Help talk:Editing/Archives/2005

Several modification proposals

I started translating this manual in Italian. I started with Help:Editing. While translating I notice some point I would like to discuss:

• Why this page does not start as the other ones in the manula? Also the language list at the end is in a different format.

No reason, I added hh, you can add the sidebar too. The format for the language list is not standardized yet, I think (comma or dash or just space in between). Use w:de, m:, etc. to make it work on other projects.--Patrick 13:18, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• In the example of how to create a new page it is use the The weather in London. I would prefear to use a more clear title like A not yet existing page and the a notice that you should repalce this name with the name of the page you want to create. And also a notice that the page A not yet existing page could be protected on your system, so you should not be able to edit this. (This will be also a message to administrator to protect it)

Okay, but I am not sure you can protect a page from being created.--Patrick 13:18, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• The example about What links here and Related changes would be better if a page in the main namespace is used. Or if not possible because we must be sure that page exists, we can use this page itself (Help:Editing) and to be sure on the name in various project/language we can use {{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}

Okay.--Patrick 13:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• The external link examples now are made with http://www.nupedia.com. It would be better if http://www.example.com is used (as required by some RFC)

The page http://www.example.com/ looks more like an error message than a typical example.--Patrick 13:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually the standard ask to use it for example. Why if one click an request this page this ugly page is return, I do not know and is not under my control. I suppose they (who?) made that page because there were a lot of pepople reaching this page and asking about it. I found a patch. If the link is to http://www.example.com/foo (where foo could be anything) a normal error page is retutned. But rethinking on it why not using the example. The only problem would be that the http://www.example.com is only in English.

• When explaing the valid characters in links, aybe it would be better to explict state that to insert a littery % a %25 should be inserted (but be sure to not escape % are already the beginning of an escaped sequence

If not already there, that can be added to m:Help:URL.--Patrick 13:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actaully I changed idead. It is better and better that it is put in m:Help:URL, and at this point I think that maybe also the test here in Help:Editing about the character in links could be shoten a little and put a link to Help:URL. AnyFile 21:31, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have some other points, but I not have the list on hand. I will them post later AnyFile 12:14, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Edit Icons do not apper (new installation)

I have just installed your wiki and it all seems to be working with the exception that non of the icons and graphics appear. This was most noticable in the edit window where the small icons were replaced by a short text description (I have checked to ensure that the icons are installed in the correct dirrectory so no problem there). I am using the default monobook skin and have not change any settings that I know of, I am guessing that I have missed something during my installation process but am not sure what. Is any one able to point me in the right direction to solve this.

Regards Gnome

Problem solved, I must have ftp'ed all the files as ascii, which did not do the icons any good. Gnome

How to archive my user's talk page

I am a newbie but my talk page is getting a bit long. Do I have to archive the whole contents list somehow - or do I just go to edit and cut out discussions I no longer need, what do I save and where?

I'm sure this is covered somewhere but I have not been able to find it.

Also, what's happened to the heading I typed and why does a strange number not my screen name appear in this message? 81.86.91.82 13:57, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You can choose between:

• move talk page to page like User:a/b (history is now in this archive)
• move page contents to such a page (history is still in the regular talk page)
• just delete content (it is still in the history, but one can less easily search in that text)

Patrick 14:32, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here's another approach I have tried. It uses a link to an earlier version of the page in its history. It does not require creating "sub pages" for archives. You can see an example at wikibooks:Talk:Wikijunior_Solar_System/Solar_System.

• Click on the history tab
  • Click on the first version listed there
  • Copy the URL from the address bar. Let's say it is http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?User_talk:a&oldid=12345
• Edit your talk page.
  • Delete all the stuff you want to remove from the current version of your talk page.
  • Link to the archive version as [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?User_talk:a&oldid=12345 Sept 2005 archive]
  • Save the new version of your page.

--SV Resolution(Talk) 16:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

preformatted inside a numbered list

Is there a way to put a block or preformatted text (several lines) inside a numbered list and continue with the numbered list. t alwaysI breaks the list and starts renumbering:

1. one
2. two

here are a couple lines
of preformatted text

1. and the numbering
2. starts over

This works:

1. one
2. two

   here are a couple lines
   of preformatted text
   

3. and the numbering
4. starts over

Reply: I really would like to do this as well, and without resorting to the html solution shown above. Wikimedia is a great way to distribute documentation and work on it collaboratively, and documentations have lots of procedures...

• I'd like this too - I'd like to use MW at work for storing specifications and procedures as it allows for history/diff's exactly how I want. For this though, I use a lot of tables in lists and at the moment having to resort to HTML for proper numbering is a pain. How about something akin to

# first part
sth. in the middle
#^ second part, continue numbering from previous list

However that would necessitate counting the previous list element count to restore it in the HTML afterwards - instead, the item before the break could be modified to prevent closure of the <ol>. How about an alternate syntax allowing lists to be treated with the table syntax, e.g.

{#
# item 1
some text, maybe a table or anything else here,
# hopefully item 2
#}

Rob.desbois 15:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Minor edits for people not logged in

I was just reading the section on minor edits, which mentions that users who aren't logged in can't do minor edits, to protect against vandalism. Of course, there were several links to good gambling and adult sites, recently contributed as minor edits by someone not logged in. Someone might want to check that out...

You mean [1]? The "m" means minor edit, that is separate from the edit summary.--Patrick 23:09, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Using <ins> and <del>

I'd like to suggest using <ins> and <del> for insertions and deletions, mainly because they're not deprecated like <s>/<strike> and <u> are, and they're more semantic. « alerante ✆ ✉ » 15:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Blank Page Displayed following a page edit ?

I am using MediaWiki 1.4.7 on windows XP with PHP 5 and it was working fine but has recently been giving me trouble. If I edit a page and then save the edited work the system does not seem to return to the correct page. The page just appears blank....has anyone had this issue before ?

Transcluded section "tips and tricks"

I have been working to make Help:Editing back into an overview of wikitext editing with lots of wikitext examples for the beginner.

My latest attempt has been to move the "tips and tricks" section to Help:Editing_Tips_and_Tricks, and transcluding it here. I see many more miscellaneous tips and tricks on this discussion page.

Some of them probably belong in places like Help:Tables, Help:List or Help:Links. Others might belong in the "miscellaneous editing tips" -- like -- how to archive

Please help! Thanks --SV Resolution(Talk) 15:44, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

"Save page" randomly behaves like "Show preview"

Rather frequently the "Save page" of my installation of mediawiki behaves like a "show preview", that is, I get the warning that the page was not yet saved. Sometimes it seems to help to rapidly fire the "Save page" butten several times, sometimes it seems as if a dummy edit and a subsequent "save page" convinces the system, but this may still all be completely random results.

First I thought it might be some browser cache, proxy or web load balancer problem. But this should not be the case: a POST request with the proper values set for "submit" should not morph into a preview because of caching.

Consequently I suspect that the software tries to enforce a certain protocol like: first there must be "preview" then you can submit, but I am unable to understand which protocol to follow exactly. Harald

These help pages generally deal with how things *SHOULD* behave. It may be that no-one here knows the answer to your question. For technical discussions, you might try Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). I think others are discussing the same problem there now. --SV Resolution(Talk) 00:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Editing FAQ

I created an editing FAQ for Q&A culled from the various Help Talk pages related to editing. Please help. --SV Resolution(Talk) 02:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Time to remove the "clean up" label?

Help:Editing is its old useful self, isn't it? I labelled it myself, and I have seen a lot of people contributing to whipping it into shape. What do you think? Time to remove the "clean up" label?

--SV Resolution(Talk) 02:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Internal links to sections for multiple titles

If one has an internal link to a section in the same article (such as [[#SECTIONNAME]]) and there are multiple headers with the same title (this happens more often than you'd think on talk pages), is there any way to choose the section it goes to? By default, it goes to the first one on the page, is there any way to have it go to the second? Does one just have to change the names of the headers so that they're all different? --Blackcap | talk 04:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you find out the answer by playing in the sandbox. Check the displayed HTML source to find the ...id="..."... tags. If they are all the same then they are all the same, and you'd have to change the names of the headers to make them different. Using the same ID more than once on the page should be an HTML nono, I thought. When you find out the answer, could you put it in Help:Editing FAQ? --SV Resolution(Talk) 18:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I'll try to get to this in the next few days. I'm currently rather busy over on Wikipedia, but I'll find a place for it, I'm sure. --Blackcap | talk 20:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

O.K., I have the answer! Here's what the HTML read for each section header when I looked at the source. First, the first section, which I called "One:"

             <p><a name="One" id="One"></a></p>
             <h3>One</h3>

Each successive header read the same, changing One to whatever I called the header in all categories (i.e. name, id, and inside the <h3> tags). But when I created a second header called "One," behold:

             <p><a name="One_2" id="One_2"></a></p>
             <h3>One</h3>

Bingo. That's the answer. Now I don't know HTML at all, and I don't have any idea what I can do with this in terms of WikiMarkup, but if someone can explain it to me or show me where to go, I'll do my best. I'll figure it out on my own, eventually, but I'm just saying it probably won't be tomorrow. My guess is that instead of linking to it as [[#SECTIONNAME]], I have to link to it however you do that in HTML, and instead of SECTIONNAME use SECTIONID. --Blackcap | talk 06:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you are correct that you can link to it as [[#NAME]] instead of [[#Section title]]. Of course, in order to do this, you have to KNOW what the name/id of the anchor (the <a name=...> tag) is to do this, which is kind of a pain... --SV Resolution(Talk) 13:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, you can just look at the source. It's more of a pain then the normal way, but it's not any serious trouble. --Blackcap | talk 23:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I now have a second answer, which I just stumbled upon. The first header is called NAME. The second time that header appears it's called NAME 2. The third time, NAME 3, etc. I just noticed this when I was jumping to a header on a talk page, and I noticed that the URL was different than the header, and that that was the difference. I've still got to test it though, and I'm heading off to bed now (sorry). I'll get around to it by Tuesday—I'm totally stacked this weekend and won't be editing at all. I promise I'll do some tests and add it to the FAQ and the main Help article by then, though. --Blackcap | talk 06:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

The results are in: that's correct, if there are multiple titles, then each section with an identical header can be linked to by putting a space and then a number corresponding to how many times that header exists already (e.g. if the header's name is "Foo," then it can be linked to like this: [[#Foo]]. If it's the second "Foo" header on the page, then it can be linked to like this: [[#Foo 2]]. If it's the third "Foo," then it can be linked to like this: [[#Foo 3]], etc.). It doesn't matter what class of header it is (e.g. == Foo ==, === Foo ===, or ==== Foo ====), all that matters is how many times that identical header name has appeared above it on the page. You can see my sandbox test here. --Blackcap | talk 18:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, if you're not sure what to call it, you can click on the contents link (jumping to the section) and look at the URL: it'll tell you what to call it. To use an example from my sandbox test, if you click on section 8 in the contents box (titled "Foo," it's the last one) and look at the URL, it'll read: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meta:Sandbox&oldid=218227#Foo_6. Right there at the end, you'll see the bit linking to the section, and it says "Foo_6." That "Foo" header is the 6th one, so you'd link to it like this: [[#Foo 6]]. --Blackcap | talk 18:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Woo hoo! It's been added to Help:Editing FAQ under Help:Editing FAQ#Q: Can I link to a specific section header if there are multiple section headers of the same name? If so, how?. Take a look, if you're interested. Sorry it took me so long to get around to, everybody. --Blackcap | talk

<Enter> in Subject/headline box (after "+") saves page, closes edit window

While I was editing a mediawiki page, I found that if I started a new section using the "+", typed something in the "Subject/headline:" box, and then then pressed <enter>, the page was immediately saved (and the edit window closed).

Don't know if it should be considered a feature or a bug, or even whether it should be officially documented. I haven't made a thorough search, but didn't notice it documented--I think it should at least be documented to the extent of letting people know this behavior can occur.

Randy Kramer

Sounds perfectly like how a wiki is supposed to operate, mate. I'm not sure exactly what the problem is: that the page saves on pressing <enter>, or the window closing. Would you please clarify? --Blackcap | talk 06:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

sounds fine to me too - the SAVE PAGE button got executed as the action associated with <enter>

Consider this cleanup tagged

This page has to be the worst example of writing to the wrong audience, two-centage, and general lack of upkeep I've ever seen on such an important Wiki page.

Perhaps once it was meant to be a quick reference for newbies, but now it's huge and all the commentary hides the examples. You don't need to explain every little feature of the parser. You don't need to explain three different ways to do the same thing. This page should not be a style guide. Terms like "XHTML" should so not appear on this page.

This page has taken the essential simplicity of Wiki editing and made it complicated. Congratulations.

I posted on Help talk:Wiki markup examples that perhaps the page should be redone with a third column for commentary, so it wasn't mixed in with the examples. I changed my mind, though. This page should be rewritten to be about a tenth of the size, and the commentary should be purged with great prejudice.

Sorry to word this so strongly, but I think this is a huge blemish on all Wikimedia projects that needs to be fixed ASAP. Who wants to help?

Rspeer 06:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Right, no one ever listens to meta. So I'm being bold and replacing Help:Wiki markup examples with my new Help:Wikitext quick reference. I'm sorry if this breaks anyone's bot. Rspeer 23:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

How does one delete an image?

GregGarner
As far as I can tell, there is no information anywhere in the meta help showing how to delete an image. I am using wikimedia in a public (not public editable) website, and I have uploaded some images with wrong names, and now I want to delete them. It is not obvious how to do this. I think this information should be in the help system, and if it is there now then it is very hard to find. Help, please?