10/12/2006 1:01AM: I managed to control how much text floats next to
the table, by using the <BR CLEAR=all> tag I read about here:

http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/tables/table.html

  The deprecated ALIGN attribute suggests the horizontal alignment of
  the table on visual browsers. Possible values are left, right, and
  center. Browsers generally present left- or right-aligned tables as
  floating tables, with the content following the TABLE flowing around
  it. To prevent content from flowing around the table, use <BR
  CLEAR=all> after the end of the TABLE.

Now that I know what to look for, I can find it with this search on Meta but not with this search on mediawiki.org. --Teratornis 03:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have been unable to edit my prefrences. I can access the main page (User profile) but cannot access the other pages. Also I cannot change my name while part of it is in the name change box the other part is outside of the box.

Example: <a class= ({SUBST:User:Darkest Hour/name}}" size="25" type="text"> 

The underlined part is the part I can delete and edit, the non underlined part is the part I cannot delete. Also lately many of my templates when put in <pr`e> tags or <no`wiki> tags has an <a class= beginning to it. Please explain what the issue is. If it is a code in my monobook here are the two of them: User:Darkest Hour/monobook.js & User:Darkest Hour/monobook.css. Thank you for your efforts to look into this very confusing problem, -- Darkest Hour 15:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it could be User:Darkest_Hour/linky.js. Try removing that and then trying again. If not, try removing them all and see if that helps, and if it does add them back in sections to see if you can find out which script you have a problem with. If not, I'm not sure. Anyone else? mattbr 16:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In 'linky.js', add && document.title.indexOf("Special:Preferences") != 0 to the condition of the first if statement, and it should work better. --ais523 17:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Note that the double quote marks in the Example do not ballance. The syntax is probably wrong. Pete St.John 16:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With the onset of auto locator maps Template:Location map start, it is now possible to make clickable route maps for roads, rail lines etc. But the process of obtaining the coordinates for every marker for every map is both time consuming and cumbersome. This can be simplified if there was some way of referencing the coordinate information from an article. for example geo:London%7CDover would return the lattitude and longtitude of London and Dover and autmoatically mark it on a locator map. This will be extremely useful and easy for making locator maps of highways -- ^{PlaneMad|YakYak} 07:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. Andy Mabbett 16:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

or has something gone wrong?--VectorPotential^Talk 18:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Also at WP:AN#Issue_with_a_recent_edit_to_a_MediaWiki_page. I think if someone went to a tech IRC channel (I don't know which one, though) the devs could fix it quickly. --Iamunknown 18:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like that change to MediaWiki was rolled back. The text you're seeing means that MediaWiki is not finding a value for the MediaWiki:Title-pattern system message. Mike Dillon 01:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Version r20745 of SpecialLog.php was attempting to use "title-pattern". This version or a similar version must have been live for a short time. The latest version uses a message called "log-title-wildcard". I assume this wildcard/pattern matching thing for titles will be rolled out once the kinks are ironed out. Mike Dillon 01:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I wish that change sticked. Hopefully they'll reimplement it. --Iamunknown 01:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Miser mode is on at the English Wikipedia, the change wouldn't matter for us. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Prodego (talk • contribs) 02:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Why are anons allowed to edit user pages? If they want to give out awards they can go to the talk page, not that anons generally should give out awards anyway. So, why leave the door open to vandalism? The Behnam 03:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone can edit. It's a core philosophy of the project. One which the protection policy disregards, mind you. But still. --Deskana (talk) 03:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It makes perfect sense for the articles but for the user pages it just seems an invitation to vandalism and nothing more. The Behnam 03:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anons can revert vandalism too. I know I would have undid any vandalism to user pages I found before I got my account. I just didn't find any. The only problem is that it seems like more anons vandalize than help with user pages. --LuigiManiac 03:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I just don't see the point in having them edit user pages, especially when the equation is not equal as it is. The Behnam 03:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True, very true. I guess there wouldn't really be as much vandalism for the particularly helpful anons to revert if anons were not allowed to edit pages in the first place. Still, Deskana had a point about it being a core philosophy of the project. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. --LuigiManiac 04:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Prohibit anonymous users from editing discusses Wikipedia's policy, which evidently derives directly from the will of the Great Leader. From my non-scientific personal sampling of other wikis, I get the idea that Wikipedia is idiosyncratic here; I don't recall seeing another non-WikiMedia Foundation wiki which allows unregistered users to edit most pages (does anyone know of any?). The reason seems to be that few other wikis enjoy such a large community of human volunteers who are willing to donate thousands of hours of skilled labor to manually revert vandalism, over and over. However, despite the lip service paid to this lofty ideal, over time the policy is steadily eroding as Wikipedia ratchets up security bit by bit (for example, see the policy changes in response to: John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy). Given Wikipedia's ever-increasing visibility and thus attractiveness to vandals and spammers, it's hard to see the creep toward tighter access control reversing itself any time soon. --Teratornis 16:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The wiki where I made my first wiki edit, Esolang, allows anon edits. I don't think it has any protected pages at the moment, either (although I might be wrong on that). --ais523 16:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Sooner or later the good anon editors will discover, through editing userpages to leave messages, that they're supposed to leave messages on the user's talk page instead. Not allowing anons to edit userpages might send the wrong message. I also think it's better for us to block users for vandalizing userpages rather than allowing them to vandalize an actual article. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 ^{(T | C | @)} 04:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a "wiki" method to mark-up horizontal lists, like that at A34 road#Former route, so that they're rendered as an HTML list, styled horizontally? Elsewhere (for example on http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/test/) I use something like:

.horizontal
 {
    padding: 0;
 margin-top: 0;
 margin-left: -1.5em;
 margin-bottom: 0.5em;
 margin-right: 0;
 }

.horizontal li 
 { 
    display: inline;
 font-size: 90%;
 line-height: 1.5;
 border-left: 0.1ex solid;
 padding-left: 0.5em;
 padding-right: 0.5em;
 }

.horizontal li:first-child
 {
 border-left: none;
 padding-left: 0;
 }

but I have no idea how to apply that to a list, or to a template for a list, in WikiCode. The border-left separator could, of course, be omitted if so desired.

Ideally, the solution would take the form:

  {{starthorizontallist}}
  *cat
  *dog
  ...
  *horse
  {{endhorizontallist}}

Andy Mabbett 16:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can suggest additions to the site-wide CSS at MediaWiki:monobook.css; once the css has been added, a simple <div class="horizontal"> surrounding the list would probably work (although the first definition in your stylesheet might have to be changed to .horizontal ul and the subsequent definitions to .horizontal ul li). You can test stylesheets at Special:Mypage/monobook.css. --ais523 17:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll try MediaWiki:monobook.css, first (see MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css#Horizontal lists). Andy Mabbett 19:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would use of a table meet your needs? An example:

cat

dog

pig

cow

...

horse

The wikisyntax is a bit ugly with the bullets, but the list looks pretty funny without them:

cat

dog

pig

cow

...

horse

But setting column widths fixes that:

cat

dog

pig

cow

...

horse

—EncMstr 18:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Would use of a table meet your needs?" - Thank you, but no. A list and a table are, semantically, different things, Tables are for tabular data, not layout! Andy Mabbett 19:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The CSS sounds like a harmless, and good, idea. You may want to propose an edit on the talk page of MediaWiki:Common.css. Gracenotes^T § 21:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although, looking at the article you linked to, a horizontal list like that would hurt my not-that-wide screen. Have you seen {{Col-begin}}? It's a CSS hack for creating two equal columns, until CSS3 comes. Gracenotes^T § 21:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Horizontal lists should wrap to suit whatever size screen you use. ColBegin still produces a table. Andy Mabbett 21:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about what you want. Hmmm. How does the formatting at Template:Roman Emperors look? Gracenotes^T § 21:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's the look I want, but I want to achieve it with HTML lists (UL/ OL, and LI). Please see http://www.westmidlandbirdclub.com/test/ , where I have marked up part of the above, as a horizontal HTML list.Andy Mabbett 21:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

← You know, "ul" and "li" are HTML tags that can be implemented into MediaWiki wikitext. So a list like

<ul>
<li class=horizonal>Item A</li>
<li class=horizonal>Item B</li>
<li class=horizonal>Item C</li>
</ul>

Would work. I see where you're coming from... all that you'd need to do is propose an edit at MediaWiki talk:Common.css. On the other hand, however, using a table would work just as well, although without the same semantic feel. Gracenotes^T § 21:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I want the ease-of-editing for authors and the semantic meaningfulness of list markup, without in-line CSS. I'm awkward, that way ;-) Andy Mabbett 22:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am a bit put off by the <messiness>. However, I think that you can fix it by doing this:

<ul class=horizontal>
*Item A
*Item B
*Item C
</ul>

The only thing is, we'd have to alter the CSS file to change .horizontal into ul.horizontal. Gracenotes^T § 22:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not clear what you mean by "messiness". Andy Mabbett 22:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikitext is just a simplified version of HTML. Of course, it got rather complicated since then, but never mind that. So I think that we should not use the li tags, since they clutter up the editing box when a more elegant solution, using *, would work. Gracenotes^T § 22:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

so you were agreeing with my "want the ease-of-editing for authors"; I had thought you were disagreeing with me. Andy Mabbett 23:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. I used <messiness> to mean messiness from too many HTML tags :). Gracenotes^T § 23:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, yes, I agree with you. Slip of the fingers, I suppose. Gracenotes^T § 01:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any substantial objections to this CSS being added to Common.css? CMummert · talk 02:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't have any effect on existing content. It will only affect lists that are wrapped in a parent element marked with class="horizontal". Mike Dillon 02:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Has anybody else experienced this problem? A message posted to an IP talk page may not necessarily be received by the user. Some IPs experience it as the fact that the orange bar is stuck and won't clear out. Others have experienced it as the "new messages" notification does not show up no matter how many warnings are posted or if the cache is cleared. See here & here for more details. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 01:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had the orange bar stuck problem while I was temporarily an anon way back in Jan or Feb. It took perhaps 20 mins or so (can't really remember to be honest but it was a fair while) for it to disappear after I had visited the message. Purging etc didn't help nor was it cache related. There was at least one other report at the time Nil Einne 10:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My problem is that they do not show up for me under a IP address. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat

This is Bug 9213. Prodego ^talk 02:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Has anybody else experienced this problem? I think that this is a major problem that is affecting many IP addresses. Please reply if somebody else has a similar problem with the "New Messages" bar. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 03:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It affects all IP addresses, and has been doing so since January--VectorPotential^Talk 00:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can somebody please tell me if m:VariablesExtension is in the MediaWiki software or not? I'd really like to be able to use it. The page says, "It was ported to version MediaWiki version 1.8 by Hempel." But there is a bug report (bugzilla:7865) that says it will not be added.↔NMajdan•talk 13:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Man, this sucks. Both MediaWiki extensions that would make my template work are apparently not in the Wikipedia software. bugzilla:6455 is also not in the software. Guess I'll just have to use manual user input for my template.↔NMajdan•talk 13:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it were enabled, it would be listed on the relevant section of Special:Version. However, by that bug, it is unlikely it will be enabled in its current form. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would be handy. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 19:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone else having this problem with their popups? I'm using IE6 btw--Heliac 17:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a strange issue at Dreamfall which I can't track: when using a combination of two columns for references and a quote makes the reference "eat" anything below their section. To test it, go to the article, edit it, and do a preview: with {{reflist|1}} works fine. Now set it to two columns ({{reflist|2}}) and do a preview: the edit box disappeared. If you use {{reflist|2}} but delete the quote of the last reference (reference RTb_291), and the preview works. I think it has to do with the second ’ appearing in the quote (because the text is cut just before it) but I am not sure why. Firefox 2.0.0.3 / Linux Ubuntu 6.10. -- ReyBrujo 22:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried placing the quote outside the template?Circeus 23:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, no problem then. But putting the quote inside the template apparently breaks it. I am curious as to why the combination breaks it. -- ReyBrujo 23:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly, it works for me, setting the parameter to 2. No anomalies. Gracenotes^T § 23:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also don't see the problem described. Gimmetrow 23:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I can't reproduce it every other time. I will try with another browser later, thanks for checking it out. -- ReyBrujo 23:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Death date and age appears to be broken. Andy Mabbett 00:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to work fine on pages like Aaliyah. If you look at the actual template page, it appears broken because the parameters are blank. I've added a note on the template page. Cheers. --MZMcBride 00:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Andy Mabbett 00:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the revert button on entries in the move log? Apologies if it's been asked before, but I haven't had to fix pagemove vandalism in a while, and having this button made it a lot easier. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 04:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone broke it. It's been fixed, but the fix hasn't been applied to the live site, as there is a schema change pending. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Antandrus (talk) 04:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to use Vandal's RC Patrol and when I put it into my monobook.js, my toolbox does not change. Is there something I could be doing wrong? I tried refreshing m brower's chache, and adding action=purge onto monobook.js?

A discussion on the administrator's noticeboard has brought the problem with image speedy deletions out into the open - they take far too much work to be done effectively. It isn't the deletion that's hard - if it was, we'd have thousands of articles in CAT:CSD. It's removing the image from the articles that it's being used on, which can take several minutes per image, that is hard and tedious. (For comparison, article speedy deletions take five to ten seconds). Removing all uses of an image is a real pain unless you have a script that can do it for you.

I'd like to see if there is consensus for an "orphan" tab up next to the delete tab on all images. (I propose this here, as opposed to just requesting it at bugzilla, for two reasons: one, I'd like some other opinions, and two, I don't know how to file a bug report.) How does this sound? Picaroon 19:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a fantastic idea, unless there is some horrible downside I haven't thought of, in which case I hate it. :) How often does orphanbot run? Most of the images in CSD are db-noncom; is there a way to get orphanbot to run faster or more often? Of course, like the debate over protectionbot which was ultimately solved by adding cascading protection to the software, a software button would be better than a bot. Thatcher131 19:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If technically possible, great!! Garion96 (talk) 19:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like it, but I think we need to first hear from the developers how difficult the feature would be. Policy has to wait until features. Or, as Thatcher said, just fire up an accelerated orphanbot. --Golbez 19:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts:

1. Sounds like something which can be achieved by using a script running on the toolserver and user-script.
2. Do images really need to be removed from articles before they are deleted, can't orphanbot just do it afterwards?

—Ruud 20:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave Carnildo a note about this thread. Picaroon 21:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't sound like a developer level thing. This would make hundreds of automated edits on some images, and the change would require:

• Loading file links.
• Editing every page.
• Searching every page.
• Removing every instance of the image.
• Saving every page.

There is nothing like this I can think of in the code, and would need to be made from scratch. I do not think it would be worth expending the large amount of dev time it would take to get this done. Prodego ^talk 20:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, so you're proposing that humans should make these edits manually? Or should we just stop bothering removing redlinked images? Or should we just stop deleting images? Those are the only other choices. Picaroon 21:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He means this shouldn't be a feature of MediaWiki (because it can't be done efficiently enough and puts to much effort on the regular developers), but can be done by bots/a script running on the toolserver (developed by someone else.) —Ruud 21:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is what I mean. There is no real advantage to having it integrated into the mediawiki code, since unlike say rollback, where you can easily say, "return to this version", there is no easy way to lessen the database load. Since there is no server advantage, and it would most likely be very time consuming to code into mediawiki, this is something better suited to be done via script/bot. Prodego ^talk 21:39, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In response to various questions about OrphanBot:

1. OrphanBot currently does removals roughly once a day: it removes unsourced images every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and removes no-license images every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Depending on how fast Wikipedia is running and the size of the workload, this takes between four and twelve hours.
2. OrphanBot does not deal with replaceable fair use (needs human judgement), untagged images (I haven't gotten around to adding that task), or other categories of speedy deletion (theoretically, these would be gone before OrphanBot can see them).
3. OrphanBot can't deal with images once they're deleted: once the image is deleted, information on what pages are using it is no longer reliable.
4. Yes, I could add a task to have OrphanBot remove db-noncom images once an hour or so.

--Carnildo 23:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have such a tab in my monobook.js from Georgemoney but I might be able to code a bot to remove images, as the JS code does the exact same. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 00:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can OrphanBot, or some other bot, just remove links to nonexistent images? I understand that once the image is gone, the bot doesn't know what articles it used to be used in, but can't a bot go through all articles and remove red images links? Or can a bot not distinguish between an image that's nonexistent because it's really nonexistent and an image that appears to be nonexistent but is actually at Commons? —Angr 10:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Go through all articles"? Are you aware that Wikipedia has 1.7 million articles? It would take OrphanBot just shy of a month and a half to do so, transferring about 36 gigabytes of data, assuming it never stops to edit. --Carnildo 19:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could other bots be written to do that work, then? Maybe six or seven of them that divide the articles up evenly among themselves? —Angr 20:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have one idea: For links to Image: namespace, where no image is found, the link is hidden instead of shown as a red link _→AzaToth 22:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carnildo could you have orphanbot parse the deletion log and then remove images that were deleted and have filelinks still? Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This would be much easier. I would have thought that the fact that we humans can see what file links exist for a given page means that, somehow, the bots would be able to pick that up as well. Harryboyles 07:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can see the links, yes, but are they reliable? The last time I checked, the "What links here" and "file links" lists for deleted images often did not include all uses of the image. --Carnildo 20:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, {{featured article}} and {{sprotected2}} both put their symbol right in the upper right corner of the screen. They clash with eash other if a page has both, such as The Simpsons. Should one of these be changed? mrholybrain's talk 00:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've brought this issue up before on the relevant talk pages. My proposed solution was to create a single template that would accept as parameters the names of other templates, and would then space the images appropriately, rather than having many different templates use absolute values. This, of course, would require quite a bit of work to implement. There are some disputes going on at some of the protection templates right now, so it'd be pretty much impossible to get a word in edgewise regarding this problem. The three most common corner templates (spoken, fa, and sprotect2) used to be at different positions until the latest protection template changes. --- RockMFR 01:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought it'd be good if (somehow) administrators could edit people's signatures, so we could deal with blatant violators of WP:SIG. Perhaps something like Special:Changesignature/Deskana? Just a thought. --Deskana (ya rly) 01:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tony Sidaway had had a RFC because he edited signatures everywhere. Apparently, some agreed that in certain situations was fine, but many others rejected the idea. But, in trhuth, I don't think this is really necessary. -- ReyBrujo 02:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's what user talk pages are for. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Something needs to be done, to stop people producing signatures that are eiether unreadable, comprised of deprecated HTML, or both. Andy Mabbett 17:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but that "something" should start with talking to the problem editor. You don't need to be an administrator to leave a note on someone's talk page (well, if it's protected you do, but you get my point). EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I would propose we amend WP:SIG to deal with the specifics of exactly when administrators should edit people's signatures, for example, only if the user was asked politely first. I wouldn't suggest we add this feature and not impliment no set of rules dictating when it can be used. I don't think it'd be abused. If we implimented guidelines on when to use it, would you agree with the software addition? --Deskana (ya rly) 19:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with it, personally, but there would have to be strict policy about its use, and possibly a log. You're just changing a variable in a database somewhere, as far as I'm aware. Gracenotes^T § 20:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea; guidelines should be set down. Asking a user to change their signature before changing it without their knowledge is better than just changing someone's signature without them being given a chance to change it. Acalamari 20:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's getting a bit creepy. Is there a specific instance where a user has been told by another editor (on their talk page) that their signature was disruptive and they ignored it, to the detriment of the community? You're talking about a largely cosmetic issue; personally, I dislike sigs that have super- and sub-scripts in them, as they distort the line spacing; is that a blockable offense? What about my own signature; is the ☯ offensive to someone? Is someone using a <font> tag instead of a <span> tag going to bring about the end of the encyclopedia; is using full color notation (ie: #336666) as opposed to simplified color declarations (ie: #366) causing people to leave the project? Should someone be banned indefinitely from the site for using the <blink> tag?
Well, the answer to that last question is "yes", but my point still stands: we've got a solution and we're looking for a problem. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a problem I've been addressing, albeit on a small scale, for a couple of years. Andy Mabbett 21:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A few days ago I asked TomasBat (talk · contribs) to change his excessively long signature. He asked me if he *had* to, and I reluctantly said no. Apparently he didn't get the hint that he should, so there should be a way for us admins to give him the hint. Threats of blocking make no sense, so special:changesignature is a great idea. It would've prevented the whole -Ril- mess, too. Picaroon 21:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my thoughts exactly. We'd, of course, also need something that prevents people from changing their signature back too though, since otherwise our changes could be undone, if the user just refuses to accept it. Maybe just Special:Resetsignature/Deskana, then, which resets the signature to it's default when the account was created? --Deskana (ya rly) 21:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It probably won't be that useful to prevent someone from changing back their signature, since they could just paste in their (unacceptable) signature manually for each comment they make, if they really want to. Tra (Talk) 21:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True, and putting in a guideline that says that users shouldn't paste it back in could create instruction-creep; an issue we want to avoid. Acalamari 22:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If done, I'd absolutely want some log of who changed what, and when, along with some strict guidelines about when sigs can or can't be edited. By the end of the day, it may be easier to implement some technical restrictions (on images, or perhaps length, for example). If the goal is to avoid useless cluttered code when editing talk pages, then a character limit length would seem to address a large portion of the problem, no? – Luna Santin (talk) 22:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Restrictions would not really work, anyone can just paste a long signature if necessary (after all, I type the four tildes myself everytime I sign). Maybe we should start a WP:AIV/SIG to report extremely long signatures ;-) -- ReyBrujo 22:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem with restricting long signatures is that if that kind of change was made to the software, the existing long signatures would need to be automatically removed through an SQL query which could use up a lot of memory, and additionally, what would they be changed to? If they were just truncated, that could make the html invalid, whilst simply resetting them to the default value could upset a lot of users. As for the 'signature change log', it would only really make sense if users' changes to their own signature are logged as well. Tra (Talk) 22:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Such a tool would very likely be problematic especially if adminstrators sharing the POV of someone like User:Tony Sidaway were to have access to it. Sidaway changes all signatures indiscriminately and given the number of times he is called to task about that on his talk page, doing that is disruptive. Who's going to be making the judgement call? I don't appreciate my signature being altered and I especially wouldn't appreciate the altering of signatures enmasse by some power tripping adminstrator with a tool like this. There is a long tradition on the project for upstanding and highly contributory users to utilize distinctive signatures to better identify themselves and the commentary they make, this thinking goes counter to that tradition and is likely to alienate these valuable folks. (→Netscott) 00:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would just observe anyone alienated by changes to their signature wouldn't seem to have all that deep of a commitment to the project. Also, a limit on the length of signatures can easily be enforced by simply not allowing anyone to change their signature to one longer than the prescribed limit. No need to change all the existing long signatures, eventually they will be weeded out. —Doug Bell 01:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this not a deep enough commiment to the project Doug Bell? I agree that there are signatures that are too long and or too garish (literally I've seen signatures that due to their high contrast nature have interrupted a given talk discussion) but as others have said here, the best way to address this is through discussion with the concerned user. (→Netscott) 01:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't directing the comment at you, but rather at anyone that would become alienated (i.e. significantly disturbed as to impact their participation in the project) by a change to their signature. I'm not assuming that characterization applies to you. —Doug Bell 06:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It does come off as incredibly disrespectful. Remember we're volunteers here - if we feel a lack of respect, or believe our contributions are not welcome, we can quit at any time. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not possible. I can set my signature to {{subst:User:ReyBrujo/sg}}, and have all the HTML code I want at that subpage. -- ReyBrujo 01:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've got two thaughts on this. 1) this is to much creep. If someone's signature is disruptive, blocking is available. 2)Enabling the other extreme (e.g. Special:Prefences/Targetuser) would allow for this, as well as assiting users with other preerences related challanges. This would need to be resticted to sysops and the email settings should probally be left alone. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Questions:

1. How would this be an improvement to the encyclopedia?
2. How is this not just another attempt at an administrative power grab over editors?
3. With administrators now busying themselves making sure everyone's sig is perfect, how will they have time to create and edit articles?
4. Does Deskana understand the ill-will this will engender in those editors who have their well crafted sigs edited, or is he simply that callous that he doesn't care?

—M (talk • contribs) 20:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To address #3: a lot of administrators don't contribute to article creation, and focus more on the "nuts and bolts" of running Wikipedia. I don't see this as a bad thing (I, for one, have never created an article from scratch). At most, I think it would be administrators watching a noticeboard (maybe just using WP:AN so it wouldn't be a new board) and addressing issues as they come up; to suggest that policing sigs would somehow significantly impact an admin's workload is a bit silly, in my opinion. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested solutions

I'm sure that these have been suggested previously, but how about just:

• disallow images in signatures (this should be a no-brainer especially with the recent clarification from the board). Also consider that we still have people putting fair use images in userboxes, having to go and clean up such signatures, would be needless work that just shouldn't be necessary. One can be creative and unique without an image.

• disallow transclusion of pages in a signature (Honestly, I thought that that was already disallowed...)

• set a shorter length. Yes, a user "could" then paste the signature, and there is no reason to set an actual "rule" against it (I really don't want to find that we have editors sitting there counting characters in a signature...), however, just removing the "convenience" of the "extreme" lengths should be enough to cut down on thoughtlessly long signatures. I've seen quite a bit of discussion about how to concatenate/shorten lengths, and I think that this would just add an extra "suggestion", without having "instruction creep" of requirements.

Hope this helps. Interested in further discussion, obviously : ) - jc37 00:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've encountered several instances where I was trying to revert vandalism but it won't let me revert because the spam filter pops up. What am I supposed to do? The article is very long and I can't revert because I have to search around the article for a link while some blatant vandalism is sitting around for everybody to see? Any suggestions on how to get around this? -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 01:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When you try to save it should tell you what was the reason the spam filter did not allow it. Just remove it. -- ReyBrujo 02:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I came across this page: List of musical instruments by Hornbostel-Sachs number, and wondered...

Is there a way to make the auto table of contents render differently? For a page like this one, the TOC is potentially helpful, but here the TOC's numbering clashes w/ the numbering of the HS system itself, rendering the TOC nearly unreadable. I would think there would be other pages w/ this type of issue. Is there a way to make the TOC list stuff by headings w/o the outline numbers? ie could one make it render as just

Thing

Sub-thing

instead of

1 Thing

1.1 Sub-thing

I tried but couldn't find anything. Is this a "request-a-template" situation? Thanks —Turangalila (talk) 12:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the headings have their own numeration? That is what the heading levels are about. You may be able to create it manually with __NOTOC__, however you will have to update it manually and casual users would not be able to do that. -- ReyBrujo 16:03, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The headings have their own numeration because the article is about a numerical typology – hence the title of the page. Having headings w/ the numbers of the typology makes some sense in these types of articles, though I looked at others such as DSM-IV and Dewey Decimal lists & they seem to have fudged & left the #'s out of the headings – perhaps because of this issue. If it really is impossible to keep the automatic compilation feature & lose the outline #'s in special cases then cool. It's probably not worth imposing a complicated manual process on editors. —Turangalila (talk) 21:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could request at MediaWiki_talk:Common.css an un-numbered class for wrapping your TOC in, such as:

.nonumtoc .tocnumber { display:none; }
.nonumtoc #toc ul,
.nonumtoc .toc ul {
  line-height: 1.5em;
  list-style-type: square;
  margin: .3em 0 0 1.5em;
  padding: 0;
  list-style-image: url(/skins-1.5/monobook/bullet.gif);
}

///(or a variation thereof). Which could be placed with <div class="nonumtoc">__TOC__</div>. Note that you'd have to be rather convincing to get it ^_^. --Splarka (rant) 07:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give that a shot, thanks much. I'm gonna copy this discussion over to my talk page if that's ok. —Turangalila (talk) 18:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't categories be moved?? Surely the developers should make them movable?? I can understand images not being like this, but categories... --Koyne Farllis 15:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moving a category would involve changing all the inclusions to it on all pages that it contains. Such moves are done by bot (see WP:CFD/W). --ais523 16:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I still don't understand. Why couldn't there be redirect similar to an article being moved? --MZMcBride 19:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions seems to be about 10 minutes behind. I've tried it from different browsers, logged out, logged in, etc - it's not a caching issue on my part and it's been consistently 10 minutes behind. If I go to Special:Contributions/newbies, everything there is behind 10 minutes. Any thoughts?--BigDT 19:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. It's making it very hard to track the vandalize-revert-warn cycle. —dgies^t_c 20:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thirded. I came to ask about it because I am seeing the same thing.--Paloma Walker 20:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fourthed, my individual contributions are way laggy. --Iamunknown 20:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed; the contibutions are updating slowly. This is the third time within a month I've heard this happen. Acalamari 20:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mooothed, AIV is annoying with the need to sniff out article histories to see if there actually was vandalism. -Amarkov moore cowbell! 20:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it is because the job queue length (see Special:Statistics) is currently 163,054. That is the most I have ever seen it at. --Iamunknown 20:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was personally responsible for getting it over 600 000 once. Didn't affect a thing. —Ruud 20:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen it at 1.8 million. Don't think large job ques slows things down... Well except new thing added to the que may take a day and a half while it churns it's way though. I've noticed the contribs lag to by the way. --Sherool (talk) 21:56, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What does the number mean? Number of jobs? Number of bytes? --Iamunknown 21:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Number of jobs ( = number of database records that might need to be updated). Everytime someone views a page one or more jobs are executed. —Ruud 00:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• This is still happening. Sucks. --192.75.48.150 14:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Carried over from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#HTML_MAP_element_in_WP)

There's a very nice page, Help:HTML in wikitext, of allowed wp HTML tags.

1. Would somebody in the know please add a list of workarounds/alternative for those that aren't? ("Allowed", that is, not "in the know". But that too)
2. At least a link to mw:Category:Extensions? (Yeah, I know about it now, I mean for the next poor slob to slog through looking for answers :-)

What are the other such categories, lists, pages, groups, cabals, ... that aren't in "Category:Extensions" but extend the functionality/joy of editing, presentation, display etc?

Joyfully, --Saintrain 00:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want alternatives for "missing" HTML tags, I have two: {{nobr}} (for <nobr>) and {{bdo}} (for <bdo>). --cesarb 00:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks cesarb! That's exactly the kind of thing that should go on "Help:HTML in wikitext".

It would be really handy to have all that info on one page. --Saintrain 16:55, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See User talk:Cthorntonjr for an example of what I mean. I used {{subst:nonsensepages|Bud Brothers|header=1}} there, and it leaves behind a section header like this: {{#if:1|=={{{header-text|[[:Bud Brothers]]}}}==}} ... when clicking on the section edit, it won't take you to that section. I suspect Mediawiki doesn't parse the #if statement in a section header properly. This is a problem of all speedy notification tags that I've encountered so far that use the "header=1" parameter, and possibly others besides CSD notifications. — coelacan — 03:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this could be fixed by changing the innards of the templates to have a couple of <includeonly>subst:</includeonly> tags. I think this would work:

{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#if:{{{header|}}}
| =={{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#if:{{{header-text|}}}|{{{header-text}}}|[[:{{{1}}}]]}}==
}}

It's pretty ugly, but the result should be that only the wikitext for the header ends up in the page, without the parser functions. Mike Dillon 03:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see that the templates had these, but ais523 removed them.[1] I'll ask that user to take a second look. — coelacan — 04:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that with the old coding, the header appeared even if header=1 wasn't used. I'm not sure that I know a solution to this; ParserFunction/subst mixtures have always acted unusually in my experience. If you can make the change and it makes it possible to use the template without the header, please feel free to do so. (I was unaware that the new coding had a problem.) --ais523 13:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I've used wikitable sortable in this article, but don't want to sort on the first column. How do I disable it for name? (I know I can turn the names into Lastname, Firstname as a workaround!) --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 04:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I just added "class=unsortable" to the name header. Cheers. --MZMcBride 05:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I didn't know you could turn off sorting for individual columns.-gadfium 06:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I notice is that the resized version (800x530) shown on the image's page looks very unsharp. (If you look at the original size, you will see that it is quite sharp.) As a test, I uploaded the same image to my Flickr account. The resizing algorithm there seems to do a much better job. See: [2] or [3] (the wikipedia size is in between these two sizes).

Does anybody else notice this effect? It doesn't look like a JPEG artifact, but maybe a poor resizing algorithm. Josh Thompson 06:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like an unsharp mask was used on the Flickr versions. I downloaded your Nikon D50 original, resampled this to 1024*678 and took the arithmetic difference with the Flickr version. The outline of the edges are clearly visible. Especially on a large zoom of the lighthouse antenna/lightning rod, So, can’t really blame the resizing algorithm, unless you expect an image filter to go standard along with it.. --Van helsing 09:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. It doesn't surprise me that Flickr does some processing. Thanks for your efforts. Josh Thompson 10:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Flickr does some sharpening on resized images; we don't currently do that but have considered adding it, as a slight sharpening generally increases perceived quality. --brion 18:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any pointers on how one might insert an extra sharpening step into the rendering performed on a private Mediawiki site? Dragons flight 02:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would find the code that calls the "convert" program, and change it's command line. It is all imagemagick based. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 02:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have a scratchpad wikia wiki that is getting vandalized a lot. How do I lock all pages from non-admin editing? It's not easy to do, b/c wikis are meant for editing, but in my case I have to. How to do it?

Thanks for helping me w/ a question unrelated to Wikipedia.Andrewdt85 08:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're an admin there, you can protect all of the pages (or semiprotect them, which prevents anonymous and newly registered users from editing them). Or if you're a developer... well, that seems a bit extreme. So, if you're not an admin, there's probably not much you can do, sorry, besides reversion. Gracenotes^T § 17:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These guys should be able to help Wikiasite:scratchpad:Special:Listusers/sysop. --Splarka (rant) 07:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please change {{Earthquake}} so that it displays no image if no map parameter is supplied? I've tried, but my understanding of template syntax mixed with tables is not great.See 1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake for an example of what the template produces currently with no map parameter, or 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake with a map parameter.-gadfium 08:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've got it. It seems you can't use wikitable syntax within parser functions. I'd appreciate it if someone could check what I've done.-gadfium 09:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've made the empty space disappear when no map is given. The image name parameter should also work, though I would call it caption or something to be clear. Any problems, let me know. I'll write a brief documentation. –Pomte 18:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks-gadfium 20:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I use internet explorer, Windows Internet explorer to be precise. I have a wiki on http://editthis.info , and I was wondering how I should go about backing up my wiki (in case server crashes or something). I tried doing what it says to do on this page: meta:Data dumps#Producing your own dumps

But it didn’t work, because while it was Exporting my wiki I got this message: "XML page cannot be displayed. Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later. The following tags were not closed: mediawiki. Error processing resource.”

So how do I back-up my wiki w/o getting an error message? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andrewdt85 (talk • contribs) 10:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I hate to bring this up, but you can view raw XML pages in Firefox (I've never backed up a wiki before, so this may or may not be relevant)... Gracenotes^T § 15:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Normally in IE too, but it borks sometimes. The problem here seems to be that the XML page in question was malformed (which is what the error message seems to imply). However, I just checked Special:Export/User:ais523 here (as a test) and the tags there seem perfectly balanced to me; maybe a packet was lost or something like that when you tried to export, and IE didn't notice? --ais523 15:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I started a new project today. It's currently up and running. The gist of it is you can ask this bot to watch certain articles (similar to your Wikipedia watchlist) and it will send you an IM on Jabber the moment an article on your list is edited.

Please test the bot and let me know how it works for you.

I apologize if this is the wrong place to announce this, but I'm quite excited that the bot is running after only a few hours of development.  :) --Chris (talk) 11:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday, I had speedy deleted Joys Green as having insufficient context for expansion (A1). Today, I was asked to restore it, so I decided to userfy it for the requestor. I (1) restored the page, (2) removed the speedy deletion tag, (3) moved it to User:Eastmain/Joys Green, and (4) deleted the resulting redirect created at Joys Green.

But then I saw User:Eastmain/Joys Green was redlinked and Joys Green was bluelinked. I thought ok ... I must have accidentally deleted the userfied page instead of the redirect. So I re-deleted the redirect and restored the userfied page.

Then, I took a look at my deletion log:

1. 07:50, 2 April 2007 BigDT (Talk | contribs | block) restored "User:Eastmain/Joys Green" (6 revisions restored: userfied page)
2. 07:50, 2 April 2007 BigDT (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Joys Green" (content was: '#REDIRECT User:Eastmain/Joys Green' (and the only contributor was 'BigDT')) (Restore)
3. 07:49, 2 April 2007 BigDT (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Joys Green" (content was: '#REDIRECT User:Eastmain/Joys Green' (and the only contributor was 'BigDT')) (Restore)
4. 07:49, 2 April 2007 BigDT (Talk | contribs | block) moved Joys Green to User:Eastmain/Joys Green (userfying)
5. 07:49, 2 April 2007 BigDT (Talk | contribs | block) restored "Joys Green" (4 revisions restored: user request)

Remember that this is reverse chronological order. So I deleted Joys Green twice in a row with no intervening action and I restored User:Eastmain/Joys Green with the deletion never actually showing up in the log. And yes, I looked at the logs for both pages - nobody else was doing anything to them while I was in there. So somehow, deleting the redirect deleted its target instead. Any thoughts? Or is it just too early in the morning? --BigDT 12:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably just a server lag/cache issue. Sometimes deletions/page creations take a moment or two to show up if the server is heavily loaded. So I guess what happened was that after the move the target still showed up as a redlink because the move had not properly registered yet, and you still had the old name in the cache. History pages and such often look a bit wierd right after moves/undeletions. Just wait a few seconds and reload the page, usualy clears it right up. --Sherool (talk) 12:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:What is an article? states "The automatic definition used by the software at Special:Statistics is: any page that is in the article namespace, is not a redirect page and contains at least one wiki link. The statistics software currently has no method of detecting disambiguation pages..." I assume it uses the text #REDIRECT to discriminate redirect pages; is there not some simple way the software could be taught to recognise {{disambig}} or Category:Disambiguation? This seems like a very easy thing to fix, why isn't it already there? Although, it will suddenly and dramatically reduce the article count, which may be difficult to explain... — Jack · talk · 14:56, Monday, 2 April 2007

It's a problem of what's efficient, not what's possible. Redirects are actually stored differently from ordinary pages in the database, so that the software can tell them apart trivially; the software can recognize disambiguation pages using the list in MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage, but couldn't check every page in a resonably efficient manner. There has been a feature request (bugzilla:6754) for disambiguation pages to be more cheaply distinguishable from ordinary pages, but for the time being it would be too much load on the servers to remove dab pages from the article count. --ais523 15:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I recently created {{Juggling-stub}} and would like to transclude <noinclude>Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Juggling-stub</noinclude> into the template page or the /use subpage I also created. But following the instructions on WP:TRANS didn't work, I tried {{Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Juggling-stub}}. It doesn't say there that special pages cannot be transcluded. But is that the case or did I use the wrong syntax? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not all special pages can be transcluded (some can, some can't); it seems that what-links-here is one of the ones that can't be. (The syntax would be correct, if it were possible.) --ais523 15:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Alternatively, is there another way to produce such a what links here list, like it exists for image pages? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could try noincluding a category (such as Category:Juggling stubs) into the template, and using the listing created by the category; I think that's the method most stubs use. --ais523 15:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The category was created by a user who didn't know about the 60+ stub rule. Below that threshold, templates are upmerged into another category, in this case Category:Culture stubs. I don't want to overstep my boundaries by unilaterally upmerging the template to a new category. Anyway, thanks for the ideas. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 16:56, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, any chance of some pointers on writing/editing templates? How do I get a template to be collapsed when you first view a page on a specific page. Case in point: I have Template:The Mighty Boosh on List_of_characters_from_The_Mighty_Boosh but want it to be collapsed like the McCartney template on Paul McCartney. I looked at the source of the page and the template and couldn't pick out the bit of code that does it.

Thanks. ...adam... ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's an excellent table regarding the different types of collapsible tables at the bottom of this page. The rest of the page details the different options and which one would serve your needs. Collapsible tables have a custom initial state, while NavFrame div's don't. Any other questions, just ask.... Cheers. --MZMcBride 23:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing - did just the job. Thanks mate. ...adam... ^{(talk • contributions)} 00:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you really want the template to be collapsed though? It would slow down navigation, which is the point. If the template is condensed vertically, then it won't take up much space and won't need to be collapsed. –Pomte 00:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's for a disambiguation page - so I thought it was almost pointless it being there - but i thought it should be. I've put teh collapsed version on that page only, feel free to comment/edit if you think I've messed it up. ...adam... ^{(talk • contributions)} 00:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our sortable table feature is really great, and some of us wanted to apply that to episode lists that have different airing order, etc. The problem is that the episode list format usually has two rows per "episode", which causes sorting to get all wacky. In an attempt to get around this I have made a format that puts one table within a single table row, see User:Ned Scott/sandbox7 (using an episode template at User:Ned Scott/sandbox6). As you can see, it basically works but makes for some odd spacing (compare to the non-sortable version, List of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya episodes). Any advice on how to make the sortable version look more like the non-sortable version? -- Ned Scott 03:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have made an attempt but there's a 1px #aaa border stuck around the top 2 cells (episode name, airdate). I think it's getting inherited from wikitable. using some awkward CSS. How do you fix the airdate cell width at 120px? In IE and Opera they squish over to the left. –Pomte 04:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that looks great. Not sure what to do about the Opera/IE problem, though. -- Ned Scott 05:10, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hay i just want to know how to delete an account on wikipedia?

thx for your time.

By the GFDL, we can't delete accounts. You can request deletion of your userpage ({{db-author}}) and stop editing. Might also want to see m:Right to vanish. x42bn6 Talk 15:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason, the {{protected title}} template (used at Wikipedia:Protected titles) is now applying cascading protection to existent templates listed in this manner, despite the fact that they clearly aren't transcluded (but MediaWiki reports that they are): Wikipedia:Protected titles/Today's featured article A
I'm baffled as to why this is occurring, and I was unable to duplicate this result by manually adding an ordinary link to a cascade-protected page (which is all that should be happening and all that appears to be happening). Can anyone figure out what's going on? —David Levy 14:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Template:H:mlm.--Patrick 15:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still a bit confused. Why would this only affect templates (and not other pages)? —David Levy 15:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is about side-effects of wikitext processing, other than rendering the page; it also affects the link table.--Patrick 16:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What I don't understand is why this doesn't cause existent pages other than templates (articles, etc) to be protected. —David Levy 16:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have an example? It seems they are protected too.--Patrick 16:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, wow. You're right. When I tested this earlier, the article that I selected at random (Cat) happened to be semi-protected, and this condition apparently prevents the cascading protection message from appearing when a sysop attempts to edit the page.

I'm nearly certain that this bug manifestation didn't exist when I created WP:PT (and was introduced in a subsequent MediaWiki revision). It isn't a big deal, but it should be addressed (if possible). —David Levy 17:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite clear on what needs to be done to change this behavior. —David Levy 15:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the linked text:

put the whole parser function call inside the braces or brackets, e.g. {{ {{#ifexpr:..|a|b}} | parameters }} instead of {{ #ifexpr:.. | {{a|parameters}} | {{b |parameters}} }}. If there is no else-part a dummy template such as m:Template:x0 (backlinks edit) can be used:{{ {{#ifexpr:..|a|x0}} | parameters }} instead of {{ #ifexpr:.. | {{a|parameters}} }}. If the parameters of a and b are not the same the parser function can be split up into one for the then-part, and one with inverse condition with the else-part becoming then-part (or the same condition and only an else-part): {{ {{#ifexpr:..|a|x0}} | parameters of a }}{{ {{#ifexpr:..|x0|b}} | parameters of b }} instead of {{ #ifexpr:.. | {{a|parameters of a}} | {{b |parameters of b}} }}.

I think that can be applied here too.--Patrick 16:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I read that suggestion, but I'm not quite clear on how to implement it. Any assistance that you can provide would be much appreciated. —David Levy 16:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Has a bug report been filed? —David Levy 15:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I know of. It may not be so easy to change, it is how parser functions are processed: by first processing the parameters (including noting that a page is transcluded, for, among other things, the purpose of cascading protection), and then applying the parser function itself (such as discarding the included template if the condition is false).--Patrick 16:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, Patrick devised a clever coding solution. Thanks again, Patrick! —David Levy 18:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is the HTML color code of the blue links? —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 14:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like rgb(0,43,184) to me. In hexadecimal, that would be #002BB8. x42bn6 Talk 15:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 15:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can a few editors familiar with IT jargon check out the third item listed in Jamuna, and improve or delete it if inappropriate. It not only has no links, the last part of it is really making no sense to me whatever other than as a signature. "PM" should be Preventive maintenance, if I'm parsing it right at all, but it's all buzz words as written. // FrankB 15:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Appears to be nonsense, added by a user with a past history of vandalism - couldn't find anything informative on Google. I've deleted the information and put the template in the correct place. x42bn6 Talk 15:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't seem to be able to access my watchlist at all. Every time I go into it, it comes up with an error. Does anyone else have this problem? Acalamari 18:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, see same problem. Also see job queue at 1.4 million and increasing. Gimmetrow 18:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting; the job queue length has caused a lot of watchlist problems recently. Acalamari 18:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was having problems with it along the lines of what has been said, but now it appears to be working again. Strange. --LuigiManiac 18:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it's working again. It seems the watchlist problems last for up to half an hour at most (by my experience) to as short as a few minutes. Acalamari 18:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again. 2nd day running? Simply south 22:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And now that it has come up it is 20 minutes behind present amazingly. Simply south 22:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then not loading again. Simply south 23:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It has been working for me again, except now it is suddenly over 5 hours behind. What is wrong this time with it? Anyone else having this sudden problem? --LuigiManiac 04:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#The_Watchlist_Again. Gimmetrow 04:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to add an article to a category but have it under a different name (on the category page) then the name of the article? --24.172.195.239 19:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean an alias, I don't think so. If you meant to have it indexed differently, yes. [[category:some category | last, first]] places the entry as one would expect for a person named first last. —EncMstr 19:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So I set it on the article page? Is there any other fuctions I can change when appying the category tag?--24.172.194.34 19:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it goes on the article page. If you edit some category pages, you'll see that most are empty, except to make the category a subcategory. The category is "filled" by references from articles—kinda backward from normal. If you can follow that, you'll have got it.

Another category feature is the {{DEFAULTSORT:...}} magic word (even though it looks like a template call, it is processed directly by the wiki code). It makes the parameter the default index of all the categories, so each doesn't have to redundantly list the altered key value. See the wikitext at the bottom of Steve Fossett for a good example. —EncMstr 20:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is also possible to create a redirect to the article from the alternate name and place the category on the redirect. But that really should only be done where having the article under the actual title might cause confusion if it were in the category (as, for example, can sometimes happen when merging stubs into a main article). older ≠ wiser 21:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on getting around the capital first letter issue. It looks a bit jury-rigged (it displays the upper case title, i.e. Will.i.am, for a moment before switching, and the URL is still Will.i.am), but it works! :D Cigarette 22:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's done with javascript, so that only happens after the page loads. Gracenotes^T § 04:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are quite a few categories listed at Special:Wanted categories that have been empty for months, but still show up even after the page is updated (e.g. Pages on votes for deletion, Historical stubs). Is there a way to force these off the list? --- RockMFR 00:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The job queue is over 2 million. Isn't that sort of high? -- Prove It ^(talk) 03:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, and it's likely the result of an edit in a high-use template (maybe a cite template?). Jayden54 09:26, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(cringes) - Well, at least part of it could be as a result of cleaning up user categories. I've been going through the userboxes and removing parent cats (essentially duplicative cats) from the programming/OS userboxes. Many of them did not use includeonly/noinclude, and often a userbox would add the transcluder to several cats. For example, if you have bas-3 on your userpage, you would have been added to bas-3, bas, and Wikipedian programmers. I've been removing the latter two as parent cats. I also removed the OS category from the userbox per WP:UCFD. (It's still not depopulated, after a few days...) Even so, I don't think that those actions would equal even close to a 20 thousand, much less, 2 million? - jc37 10:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and Category:Teenage Wikipedians has been merged, and it's also a fairly good sized cat... Anyone else out there been fixing/altering templates? : ) - jc37 10:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I edited some templates yesterday, including {{birth date and age}}. Any idea how long the queue would take to clear if there were no new additions at all? There is a request to edit {{fact}}, which would add quite a lot. CMummert · talk 13:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't worry about it, and go right ahead and perform the changes that are requested. The developers will step in if there are any problems, see Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance. Jayden54 15:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right, it shouldn't hurt performance, but it might frustrate people who are changing categories on templates to wait a week before the job queue gets to the articles that use the template. There is a related discussion at meta that seems to suggest 2 million is higher than normal. CMummert · talk 16:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, the reason for the job-queue remaining so full is that the server which would normally be servicing it is busy performing some rather massive updates to the database schema which are keeping it busy. This should be finished within a few days when normal service will be resumed. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I had the distinct impression that it wasn't going down. Is there a noticeboard somewhere with information like this? CMummert · talk 10:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's the Server admin log, but the information there is very technical (it's directed at the other developers); there's also the channel topic for #wikimedia-tech. However, most of the time, the information comes from lurking on #wikimedia-tech. --cesarb 22:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It occurred to me recently that it would be useful to have a tool, for non-technical users, whereby articles in two specified categories could be listed; for instance "all articles in category:Birmingham also in Category:articles needing cleanup" or "all articles in category: living people also in category:people from Birmingham". I have no idea how this might be achieved, not the skills to implement it,. Anyone interested? Andy Mabbett 07:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try m:User:Duesentrieb/CatScan. It may have a problem with Category:Living people because it's so large; I tried an intersect of Category:People from Birmingham, England with that and it died on me after a few minutes.-gadfium 08:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AWB has a list comparer function, where you can load the articles in two categories (or from what links here and others) and find which are in both, one or the other. It will take ages to load large categories though. You could try scanning the m:data dumps offline for large categories, although the data might be slightly out of date. mattbr 10:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing discussion at Template talk:Sortablename. --Random832 13:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that often when I search for something, several pages of results come back. However when I click on one of the page numbers or the "Next »" link, often it takes me to a generic "no results" page. For instance try searching for "fromthe". Currently four pages are returned but only the first seems to display. What's going on here? Is this a Wikipedia problem or a Mediawiki problem? No problem? Jason Quinn 17:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think what's happening is you're searching in only one or a few namespaces, but it still gives the total number of results in all namespaces. Checking all the checkboxes beside the namespaces gives all 4 pages of results. –Pomte 18:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Pomte. It appears you are correct that it is a namespace thing. The question now becomes is this behavior that is best? I think it is certainly confusing the way it is. Jason Quinn 21:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My new Vista-based PC is set up with multiple accounts – one for each of the family, plus one admin account. On accounts where Parental Controls have been enabled, I am seeing a problem when trying to save an edited page.

When 'Save page' is pressed, the updated page is not displayed. Instead, I get an essentially blank page saying the following:

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage 


Most likely causes:
- You are not connected to the Internet. 
- The website is encountering problems. 
- There might be a typing error in the address. 

The URL in the address bar is unchanged (it still ends 'submit'), but clicking 'Refresh' clears the error page and reloads the article page in edit mode. (This confused me for a while, until I realised that my previous edits HAD been accepted, and I had re-opened the saved page for a further edit.)

The problem is NOT caused by a page filter, as my account does not have any URL restrictions enabled. (My account has a time restriction set, to disable access at midnight in a desperate attempt to stop me editing WP late into the night :o( ). Disabling all restrictions and restarting the account cleared the problem, but re-enabling the time limit restriction brought the error back again. I never see the problem in my admin account, but see it 100% in restricted accounts.

The problem applies to both WP and 'Commons'.

• So, any ideas?
• Is it purely a Vista problem?
• Were the WP tecchies aware of it?
• Is there anything I can do to avoid the problem, short of disabling the restrictions?

EdJogg 19:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem hasn't been reported to the bug tracker yet, as far as I can see; you can file a bug report at mediazilla:. I can't think of any solutions to this (maybe someone else at VPT can?). I suspect it's a Vista problem, or it would probably have been noticed before now. --ais523 11:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The layout of the Toyota Prius page is bad on Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP. Looks okay on IE. The left column with the menus is missing and the menus are scattered over the left side of the text. Dougher 20:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed it by closing the table used in the article. Is it fixed now? --MZMcBride 22:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can somebody figure out how to list GNU/Linux naming controversy for FAR and move my justification from the talk page? I have no idea what I'm doing. Qwertydvorak 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:FAR. If you have any questions, let me know below. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I tried to follow those guidelines, adding the FAR tag apparently doesn't work because of the slash in the page name. Qwertydvorak 20:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I did not know I had to create the page. Qwertydvorak 20:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I understand why focus isn't given to the search box on the Main Page (yes, I read the FAQ)....but how about putting focus on the item (or some other "placeholder") just prior to the Search box. Or perhaps giving the Search box a higher tab priority/index. Currently, one must Tab through nearly every hyperlink on the page before the cursor finally gets around to the Search box.

By adjusting the tab priority of the search box and/or the initial tab position of the cursor, one could still use the arrow keys to function as expected, and would only require a single 'TAB' to move it to the search box. (Incidentally, if the focus were in the Search box, the same action would allow the arrow keys to work...just "Tab" out of it.) It just doesn't make sense that the page requires a user to move his/her hand back to the mouse, click the search box, then move his/her hand back to the keyboard to perform a search. This could all be simplified with proper tab priority/position when the page loads. ++Arx Fortis 07:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

The accesskey attribute is set on that element, to "f" (see also WP:KB). You can also put something in your personal user js to set focus right on it, like:

addOnloadHook(function() {document.getElementById('searchInput').focus(); return false;});

Or you could set the tabindex to 1 (note that diff pages, edit pages and other such pages already have an element with a tabindex="1" attribute, so you'd either have to except them or accept them):

addOnloadHook(function() {document.getElementById('searchInput').tabIndex='1'; return false;;});

--Splarka (rant) 07:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Search access key in Firefox requires CTRL-ALT-F. That's an awkward combo for a fairly routine task. I doubt most users know they have a user.js....much less how to edit one. I still haven't heard a good reason why the tab index can't be changed to make search #2. ++Arx Fortis 13:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone help me figure out why Category:Amz isn't showing up in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion? — coelacan — 01:49, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It probably has something to do with the job queue being at 2,339,644. --MZMcBride 01:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

46 hours after it was tagged for speedy? I've seen other categories get tagged and untagged in the meantime, which did show up in the parent category. Doesn't make sense... — coelacan — 02:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How do you remove the [edit] links that show up on the right from within a page? Think outside the box 09:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

my preferences -> Editing -> Enable section editing via [edit] links (first checkbox). –Pomte 10:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For a specific article add: __NOEDITSECTION__ (see: Help:Magic words). --Van helsing 10:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Think outside the box 10:33, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that {{Link GA}} fails to work properly. For example, after I added {{Link GA|zh}} to Flag of Hong Kong, the GA icon doesn't show up in the part of the interwiki links. However, {{Link FA}} is fine at the moment. -- Kevinhksouth 10:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did it ever work? The reason that {{Link FA}} works is because of supporting JavaScript in the linkFA function in MediaWiki:Common.js and a CSS definition for li.FA in MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Mike Dillon 05:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there is a bullet image for this purpose already at Image:Monobook-bullet-plus.png. I've also created Image:Monobook-bullet-ga.png, which is a downsized version of Image:Symbol support vote.svg. The resulting lists would look something like this:

Image:Monobook-bullet-plus.png

Image:Monobook-bullet-ga.png

I had to fake this since the HTML filter for Wikipedia strips out the "style" element on <li> tags. If there is support for this change, User:Ruud Koot would be the one to ask about getting it done since he maintains the {{Link FA}} support. Mike Dillon 05:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this has already been rejected in the past (at least we chose not to mark our own GAs with an icon at the top, why would we then try to draw attention to GAs in other languages?) —Ruud 09:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But the fact is that this template is used in several language versions already. If English Wikipedia decides not to use it, please delete this template, and also lock this title, so that noone else, who doesn't know such policy, would be able to create it again. -- Kevinhksouth 06:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any way to add a hit counter to a Wikipedia user Page?

Thanx,

Kevinwong913 16:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Technical FAQ#Can I add a page hit counter to a Wikipedia page? John Reaves (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanx.

Kevinwong913 01:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I assume everyone's watchlists are playing up again? I believe this is the third day in row we've had this? Acalamari 23:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I hasn't been 3 days. This is the first day my watchlist is having problems. I can navigate around WP just fine...--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 23:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Same here. Any idea as to what's going on? Fvasconcellos 23:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can navigate Wikipedia perfectly, but this is the third time this has happened within 72 hours. If you read some of the above posts you'll see this is a continually occuring problem at the moment. Some users think it's the job queue length. Acalamari 23:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. Fvasconcellos 23:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just about to report this (: VectorPotential^Talk 23:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad it's not just one user who's affected; by the fact all users are probably affected means that there is a problem somewhere that needs fixing. Acalamari 23:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They seem to be working again now. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just about to say that. Thanks. :) Acalamari 23:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a place where there's up to date statuses about Wikipedia? There should be a place to report this stuff and to actually know what's going on. --Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 23:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Besides this page, where answers may be slow, the best I can think of is the #wikimedia-tech IRC channel. Thats where the developers and other tech people tend to hang out. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 02:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, the watchlist is "working" but is only reporting edits that are about four hours old. Gimmetrow 04:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's essentially useless with 4 hour edits. PTO 04:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be catching up now... slowly... --- RockMFR 05:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This lag is incredibly annoying - can't see the additions to WP:AIV on my watchlist meaning I have to actually check it! Viridae^Talk 05:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be about 8 hours behind now. But this is the first time I've experienced it. Tvoz |talk 05:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

8 hours? Mine is about 2:40! Viridae^Talk 05:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When my watchlist first fell behind, it was by about 5 hours. Now it has caught up to being about 2 and a half hours behind. Why have there been so many problems with watchlists lately? --LuigiManiac 05:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No idea, but its happening again - 15 minutes behind atm. Viridae^Talk 23:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is; and the contributions are updating slowly again as well. Acalamari 23:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, this time I didn't even notice until Viridae's edit finally showed up on my watchlist (I have this page on my watchlist). Lag: it's a terrible thing. --LuigiManiac 23:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The lag is making vandalism fighting very tough. I also noticed that there is a problem with the font size in some pages. It was happening in my talk page and in other articles, like Click (film) (scroll down). —Anas ^talk? 11:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the font problem in Click (film), which was caused by a missing close html tag for small. Since HTMLTidy has been upgraded on the Wikipedia servers (see message by Tim Starling below) tags don't get closed automatically anymore. Jayden54 11:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uha, thanks for notifying me of that. —Anas ^talk? 17:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was cleaning up vandalism and came across this. Up at the top left, it says "Unknown exception in diff". So, what's up? — coelacan — 00:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed when you make an edit to a page but don't change anything, the revision doesn't appear to append itself to the history. In this case, both revisions are the same (no changes) but somehow got put into the history - my guess. x42bn6 Talk 00:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But they're not the same. If you look at the ranged diffs around that edit, it looks like [[Wu-Tang Clan affiliates#Theodore Unit|Theodore Unit]] on line 25 was changed to [[Theodore Unit]]. –Pomte 02:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, interesting; then I have no clue. x42bn6 Talk 18:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Coming here from a suggestion in my post at the Help Desk (here)... I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but lately for me the show preview button hasn't been working. After clicking the button, it refreshes back to the edit window without the preview above it, and only previewing the edit summary. I don't use the button much, but I was working with templates and inserting images the other day and it would have been handy. I disabled Tools/Navigation popups for a while (preview still didn't work) but logged out it worked fine. Any thoughts/suggestions/comments? I'm not too fussed about it not working, but it should, so... CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 02:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be working fine for me. Do you have a browser problem or something? Acalamari 02:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problems that I know of, everything else is working fine besides that button. CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 02:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some tests you may be able to try, which would help isolate the cause of the problem:

• Try another Web browser on your computer.
• Try logging into your Wikipedia account from someone else's computer.
• Make another (dummy) account and log into it from your computer.

Trying those tests could shed some light on whether the problem is in your account settings, or your browser or computer, etc. For example, if the problem always occurs in your account regardless of what computer or browser you are using, but it does not occur in the dummy account from your computer, then the problem is almost certainly in your account settings. Also, when you link to a post on the Help desk, your link will break when the Help desk page gets archived, unless you use a permanent link like this. --Teratornis 04:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to have started displaying oddly today. Text in sections has become invisible, in Firefox and IE. Any ideas? --Guinnog 09:58, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Past versions appear the same way. You don't have closing </font> tags after your headings e.g. Apologia. –Pomte 10:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's always worked fine until today, so I thought that maybe something has changed at the server end. I lack the skill to edit it; any help you can give me in that would be welcome. --Guinnog 10:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried fixing the code. No warranty applies (grin). Valentinian ^{T / C} 10:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your work. I wonder (as the coding hadn't changed in ages) what made the site less error-tolerant overnight? Oh well, I don't understand such things; I am glad I brought it here. --Guinnog 10:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using a different or upgraded browser than before? I've encountered a similar problem today: The entire bottom section here was crossed out for 5 whole days without anyone seeming to notice. It was also an improper tag (<s/> instead of </s>) so I'm assuming that only some browsers manage to show these errors. Unless the site was autocorrecting and autoclosing tags for some reason, and just stopped. –Pomte 11:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both browsers I tried it with (Firefox 2.0.0.3 and Internet Explorer 7) displayed it correctly before. I wondered if something of the sort had happened. --Guinnog 11:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See below for what happened. --cesarb 20:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of notes:

• Tags should be closed in the opposite order they are placed (an example pulled from your page: it should be <div style="whatever"><font tags="are evil">'''''Apologia'''''</font></div> (close the font tag first, then the div).
• Font tags, as I oh-so-subtly mentioned in the last example, shouldn't be used; the <span> (with a proper in-line CSS declaration) can apply the same effects without the odd inconstancies that they can introduce.
• For that matter, the font tags aren't doing anything in those examples; you can easily put a "font-family" and "color" declaration into the div tag.

That's all I spotted; I just took a very brief look at the page, though. EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Our copy of HTML Tidy has been upgraded. This has apparently caused some minor changes to the way wikitext is rendered, such as in the user page in the village pump section above. These changes are probably here to stay, unless someone can identify clearly broken behaviour in the new Tidy that we can apply to have fixed. Also posted to wikitech-l here. -- Tim Starling 15:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I notice as of today, a number of very small html coding errors in signatures and templates are causing major issues on large pages. Particularly templates/signatures lacking closing tags are causing a lot of trouble. Has it stopped autoparsing html tags?--VectorPotential^Talk 18:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have several times tried to revert vandalism on the article Rockville Centre, New York, and my edit is keep being blocked when I click save as it says I am spamming the page. As the vandalism removed half the page content and reverting it meant restoring the external links, and it is classing these legitimate external links as spam. Why is it doing this, and how can it detect which links are inapropriate and which are not? Retiono Virginian 15:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably the Spam blacklist; take a look at the list to find which of the external links is causing the block, and do not restore it when reverting the page. --cesarb 20:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This page has been broken since early yesterday - refuses to display. What's up? - Merzbow 17:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It always takes ages to load whenever I try and load it... presumably because there are so many protected pages and the content of the page is huge? Perhaps your browser just timed out? --Deskana (ya rly) 17:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it seems a bit broken. There's an entire section filled with stuff about the article lt, which seems to be an error relating to Template:lt, and there's also a lot of stuff about the article Article. It seems a bit bugged out. Maybe we should contact the bot owner. --Deskana (ya rly) 18:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a new problem, and it's not a bot problem; it's the template limits getting hit. Just check the HTML source for the page; the parser outputs plenty of warnings hidden inside HTML comments. As to the slow loading, it's no surprise, given that the generated HTML for that page is over two megabytes long, and that's without expanding a lot of the templates. --cesarb 20:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even get any HTML source - browser spins for two minutes and then a Wikimedia Foundation error page comes up. - Merzbow 22:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that this page predates the category system? Perhaps it should be moved to categories. - jc37 10:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, post moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tidy upgraded--VectorPotential^Talk 18:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a partial copy of post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America:

Can anyone here tell me how to resolve this issue I stumbled across? Help appreciated. CJLippert 18:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to do anything; just wait for the job queue to catch up. The template was changed very recently, and it was not using {{PAGENAME}} before; what you are seeing is still the old categorization. --cesarb 20:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amber

The formatting in this article gets strange about 1/2 way down starting at "Amber Inclusions". Everything is italicized from that section down. I looked in the source in a number of different places but I didn't see any stray "italic" syntax. Can someone take a look at this and see what is going on? 67.177.149.119 20:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tidy upgraded--VectorPotential^Talk 20:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I've gone ahead and fixed the Amber (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article, the problem was someone forgot to close a </cite> tag--VectorPotential^Talk 20:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if this is question has previously been asked, but is there a tool I can use that will look at a wikipedia article and search for words that are distinctive between the American and British versions of the English language? I.e. cookie in American, biscuit in British; potato chip in American, crisp in British; center in American, centre in British; and so forth. I need to be able to search a long page and look for potential intermixing of the two. Thank you! — RJH (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I there such a template wich replace by the current user name? I tryed : {{CURENTUSER}},{{CURENTUSER}}, {{USER}}, {{USERPAGE}}, Special:Mypage, Special:Mytalk... but and searched in help files but i didn't find a suitable one.
It is for use in an input box such as :

<inputbox>
type=create
preload={{PAGENAME}}/Bookmark
break=no
prefix=User:{{CURENTUSER}}/Bookmarks/
buttonlabel=New bookmark
</inputbox>

It is for a wikia project.
Thanks by advance if you can help.--Ttibaut 22:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no such magicword.[4] At a guess, it's because it wouldn't be able to be meaningfully cached by the Squids. —Cryptic 00:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks. I will try to find another way to do it. If someone has an idea it would be welcomed ^-^--Ttibaut 00:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that using Special:Mypage/Bookmarks/ could work, but you'd have to be on a site that is using a version of Inputbox that actually supports prefix to test that. The version installed on Wikipedia doesn't support it as far as I can tell; I'm not sure about Wikia. Mike Dillon 00:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikia support prefix. Thanks, i'll give you the result of the test in a few minutes^-^--Ttibaut 00:54, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It works!!! Thank you very much Mike!!!--Ttibaut 00:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find the sintax of the query string for index.php? (For example, when I clicked for writing this post the URL was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29&action=edit&section=new.)

I would like to develop a web form for adding {{subst:uw-delete1}} and similar templates on User Talk pages, and for performing other task which require editing multiple pages. Some time ago I noticed somewhere that there was a body (or similar) parameter which allow filling the edition text area with a predefined value, but I would like to know the whole spectrum of possibilites. Rjgodoy 04:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try having a look at Manual:Parameters to index.php.Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 07:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, didn't notice you snuck in an edit there Titoxd. My fault for taking half an hour to type this ^_^. --Splarka (rant)

The "whole spectrum" is pretty big, as each action and each Special page (as well as each extension Special page) can have its own unique parameters. Here is the best non-source-code (but incomplete) list you'll probably find: mw:Manual:Parameters_to_index.php. However, these aren't specific to 'index.php' as that is basically the long form of the same URI (/wiki/ is just an available alias set by .htaccess or something). For example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Splarka?action=edit.

You can often have good luck finding usable URI parameter names by viewing the html. For example, on a delete page: <input type='text' size='60' name='wpReason' id='wpReason' value="" tabindex="1" />

The name in this case indicates the parameter, so for example you can use &wpReason=some+reason to preload a reason. However, sometimes you need to view the php source. The edit page (source) only seems to take 4 URI parameters:

# Get variables from query string :P
$section = $wgRequest->getVal( 'section' );
$preload = $wgRequest->getVal( 'preload' );
$undoafter = $wgRequest->getVal( 'undoafter' );
$undo = $wgRequest->getVal( 'undo' );

The rest are all POST, as far as I can tell. But, what you can do, is use &preload=Some_Template&section=new (because preload only works with new pages or new sections, and needs a template for 'preload').

What I've done before to circumvent this, is a bit of javascript (for example, see Wikia:User:Splarka/newwiki.js). You could write up a little script that would, with a properly formatted URI like say: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Splarka?action=edit&appendtext=%3D%3DSome+header%3D%3D%0A%0A%7B%7Bsubst%3Auw-delete1%7D%7D%0A&autosave=true

(I often use scripts like this to batch delete, batch move, batch block, and even batch upload files, with nothing more than Firefox)... one problem though, is it requires a user to edit their user js, unlike the preload above.

Anyway, HTH. --Splarka (rant) 08:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there,

I have a small problem in terms of networking.

I had a test setup consisting of two Cisco Routers and when I Ping from one Router to Another the delay time is being inconsitent.

This setup was setup in our office and when I try to ping from one Router the Average ping delay should be around 650mSec but it is surpassing the limit and even sometimes exceeding 700mSec , which is not acceptable by our Inspection Agency, all they want to clear the system is a very good reason for the cause of inconsistent ping delay as it is exceeding the Specification.

I would like someone to assist me in this regard at the earliest, for the product to get cleared.

Thank you D.ravikanth

• The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Wikipedia. Maybe the reference desk can help. Good luck, Notinasnaid 07:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do other people see this article as I do — with the line that's normally under the title actually going through it? If so, does anyone have any idea why this is happening? (If not, does anybody have any idea why I'm seeing it that way?) --Mel Etitis (Talk) 09:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I also see the line going through... may be because of the superscript? Rjgodoy 10:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I assume so, but I can't see how to get rid of it; nothing shows up on the Move screen. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me. Try previewing the article after removing the {{downsize}} line. This might be a reason to disallow tags like <sup> on the title line. –Pomte 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that worked. I agree about superscript tags. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 09:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This really odd problem seems not to be isolated. Can anyone here comment? AndyJones 15:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My new messages bar has popped up at least 5 times in the last 20 minutes but I haven't been receiving new messages at all. What's wrong? The Evil Clown ^{my contributions} 16:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It just happened to me too, while viewing a diff. Femto 18:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I forgot to mention that, it happens during diffs, and when I finish the revery, it still is there until you go to your talk. The Evil Clown ^{my contributions} 18:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that function is happening as it is supposed to; the message appears until you view your talk page, no matter what. If it is still appearing after that, though, that would be a different problem.

Also, it might be that someone made a minor edit, but not a new post per se; the system can't distinguish between the two, and so gives you a message no matter what. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was no edit made at all. Or esle I won't be complaining. The Evil Clown ^{my contributions} 00:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my case, there hasn't been an edit to my talk page in the last 20 hours before the phantom message bar popped up. Not even a deleted edit in the revision history ...unless a revision was removed by Wikipedia:Oversight. Would the new message flag remain in those cases? Anyone here with permissions to check the oversight log for User talk:Evilclown93 and User talk:Femto? Sounds unlikely though. (And no, it wasn't one of those fake practical joke messages on people's user pages, just to be clear.) Perhaps there was a major glitch in the synchronization of the server times, something like that. Femto 12:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that might be it; I know there have been a lot of strange time-delay glitches here lately, such as the contribs page being out of date and whatnot. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could there be a link at the top-right of each TOC, to "skip to end of TOC" (or somesuch). That would be useful on pages with long TOCs, like Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents. Likewise, a "skip to end of article" link at the top of each article? Andy Mabbett 23:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can always use the "hide" link on the TOC to get that out of the way (or use the Page Down key), and the "End" key on your keyboard to go to the end of the page. Incidentally, I can't think of a reason why going to the very end of an article is of use; the only time you might do that is to add a new section to a talk page, which can be done with the "+" link at the top of every talk page. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding the TOC won't help, if it's the last item(s), in a long TOC, which a user wishes to reach. Jumping to the end of a page finds the last additions to a talk page, or the end of a long table or list, or the categories, or external links, or... Andy Mabbett 23:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, the End key still works.
Not trying to be a dick, I'm just pointing out that, if there isn't a serious need for a system-wide change (which adding a function to the TOC would count as), the developers just won't do it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"the End key still work" - How does the End key take a user to the end of the TOC? And you know that all user have systems with end keys how, exactly? In any case, the end key requires the user's hands (assuming they have hands...) to be on the keyboard. What if they're using a mouse?

I mentioned the End key in regards to your "how does someone get to the bottom of the article" comment. To get to the bottom of the TOC, you can still use the Page Down button.
I'm 99% sure that all keyboards have those buttons, so I'm not particularly concerned about that. :)
*sigh* Look, I'm just saying how you can achieve the same functionality you're asking for without a change to the system. There might be a legitimate need for a "skip TOC" function for non-traditional browsers (ie: screen readers or people who use a Blackberry to surf, etc), but for what I suspect is the vast majority of Wikipedia users and editors, I think the current system is sufficient. If they've got their hands on the mouse but not the keyboard (ignoring the fact that it isn't difficult at all to move your hand back and forth between the two), then the mouse-enabled user can just click in the scroll area of their browser. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"I'm just saying how you can achieve the same functionality you're asking for without a change to the system." The functionality I'm asking for is for a single-click solution to take a user to the last entry in a TOC or the end of a page. All of your comments seem to assume an able-bodied user with a typical PC/ mac system. Andy Mabbett 11:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does the monobook.js make my user account broken? I want to know. Jet123 ^{~~My talk page~~} 23:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your monobook.js seems not to exist, and so it can't be broken. CMummert · talk 23:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All of a sudden, my scripts quit working. Any idea what's up?  ~Steptrip 00:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I seem to have had a similar problem. When I added new options of popups to my monobook, they didn't change anything. When I bypassed my cache, it stopped working altogether. When I removed it, it worked just fine. I guess some scripts are problematic. I might need some help with this too. Thanks. – AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)(+sign here+How's my editing?)} 00:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had this problem after a recent firefox upgrade, kicked up javascript option to off, try reseting that setting in your browser. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have several questions on diff program used for page historirs.

1) Is the diff program specifically developed for wikipedia?

2) Is it almost the same as the "dif" program under unix/linux?

3) If it is different, what are the major differences?

4) Is it obtainable from wikipedia or any other resource?

5) Is there any technical paper on how to reimplement it?

Thanks,

Ramazan.

I don't know, but if someone doesn't come along with an answer, perhaps you could look at the source. The database is available at Wikipedia:Database download, but points to the frontend source at Wikipedia:MediaWiki, which says it's at http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia/. I agree, it acts a lot like the Linux diff utility. —EncMstr 05:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1) kind of, 2) no, 3) it makes HTML and does word-level diffs, 4) C++ version (used on Wikipedia), PHP version (used on other MediaWiki wikis). 5) Possibly, try an abstract search. It's based on a diff module from PhpWiki, which was based on a Perl module by Ned Konz (now obsolete), which was loosely based on GNU diffutils. Various features and optimisations were added along the way. See the comments in the source. -- Tim Starling 07:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Something wrong with the colors in Wikipedia. In my userpage, some of the blue and black color texts was turned into white. And not even that. This part I took from User:Snowolfd4's sign. Previously it was green and now its blue. ^{( talk)} Original version can found on here.----♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 08:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could a developer look at this conversation on the reference desk and confirm whether it is a browser problem or wiki problem (and if it is the latter then hopefully fix it). Thanks in advance Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there such a thing as a horizontal toc? I've looked a lot of places now - and I can't seem to find one, but I figure if anyone knew you guys would. One problem is I can't do this like a css type of thing - any user that comes has to see it horizontally. I was hoping for something like this (with less space in between words):

Thanks for any help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danielfolsom (talk • contribs)

There are horizontal ones at Wikipedia:Template messages/Compact table of contents, but these are for long alphanumeric and similar lists. –Pomte 16:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about this?

<div class="horizontal">
__TOC__
</div>

It's a new feature that's being worked out at the moment. --ais523 16:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow - thanks for te quick response!danielfolsom ©

You're lucky in the timing; that wouldn't have worked a week ago. There are still some problems with Internet Explorer 6 that need to be worked out. --ais523 17:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Or, more specifically, is there any way to display the date on which each item was added to my watchlist? I would find this useful as a memory aid. Adrian M. H. 16:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that information's recorded by the server, so there'd be no way to display it (and mw:Watchlist table confirms this). --ais523 16:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, thanks anyway. I wondered if that might be the case. Back to the notepad and pen! Adrian M. H. 16:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could add links to a user subpage. This way, your edit history will tell you when you added each link, and you can use Special:Recentchangeslinked as a pseudo-watchlist. –Pomte 17:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a bad idea. Thanks. Adrian M. H. 17:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anyway to set the color of links for an entire table?danielfolsom © 18:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First, is there a way to determine the number of edits an article has had, and second, the number of editors that have edited the article. I wanted that info for this without having to count. Thanks. KnightLago 20:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah here's the article statics page.[5] --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ ^{walkie-talkie} 20:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. KnightLago 20:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I want to propose a new feature that would involve a built-in moving/renaming tool for categories, similar to the one we have for pages. Where do I propose this and/or who do I contact about this? --Hemlock Martinis 23:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can use AWB :) If you moved Category:A to Category:B, then all of the pages in Category:A would still say Category:A, and Category:B would be empty, even if the wikitext and revision history of Category:A was moved. Is the latter what you're looking for? Gracenotes^T § 00:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that works. I was hoping for a built-in feature, but I doubt that'll happen. Thanks! --Hemlock Martinis 00:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I hope it is alright to do this. I asked some questions on this page that were never answered, and seeing as how they are in the archive now, I would like to repost them in hopes of getting some responses. Here they are, as copied and pasted from the archive:

I need some help with my userpage. I got bored and started looking around when I came across Misza13's Status Switcher script. I decided to use it, but after I put everything in I now have two problems. Problem one is that it says Example's Status on the template on my userpage. How do I get that to say LuigiManiac's Status? My second problem is that before I put in the template, my userboxes were on the far right side of the page. Now they moved to the left of the Status template. How do I get them back where they were? Thank you in advance. From 24 March 2007

Okay, while I'm waiting for my five day old problem to be solved, I have a new one. It also has to do with scripts. I just started helping the fine folks at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links, and I tried out Barticus88's dpl.js (it's shown on WP:DPL's talk page). It actually is working just fine. What's the problem? Well, I also have the popups tool in my monobook.js, and it was working until I put in dpl.js. Now I can't get any popups to, well, pop up. After using it for awhile, I put dpl.js out, purged my cache, tested my popups, put it back in, purged my cache again, and tested popups again, and I can say with great certainty that the dpl.js is blocking the popups tool. I like both of them, so is there is some way to have both enabled at the same time? Thanks in advance. From 30 March 2007

I hope that these will finally be answered, as they still have not been resolved. --LuigiManiac 02:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The first one is done. The second one is more complex. Prodego ^talk 03:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to clean up Han. It includes many non-ASCII characters, which display as question marks in Firefox (2.0.0.3, encoding Unicode UTF-8). I've heard that, in some cases, non-ASCII characters can be "corrupted" and actually stored as question marks or other gibberish characters in the database. How do I know whether or not that's the case here? --Smack (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest approach is to install and use a font that include Asian characters, see Help:Multilingual support. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None of the character on that page appear as a question mark. In the past I've made such a corruption: copied article text into an editor, made changes, and when I pasted it back into the edit box, the characters appeared as question marks. –Pomte 09:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason, the diffs on some edits I'm making in AWB aren't displaying right. For the article İskenderun I changed Category:Port cities to Category:Port cities in Turkey. The category was changed but the diff shows the category simply being removed [6]. It did this for some other articles that I changed but not all (see [7]). I have made similar edits with AWB (slightly different category) and never had this problem. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 04:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to the history for this one, the article already had both categories prior to your change (see this revision just before yours). So instead of replacing the one category with a duplicate of the other one, the first one was apparently just removed. – mcy1008 (talk) 05:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That must be a quirk of AWB; because when there are two of the same category, it changes both of them. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 05:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to notate music in SVG format. I downloaded LilyPond and successfully created some notes on a staff in .ly format, but when it came time to convert the .ly files, the LilyPond program gave me a PS (PostScript) file even when I asked the Command Prompt (DOS) for -fsvg. Then I went on a search for PS to SVG converters and found pstoedit and Ghostscript, which produced an error message in Command Prompt that pstoedit was not a recognized command (lilypond, which converted LY to PS, was recognized though).

Does anyone know of a free program that can create music in SVG (preferably directly)? Make sure the SVG file can be opened in Inkscape! Otherwise, is there a way to convert PS to SVG or PDF to SVG? Thanks in advance. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Georgian Wikipedia in order to have peoples' bios sorted aphabetically in their categories we have to name articles as "last name, first name" (e.g. Washington, George, etc., which is unnatural for the language, see example), but here in English Wikipedia it's not required. Can anyone tell, what do we need to do to rectify this? Will very much appreciate. - Alsandro · T · w:ka: Th · T 07:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What you can do is use category sort keys on individual articles. AFAIK, there's no way to do this wiki-wide. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have copied {{User:Storkk/Quotes{{#expr:{{#time:i}} mod 4}}}} from User:Storkk, where User:Storkk/Quotes led to User:Storkk/Quotes2 or User:Storkk/Quotes3. Then I altered it to {{User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary{{#expr:{{#time:i}} mod 4}}}} on User:Aditya Kabir, where User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary leads to User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary. I also have copied the switch to 30 quotes on User:Storkk/Quotes2 and expanded it to 100 quotes on User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary. But, it is not working, and my limited knowledge can't figure it out. Can anyone take a look at the codes and figure out the problem? If you respond here, please, leave a note on my talk page. Aditya Kabir 08:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert on Wiki parser functions, but I think your codes are correct. However, Wikipedia aggressively caches page content. If you try to edit one of the pages, and then replace "&action=edit" in the URL with "&action=purge", you'll see a new random quote. I don't know how you get around page caching other than by this manual method.-gadfium 09:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. The manual method is not working either, it's showing as a red link. Every time I click on it it gets me to - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Aditya_Kabir/Devil%27s_dictionary1&action=edit. When I replace "=edit" with "=purge" it's back the redlink again. No quotes anywhere. The code is working fine the page I copied it from. What to do? Aditya Kabir 10:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess, I have been able to figure it out. The trick is to have multiple pages with the same switching code. It gets me to User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary0, User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary1 and User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary2. It doesn't seem to use the original User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary page at all. Aditya Kabir 10:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technically you're supposed to have User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary3 too. The idea is to have different sets of quotes on each of these dictionary pages. But that's an inefficient way of doing it. If you want to keep all the quotes on one page, get rid of {{#expr:{{#time:i}} mod 4}}, so you can stick to User:Aditya Kabir/Devil's dictionary without bothering about the numbered pages. –Pomte 11:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can we add "class " and/ or "rel" attributes to internal and external links? This is needed for certain microformats, as outlined at Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats#MediaWiki issues. Andy Mabbett 08:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The images containing renderings of any TeX used in articles generates them in a font that is completely different from the article font. In a size that is too big, and on a background that is always white. Is there anything that can be done to make these images blend in more with the articles, i.e. use the cmbright package to render the equations sans serif - and turn the font size down a bit. Also would it be possible to use a transparent background for the images? Conrad.Irwin 09:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Serifs are useful to differentiate between similar symbols. Complicated expressions need the large font size. Consider the normal distribution:

${\displaystyle f(x;\mu ,\sigma )={\frac {1}{\sigma {\sqrt {2\pi }}}}\,e^{-{\frac {(x-\mu )^{2}}{2\sigma ^{2}}}}}$

--Smack (talk) 05:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wen i try to get in mi account, i get the 404 message. so i kan't login

nd yes, i deliberately tiping like dis, so mi ip isnt associated wit my accoutn.

-75.26.3.100 16:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ummm? How will changing how you type do anything? If it is a 404 you should just try again, it is probably on our end. Prodego ^talk 17:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had some trouble logging in too, something about technical difficulties. The problem went away after I executed the ipconfig /flushdns command, which I assume assigned my computer a new server to work with. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from Talk:Main Page, 20:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The timestamp on this talk page is overlapping with the "Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!" that appears when not logged in. It has "display:none" in the style attribute, so I'm a bit confused about why this even appears at all... 164.107.166.227 18:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see this as well. It really looks rather ugly... but I don't know how to fix it. Help? Goldfritter 16:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does this only appear when one is not logged in ? I don't see it now. I have seen it before and it disappears when I reload/refresh the page. Rather odd.... --PFHLai 19:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a conflict between the style class "metadata topicon" which is used to locate the date on this page and the wiki-wide begging message that is only shown when logged out. The begging message is shown with javascript with a style of "text-align:right;" in the div id="siteNotice". The result is they slap on top of each other. One or the other element needs to be rethought. --Monotonehell 19:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can we move the clock a little bit down to avoid this conflict ? --PFHLai 19:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If we move the clock down (only on this page as it's a wiki-wide style class) it will conflict with the horizontal rule when people are logged in. The div that is visible for those not logged in adds extra space. I'm not sure what to do as everyone's browser renders a little different depending on what browser they have and how it handles fonts, not to mention personal font settings. --Monotonehell 19:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about: <div id="coordinates">'''{{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAYNAME}} [[{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}]], [[{{CURRENTYEAR}}]] ([[UTC]])'''</div>? The text will be a little smaller. Cheers, [sd] 22:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be practical to make "margin-top: 5px;" part of the default style for Infoboxes? I know that's bad karma and all to force style on things, but it would help keep infoboxes from being too close to things; like disambig notices and templates. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 02:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Might not the {{-}} template family do enough if used appropriately when needed? Nihiltres 04:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When I look at the user creation log for most users, it shows when the account was created. For instance, if I look at [8] it shows that my account was created on 28 November 2005. What does it mean when a user's log doesn't say when the account was created? Is there a way to find out when it was created? --Akhilleus (talk) 03:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Er, could you provide an example? If the creation log doesn't say when the account was created, it might mean that it wasn't (ie: you can find blank contrib, user, and user talk pages for accounts that don't exist). EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's also possible that the user account was created before the user creation log was enabled. The Newuserlog extension doesn't seem to have been created until August 2005. Mike Dillon 03:54, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think either one of these apply. I'm looking specifically at [9], a user who has an edit history; it looks like he became active in summer 2006. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, curious... if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that they created the account before the Newuserlog, but didn't actually use it for anything until after (or their first few contributions were deleted). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I suppose that's possible, but this user's first edits were pretty newbie-looking. I should explain what's going on: Mnyakko and another user, Zeeboid were recently blocked for violations of WP:SOCK. I'm trying to figure out if another named user created the Mnyakko account. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Going by approximate UserIDs, they seem to have created the username just a bit before the log was started.

• Splarka - UserID: 230000 ±200 - (6 April 2005)
• Mnyakko - UserID: 343000 ±200 - (??)
• User creation log created - (August 2005)
• Akhilleus - UserID: 615500 ±200 - (28 November 2005)
• Zeeboid - UserID: 1789100 ±200 - (13 July 2006)

So probably they were just camping.--Splarka (rant) 06:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]