Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

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Video game publisher

• Transferred to Entertainment desk

archiving

Due to a computer crash, archiving will be sporadic for the next few days until I get everything recovered from backups. (Including my Wikipedia password...) --Steve Summit (talk) 11:54, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Archive restructuring

Yesterday, User:Steel1943 made nearly 300 edits -- mostly page moves -- related to the Reference desk archives, and appears poised to do more. The archive structure has been a bit of a mess, particularly given the location change from back in 2006, and could probably use some cleaning up, but I don't currently have the time to check on these changes. -- ToE 11:56, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed, they are bit of a mess. Right now, I'm working on getting most of the pages that start with "Wikipedia:Reference desk archive" to "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives" so that they match the current naming scheme. Then, I plan on looking at pages that link to the archives to determine a cleaner way to link them all on those respective pages, possibly by utilizing {{Calendar}} in one way or another once I can figure it out. Steel1943 (talk) 12:47, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

When I click on "Archives" I get nothing later than October 2006. Can someone fix this? 92.31.143.72 (talk) 11:56, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

For the record, this edit probably resolved the aforementioned issue. Steel1943 (talk) 20:52, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives, specifically Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Answered questions. It's had that problem for a while; see here This is probably because the "Answered questions" pages stopped being created around October 2006. For now, you may want to consider using the search function on the archive page; now that all archives pages have been moved to titles that begin with "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives", at least with that search box, you should now be able to find pages for all dates using that search. (I wasn't editing in October 2006, but while updating the names of the active pages, I did notice that a major change with how the pages are structured happened around 9–17 October 2006, specifically 17 October 2006 as I did a few page merges for archive pages that represented that day.) Steel1943 (talk) 12:09, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

While you're tinkering with archives, can you figure out a way to make the results return in something resembling an order? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't think I'm going to get that lucky since that's more of a MediaWiki software deal (which is beyond my realm of knowledge), but one never knows... Steel1943 (talk) 18:22, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Steel1943: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives (via the link at the top of this page and along the side of the individual reference desks) is the primary method of accessing every monthly archive index for all the reference desks, and was working until recently. I just reverted your two 26 June edits to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Answered questions, and it has fixed the Archives page. What led you to think it "Hasn't been used since October 2006 - clearly historical", particularly given CiaPan's regular maintenance? Was it because of the redlinks when viewing that page directly? That's because it uses relative links with respect to the Archive page which includes it. -- ToE 19:39, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Thinking of England: Thanks for the heads-up on that. I was looking at that page's code when I saw the IP's response earlier, and I thought it was a bit odd that I did not see the string "/Answered questions/" anywhere in the code. (That, and yeah, I thought it was a bit odd that the page has been maintained for almost 13 years with red links every year after 2006 .. but that now explains why.) Either way, thanks for noticing the error behind my edit, and my apologies that broke stuff for a bit. I'll do better to not be careless in that manner again, especially since messing up something like that is not in the norm for me at all. Steel1943 (talk) 19:46, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Thinking of England: By the way, can you link me to a page Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Answered questions appears on besides Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives or Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Lua (the only transclusion of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Answered questions that appear on its transclusions list) if possible? I'd like to see that in action, but I can't see it properly off either of those pages. Steel1943 (talk) 19:51, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

No worries. (Some questions I'll try to pose later tonight -- but no worries.)

Regarding "/Answered questions", I'm not aware of its use beyond those two pages.

Regarding Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Lua, for some time I've been meaning to ask Wnt what the status of that project was, as there appears to be only a dozen working /Lua monthly indexes, all from 2013?-- ToE 20:11, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's odd. I could have sworn that the transclusion of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Answered questions on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives had all red links after October 2006 before I did the edit that broke stuff, but that either seems to not be the case anymore or was never the case. Anyways, I don't see me touching that page again for the time being, or probably ever (depending on what other fixes I may find.) Anyways, there was another page I was looking at earlier that I was considering trying to use {{Calendar}} on that had a list of makeshift calendars with links on them for pages in the reference desk archives, and I can't recall what the page was, but I think the page was either created by you or maintained by you, ToE. Steel1943 (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

...As for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Lua ... to me, it looks like something that was attempted in 2013 that was never completed or enacted with the exception of January 2013. Steel1943 (talk) 20:28, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I apologize. I started writing a tool to help index archives in the hope that people would be interested in going through the questions and making short digests sorted by topic, but nobody really went for it, and the project went by the wayside. I did not do anything to the original archives so far as I recall... Wnt (talk) 21:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)