Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:34, 19 August 2006

Archives
Archive 1	Archive 2
Archive 3	Archive 4
Archive 5	Archive 6
Archive 7	Archive 8
Archive 9	Archive 10
Subpage tracker
Association of Reference Desk Volunteers by Cernen Xanthine Katrena.

Archiving

Massive archival done by me - page can be found here :-) --HappyCamper 21:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Taking a break

After working on archiving the reference desks since the end of June, I have now decided to take a break. If anyone wants to take over the transcluding and archiving, then you are welcome to do so. Otherwise I suggest that you may wish to go and recruit a bot. Good luck. :) Road Wizard 20:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Your work was really appreciated. Wikipedians, we really need a better solution than manual transclusions...who wants to code a bot? --HappyCamper 02:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Archiving posts that are only a day old?

Don't you think you could wait at least 2 or 3 days before transcluding new questions? It looks like the transclusions are coming within a few hours of some of these questions.. I just responded to a question that was only about 12 hours old, and I find myself on a transclusion--152.163.97.184 23:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Questions are transcluded from the previous day when the new day has started. I am unsure how a 12 hour old question got transcluded as I was transcluding questions 20 hours into the new day. Can you point out where the 12 hour old question is located?

On a side issue, is there some problem with finding yourself on a transcluded page? Links are provided back to the main pages, so you are only one click away from where you want to be.

From the section header above, are you asking why we are archiving after one day? If so, then I am sorry that you appear to be misunderstanding the situation. We are transcluding pages after 1 day, but archiving after 1 week. Questions are still visible from each of the desks for a period of seven days. Road Wizard 06:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Warning about Edit Conflicts

Maybe we should warn people about the frequency of edit conflicts in the reference desks... a sole page being updated by lots of people that frequently can cause loss of data for the editor. What I do is: everytime before I edit I save my data in the Clipboard or the GNU/Linux equivalent, so that in case of edit conflict I have no problem. What do you think? GTubio 09:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Are the transclusions causing the conflicts? Does it happen pretty often? --HappyCamper 17:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you're missing a trick, GTubio. The Back button normally works for me after an edit conflict; I can pick up my text, go back to the rticle and into edit and save it - the advantage being that I'm not saving each edit before I try to commit it. As to your idea: IMO between 1 and 5% of people will read the warning, and between 1 & 5% of them will grok its meaning. But put the noticew together by all means. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Actually, the transclusions reduce the conflicts as each day is treated as a separate page, thereby dividing the potential for edit conflicts by seven (assuming there are seven days of transcluded questions). The main conflict problems stem from several people trying to respond to a popular question all at once or an inexperienced editor trying to edit the whole page instead of an individual section. Road Wizard 18:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

And there's no need to use the Back button either - the edit conflict page has a second edit box with your version of the page, from which you can copy-paste your comment. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleted discussion

Im surprised that the discussion beteween my self AAAADDDDDAAAAAMM and others was deleted from the page rather than being moved here (which is where I should, of course, have put it in the first place) Now there is no record of what transpired and its as if nothing ever happened (except for my unwarrated loss of 3 days and my extreme disappointment with these proceeddings by certain ADMIN(S) ).

I know its easier to delete things that are unpleasant rather than try to deal with them. But isnt that what the Ministry of Truth did in Orwells 1984? Is WP turning into 1984? Could I ask User:Anchoress (whom I now realise is an ADMIN -- didnt then) to magic it back and put it here please (at least in the first instance). Destruction of information is not healthy-- however easy and convenient it is to do. --Light current 18:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As was suggested by Anchoress, you can move those comments back to your user space if you want. Having read the discussion that was removed, I can see no value for the reference desks in restoring it here. Road Wizard 18:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

THat would certainly be preferable to having it deleted.!--Light current 18:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Its a standard practice to remove personal attacks on sight here at wikipedia. If you don't like it, don't make personal attacks. Also, from WP:CIVIL - a suggestion to stop incvility: "Remove offensive comments on talk pages (since they remain in the page history, anyone can find them again or refer to them later on)" That was done and is endorsed by policy. pschemp | talk 19:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

So only admins can make what amouts to personal attacks on users and get away with it, and punish the user for responding in like fashion to boot. How very convenient!

There have been what I consider many personal attacks on me floating about WP. Im not complaining about them, but neither did you!--Light current 19:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

My god, I missed all of this. I'm sorry if I offended you, I thought I was just giving a friendly heads up. Aaadddaaammm 08:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

To everyone, FWIW I am not an Admin and I really have no idea why Light current thinks I am. A) I thought I was doing Light current a favour by warning him that his remarks were getting out of hand, and B) I thought I was doing everybody a favour by removing comments that were at best irrelevant and at worst hurtful and inflammatory, both to protect the privacy of those involved and to minimise damage (in part, let it be known, to protect Light current from embarrassment since at the time s/he was blocked and therefore unable to remove his/her own rash words). To tell the truth I'm really hurt by Light current's attitude to this; I would never, ever purposely do something on this board or anywhere to thwart process, to hurt or embarrass someone, or to throw my weight around. I respectfully ask Light current to re-consider his/her judgement of why these things happened, and FWIW I am washing my hands of this user, s/he can romp around Misplaced Pages unhindered by any further cautionary remarks or damage mitigation by me. Anchoress 08:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Homework Template

I was just thinking (a rare, but welcome, occurance) that it would be helpful if we had a homework template. Instead of having to type the usual "do your own homework... read the instructions... wikipedia is for reference... use the search function... blah blah blah" everytime some lazy kid cuts and pastes his or her homework questions, we could just use the template. Thoughts? Rockpocket 18:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea!

We have that. Dial {{dyoh}} for:

Do your own homework: if you need help with a specific part or concept of your homework, feel free to ask, but please do not post entire homework questions and expect us to give you the answers. Letting someone else do your homework makes you learn nothing in the process, nor does it allow us Wikipedians to fulfill our mission of ensuring that every person on Earth, such as you, has access to the total sum of human knowledge.

-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ahhh! Thanks. Rockpocket 19:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget to subst it though. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

New Reference Desk Bot?

In the latest archive of this talk page, it appears that the conversation about creating an archiving bot has been lost. Yesterday, I spent a fair amount of time adding dates, transcluding older posts and archiving things, but a bot is clearly needed to perform this task on a daily basis now that Crypticbot is obselete. Has any progress been made on this front? Should we post a request at Misplaced Pages:Bot requests?

As far as I can tell, the bot must be able to complete the following tasks for each of the six reference desks on a daily basis at approximately 00:00 UTC:

1. Start the new date at the bottom of each page
2. Archive oldest date
3. Transclude questions and answers that are more than 24 hours old (include {{Reference desk navigation}})
4. Add the newly transcluded page to the reference desk archives

Additionally, at the start of each month, the bot would need to create a new monthly reference desk archive page with {{Reference desk navigation}}.

Detailed Example of Bot's Function:

At 00:00 UTC on August 16, 2006, for the Miscellaneous reference desk the bot would:

• Append = August 16 = to the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous
• Remove = August 9 = and {{Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 9}} from the top of Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous
• Copy all text between = August 14 = and = August 15 = from Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous to Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 14
• Prepend that text with the following code and create the new page Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 14

<noinclude>
{{subst:Reference desk navigation
|previous = Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 13
|date1 = August 13
|next = Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 15
|date2 = August 15
|type = Miscellaneous
}}
</noinclude>

• Replace all text between = August 14 = and = August 15 = on Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous with {{Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/2006 August 14}} and save the page
• Append = August 14 = and ] followed by a numbered list of all questions asked to the end of Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Miscellaneous/August 2006 and save the page. For August 14, this would look like:

= August 14 =
]
#A type of chair 
#Male Orgasm 
#World Trade Center Movie 
#edits 
#Maps from Nationalatlas.gov 
#Clitoral Hood Piercing 
#Guitar 
#Alexander Graham Bell 
#Cruise control on the 1998 ford windstar 
#Gangster Chronicles TV Series 
#Physics of a bullet 
#T.E.A.M. 
#Who would be richest? 
#My surname is Bencko. 
#Top Hats 
#pounds to dollars 
#The New York Pass

-- C. S. Joiner (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you have summed up most of it. However, if the bot programming can handle it, adding {{Reference desk navigation}} to transcluded and monthly archive pages would be useful. Road Wizard 21:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It was included in bullet point #4 in the detailed example, but not in the numbered list. I've now added it to the numbered description as well and I'll post to Misplaced Pages:Bot requests -- C. S. Joiner (talk) 22:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I really need to get some sleep. My eyes just skipped right over that first box of code. o_O Road Wizard 23:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Signing posts

I noticed that after Bengurion was asked to sign his posts with ~~~~, he started to type out his name instead. This made me realise that a lot of people (especially of the age group we seem to be largely dealing with) simply do not know what a tilde is. (And why should they?) And with a small screen font it is not even clear what characters ~~~~ actually represents. It would be cumbersome to try to explain what a tilde is to everyone, but at the very least, perhaps the instruction at the top of the page could be clarified somehow?--Shantavira 08:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps add a link to the instruction "Sign your question. Type --~~~~ at its end." so that it looks like "Sign your question. Type --~~~~at its end."? -- C. S. Joiner (talk) 20:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Something like that exists right below the edit box. Unfortunately, on a 1024x768 display, it seems to be just out of sight w/o scrolling. --LarryMac 21:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)