please deal with the problem rather than point fingers and blame the software, which is certainly not the case? I don't make outrageous claims of portscanning for no reason, nor am I in the habit of falsifying information. Let's deal with the immediate problem. If you are unwilling to deal with the problem, just say so instead of telling me my firewall software is "broken". You can contact me on my talk page, I don't feel like sticking around here in case I get accused of manufacturing this just to cause trouble (which is probably what will happen next). If you're unwilling to deal with this, I can always report it to the upstream ISP. — Nathan (talk) / 23:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
False positives to port scan detectors aren't unheard of; see for instance [4]. These log lines are also useless; they don't specify if what was detected was RST packets (which can happen legitimately), FIN or FIN/ACK packets (which can happen legitimately), ACK packets (which can happen legitimately - see a pattern here?), SYN packets (the ones more likely to be a real port scan), or something else. Even in the SYN case, the source IP address can be easily spoofed, so it cannot be trusted (the only way to be sure would be to complete the three-way handshake, which your firewall probably does not do). Given all that, I find it unlikely that it isn't a simple case of your software crying wolf. The best way to know the truth would be to run a sniffer, which will probably show the stray packets to be nothing more than leftovers of connections you recently made to the Wikimedia image servers. --cesarb 01:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Here's another example of a false positive with the firewall software you're using: [5] In this case, the likely instigation was that the user had installed some trojaned software on his own computer. If you'd like us to investigate, we really need more details about what these 'port scans' look like; please contact the manufacturer of your firewall software and tell them you need to provide more detailed logs including source ports, packet types (SYN, ACK, etc) and if possible actual packet captures. --Brion 06:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I should point out that the manufacturer would most likely like to know about and fix any false positive problems. Please do contact them. --Brion 07:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
And for what it's worth, I have done some quick packet sniffing checks on our end and see no unexpected outgoing connections from the address you give. The port numbers look like normal random port sequences on the client end, as expected from the connections from the client to the server. --Brion 07:33, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

FWIW, a second account, sort of. Sorry, no details, it was several months ago and I didn't sniff further. I tried whether a newer version of the Kerio firewall [6] would be an improvement to my ancient system. It also gave me port scan alerts that resolved coming from a Wikimedia image server. (A hyperactive firewall being more likely than an attack from the Wikisevers, I finally 'solved' that problem by staying with the more stable older version which doesn't give such detailed warnings… :) Femto 15:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING attempt to move a page

Well, I tried to move "Coup d'état" to "Coup d'État" and wound up in Unicode Hell.

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

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

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

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

You did repair all the damage; I deleted the broken redirects, did the correct move and fixed all the double redirects. --cesarb 01:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Don't feel bad, unicode hell happens to all of us at one point or another due to the way symbols in URL's seem to not work. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Bug?

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

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

Google question

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

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

Hide/Show stuff in templates

I already asked in the Help desk, but don't feel much wiser now, so.. I want to change Template:Half-Life series so that it's hidden by default. How do I do that? Template:Mario characters is hidden by default for example, see Fawful. I just can't find any difference between these two templates. --Conti| 15:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It has nothing to do with the template; Template:Mario characters is not hidden by default. What happens is that Fawful has two templates which use the hide/show code; when a page has more than a certain number of hide/show sections, the JS code (see MediaWiki:Monobook.js) hides them all automagically:
 // set up max count of Navigation Bars on page,
 // if there are more, all will be hidden
 // NavigationBarShowDefault = 0; // all bars will be hidden
 // NavigationBarShowDefault = 1; // on pages with more than 1 bar all bars will be hidden
 var NavigationBarShowDefault = 1;
There's no way with the current code to make it hidden by default, other than the ugly hack of using it twice in the same place (which will break if NavigationBarShowDefault is ever increased). --cesarb 16:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the answer! That's a little weird, tho. I already wondere why the tiny mario-template is hidden, while the big half-life one is not. Why not hide all templates with a hide/show button by default? --Conti| 16:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Like cesarb said, the templates only hide when there's more than one on the page. So if there were two Half Life templates they'd hide like so:
--Daduzi talk 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

Glitch

I was unable to create an account - nothing happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.11.50.90 (talkcontribs) 18:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

I have all 35 novels by the author Jo Clayton and I'd like to add cover images to her article. Showing them on the article itself obviously would be unacceptable. Is there a way I can create an image document for each of the 35, associate it with the article, and just provide a text link next to the appropriate title? I've been unable to find information (I could make any sense of) regarding associating internal docs with an article and the text linking. If it would be possible to put both front and back cover images in the same document, I'd do that also. (If you can't already tell, I like the author's work, lol.) Richard G. Shewmaker 19:51, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

It would be more appropriate to link the cover images to the articles about the books. Fiar use would not allow them to be used on an article about the author. It would also not be appropriate to create a gallery of book cover images, as that, too, would violate fair use. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Tangent: Just in case you haven't found out how, you can link to an image like this (prefix with colon). --Splarka (rant) 07:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Locating boxed sections at end of some articles

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

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

<references/> generates the text for footnote-style references, see wikipedia:footnotes. The curly brace syntax is used for wikipedia:templates. When you edit an article, if you scroll down to the very bottom of the page (below the edit box) there is a list of links to all the templates that are used in the article. A template is fundamentally a collection of wikisource that can be used in multiple articles. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thank you! Richard G. Shewmaker 06:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hiding the page header?

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

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

It is done via some evil JavaScript code at MediaWiki:Monobook.js, which adds a few extra style hacks when the page title matches the Main Page. There's no way to do it with wiki markup. --cesarb 22:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks!   --201.17.164.229 00:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
You can also remove the text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Many Wikipedias are not using that sub-title. I suspect that those community think that there visitors will know that the are on Wikipedia because of the logo so there is no need to put it on every page again and again. --Walter 21:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Signature Problems

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

  • I want it to be this:

[User:Dfrg.msc|User:Dfrg.msc] [Image:DFRG. MSC.jpg|45px] (Exept with double ]['s) and a date and time.

  • What it is:

[[ User:Dfrg.msc | User:Dfrg.msc [[ Image:DFRG. MSC.jpg | 45px ]]]] 07:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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

Please help.

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

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

User:Dfrg.msc File:DFRG. MSC.jpg 10:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

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


Uploading source files

I've created a line drawing logo using the program xfig, and exported the logo in svg format for wikipedia. It would be great if wikipedia users had access to the xfig file, so that they can make minor changes or improvements to the logo without having to redraw it. Where can this xfig file be uploaded so it's available to the community? It would be a shame if wikipedia didn't allow this. Klafubra 15:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Anything that is freely licensed and could be useful in any Wiki projects can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. You might also want to consider uploading the logo itself there, though you should be careful to make sure the logo isn't copyrighted (in which case you'd also need to change the copyright of the image on here to a fair use license). --Daduzi talk 16:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia search field in separate website

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

Using sub-pages

I have been working on an article ( Lynton and Barnstaple Railway ) which I think is about complete as a general introduction to the subject. I have also been working on a much more detailed item listing each of the 80 bridges five stations and various other features along the line, with locations, dimensions, descriptions current state etc. This may be of interest to enthusiasts, but most likely not to the casual browser, so I don't want to blur the focus of the main article. The sub-page is currently in my Sandbox. I have worked out how I can link the two by saving the new section as a sub-page from the main entry, ( e.g. Lynton and Barnstaple Railway/detailed route features ) BUT I'm not sure if this is (a) allowed by policy, (b) good practice or (c) the best way of providing this additional information. Can anybody advise? Many thanks Lynbarn 19:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Subpages within the article namespace are not allowed per Wikipedia:Subpages, and in fact the feature has been disabled. Daughter, or spin-off, articles are fine, however, and the typical format is to title the article "...of (main article name). In this case Route of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway would be a good name. That being said it may be worth considering whether detailed information would be sufficiently noteworthy to a general audience to warrant inclusion in a general encyclopaedia (have a look at Wikipedia:Notability to see whether it would meet the typical crtieria). In any case, really good work with the article, though there's a few issues which I've raised on your talk page. --Daduzi talk 20:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Template inclusion categorization isn't working in one case

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

Nevermind. It's all catching up now. I thought I was losing my mind for a little while there. :) —  Stevie is the man!  Talk | Work 20:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
I did null edits (saving without any change) to the pages that include your template. They are now in the cat. --Ligulem 20:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for your help! I had no idea that doing that was necessary. —  Stevie is the man!  Talk | Work 20:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

new lines

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

==Section one==
blah



spaces to make it more seperate for various reasons








==2==

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

Mysterious (to me) page

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

svg files

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