Discussion started at [[Wikipedia_talk:Username#Username_disambiguation]]. [[User:Carcharoth|Carcharoth]] 13:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Discussion started at [[Wikipedia_talk:Username#Username_disambiguation]]. [[User:Carcharoth|Carcharoth]] 13:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
:MER-C, is that how you dig up all that crap? Here I thought you just had spam radar :) Too bad the internal search is so wimpy. [[User:Opabinia regalis|Opabinia regalis]] 00:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
:MER-C, is that how you dig up all that crap? Here I thought you just had spam radar :) Too bad the internal search is so wimpy. [[User:Opabinia regalis|Opabinia regalis]] 00:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
::Yes. [[User:MER-C|MER-C]] 06:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Bugs and feature requests should be made at BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.
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These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.
Adding a link to the Cheatsheet in editing-mode helpnotes?
I'd like to propose we add a link to Wikipedia:Cheatsheet, in the editing-mode layout, next to the "Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)" links. eg:
Friends of mine who only edit very occasionally, have expressed frustration concerning finding reminders for basic wikicode easily (eg piping links); and are either daunted-by or disdainful-of the size/complexity of the Help:Editing page.
Thoughts? --Quiddity 06:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thoughts ? Strong support! Alas, there's so much to know : you still have to learn few by few. Did you try Wikipedia:Starter toolset : it's huge and still not enough. -- DLL .. T 20:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That starter toolset page horrifies me ;) I pity the newcomer that gets directed towards it. Utterly overwhelming and unorganized.
Strong support. I'd actually rather see Cheatsheet replace "Editing help," with a link on editing help to advanced help, but this'll do as well ;) --Wolf530 18:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to have strong support (VP(proposal) archive), where do I ask for this to be implemented? Thanks. --Quiddity 20:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Active Watchlist items
When I make changes on a page, I add it to my watchlist, but sometimes I only want to watch it for a few days to make sure the page is not vandalized again. Would it be possible to create a temporary watchlisting option?
By this, I mean, you could add an item to your watchlist for 3 (or 7) days, after which it automatically would be removed. If you edit the item during the 3 (or 7) days, the item's time on your watchlist would be renewed, so that it would be on for 3 (or 7) days from that point.
One of the benefits is to prevent editor (particularly admin) burnout by automatically removing short-term watchlist items so the editor does not become overwhelmed by a tremendous watchlist that he feels responsible for. This would be especially useful in fighting short-term vandalism on article, which takes up half or more of an editor's tim on Wikipedia.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 00:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Something you could do (but it is a bit more manual) is create a page like: User:ChrisGriswold/watchlist. When you edit a page, add a link to it there, and remove any more than 7 days old. You can check recent changes of the links on a page by clicking related changes, which would be -> Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:ChrisGriswold/watchlist. Now, if we could just get the devs to add a link to that on Special:Contributions.... --Splarka (rant) 08:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda like that idea. Whenever I go to remove user talk pages I've left various notices on from my watchlist I have a hard time remembering who I want to keep watching and who I just gave a "no image source" notice 3 months ago. The alternative would be to not watch the pages I guess, but sometimes people do reply to these things. Also my browser freeze for about 5 minutes when I click "remove selected items from watchlist" after a manual cleanup, and I "only" have ~8500 items on there. It should not be too hard to do either. Just add a "watch for X days" field next to the "Watch this page" checkbox, if left emtpy it's added permanently while if you type in a number an "expiration date" is added to a new field in the watchlist database. Then have a script remove all "past due" items for the user whenever Special:Watchlist is loaded. --Sherool(talk) 08:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I find checking User Talk pages for replies is best done from my contribs rather than my watchlist. --ais523 09:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I heartily agree. A "watchlist for X days" option would be utterly marvelous. Even if it used a fixed quantity, like 60 days. I wonder if it's possible? --Quiddity 09:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it's possible, but would require a change in the meta:Watchlist table, as every record have to contain the time the entry was added and the time for removal. Tizio 10:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Time of removal would be enough, the system just need to know when to remove the item from the watchlist, not when it was added to it. And yes it would require a database change, but adding new fields is not a huge problem, we just need to file a request for change on MediaZilla, get a few people to vote for it and hope some dev can be bothered to implement it ;) --Sherool(talk) 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good feature. I would use that too. --Ligulem 09:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, not that way. I don't want to have to fill in a field or hit a check box every time I submit an edit. Also, I don't know that I can say, at the time of editing, how long I'll want the page on my watchlist.
I'd rather see a text column on the watchlist page telling me how many days since I last watched it. This needs to display as well when I edit the list. Then I can easily go down the list, saying, "Hm, I haven't had anything to do with X in 6 months and I can't think of any reason to keep it watched. Bye." That's how I'd like it. An export feature would be nice, too. John Reid ° 04:24, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well obviously it would be optional. You wouldnt have to fill in or check anything, it would be an optional extra.
As mentioned above, a specific case like leaving welcomes/warnings on user talk pages is where it could come in handy. But your method is good too, and could work in conjunction with each other. -Quiddity 22:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So where do we go from here with this? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sherool summed it up perfectly just above. Bugzilla makes me nervous, else I would do it. And expect to wait a long time, enhancements are low priority and devs are too few. --Quiddity 08:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the toolserver ever gets back up, I planned to implement exactly this. Basically, the recentchanges table keeps the last.. 7? days of edits. Basically, use recentchanges to get a list of all articles the target user has edited that are still in the table, and then check the recentchanges table again for all changes to those pages. I haven't gotten a chance to run the query on the toolserver to see how fast it is... I assume it's a little slower than the watchlist, but the recentchanges table is supposed to be fast... --Interiot 06:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Shoddy SVG versions
I'm writing to complain about shoddy SVG versions of raster graphics being uploaded, then shoved into articles. Sometimes SVG versions are okay; often they're not. I'm not going to cite specific examples because this will only lead to people defending on a case-by-case basis and taking their work personally. This is a general problem.
Don't download PNG images to your local machine, run them through some sort of car washer, and upload an inferior SVG. You aren't actually achieving anything; the engine will render a PNG to most browsers anyway. You're not saving any storage, since the PNG remains -- and deleting it won't solve anything except to upset the uploader. We're not so strapped for cash that deleting 100 Kb will put us in the money.
SVG is a problem format. It has its advantages, yes. But it handles fonts poorly. It can be used well but I don't like some of the work I see. I create some graphics with a vector editor, Macromedia FreeHand, and rasterize an exported EPS in Adobe Photoshop. If you want to convert the EPS to SVG, I'll gladly make that available. But if you try to re-draw vectors from a raster image, you either need to do a great deal of unnecessary work or you mess it up.
PNG is a fine format for images; unlike GIF, it is completely free libre and there are no fears of Unisys coming to bite our balls over it. If you have nothing better to do with your time and the amazing tools on your desktop, go ahead and see if you can squeeze a few bytes losslessly out of existing PNGs. Please do not replace them with SVGs unless you can show real benefit and no harm. Thank you. John Reid ° 09:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
SVGs are, in principle, much easier to maintain and update than PNGs, and of course scale much better. At some point we'll probably have in-wiki editing of SVGs, and maybe some kind of semantic metadata so that we can (for instance) auto-standardize map colors and so on. If a good-quality SVG should be made of a PNG, it should be, just for future advantage. (Font handling is certainly a problem, I admit.)
Note that you can use PNGs or GIFs in place of autogenerated SVG thumbnails where the behavior is currently faulty, like so:
(Apparently not without the border, though.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
SVG is no more of a "problem" than any other vector format. And, given its wide range of capabilities (transparency, filters) and its fully open and documented status, it is definitely better than any other vector format in a lot of cases. Its font handling is neither better nor worse than that of HTML, because they both use CSS. The ability to specify a generic substitute for a missing font (such as "sans serif") via CSS is a great advantage of SVG, and for the Web it is actually a more important advantage than exact font fidelity (which you, as a graphic professional, may value more). I agree that simple automatic tracing of a bitmap into SVG is almost always a degradation, and even manual redrawing of an image may be a degradation unless certain effort is spent and relevant skills are in place, but your attitude towards SVG as a format seems unfounded. Trapolator 22:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me stress: I'm not talking about the preferred choice for original work for someone with tools that can create both formats. In some cases, SVG may be better; I can't say -- I don't have those tools. They aren't common.
I'm only upset when I see people coming along, taking an existing PNG, uploading an inferior SVG imitation, then forcing it to replace the better-quality PNG. You cannot do a straightforward conversion of a raster PNG to a true vector SVG. In some cases, the creator of the PNG may have left the community; nothing you can do about that. If you put enough time and trouble into the re-creation, you may come up with an acceptable SVG; that's fine too.
But please do not butcher PNGs into inferior SVGs when the creator is available! You -- yes, you -- can always contact me, if it is my work under consideration. I will be happy to make available vector format workfiles for any PNG that was created entirely in this fashion. You can convert to SVG to your heart's content. This is fine. I only want to express how annoying it is when I spend hours producing a beautiful graphic and somebody else comes along in 15 minutes, does a crappy conversion, then pushes my work aside. I put it here into the common bin and license under GFDL; anyone can edit, yes. But please make it better, not worse. Okay? John Reid ° 07:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I agree completely with that. A higher-quality PNG should be used over a lower-quality SVG. But all things being equal, SVGs are superior. It would undoubtedly be appreciated if you converted the images to SVG yourself, or provided them to someone who could do that (it should be very simple to convert something like a PSD to SVG, I would imagine, although I could be wrong). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
tools that can create both formats... aren't common? It's not quite true. Inkscape is pretty common, especially here on Wikipedia where thousands of images are created with it. Adobe Illustrator in the latest versions can also export valid SVG. Both of them can rasterize to PNG too, of course. (Freehand is not SVG-capable as far as I know, unfortunately, but it's rather an exception than a rule these days.) As for your request to coordinate with you any vector conversion efforts on your images, I completely sympathize, but I think your user page and/or the pages of your images may be better places to place such requests. Trapolator 22:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All things are rarely equal. I hardly ever do a straightforward conversion from vector to raster; I twiddle and tweak in Photoshop. Sometimes, the Photoshop side of the job is major, although the result may look as if it came right out of FreeHand. SVG stinks for rasters. I'm not sure I agree that vectors have any real practical use to the reader anyway; most browsers can't display SVG (or any other vector format) directly and MediaWiki serves a PNG anyway.
In any case, I don't have the niche tools that output SVG. Like other graphics professionals, I work in the industry-standard EPS format. We may not like that format and we can grump around all day about how it's "not free" but it is widely supported. I'd be happy to upload EPS and let somebody try to convert to SVG. It's not allowed. John Reid ° 21:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
SVG stinks for rasters how exactly? Are you saying that it is not appropriate for images that are raster by their very nature? True, but the same applies to any other vector format. Still, with its transparency and filters (e.g. blur), SVG can efficiently approximate a much wider range of imagery than, for example, EPS.
most browsers can't display SVG: you have a strange definition of "most". By the last count, only one of the major browsers didn't support SVG.
niche tools that output SVG: I don't want to start a holy war, but neither Adobe Illustrator, nor Corel Draw, nor even Inkscape can really be called "niche tools". All of them do SVG. Inkscape in particular is completely free - try it out and you may like it.
Finally, if you have EPS originals of your images that you would like to convert to SVG, I'm sure you can get help from folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Illustration. Trapolator 22:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Illustration on English WP seems rather dormant, but look what a lively page the French wikipedians have in their Atelier graphique. There are many requests for SVG conversion there, and the vectorized images are shown and discussed side-by-side with the originals. I think we should start such a forum in English wikipedia too. Trapolator 22:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I sympathize with John, the best version of an image should be presented to the reader. The creation of crappy SVG versions of uploaded PNGs rarely benefits anyone. If the SVG is actually superior then it should be used, but this seems to rarely be the case with SVGs created after the fact from uploaded raster images. A lower quality SVG might be linked from the PNG image description, but it should not replace the PNG simply because "vector graphics are better". The overriding consideration should be which version is better from the point of view of the reader. Dragons flight 04:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions. I stand corrected on the range of SVG support. Still, I personally can't do it until you buy me a new toy, Inkscape doesn't run on my box, sorry. In any case, I prefer reasonably high-resolution PNG for distribution, period. We're not running out of bytes. I don't see value in hosting/serving vector graphics. This is another case of carrying a philosophical ideal to an extreme. Anyone can edit a PNG and it's a libre format, too. John Reid ° 11:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, in principle anyone can program in machine codes... yet high-level programming languages do exist :) Same with SVG. Of course there are many types of graphics that simply do not fit into (modern) vectorial formats. But many others do fit, and vectorizing them has many advantages. For example, if you want to translate a drawing, clicking on a text object and retyping it in another language using Inkscape is so much easier than wiping out a label in a bitmap editor and creating a new one instead (especially if it's not over a white background). To borrow your own example, replacing the too-thin letters by something bolder and nicer in this SVG image takes a couple of minutes; doing the same in the PNG original is infinitely more work due to the checkers.
So, if an image is of the vector nature (such as a technical drawing, a diagram, a map, etc), I think that the advantages of converting it to a vector format tend to outweigh the possible loss of some polish and gloss that the bitmap version had. Of course sometimes, SVG may be so shoddy that it's not the case, but even in these situations it's not a big deal to take the bad SVG file and improve it. In fact, perhaps the main reason for preferring SVG on Wikipedia is because it's more wiki-friendly than bitmap (although setting up the "external editor" for mediawiki is admittedly a pain, but it's not SVG's fault).
As for Inkscape, can you elaborate a bit on what exactly prevents you from running it? It works fine on Windows, OSX, and Linux, and does not require exorbitant speed or memory (unless you're editing very complex graphics). Trapolator 19:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I went ahead and cleaned the SVG of the billion cubes image, see here. I used a bolder font, fixed stroke widths, and improved the shape of the connecting swooshes so they now look even better (IMHO) than in your PNG. I also used clones for the 4 copies of the swooshes - which is another vectorial nicety: edit one of them, all four update automatically. Altogether it took maybe 10 minutes of my time. With PNG, I wouldn't be able to do any of this without a disproportionate amount of tedious labour. Here's SVG advantages for you :)
And there's another important reason to prefer SVG for this particular image: the tiny copies of checkered cubes in the corners of big cubes are barely visible in PNG, even at full size. Yet they are important for understanding the concept. So if I'm going to use this image to explain the idea of a billion to my son, I will very much prefer to load the SVG into Inkscape where I can freely zoom in and out. Trapolator 20:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great work. Put it into the appropriate article and that job is done. Then we can move on to the other shoddy SVG conversions. John Reid ° 21:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Google indexing of non-article namespaces...
Without having put much thought into the matter, my understanding has been that only Wikipedia articles were supposed to be indexed by search engines (enforced by robots.txt or the equivalent). But I just noticed that my talk and user pages are the fourth and fifth hits on a google search for "opabinia regalis" - [1] - far outranking our article on the actual fossil, located at Opabinia and redirected from Opabinia regalis. Even my rarely-used Commons userpage outranks our actual article. This may make some sense, as my userpage is linked to more often, but all those links should be coming from sigs, which should also be in non-indexed talk pages.
I can't think off the top of my head of any other users whose usernames are plausible search terms, but I'm sure they're out there. Google giving unusually high ranks to Wikipedia articles is not surprising (see this signpost article), but doing the same to things out of articlespace is a bad sign, and just a further indication of how strict we should be on not allowing spam or advertising to stay in userspace long enough to get indexed. Opabinia regalis 05:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Right - I was trying to think of users with expectedly non-unique usernames - names of things you'd reasonably search for. Seems to be that it's a bad thing if we're just adding to the google noise by indexing userpages. Opabinia regalis 14:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would quite possibly be a good idea to exclude userpages from robots.txt; OTOH, I'd be against excluding Wikipedia:, Help:, Category:, Portal:, or Image:. Not sure about Template:, MediaWiki:, or the various talkspaces (I can just about imagine an instance in which people would be googling for article talkspace, but the technical namespaces should give hits on sites about MediaWiki rather than Wikipedia). --ais523 14:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree Wikipedia: (and WP:), Help:, Portal:, and Image: should be indexed - not sure how useful it is to search Category: but I don't see why not (possibly not anything under Category:Wikipedians?) IMO everything 'internal', such as User:, Template:, and the talk spaces ought not to be indexed. To be fair, the internal Wikipedia search function is poor enough that people might actually use Google to search these areas. Opabinia regalis 01:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with this is that if someone did want to search for discussions/user pages etc, they would be forced to use Wikipedia's search engine, and would not be able to use Google (which is better) because the pages they are looking for have been restricted by robots.txt. It might be possible to deliberately lower the pagerank of non-article space pages by perhaps putting rel=nofollow on some (not all) of the internal links pointing outside of article space. I'm not sure if this would work, though... Tra(Talk) 02:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the problem is with the usernames? Though as my name is also that of an article, I guess I should stop right here! :-) Carcharoth 02:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Opabinia, I think the answer is obvious. Google has simply decided that you are more interesting than a fossil ;-). For the record though a search on Opabinia gives the fossil page. It is only search for the more detailed Opabinia regalis that gives you first (which is after all the title of your page, but only a side item on the fossil page). I think this is probably something that the world can learn to live with. Dragons flight 05:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. For Carcharoth, I'm seeing our article first on the Google search, and then my user page, suitably indented from the main result. That seems reasonable. Still, just to be sure, and as a matter of principle, I'm putting a WP:HATNOTE redirecting people to the article in case they come to my user page, or talk page. Carcharoth 12:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Userspace indexing is useful for one very good reason. I don't really know how to find the same volumes of spam without it. MER-C 12:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MER-C, is that how you dig up all that crap? Here I thought you just had spam radar :) Too bad the internal search is so wimpy. Opabinia regalis 00:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The new spell checker is great; but did anyone notice how wikipedia, Wikipedia, WikipediA, no matter where you put capital letter is underlined with a red line? I think thats kind of weird and even though it doesn't matter that much, I still think it should be corrected. Pseudoanonymous 21:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The new spell checker is part of your browser, not Wikipedia ;) All sorts of things are missing from its built-in dictionary (taken from openoffice), just right-click on them and "add to dictionary". --Quiddity 22:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to take this opportunity to proclaim that Firefox is "for the fucking win", as they say. :) 164.11.204.56 20:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Get number of pages in category
Hi. I just installed a wiki to use for my clan in an online game, and I need to know how (if I can) get the number of pages in a category. Is there something like 6,824,274 that I can use?
I don't think so; otherwise User:DFBot would probably use it. --ais523 09:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah ok, I was thinking I may have to make a bot. Thanks for the info. --68.48.55.94 02:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cursor Focus
Hi
I would like to say that any page on loading can have a cursor, focussing on anything that is important in the screen. When we go to Google, there will be cursor focus in the Search textbox. Likewise here also you can provide with the cursor focussed in the Search box (both in the sidebar as well in the screen when one clicks GO or SEARCH buttons). I don't think so this so technical but am confussed on where to log this. Also do consider this and let me know your suggestions/answers.
There is discussion about this from time to time; the problem is that loading the cursor in the search box (which users expect) would mean that the arrow keys wouldn't scroll the page (which users also expect). It would be possible to change the behaviour for a username using user scripts. --ais523 09:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I second that... you either get default keyboard-scrolling, or you get default editbox-focusing. If you want to enable editbox-focusing for your account only, edit your monobook.js, and add:
I just joined Esperanza, and decided to customize my sig. However, it did not come out right. It looks like this:
-Ab[[User:[Your username here]/Esperanza|e]]g92 18:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
On talk pages in or edit summaries it is often necessary to refrence diffs, most obvious example that comes to mind - 3RR reports, however at present I am unaware if its possible to link a diffpage w/o having to input a whole URL? Same goes with past versions of the page, one can access them manually, one can reference with URLs, but in edit summaries, no way are you able to give a wikilink to a previous page when for example reverting. Is there any way that wikisoftware can be improved to adress this problem? --Kuban Cossack 19:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can quote the "oldid"s involved but the only way to get a page or diff from oldids is to construct a url by hand. Plugwash 19:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hence why I am encouraging for someone to write a code that will allow one to bypass URLs, is there any way to properely submit this proposal to the wiki software developers? --Kuban Cossack 14:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
bugzilla: is the correct place to request enhancements. --ais523 14:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Copying data from English Gerald Mohr page to Swedish Gerald Mohr page
I tried to copy/paste the photo and infobox from the English version of the above Wiki page to the Swedish equivalent, but was unsuccessful. Grateful for suggestions.
Also grateful for further suggestions as to how to bring the photo up on my own computer, as the box is blank, despite purging, refreshing and all other procedures which I have undertaken to clear the cache.
Probably the Swedish Wikipedia doesn't have the same infobox template. You'll need to translate the data into a comparable Swedish-Wikipedia template, if applicable.
Please make very sure that the Swedish Wikipedia permits fair use before uploading the image there. Once you've done so, you can download the image by going here, right-clicking on the image, selecting "Save As" or similar, and choosing an appropriate place to save it. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sam! Rewrite!
On John S. McCain, Jr., I rewrote extensively, but there's been some kind of glitch, because none of it below Haddo is showing up on the McCain page, the McCain talk page, or my own sandbox. It's in the edited page, but it's not coming up.... (BTW, my ~~~~ signature is coming up without the link to my page, & I'm danged if I can figure out why.) Help? Trekphiler 04:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When this happens, it's usually due to an open <ref> without a corresponding closing </ref>. Indeed, that's the problem here, and I fixed it. --Interiot 04:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Local wiki viewer?
Is there a program that I can run on my computer and that displays wiki source (input) as it shows up on wikipedia and/or wikibooks? Your help is greatly appreciated.--Ujm 04:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on the power of your computer, you can probably run Mediawiki itself. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 07:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A while agoPilaf gave me this tip when I was looking for an offline live preview: "Sverdrup made an offline version of Live Preview a while back, here's the link: [2] (save it as livepreview.html)." I tried it out just now, and it works ok. It doesn't recognise the new cite.php footnotes (they didn't exist back then, maybe Sverdrup has made an update), templates, or various other things.--Commander Keane 01:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
iProblem?
Hi, what's the technical probleme with the Ipod article? The page says that due to technical restrictions, titling "iPod" is impossible. So how is this possible?? and also that?? Cherry meliody 08:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Case-sensitivity can be turned on and off on a per-server basis via $wgCapitalLinks. I'm not sure what the considerations are for turning case-sensitivity on and off. I think if there are any links to IPod, but that's a redlink, currently MediaWiki isn't able to find iPod instead and go there?
Anyway, wiktionaries are one other obvious place that case-sensitivity has long been turned on (eg. so that bob and Bob and BOB can be different entries). --Interiot 08:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The frwiki situation is explained well in fr:Template:Titre: "Un JavaScript peut détecter le bandeau (id="RealTitleBanner") et récupérer le titre normal (id="RealTitle") et remplacer le titre h1 avec, puis masquer le bandeau. Pour désactiver le script tout en présentant le bandeau, on ajoute un élément avec id="DisableRealTitle" quelque-part dans la page (ici)." I don't read much French, but it looks a lot to me like they've put something in the site-wide monobook.js to change the title, so it isn't being done portably (but appears to fail safe). --ais523 09:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Ahh, cool. Yes, if you turn off your javascript, you see the same thing as you see on enwiki... the message Ais523 linked to saying "due to technical restrictions...". If you enable javascript, the script quickly removes that message and fiddles with the title. Very nice. Could we add that to our monobook.js? If it doesn't get added to the global .js, I guess users can always copy the bits to their own monobook.js (see the "RealTitleBanner" bit here), though I don't see any reason it shouldn't be global. --Interiot 20:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Even the user-based version would require changes to all Category:Wrong title templates... something like this, though that didn't seem to work. --Interiot 21:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This image is in the public domain because under the Copyright law of the United States, originality of expression is necessary for copyright protection, and a mere photograph of an out-of-copyright two-dimensional work may not be protected under American copyright law. The official position of the Wikimedia Foundation is that all reproductions of public domain works should be considered to be in the public domain regardless of their country of origin (even in countries where mere labor is enough to make a reproduction eligible for protection).
PDPublic domainfalsefalse
This image is in the public domain in the United States. In most cases, this means that it was first published prior to January 1, 1929 (see the template documentation for more cases). Other jurisdictions may have other rules, and this image might not be in the public domain outside the United States. See Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Copyrights for more details.
PD-USPublic domain in the United States//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)
However, the same image is found here [3] where you can order a custom print of it. I do not know how to check out if it is in the public domain. I also don't know where to report it as I would do if it were a copyvio of text. Can you advise me how to handle this? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 14:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The tag is surely incorrect; what's depicted is not bidimensional. I seem to recall that, in such cases, the photo can be copyrighted even if the object itself is not. Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems is the best place to ask. Tizio 14:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When I try to upload the image here, I get this warning: '"." is not an accepted image file format.' Why? What on earth does that mean? I tried changing the filename on my computer to "SMITH.JPG" and it still didn't work. Chick Bowen 18:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This one: Image:Emmitt Smith.jpg? It works fine for me. Possibly you added some non-printable char to the name without realizing. Tizio 19:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know; I tried it a couple times, changed the filename, etc. Anyway, thanks for uploading it. Chick Bowen 19:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Photo not showing on home computer but visible on another computer.
A Wikipedia operator uploaded a photo onto the Gerald Mohr site for me but, when I go into the page on my home computer, the photo does not show. However, when I enter the same page on my office computer, the photo is there. I have gone through the purging, cache cleaning and bypassing previously recommended, but to no avail. I have also lowered the setting on my firewall to Medium on a Trusted site, but this hasn't brought the photo up, either. I don't know what else to try. Recommendations, please.
eh, I remember you having this problem before :). it sounds like there's something wrong with your computer's rendering engine. If it doesn't work on another computer, then there's probably something screwy within the image file itself that's causing certain renderers to go haywire. If you can find another computer where this is a problem (try another computer with exactly the same OS, and hopefully the same software), please write back. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Check your ad-blocker software -- some uploaded photos end up in a directory with "/ad/' in the url, which can trigger adblocks. Your software should allow you to whitelist Wikipedia to avoid this problem. — Catherine\talk 07:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Guys, thanks for this. I don't know what a rendering engine is or how to find out about it. I just know that the photo is showing up on my office computer and not my home one, despite tonight cache cleaning again, as another contributor has re-uploaded the photo. Maybe I should upload the photo myself? That might do it - but before I do, comments, please!Wood200 23:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
no pictures shown!?!
There are no pictures shown!?! Is there a server problem or something???
Posted By User:JaJaon165.95.18.61 22:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Images are showing up fine for me; perhaps there is something wrong with your computer. — Knowledge Seekerদ 22:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also having this problem - both IE and Firefox seem unwilling to load from upload.wikimedia.org. I've tried changing block settings but the fact that both browsers are unhappy seems very odd. Any ideas? Greycap 23:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Page protection breaking watchlist?
Hi all. I just observed a peculiar thing. A page whose most recent "edit" was being protected is no longer appearing at all on my watchlist. Have others seen this bug? Is it a feature somehow? -- SCZenz 22:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a known bug that has been mentioned on this page before. I know nothing more than that. :) -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 23:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Name technical restrictions workaround
Someone pointed out above that the fr:IPod article displays its title as "iPod", rather than "IPod" as we do here. This looks much nicer than making the user read "due to technical restrictions, blah blah...". The french wikipedia accomplishes this by adding a site-wide javascript function that checks for the presence of their {{lowercase}} template, removes the lowercase notice, and changes the title to be the lowercase version. (search for "RealTitleBanner") If the user doesn't have javascript enabled, it just falls back to displaying the "due to technical restrictions..." blurb.
Gerbrant has managed to get this working on enwiki as well. You can make this work now by adding {{subst:User:Gerbrant/realTitle.js}} to your monobook.js.
This seems safe and useful enough that I'd like to see this added to MediaWiki:Monobook.js. Are there any concerns about this? --Interiot 01:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Two things: first, as an enhancement, it may as well fix the HTML title as well as the displayed one. Two, I strongly suggest that to avoid confusion, you be careful with something like C Sharp where the desired title won't work in wikilinks. It would be neat if this were committed sitewide, but for initial case only. Being unable to display lowercase is a silly flaw in the software, but it's a bad idea to make the name unpasteable. Maybe okay with an explanatory message, but not much point then, is there? You could still fix the title for the HTML title and for print, though, even where it's no good for pasting. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No idea how much of that will break horribly, and no idea how to get different output for print, and certainly no idea how to get correct display for anything other than direct viewing of the article (e.g. edit pages). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, the title works okay, see User:Interiot/js/RealTitle.js (I based it off of the french code, since it has a bit of error-checking and has been in use for a while). Per your suggestion, I made a new div id, "RealTitleBannerUnpastable", for when the title given is intended to not be pastable (in this case, I only change the document title, not the H1 as you said). (is it pastable, or pasteable?) However, it's not always straightforward to predict whether it will be pastable. Most articles tagged with {{underscore}} substitute a space in the name where an underscore would be, however a few do not (Shift-JIS) or can not (NSAKEY, though "_NSAKEY" is mostly pastable). Even with the more straightforward {{lowercase}}, articles can give a completely different title as the first argument... this is typical for (disambiguated) titles such as Occam (programming language). I'm not sure what to do about some of those.
Fixing the title for print would probably be done with something related to the CSS @media print thing, but it's not obvious right this second how to make the mechanics work. --Interiot 07:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that could be done to make sure the name is pastable is for the javascript to actually check whether one name maps to the other (eg. if you take the RealTitle, uppercase the first letter, change all underscores to spaces, if you get the current page name, then it's okay to display the RealTitle instead). Besides fixing small mundane issues, that would also prevent more extreme attempts to have fun^W^W confuse people. --Interiot 17:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I did in my JavaScript above, or at least that's what it's supposed to do. rtb.substr(0,1).toLowerCase() == doctitle.substr(0,1).toLowerCase() should only be true if they're the same except for their initial letter's case. Except looking at it again, that's totally stupid and wrong, and should be rtb.substr(0,1).toLowerCase() + rtb.substr(1) == doctitle.substr(0,1).toLowerCase() + doctitle.substr(1), I think. Other transformations could also be made, like underscores/spaces (although I guess only ones that are neither the first nor last character?).
Also, maybe something could be worked out for the messy cases that preserves pasteability (no, I don't know whether that e belongs there). Like, what if you did something funky with transparency and z-index? Put the real title on top but invisible, the display title underneath and visible. The problem with that would be if the real title is longer than the display title (C Sharp), people would be prone to select less of the title than they should. Also, it would be distinctly unexpected for the user. I'd stick with canonically equivalent names only for now. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Simetrical's right - titles should remain pasteable. Any problems with usability veto things looking nice, as annoying as that may be. My personal suggestion, although it risks breaking format, would be to use a double title - note what the subject is with one and where it is listed with another. For articles like C sharp, we'll have trouble with intuitive links anyway - people knowledgable about the subject but not about Wikipedia may still write [[C#]] and hope to get to the right page. Nihiltres 00:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible to implement the fix for every article, and then add a mouseover or select event to the title text so that the pasteable text will either appear and/or be copied respectively? --DavidHOzAu 03:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sneaky, but I'm not sure I'm in favor. Some people will be inclined to type out a link to the title rather than copying it, and there's nothing we can do to stop that. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I implemented the "check in real-time if it's pasteable, and only replace the <h1> if it is" code (see User:Interiot/js/RealTitle.js). At the same time, that solved another problem I had, that usually a page's namespace usually isn't mentioned in the "due to technical restrictions" blurb (but sometimes it is). So I also automatically detect whether the namespace is there, and add it if it's not (again, to make sure the name is pasteable). At this point, I see no obvious downsides to the script (other than possibly its complexity), so I'd like to try to add it to monospace.js soon unless there are objections. (the minor downsides are that I don't have printing working, and a few weird cases like lac operon don't work, but I think for 97% of its uses, it does the best thing possible) --Interiot 04:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am trying to write a semi-bot/utility in PHP, but whenever I try to use file_get_contents to retrieve a Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=thier&fulltext=Search) i get a 403 error (forbidden). Is Wikipedia blocking PHP clients from accessing it? Is it because the script doesn't log itself in? I'd like for somebody to clear this issue up, particularly with Wikipedia's servers' client tolerances.
Brion has mentioned that it's a really good idea to set a custom user-agent for each program you write, so that if it goes haywire, it can be selectively blocked. When bots don't do this, sometimes general-purpose user agents get blocked. Along the same lines, it's a good idea to include an email address (or a reference to your main talk page, or some way to contact you) in the custom useragent string as well. --Interiot 01:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed this too: Wikipedia blocks bots that have certain user-agent headers from editing or viewing Wikipedia. Once while I was just messing around, i got blocked for having a header saying "Java 1.5", but once I changed it, it got better. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How on Earth...
So, I log in, as usual, and go to Special:Watchlist, as I always do. However, near the top of my watchlist, I see Baibars, a page I have never seen before, much less edited, sprinkled on my watchlist. I have looked at the deletion logs of the page, as well as the move logs, and cannot find any explanation as to how it got there. We haven't installedPovWatch, so am I the only one who is having these kinds of issues? Titoxd(?!?) 06:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What I think happened is that one of the pages on your watchlist was moved to either User talk:Centrx/dev/null or User:Centrx/temp1. Because both the old and new pagename is watched in a page move, you should see one of these pages on your watchlist. Then, that page was moved back, the resulting redirect was deleted and there was little noticible impact.
Looking at the deletion history of those two pages, I can't see which page was moved there... I'm lost here. Titoxd(?!?) 21:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It could be that the moving or deletion of pages somehow messed up the logs. Anyway, looking at Centrx's move log, I can see that he has moved Roger Needham and Wikipedia talk:Counter-Vandalism Unit into there previously. Given that you have 32 edits to the latter page, I'm guessing that it might be that page which was on your watchlist. Tra(Talk) 22:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Trouble with SVG image
Caption
I'm having trouble with the following SVG image. The file loads fine in IE and FireFox. Is there something I can do to fix it? -SharkD 09:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's a known bug in the version of libcroco (used by librsvg) that is used on Wikipedia. It's fixed in upstream in libcroco, but an old version is still used on the Wikimedia's servers. See the bug report for a workaround… –Gustavb 16:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I'll try using inline stylesheets. -SharkD 23:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
More bugs. Any way to resolve these? -SharkD 23:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Workaround: convert the text to paths (in Inkscape under Path->Object to Path). Don't use line endings, these are problematic as well. Set the line ending to "none" and use separately drawn triangles or arrowheads, positioned appropriately.
BTW, as the image is supposed to show a sphere, I think a perspective similar to this picture, but rotated maybe another 30° to the right might be better. Lupo 12:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Virtual classroom update and assignment template
We've moved on to our second lesson in the Virtual classroom, though each lesson is continuous so we may see more additions to the interface share and compare as well. The current topic of discussion is "stubbing."
To help keep track of what's going on, here's a template you can place at the top of your userpage or talk page:
Hope to see you at the Virtual classroom soon. The Transhumanist 12:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
[reply]
Timestamps in Talk Pages
Is there a technical statement as to why timestamps on talk pages do not conform to my preferences? Seems it would be a client-side issue and there would be something I could add or activate (like the Enhanced recent changes JavaScript) to do this. Is this possible? *Spark* 20:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Date preferences only work if the date is linkified, and having all the timestamps linkified would be very cluttering/distracting on talkpages. Hence timestamps are not configurable. --Quiddity 20:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the links would be cluttering/distracting on the talkpages, no more so than the links in signatures are. Be that as it may, is there any sort of utility javascript that can handle such a conversion? *Spark* 23:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Non-appearance of uploaded photo on Gerald Mohr Wiki site
One of the Wiki operators very kindly uploaded the autographed photo I supplied for this page but, for some reason, the photo does not display on my home computer, although it does so on my office computer. Further to a previous e-mail on the subject, I went through a number of times the purging, cache cleaning, deleting and bypassing procedures suggested, but all to no avail. I have also changed the Firewall setting to Medium for Trusted sites, which Wikipedia is. However, I still can't see the photo in the infobox. Something else on my computer must be blocking the view of this photo. Any further ideas, please?
The image server goes on the blink sometimes. Try resizing the image by 1 pixel to see if that helps. --ais523 09:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Where are Wikipedia article authors located?
I posted this query on one of the help pages, and somebody suggested I try the Village Pump, too. I'd love to find information on something I know is technically feasible, I'm just not sure we actually do it. I'm interested in what countries' residents give back to the Wikipedia.
For instance, where do the people who contribute to en.wikipedia.org live? Are they primarily in countries where English is the first language? Or are there thousands in places where English is only a second language, but widely spoken, whether that means the Netherlands or India? I'm not interested in whether the contributors are really native English speakers or not (well, I am, but we can't really know that about each one without asking them.) I'm simply interested in where they are, because we can track that through their IP addresses. And of course I'm not interested in who they are, either, this is not an invasion of any individual's privacy. Yes, articles originating in India (according their IP address) could have been written by, say, a Briton temporarily (or even permanently) residing there, but if there are a few hundred thousand articles from non-English speaking countries, I think it would be safe to assume that they weren't all written by expats!
Where do the people live who contribute to es.wikipedia.org? Spain, South America, Central America, the U.S.?
Where do the people who contribute to zh.wikipedia.org live, or ko.wikipedia.org or ... are these people in their respective diasporas, socalled "overseas" Chinese, or Taiwanese, or people living in the People's Republic?
Wouldn't this be easy to track? And might it not give insight into why some Wikipedias grow so much faster than others?
You could try to find out by checking nationality userboxes on those wikis that use them; you could also check 'Recent changes' for anons and check the IPs to see which country they came from. --ais523 09:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
There have been some cursory statistics done on this; see meta:Edits by project and country of origin. No pretty graphs or anything, but the data is there. Perhaps most interestingly, for Chinese: HK: 28.6%, TW: 25.9% ... CN: 6.1% (though bear in mind that we'd have been blocked in mainland China for much of that time). Shimgray | talk | 20:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whole article deleted.
I wrote an entire article on Philip Riteman, a holocaust survivor, and because I made a mistake in adding an mp3 to my external links, the whole thing was deleted. Is there any way I can get it back?
The article Philip Riteman was speedily deleted because it does not assert the importance or notability of its subject. You might want to contact the deleting admin, Betacommand if you want the article back, or if that fails, try deletion review. Tra(Talk) 01:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Table Fix
I found a solution to a problem, and would like to know if I should mention it anywhere in help files. In short:
This old revision of Agrippina (opera) has a "Roles" section done as a table. Unfortuntately, the references were throwing off the alignment between the columns by changing the line height.
I fixed this by adding <sup> </sup> at the end of each element. (see Agrippina (opera).) It has no apparent effect on the display (unless you highlight it, when it is slightly noticable in some browsers, but that's a browser oddity), but fixes the table. I was unable to fix it using line-height or font style="bottom: ##" elements.
As this could come up again, should I mention it anywhere? Adam Cuerdentalk 04:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Search Box
In the search box it automatically saves the word searches that I made. I would like to delete those search words. How do I do that?
It is your browser that is saving those searches; how you clear them depends on which web browser you are using. — Knowledge Seekerদ 08:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am using Internet Explorer as my browser.
In IE7 (I think IE6 was the same, but how quickly you forget!), click tools, internet options, general tab, delete browsing hisory, delete forms and press OK. close and restart the browser and it should be all good. — Moondyne 09:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your help. Unfortunately, I'm using IE6 and under the tools, internet options, general tab--there is no delete browsing history or delete forms. There is delete cookies, delete files and clear history--all of which I tried and none have worked. Any other ideas?
Upgrade to IE7 or Firefox (the latter preferably)! Someone else should be able to help I'm sure. Watch this space. — Moondyne 09:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a feature of Internet Explorer called 'AutoComplete'. Looking for that name in the help files or Options may help (sorry, I don't know how to turn it off either). --ais523 09:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
In Internet Explorer 6, go to Tools > Internet Options > Content > AutoComplete > Clear Forms > OK. This will clear the autocomplete data for all information entered in forms for all of the websites you visited, apart from passwords. Tra(Talk) 17:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Changes in auto-summary feature?
I noticed that there is now a (replacing page with 'new page content') auto-summary when a vandal blanks a page (example); however, the one I really liked - the auto-summary that was provided when you make a redirect - is gone. Can the developers bring this one back? :-( Kimchi.sg 13:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I figured it out. Apparently the new redirect autosummary requires there be no space between the "#REDIRECT" and the [[. Kimchi.sg 05:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The same code is used to check whether to generate an autosummary and to check whether something is a redirect. Could you link to an edit where the summary wasn't generated but the resulting redirect worked? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MIDIs
For older composers who are out of copyright, it's often possible to get out-of-copyright midis by making them ourselves - but NOT to get out-of-copyright oggs, at least, oggs that aren't just disguised midis. Why not allow MIDIs to be uploaded? Adam Cuerdentalk 17:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the problem with MIDI, is that it is not a patent-free format, although this might change. However, Wikimedia Commons seems to allow mid uploads: 12 etc. --Splarka (rant) 08:16, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Patents expire after 20 years. What seems to be the problem here? --DavidHOzAu 12:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cancelation of an old user account
Hi guys,
I am a regular editor on the french "Wikipédia" ([6]), and, as I contribute from time to time to the en: version (often for improving international links... OK you don't care about that), I tried to open an account with the same name on this wiki. Amazingly, the name is already used. OK, it would not be a problem if this user was a "normal" one, after all no one can pretend to have an exclusive alias. However, the contributions of this "english" Arnaudus are somewhat... strange: two stupid redirects towards a porn picture in March 2005. "Surprizingly", this picture was at that time located on the french WP: did this strange alter ego know me? And more "surprizingly", it corresponds exactly to the time I was about to become a member of the arbitration comitee [7]. I guess that this stupid account has been created as a revenge or something similar. Is there a way to cancel it --or just to erase the password, I can live even with this "noble" history-- in order to keep the same alias on both WP? Thanks in advance for any advice,
According to the current policy, you can't userp an existing account. This may change in future, so you may wish to make your request here but there still is a good chance that it may not take place because the account that you want has already made edits, and the user would still need to be credited to comply with the GFDL. There is also talk of a single login system for all Wikimedia projects, so you can have the same name everywhere, but this doesn't yet exist either. Tra(Talk) 22:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How do I message a user?
I want to message Betacommand, about getting my deleted Philip Riteman article back.
You go onto their user talk page, in this case User talk:Betacommand, and hit the + in the corner... then fill in the form... Cbrown1023 01:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Movies Text Box
For the movies text box, what about adding a "rating" category on all of the movie pages. For those of us, (like myself) who are big movie buffs, and for parents/kids looking up upcoming movies to possibly see, it might be a good idea to have a "rating" category in the box,(I realize I repeat myself, but I can't think of any other way to phrase it). This would definitely be a collaboration project if we are going to modify them all, but what do you think? Please respond. All opinions will be appreciated. --WTRiker 01:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of rating do you mean? Probably not the G/PG/R/NC-17, right? If you're suggesting a critical review or evaluation of the movie content, see WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. — EncMstr 01:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I do mean the G/PG/PG-13/R/NC-17. --WTRiker 01:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't these vary from country to country? There would need to be a whole table on its own to give all the different ratings assigned by different countries. Tra(Talk) 01:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Besides country-specific releases (typically cut for government or societal standards and maybe dubbed with a different language), there are television releases, each network has its own standard to edit for content. If the movie is rereleased, it is typically recut slightly and may gain a different rating from the original release, partly caused by marketing incentives and rating standards drift. Then there's "director's cut", airline cut, etc., etc. I don't doubt that it can be done, but it seems a lot of work for limited benefit. — EncMstr 03:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The IMDB usually lists a wide array of ratings/certificates of most films for many countries, and any notable movie on Wikipedia has an IMDB link in the External Links section. Generally easy enough to find the information there without duplicating it here ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 08:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This has been proposed many times and has been shot down each time. Futher questions of this type can be asked at WPT:FILMS. Cbrown1023 01:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Easier accessibility to portals & wikipedia institutions
I see many great portals, but there's no way to get to them or know that they exist. I think that links to these portals should be on the main page of Wikipedia. And for internal institutions, such as the Village pump, Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee, etc., should appear every time we log onto Wikipedia using our private accounts. I did not know of their existence until very recently, even though I've been in Wikipedia for a long time. (Wikimachine 02:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC))[reply]
Hi Wikimachine, the portals are actually prominently featured on the main page :-) Check out the top-right area above the news. —Mets501 (talk) 02:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The tool generated some information which was considered private. As a result, the statistics are unavailable until this information is purged, and the tool is corrected so that this does not happen again.
Inferring from a thread on wikitech-l, the tool's developer, Erik Zachte, and our CTO, Brion Vibber, are communicating to this effect, so the statistics might be restored in the near future. 164.11.204.56 20:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone pl. help?
1) We have enormous discussion on talk page of Hinduism. Could some knowledgable provide the page with "top" tool at the bottom of the page and "bottom" tool at the top of the page to go to these zones at a click of button?
[I believe this might be required on all pages as the drawback is with all pages].
2) Why we miss "edit" tool with each topic of discussion, forcing us to tremendously scroll up to go to edit tool?
Could someone pl. help?
swadhyayee 03:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I don't know about adding buttons, but in Windows and Linux you can go to the top of a page with [Home] and to the bottom with [End]. In Mac OS X, you can use Command-Up Arrow and Command-Down Arrow to do the same thing.
(2) You do have edit buttons for every topic heading at Talk:Hinduism, or at least you did a couple of minutes ago when I looked. Some of the topics are very long, though, and probably should be broken up and/or old material archived from them. --Tkynerd 03:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accidentally and prematurely saving a page
Twice recently I've accidentally pressed "Enter" while in the edit summary box and saved the page before I meant to. I don't think this ever happened to me before the recent (and very welcome!) changes to the summary box. Am I just becoming more butterfingered, or has some change been made along the lines of "save page" becoming a default option that it wasn't before? --Blisco 10:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Butterfingers. I remember having to be cautious "down there" ever since, lest to prematurely ...can I reword that? Femto 11:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There was a thread here some time ago on this issue. The default of web forms is that pressing enter in any field that is not a textarea causes the default button (or the selected button, if any) to be pressed. I also made such mistakes here and there; make a null edit to post your full edit summary. Tizio 12:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, pressing enter is not the same thing as pressing the default button. Many websites (including Wikipedia) handle them both the same, but it is possible for a different action to take place depending on whether you press enter or click the button. For example, Google gives you a 'tip' message if you click the search button, but not if you press enter after searching from the homepage (compare this to this). Tra(Talk) 18:07, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My talk page was recently vandalized. In reviewing the vandal's contributions page, I realized that he/she also left graffitti on user and talk pages with usernames similar to my own. I tried to follow the instructions at Doppelganger account, but was unable to create accounts with similar names, i.e. Bostonma and BostonMa, because the account creation software said the names were too similar to my own. My question is, is there a way that I can take control of these two user pages and associated talk pages? Alternatively, is there a way to request that an admin blank these pages and protect them from being editted? --BostonMAtalk 16:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Due to a recent change in the software, an anon or regular user cannot register a name that is similar to one that is already registered. In other words, nobody can register Bostonma and BostonMa, so these pages can be just made redirects to your own user page. Generally, pages (including userpages and redirects) are protected only if vandalism persists. Tizio 16:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I deleted the User:Bostonma page. I know having your user page vandalized can be frustrating, but the odds are he won't stick with it. If he does, then report him and he'll be blocked. -- JLaTondre 16:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The referenced user account has already been blocked [8] --Ligulem 17:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing this reminded me of a friend who warned me to block User:Nihiltrez from being created, and I just {{doppelganger}}'d it (having created the account). I'm wondering, where/what's the policy about creating redirects to one's user page? It'd be nice to help people, who, say, type in "User:NIhiltres". Nihiltres 02:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Non-appearance of uploaded photo on Gerald Mohr Wiki site
One of the Wiki operators very kindly uploaded my photo of Gerald Mohr onto his website within an infobox template. However, although the script in the infobox is seen, the photo is not visible on my home computer. It is, however, visible on my office computer. I have tried refreshing, purging, cache cleaning, cache bypassing and changing my firewall level to medium for a trusted site, but to no avail - I still can't view the photo on my home computer. Any ideas as to what's blocking this, given that I've followed all the above procedures?
Wood 200, 18 November 2006Wood200 21:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried viewing it in a different browser? VegaDark 02:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reference problem
I've been converting a list I'm working on into table form, located at User:VegaDark/Sandbox and I've been inline sourcing every entry. There are so many football players that use the same source that I have gotten past bz on the reference count at the bottom of the page and it is showing some sort of error. Only a developer can add the ability for ca-cz and beyond (by the time I am done, I may need through the d's or e's). Any chance that can happen? Thanks, VegaDark 01:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just realized this could be considered a bug/feature request and should be posted on bugzilla, but I don't have an account there...anyone who does feel like submitting it? Thanks. VegaDark 02:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not too hard to make the change, MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels needs to have ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci cj ck cl cm cn co cp cq cr cs ct cu cv cw cx cy cz added to the end of it. However, this edit can only be done by an admin. Tra(Talk) 02:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that worked. It now goes through dz. However, now it stretches the page instead of word wrapping. Any way for it to word wrap without having the developers change the programming? VegaDark 07:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Any admin care to make the pages? VegaDark 21:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done, let me know if it works (they're all on one line on your sandbox page for me). But seriously, maybe consider an alternative referencing scheme if you need up to dz for a single source. Opabinia regalis 02:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It worked after I purged the page, thanks. I originally had a different referencing scheme but when I put the page through peer review it was recommended I inline cite every entry, or it wouldn't get to featured status. Feel free to take a look to see if you can come up with a better idea. VegaDark 04:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I know nothing about featured lists specifically, but I'd say the inline citation creep lately has gotten way out of hand if we're getting up to dz in the footnotes. People have, in the past, evaded this problem by including individual notes with page/section/etc numbers and the author's name, and listing the full citation for the work in a separate section (I understand this is common in WP:MILHIST-supported articles). A simple option would be to use the old {{ref}}/{{note}} system, which is clunkier in some ways but doesn't produce individual notes for each time a work is cited, or just include a linked asterisk that goes to this particular oft-cited work in place of a note. Don't know if any of those would suit your specific purpose, though. Opabinia regalis 05:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that feature was exactly what this problem was about. VegaDark 20:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmmm. Hmmm, I see that now, but I'm inclined to agree there should be another solution then. Sorry for misreading the discussion. -- nae'blis 20:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, on the above article section, there's a link that points to a postscript file on someone's web page, but when the article is viewed (using Internet Explorer), it does not show the usual graphic to indicate that the article is a URL rather than a wikipedia entry. --Rebroad 10:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What version of IE are you using? The graphic show up fine for me with IE6. Do other external links show up OK? --TheParanoidOne 10:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's why one's generally not supposed to link to rich media content unless there's a specific notice of such (see WP:EL). Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 11:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In IE7, I notice these external links show correctly when they are on one line, but if they wrap to another line then the arrow doesn't show. I think this could be due to aa problem with how the css is rendered. Tra(Talk) 14:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I am writing an article Oymapinar Dam to which I was adding photos from the Wiki Commons.
The trouble is that the images keep getting deleted from the article as not having correct license. Can you explain to me what is happening and how to deal with it? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 18:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any removed images from Oymapinar Dam. Can you clarify? —Mets501 (talk) 02:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Horizontal scrollbar
Since this morning I've been seeing a horizontal scrollbar in Wikipedia article pages (including user and talk pages, but not the watchlist) in Firefox 2.0. The horizontal scrollbar does not appear in IE. Does anyone know if the CSS or ouputted HTML has changed in MediaWiki. -- Jeff3000 23:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine for me. Perhaps it's something with your personal js or css? —Mets501 (talk) 02:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this depends if the text contains "pre" tags ; the line is not automatically cut at the end of a window line, and firefox then offers a scrollbar. -- DLL .. T 21:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Highlighting redirect terms
It would be useful if, when a redirected term is not simply an alternate title for the article's subject but instead a small part of a larger topic, the first instance, or perhaps all instances, of the redirect term were highlighted. Perhaps this could be on option to be specified on the redirect page, so that it would only apply to redirects that need it.--ragesoss 01:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the manual of style, the first occurrence of the redirect is to be bold in the target article. I would avoid doing that automatically; this is not done even for the title itself as there exceptions. Tizio 13:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Saving, but not posting...
Hello
I would like to say i am very upset that wikipedia does not have a "save, but do not post" button. If, in fact they do have such a feature it needs to be more prominant. I had a very upsetting moment when i was wokring on a new article and I walked to get a drink. When I came back, wikipedia had been closed and all of my hard work lost. It could be placed right next to the save changes and post button. The button would save the article to your contributions. please correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe there is such a way.--Gwakamoley 18:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)Gwakamoley[reply]
All changes to wiki pages are immediately live, by design, so you can't save a draft and not affect the article while you're still editing. If you'd like to make a draft copy to work things out, you might try using a subpage either in articlespace or your userspace (like a personal Wikipedia:Sandbox). Copy all the text into User:Gwakamoley/Draft sandbox or Talk:Article name/Temp, for example, work out your edits there, then select all again and copy it back to the article, being careful to re-include any edits made in the meantime. Does that help? -- nae'blis 18:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I still think that such a feature should still be added... unless it is impossible (if thats what your sayin).--Gwakamoley 18:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty sure there isn't a way to do that. If you're doing a major overhaul of a project, I'd suggesting doing your writing in a program on your computer; you can save your progress as much as you want. Other than that, I'd suggest using a subpage of your userspace so that you can work on it anywhere. EVula// talk // ☯ // 20:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some more good reasons : WP is not your own archiving device ; any good text processor uses proofreading functions that are recommended before posting ; you are allowed to read again once (preview button) things that you would not like to post raw, &c. -- DLL .. T 21:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've gotten hosed, too. The solution is to select-all, and hit ctrl-C to copy to the clipboard. And then paste it into Notepad or Word (or whatever) if you're extra paranoid. This has saved me a couple of times. It sounds like a low bang-for-buck as a Wikipedia feature, and I would think a 'save without posting' feature sounds confusing in any case. Tempshill 06:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When I write a lot, I too copy the text to the clipboard before posting it. If something goes wrong, I can then try again. Sometimes clicking 'back' on the browser helps, but if the browser dies, or the computer dies, then there is not a lot that can be done. For major rewrites, working in an external program with 'save' functions is best. But, as others have said, remember to re-add edits made since you rewrote the text, and credit them in the edit summary (say something like 're-adding edits first added in version xyz'). Carcharoth 11:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Making Images Smaller
How can you change the image size for something? I mean not forever, but for, say, a userbox. The current image is too large, and I want the userbox to be of a reasonable size.--Kookoo275 01:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gah, now I remember. I did that for a volcano pic one time. Oh well, I'm an idiot. Thanks. --Kookoo275 03:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
<nocat> tag?
I've run into a number of situations over time on Wikipedia, especially those involving categories embedded within templates, for which it would have been incredibly useful to have a tag that would cause the MediaWiki software to disregard all categories within the tags.
Is there currently a way to do this?
If not, do you think that this should be a requested feature?
Well, you can use <noinclude></noinclude>. Categories inside those tags will only categorize the template, but won't make articles to be categorized under them. -- ReyBrujo 04:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks , but that's not quite the same problem - imagine that there is a template on a page which would be cumbersome (or inappropriate) to substitute, but which contains an undesired category. The page will be categorized with that category unless nowiki or includeonly tags prevent the template from rendering - which I can't imagine a solution for. Nihiltres 05:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Specific instances of this general problem are almost always fixable by using noinclude or an appropriate #if. What real problem are you trying to address? -- Rick Block (talk) 14:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What's currently done is, on the template, to reference the category in the form: {{{category|[[Category:Example]]}}}. The template will still continue to work normally. Then, if you want to transclude the template without the category, you reference it in the form: {{example|category=}} Tra(Talk) 23:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tiny images are too small to be read and high resolution download shows text rather than a larger image
Hello:
Some of the images on Wikipedia are too small to be read by the human eye alone. For example,the link: French monarchs family tree contains a very small image: Image:France-2ndCapet.png. This image is far too small to be read; And the high resolution download shows text rather than a larger image. How can these tiny images be made bigger and more legible for the human eye?
The page looks fine to me. What OS and browser version are you using? As for Image:France-2ndCapet.png, after clicking through to see the image, using some browsers it does load to fit the height of the browser window, resulting in illegible text - clicking on it once zooms in to 100% size (at least in Firefox 1.5.x). The latter isn't an actual usability issue, of course. Tempshill 06:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
watchlist
Wouldn't it be great to have an RSS stream for your watchlist? Possible or not? yandman 10:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm sure this is possible, I think it's not enabled/active, for bandwidth reasons. Nihiltres 15:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bug #471 discusses the RSS/Watchlist idea. It looks like someone has a patch too. The biggest issue is that watchlists have normally been private, and therefore need password protection. The solutions seem to be (hopefully I'm summarizing these accurately) ... 1) those who read RSS within their browser probably already have a login-cookie, so they can just use that, 2) for those who use an external RSS reader, the only option is to have the user agree to make their watchlist semi-public, and then give them a URL with a semi-secret token in it to give to their RSS reader. --Interiot 15:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. The cookie looks like a nice idea (although I'm uncertain as to how long the account will stay "open" enabling the stream). Nice to see all the work that's going on behind the scenes... yandman 15:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The cookie would be the same one that you use whenever you access Wikipedia. Eg. You only have to log in every couple months if you never log out. --Interiot 21:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please can someone fix it? Tom 13:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Uploading image problem
I want to upload a singles cover "kaw-liga_Hank_Williams.jpg" to the article Kaw-Liga (song). I have renamed it various ways but when I try to upload it I always get the message: The file you uploaded seems to be empty. This might be due to a typo in the file name. Please check whether you really want to upload this file. Yesterday I uploaded a similar file to Dust My Broom successfully. I don't know what I am doing wrong now. I have read the direction on how to upload. Any ideas? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 16:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have changed the image name to "Kaw-liga.jpg". It is the same in the article name. I cannot figure out what is wrong. I've tried every conceivable combination. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 17:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is the trick in naming images for uploading?
I get an error message that there is a typo in the image name about 99% of the time before I finally succeed. I know the general rules about naming images. Is there an extra trick? Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 20:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Multi Language article
How do you make an article in one language count as the same in another?194.80.178.1 21:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by "count"? Do you mean the links that you sometimes see at the left of an article which list other language Wikipedias with an equivalent article? Notinasnaid 21:27, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For the gory details, see Wikipedia:Interwikimedia link. To just see how it's done, pick an article which has these links, and use edit; look at the very end of the article. (Interwiki links don't have to be at the end, but that is strongly recommended). For example at the end of Blues I see [[wa:Blouze]]. You just need the two letter code for the other Wikipedia ("wa" in this example), and the name of the article ("Blouze" in this example). Notinasnaid 21:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are codes to do this, which corrospond with the first two letters in the particular wikipedia site. This, for example is en, since the webadress is en.wikipedia.org. Just link to that, by typing [[CODE:ARTICLE NAME]], where CODE is the two letters mentioned, and ARTICLE NAME is the name of the article you are linking to. Prodegotalk 21:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a couple of changes to MediaWiki:Searchnoresults, to include links to site searches on the three linked engines - what with the index being so far behind (and the mediawiki search engine being so rubbish not very good). As this is likely to affect most people at some time, I'm posting here to invite discussion (crossposting to WP:VPN, please comment on this (WP:VPT) page). Thanks -- Martinp23 22:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The links seem to work well. Would it be possible to also put the links on the footer of the results page, to cover the situation when results are found but they aren't the ones you want? Tra(Talk) 23:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the system message for the footer is (if there is one). The closest I can find is MediaWiki:Searchresulttext, where I've put the text, but commented out. This is the text at the top of search results which are successful - an admin can feel free to comment that out if there's a consensus to have it there (the footer would be much better, but I can't find the message). Martinp23 23:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bot Needed
I'm editing pages such as 7, 8 and 265 to solve the WP:BUNCH problem.
It's rather formulaic. I wonder if a bot/script/whatever could be written to save my time?
The problem seems to carry on right up to and beyond 1876.
See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 362 to see what I've done so far.
Also, there is little consistency in the disambiguation; sometimes it's {{otheruses}} and sometimes it's {{otheruses-number}} and sometimes it's both. perhaps they should all just be {{otheruses-number}} and any such page as 5 (disambiguation) should be merged with 5 (number).
--User24 00:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
