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The technical section of the village pump is used to discuss technical issues about Misplaced Pages. Bugs and feature requests should be made at the BugZilla since there is no guarantee developers will read this page.
This tends to solve most issues, including improper display of images, user-preferences not loading, and old versions of pages being shown.
No, we will not use JavaScript to set focus on the search box.
This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See task 3864. There is an accesskey property on it (default to accesskey="f" in English). Logged-in users can enable the "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page" gadget in their preferences.
No, we will not add a spell-checker, or spell-checking bot.
You can use a web browser such as Firefox, which has a spell checker.
If you changed to another skin and cannot change back, use this link.
Alternatively, you can press Tab until the "Save" button is highlighted, and press Enter. Using Mozilla Firefox also seems to solve the problem.
If an image thumbnail is not showing, try purging its image description page.
If the image is from Wikimedia Commons, you might have to purge there too. If it doesn't work, try again before doing anything else. Some ad blockers, proxies, or firewalls block URLs containing /ad/ or ending in common executable suffixes. This can cause some images or articles to not appear.
These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.
It can go either way, depending on how many you put in, and the level of incertitude you have about the text in question. So if you put several {{fact}} tags, or if the sentence seems unlikely, consider it a regular "major" edit. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 06:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't follow Twas Now's reasoning, I'm afraid. Adding {{fact}} is surely never a minor edit; it involves adding something substantial which those editing the article should be aware of. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 10:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
For some reason the tables in WP no longer seem to obey the instruction class="wikitable sortable". Is this a known problem? JavaScript is not disabled on my system.
It must be something to do with my WP Preferences, because the problem disappears when I log out. I don't remember changing anything in the Prefs, however: any suggestions? I've tried bypassing my cache, but that didn't help.
Have you made changes to your monobook.js page recently (I see the last was Feb 25)? Try undoing the changes or force reloading of pages per the instructions at the top of User:Ndsg/monobook.js. --MECU≈talk14:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm curious if i can find out how many visits a single wikipedia article page gets in a month. Is it possible? can i find out somehow how many times people are looking at an article?--24.184.167.10018:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Doing that with any reasonable amount of accuracy would place far too much load on Wikimedia's servers; the feature exists, but has been deliberately disabled. However, there's some links on Special:Statistics which estimate the read levels for some of the most popular articles (less popular articles don't register at all on it). --ais523 18:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this is a bug (as opposed to a feature) -- compare the content below the edit summary box on these two pages: . Is there a reason for the seemingly random <p> tags in the first link? --- RockMFR19:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
That is weird. It happens on the main create page thing on wikinews too, which I knw worked before. Bawolff08:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
An icon, such that, when clicked, a new browser window opens
There's an article i'm contributing to, a biorgraphy of a living person. I could not find a free picture of the subject of this article. I'd like, instead, to put in the article an icon of a picture, such that, when clicked, a new browser window would open to a webpage displaying a photograph of this person. How do i accomplish this, please? Itayb19:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
And clicking on it just goes to the image page for that camera picture. The link below it jumps to the part of the page where there is in turn an external link to the picture, which is rather convoluted; why not just put the external link there in the first place? Anyway, I don't think any of those links try to open new browser windows (I wouldn't know, since I've got the Mozilla SeaMonkey browser configured to ignore such requests anyway), which is good since opening new browser windows is really annoying; I know how to open a window or tab when I want to. *Dan T.*21:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, i'd deliberated with myself whether i should put the external link there in the first place. I finally decided to separate the icon from the link for two reasons: (1) i wanted there to be a detailed description of the reference, so the link can be more easily fixed in case it ever gets broken; putting the whole reference text as the underscript of that small icon seemed disproportionate, (2) I wanted all the links to be concentrated in a single, easily identified place, rather than starting spreading them all over the place. Itayb22:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Please don't include external links to pictures. If they're free, upload them to commons. If they're not free and can be uploaded under Misplaced Pages fair use, upload them here. Otherwise, links to such pictures are a bad idea. Plus, are we favoring certain websites over others regarding which picture to link to? Inevitably. Gracenotes § 18:10, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
This really isn't a good idea. If readers want a picture, they can Google for one easily. Linking to a non-free image can be confusing to readers (they might click the picture of the camera instead of the link), and it also discourages the creation and uploading of free images. —Remember the dot (t) 20:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Gracesnotes and Remember the dot, i appreciate your comments; they force me to think more carefully about my editing, and about interesting issues that are relevant to Misplaced Pages. All the same, i do not see this matter eye to eye with you.
The article under discussion, Azmi Bishara, featured a picture of its subject a couple of days ago. The picture was uploaded to Misplaced Pages under fair use license. The picture was deleted from Misplaced Pages (and from the article) a couple of days ago, by the administrator Angr, for being potentially replaceable by an equivalent free picture.(, ) I searched for a free replacement, but my endeavors bore no fruit. It was then that i added an external link to the page displaying the deleted picture.
Gracenotes, you write: "links to such pictures are a bad idea". Could you please explain why you think so? You write "are we favoring certain websites over others regarding which picture to link to? Inevitably." But aren't we still favouring certain wesites over others when we directly embed fair-use pictures in articles? I believe that choosing certain websites and other sources over others is an important part of the work of most Wikipedians. The website i've linked to is not just any website, it is the official site of the Israeli parliament, of which the subject of the article is currently a member.
Remember the dot, you write: "If readers want a picture, they can Google for one easily". But can't readers easily Google for much of the content of that article, as well as the content of many other article in Misplaced Pages as well? Would you support a policy of putting into Misplaced Pages only such content that cannot be easily found by performing a search in a popular search engine? In my opinion, the crucial criteria for content inclusion are: (1) Is it relevant to the article? (2) Is the content new, rather than duplicating already existing information? (3) Is the information attributable to a reliable source? (4) Is it free for use? I think the picture of Mr. Bishara satisfies the first three criteria, don't you? If you do, why is a link to the page where it originates inadequate, seeing that the picture itself cannot be used directly?
You write: "Linking to a non-free image can be confusing to readers (they might click the picture of the camera instead of the link)". I agree with you. That's why i started this topic in the first place: i wanted to use an "icon of a picture, such that, when clicked, a new browser window would open to a webpage displaying a photograph of this person". It doesn't have to open a new window. What i have in mind is something similar the icon of a star on featured articles, which, when clicked, links to the list of featured articles. I'd appreciate it, if you could help me figure out how to do this. In the meantime, i think the solution i've come up with: a picture of a camera with a subscript that points to the external link, is a reasonable substitute.
You write: "it also discourages the creation and uploading of free images". I'm afraid i don't see why this should be so. Could you please explain?
Hello, once I log into my account, I am unable to see the side menus (gray box with table of contents) of any wikipedia page, including my that of my userpage. However, once I log off, I am able to see them again. This has only began to occur during the past week, and I don't want to edit wikipedia using only my IP address, so what can I do to see the menus again? Count de Chagny05:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Due to the idiocy of Congress, Daylight Savings Time started today, 3 weeks early - but the Misplaced Pages clock didn't adjust for it. Is it going to adjust automatically on April 1? Don't want a double loss of hour. Is there a plan or do we just have to do the offset from UTC manually? Tvoz| talk07:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand. What clock are you talking about? The timestamps are in UTC, to which Daylight Saving Time does not apply. (By the way, I don't like DST either, but that seems to be beside the point here.) --Trovatore07:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Right, UTC is the official time on talk pages but watchlist and history and diffs show local time, based on the offset. I don't recall manually changing the offset when Standard time began, but I could be remembering wrong - I thought the offset was reset automatically. If not automatic, that's ok but people might need to be told that they have to change the offset now if they want it to reflect DST. And what I'm asking is if the offset is programmed to automatically change first week of April, in which case it will have to be manually overridden again. Hope that's clearer. (And right, it is beside the point that I don't like Daylight Savings, but I don't think we have to be so NPOV here - this is hardly an article...) Tvoz| talk08:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I changed mine manually (grumbling the whole time), and I guesss I'll keep an eye out in April - but it's something that perhaps should be publicizd. As I say, I don't remember manually changing the offset in October, but I could be wrong about that. Tvoz| talk08:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages doesn't distinguish between "time zones" per se, it just offsets the time from UTC. It has no understanding of whether it's CST or EST, and doesn't worry about daylight savings. Harryboyles13:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
My userboxes have gone a little crazy, showing up at crazy angles, and, in one case, apparently creating a fourth column for themselves out of boredom, malice, or a combination thereof. Is there any way these heathen monstrosities can be corralled into doing my bidding? Jouster (whisper) 11:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
That seemed to corral most, though the Kazoo is showing as on a roadtrip in its own column. Just my useragent? Jouster (whisper)
Misplaced Pages Statistics are 6 months out of date
I went to have a look at the Misplaced Pages Statistics "Charts and Table" section, and I found that it has not been updated since October. Who updates it and how - I would be happy to assist, but I feel that someone should certainly be doing it. David Spart15:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
This is getting strange
I added comments to a few threads on WP:VPR but something very strange happened. Only my last comment still exists and all of the comments I made on the two threads at the end, along with the other people's comments, and the last thread have dissappeared entirely. Also, the history keeps changing. Sometimes it shows my edits, sometimes it doesn't. On one diff, where I only edited one section, it shows that I deleted the section, part of the section above it, and part of another section somehow. What the hell is going on? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review!18:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It is happening to everyone, use the preview button to check if your post will wonk the page first for now. I hope they get this fixed up soon, a hint to the problem is that the history page does not show to the most recent version always(currently). InBC19:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
You have new messages (last change).
This keeps popping up a lot at the moment when there are no new messages. I've flushed the cache on two browsers each on Windows and Macs and quit and restarted the browsers. It still keeps popping up. Any clues to help me please? Candy18:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Try clicking the "last change" to get to the diff. page, that clears the problem for me when it happens. Matthew18:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I am also seeing this. It keeps recycling the last message. In one case, I even brought up the history and the last change was not listed. I've been notified about half a dozen times for the last message I got—each time I view the page to clear the message, and maybe 10 minutes later I get notified again. —Doug Bell18:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so...I'm not an IP. Also, the message bar goes away for a while, but then the flag seems to get reset without a new message. I think the issues listed above and below this one may be related though. —Doug Bell18:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere in the cluster is at least one computer that got confused by the daylight savings time switch in the US and is now not understanding timestamps correctly for the purposes of handling caching of pages and histories and events like determining whether a message is "new". Dragons flight18:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It has to do with the same problem that is causing edit conflicts not to be detected, see the thread directly above this one. InBC19:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Edit histories temporarily scrambled?
Causing massive edit conflicts and accidental blankings, page histories disappearing and reappearing? Is there some sort of database problem?--VectorPotential18:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Something's definitely wrong in that department - returning to the page that I linked to two sections above, I can't even scroll through the page history in order anymore, as it occasionally skips two or three revisions. --TMF18:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I think they better lock the database down before page histories become hopelessly scrambled, there's massive amounts of unintentional blanking going on--VectorPotential18:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks like it's happening everywhere, this is going to be a messy cleanup once the problem is solved--VectorPotential19:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed ... I was about to block someone for deleting evidence on an arbitration page until I realized what the problem was. I guess we'll all have to take a couple of hours and go out and enjoy the fresh air while they work on it. :) Newyorkbrad19:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that this line: "document.getElementsByName("wpSummary").value = "{{Egypt-stub}} => {{Ancient-Egypt-stub}} as per ]" is to blame, it's the only thing I can think of--VectorPotential19:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Granting specific IPs or new accounts ability to edit semi-protected pages?
I'm wondering if it's possible, maybe with some modification of MediaWiki or something, to make it so that admins can grant certain IP addresses or new accounts, which have demonstrated good editing and no abuse of Misplaced Pages, ability to edit semi-protected pages. 69.168.140.188, for example, has made numerous excellent contributions to various articles such as World Trade Center which has at times needed to be semi-protected. 172.132.67.217 also expressed interest in making good edits to the article, which I would like to allow, without having to endure extensive vandalism originating from other IPs. I'm not sure if this has been considered at all? --Aude (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
It is certainly possible with new users, as "autoconfirm" is just a flag, it would just need an interfaced programed in, and of course consensus for such a new feature. Giving it to IPs may be prevented by the layout of the code, and it must be remembered that IPs change owners. Not sure if there is enough demand for it though. InBC21:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
While this might be an option to consider adding into the MediaWiki software, it would be a bad idea to grant certain IPs special permissions on public projects like Misplaced Pages. The problem is that an IP may at any time be reassigned to another person. For example, an IP that for years was used by a good-faith editor could be reassigned to a vandal without warning. It's far better to just create an account and have your own personal history of contributions. —Remember the dot (t) 22:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't like it either; if they want to make valuable contributions that badly, it's not that hard to make an account. — RevRagnarok22:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Since special priviledges should not be given to IPs and the limit for priviledges for registered users is only 4 days, I don't see this as being a problem. What would it achieve besides opening more possibilities for abuse by people who should not have the priviledges? If that can be answered, then this may have some value - otherwise, I can't see it as a good idea. Nihiltres22:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
If User talk:69.168.140.188 changes owners and starts vandalizing, then we would remove the flag. It's been the same user since they started editing last April. User_talk:68.39.174.238 is another good, long-time contributor. It would be nice if they created accounts, but for whatever reason, these people are content with editing from IPs. I think the instances of "flagging" IPs or new users would be rare. --Aude (talk) 22:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Semiprotecting pages is a regretful option, as it is anti-wiki and shuts out good IP editors. Unfortunately, some articles are vandalized so much beyond what we tolerate, so are semi-protected. If there is anything we can do to lessen the impact of semi-protection on known, good editors, it would be helpful. --Aude (talk) 22:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Is there a reason why these anons can't set up an account? I really don't see a reason for this. If you want to edit semi-protected pages, set up an account and wait 4 days or request unprotection. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review!22:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
They can just create an account, being anonymous means that we cannot tell if you are on the same person from hour to hour, that is a technical limitation, creating a user avoids those limitations. InBC22:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know why some anons. don't want to create accounts. Indeed would be easy, but for whatever reason some good users edit from static IPs which don't change from hour to hour. --Aude (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Anyway, back to the original question, if anyone is still interested. It is not possible with the current code to give one IP an autoconfirmed (or any kind) flag. It is no IPs or all IPs. Prodego19:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes; and if all IPs and new accounts could edit semi-protected pages, semi-protection would become nothing more than a decoration. Also, some IPs are shared; and if an IP that a good contributor and a vandal shared was given the ability to edit semi-protected pages, the good contributor would end up getting blocked as the vandal takes advantage of the situation and vandalizes. Acalamari18:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The 'undo' feature is not quite right
Go to a random article's history page. Select two revisions which are more than 1 revision apart. Show changes. Now, I expect the 'undo' link to undo the diff that I'm looking at. Instead, it undoes the most recent revision, which has little or nothing to do with the diff that I'm looking at. I accidentally vandalized a page due to this nonsensical behavior. Surely this must be a known bug? Xerxesnine23:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Seems to be working fine now, how long ago was this? This was a problem with page histories a few hours ago, could this have been the cause?--VectorPotential00:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
It has been broken for at least two months (my entire wikipedia career), up to and including the present moment. I confirmed the problem before making my previous post here, as well as just now. Did you follow my instructions exactly? The two selected revisions have to be non-adjacent (more than 1 revision apart). Xerxesnine03:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
As far as I know, the undo feature has only ever been able to undo changes one revision deep. If you go to the trouble of viewing the history and through it a multi-revision diff, you can just revert changes manually by clicking the "edit" button for the old version and saving with no changes. It isn't really a problem. Nihiltres05:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Undoing a diff is not the same as a revert. A revert negates all revisions after the selected one, whereas a diff-undo negates only a chunk of revisions (if it worked correctly). There should be no distinction drawn between "multi-revision" diffs and "1-revision" diffs. A diff is a diff is a diff. Clicking "undo" should undo the diff which you are viewing, period. Since that doesn't happen, that's a bug. Xerxesnine06:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
The Undo feature is not an outright reversion tool. Iff the edit that you want to undo is not unaffected by any more recent edits, you can undo the edit. You can undo adjacent edits, really old edits, brand new edits... anything, as long as there are no interfering edits between the revision you want to undo and the current revision. Titoxd05:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not looking for a reversion tool; see above. The rest of your comment seems to just be explaining what revisions and diffs are. Be assured that I understand the concepts. Perhaps you are suggesting that there may be conflicts in undoing a particular diff? Well, of course there might be, as there might be with undoing an adjacent diff. I don't see how that is relevant. Xerxesnine06:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Null edits don't seem to be necessary. Once the template is edited, the pages categorized by the template will be updated eventually, typically in 5 minutes to an hour. I've seen it take as long as a day, but it's always happened. Gimmetrow05:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
blue links
Is it possible to have the wikipedia links as underlined? I found this...this and image. The red links work fine as do the visited links, but the blue links still show up as blue with no underline. Can someone help out? W3stfa11/ 06:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Still occurring. I seem to be getting the page itself out of the cache, so it looks current. However, it doesn't match with the history or edit page, which show an older version of the file. —Doug Bell11:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. Now I just had a page where the history/edit was up-to-date, but the page displayed from the cache was old. That one is harder to explain. —Doug Bell11:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Wiki skins
The default skin is okay, but I'd like something better. All the other skins are awful and hard to look at. Any way a suggestion can be put in for some new skins or is there any way other skins can be installed? Aaron Bowen13:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
m:Help:User style and m:Gallery of user styles should tell you more than you ever needed to know. You can write your own skins using CSS and JavaScript; if you don't feel comfortable doing this, but know the kind of thing you want, suggest it here and it's possible someone might make it for you. Note that many user scripts are designed to work assuming the Monobook skin, so most attempts to modify skins start from there. Hope that helps! --ais523 14:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Lack of Quality assurance -- SVG Image scaling problem
I increasingly come across images, perhaps especially maps, which do not fill in. The one thing they all seem to have in common is they are SVG format whatever that is. Suggest switching to good old png, which is evidently more modern. On the following I can but see the top 15-20% of the image, and the rest is blank. This seems to be a typical manifestation of the problem, and is happening on three different computers, and three browsers: IE6, IE7, and Firefox 2.x. It's really annoying to have to click and enlarge an image to see what it's general gist is trying to communicated. Please fix this soon. I love browsing Misplaced Pages's History and geography articles, but this steals much of the pleasure.
SVG is a vector-graphics format that scales a lot better than PNG does! I'm not seeing the problem, and the .svg images are sent to your image in .png format anyway (right-click on them if you want to check this), so the most likely possibility is that the image server's thumbnailer has got temporarily confused and some duff pictures are stuck in your cache. Try bypassing your cache and report back if the problem persists past that. --ais523 17:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
We are trying to diagnose the problem; of course readers are not supposed to have to do it. Whether or doing that fixes it for that image can help us find out where the problem is. --cesarb20:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I see the problem right now (on Firefox 2 for Mac). I've never loaded the page before, so it doesn't seem to be a caching problem. I agree that SVGs are superior to PNGs for maps, but there's something broken about the way WP is rendering SVGs as PNGs. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Even if you never loaded the page before, the Wikimedia servers have a shared caching layer, which could have cached a broken image even after the problem cleared (or sometimes the problem happens in the caching layer itself). Doing a forced reload (Shift-Reload or similar) sends a header which tells the squid servers to fetch the data directly from the origin server, instead of returning a cached response. --cesarb20:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
It has to do with Imagemagick's limited svg support, it does go faulty when scaling some svg features. I think this could be avoided if the mediawiki software simply used image magick to render the svg at it's default scale as a PNG, then scale that PNG. This is an issue for the developers. InBC18:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
No, Misplaced Pages doesn't use Imagemagick to render svg images, it uses rsvg. The problem is probably not with it; the servers have been acting up lately. --cesarb19:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I am not experiencing any problems with viewing SVGs. Can you be more specific about what the problem is?
And yes, the SVG format is much superior to PNG in a number of ways. However, Microsoft chose to use their own proprietary vector graphics format, VML, instead of the now-industry-standard SVG format. Thus, Internet Explorer has little-used VML support and no built-in SVG support.
While we're on the topic, why doesn't MediaWiki just send out the SVG (instead of converting it to PNG) if the user-agent is Firefox? —Remember the dot (t) 19:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
For security reasons, IIRC. To be able to send the svg directly to the browser, it would need to first sanitize it (like is done with HTML tags). --cesarb19:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Just happened to notice that the image for the tireless contributor barnstar seems to be acting up, and fixing it is way outside of my scope. If someone can take a look at it, or figure out who should....the link is TC Barnstar. Risker21:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Hitting the "stop" button on your browser before a page has loaded also makes the Tireless Contributor Barnstar play up (actually, it just stops). Acalamari18:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
How to make columns
I wrote the Misplaced Pages article Jerome's De Viris Illustribus. In Libri I it is a list of 134 authors. I would like to make a "Table" spreadsheet so that it consists of 4 columns wide (with no showing lines between them). This way then it will be 4 columns wide and 34 rows deep (perhaps easier to navigate). I would then like to STILL have it that each name can be edited for the future. In other words, to be able to change or edit the name through the normal way of "Editing" modifications for the future. --Doug13:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The following template is the "start" template that is then used with several other templates: {{col-begin}}. There are detailed instructions on how to use these templates. Let me know if you have any other questions.↔NMajdan•talk13:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to start a new SVG topic, but this one seems to be different. The problem is that the thumbnails at 1 − 2 + 3 − 4 + · · ·sometimes do not display at all. I have never witnessed them to display partially, as described above; what happens is that the thumbnail box has the appropriate dimensions, but there is nothing inside: no HTML broken image indicator, no alternate text, just whiteness.
I created the images in Illustrator and uploaded them to Commons this month. It may be significant that I did the same thing on 0.999..., and it went on the Main Page in October 2006, but I don't recall anyone reporting similar problems then.
I've tried all the tricks at Misplaced Pages:Purge, both here and at Commons, and I've tried uploading tweaked versions of the images. Doing these steps enough times and in the right order finally made the thumbnails show up consistently for me, but it wasn't straightforward or easy, and it apparently didn't fix the problem for other people.
(Oh, and I've edited that article to use PNG versions of the illustrations; the last version to include the SVGs is here. Melchoir18:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
How to print "How to Edit a Page"
Printed versions of this section cut off most of the example boxes on the right of the page. It would be much easier to paster Wiki markup if one could consult the examples from a printed copy, but I have yet to find a way of producing one.
Ozmirage20:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
This is a long-standing bug of Internet Explorer. Use just about any other browser to view and print and it will look fine. —EncMstr21:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Internet explorer is blue. To the left is 1994, to the right 2006. Well since IE is still the most popular browser that is a problem that should probably be fixed on our end, if possible. The printable version looks fine to me in IE though. Prodego21:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I just did a Print Preview of Misplaced Pages:How to edit a page in IE7 with the default settings and it worked fine. Perhaps you need to upgrade to IE7. We don't need to expend resources to make a fix for IE<7 if the vast majority of users experiencing this problem can just upgrade to IE7. Better yet, users could just use Firefox, which uses the standards-compliant Gecko layout engine to make sure pages are displayed correctly. —Remember the dot22:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Coping with transclusion size limits
Someone posted at Misplaced Pages:Requested templates asking for help with {{Episode list}}, in particular its use in List of ER episodes. While investigating, I learned of the template transclusion size limit. I popped on over to Template talk:Episode list and it seems others have run across the problem. I'm writing here to ask people's suggestions for working with this. Some options:
If the post-expand size is the problem here, how about this: break the more algorithmic parts of this template into sub-templates, which are only called if needed. For example,
It's not post-expand size that's the issue, it's the pre-expand size. My suggestion is to make a template that is a slimmed-down version of {{Episode list}}, something like {{ER episode}}, and then use much simpler syntax. I'm a pretty good template editor, but honestly I have no idea why the code is so complicated for Template:Episode list, and I can't begin to understand "ParaCheck123" throughout it. --MZMcBride00:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
ParaCheck123 looks like an extremely cheesy name for a parameter placeholder. It appears as though a simple #if statement would have done well in its stead. Gracenotes § 01:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
ParaCheck is just a trick used so that changes can be triggered by a parameter being listed, but still left blank. For example, |Image= will trigger the screenshot layout, even if you don't have it filled out. Excluding |Image will switch the template to a no screenshot format. "ParaCheck123" was just something I thought wouldn't be a probable value for any of the variables, so it can really be anything that is not likely to be a value where it's used (Director, episode number, etc). I've suggested that ParaCheck123 be changed to "ʁ", which is also unlikely to be a value for any of those. -- Ned Scott05:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Cleaning up the code is probably going to solve the biggest issues. The #ifeq: is a poor way to do what you want. Right below it where it does {{ #if: {{{Title|}}} | '''"{{{Title}}}"''' }} is much more efficient. Multiply that by the number of times you used it (several dozen) and there's your problem. I believe Gracenotes said they were going to work on the code, but since it's protected, I dunno where. --MECU≈talk12:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
A place holder is required for parameters that are desired but not filled out, but a good many didn't understand that when applying the template. This trick makes it so that if you list the parameter, then it will trigger a column even if you don't fill it out. -- Ned Scott12:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Right, essentially the default value says "don't do anything, no column"; setting the variable at all (even to blank) kicks it over to "do something, create a column"; and actually filling in a non-blank value gives it something to do in that column. Nice trinary result: no, yes, yes-THIS. -- Ben /HIST02:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)(deleted my own stupid suggestion following this, as it would not help your transclusion overhead.)
Question about the capitalization of search terms.
Greetings.
I'm currently in the process of compiling and posting material for the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith (I'm the University editor). I've discovered that if I type "University of Arkansas - Fort Smith," I'm taken directly to the page. If I don't use capital letters, however, I get a page of completely unrelated results.
Please sign your comments on talk pages using: ~~~~. The reason is: Because capitalization matters. You can create redirects to the article. Also, since you claim to be the University editor, please see the policy about neutral point of view and conflict of interest. Thanks.
It is because if there is not page as you type it, it goes to our search engine which has a lot to be desired. InBC23:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Pop-ups on links; text on editing
Hi. I seem to have enabled some features such as having pop-up boxes (well, more like mouseovers really) when I highlight links and a feature in editing that's hard to describe ... when I select text, the text appears above the editing box. Anyway, I can't recall how I turned these features on, and as I'm finding the latter feature very annoying (as it interrupts my selection), I'd like to turn it off. Of course, I can't figure out how. Can anyone assist? Many thanks. --CPAScott03:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Near the beginning, there is a long stream of caps words. I don't want to just delete it myself, I want an admin to see it so they can punish the user.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Glutted (talk • contribs)
Hey, I remember that at one time, articles like iPod had the first letter capitalized due to technical restrictions. I must not have been here the day that changed. When and how was it made possible for articles to begin with lowercase letters? It's certainly an improvement. Thanks. Paul Haymon05:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The "technical restrictions" title fix was first discussed on this village pump page and then implemented on November 24, 2006. It uses JavaScript to hide the redirect and display the proper title. The code is viewable here. --MZMcBride05:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Some technical help on User Warning Templates appreciated
We just discovered that (woops) the uw templates were broken when used a certain way. We use the subst=subst: trick to allow the editor to remove all the logical statements used in the template. {{subst:uw-test1|Article|subst=subst:}} and {{subst:uw-test1}} work great, but {{subst:uw-test1|subst=subst:}} is completely broken (as if the else part of the if couln't work). We have this issue on all our templates. You can see the problems and play with the template at User:Lucasbfr/Sandbox.
This seems to be the ParserFunction parameter bug (bugzilla:5678) where {{{1}}} in a substituted ParserFunction sometimes refers to the first parameter of that ParserFunction rather than the first parameter of the template; see m:ParserFunctions/5678 for the known details about this bug. Can anyone figure out how to reword the template to work without triggering bug 5678? --ais523 10:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
(Note that in the 5678 examples grid, giving a parameter default sometimes seems to help, but it doesn't seem to have helped here.) --ais523 10:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Sadly, the bug can't be avoided, from what I've tested in the past. Either use both "subst" and the article name, or nothing at all. Unless someone can find a way to get around it. Gracenotes § 16:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Radiant: in this case, you'd want to do {{subst:drv top|]|result and reason}}. Your sig should be added automatically. Gracenotes § 16:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but for people who work on more than one process, it would be nice if all those templates worked in the same fashion. >Radiant<17:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Deletion Review is quite different from XFD in structure, so I would expect the same about the template, right? Unless I'm misinterpreting your statement. Gracenotes § 19:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Identifying broken links
I can't seem to find a template with which to tag broken (external) links for review. I'd swear I'd found one before through either Misplaced Pages:Template messages or a judicious use of Special:Prefixindex in the Template: namespace, but the closest I found in my most recent attempt is {{Failed verification}}, which isn't quite the same thing. Is there something like a {{brokenlink}} somewhere? ~ Jeff Q(talk)15:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems like we should have a template for this, for folks who want to note a problem but don't have the time or knowledge to fix it. I'm experimenting with q:Template:Deadlink over at Wikiquote, for those who are interested. ~ Jeff Q(talk)17:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
HTTP 400 Bad Request
Last week, my laptop's power cord failed, so I did little editing over the weekend. Since I got a new cord yesterday, I've had trouble editing: every time that I edit a page, it tells me that the page does not exist. For example: a little while ago, I added a picture to Goshen Township, Hardin County, Ohio. As soon as I hit "Save page", instead of sending me back to that page, it sends me to http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Goshen_Township%2C_Hardin_County%2C_Ohio&action=submit , which is a "This website cannot be found...", entitled HTTP 400 Bad Request. Moreover, since I just took the picture yesterday, I had to upload it, and I got the same "cannot be found" page from the Commons. Has something odd happened with the servers, or is this (far more likely!) an effect of the power problems? Thanks! Nyttend16:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
There have been a few of those errors recently, but not as many now; so server delays could be a possibiliy. There may also be a problem with your internet connection. Acalamari18:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Adding contribution link to user pages
I wish there were a contributions link on other users' talk pages. When I'm looking at a user's contribution history, like to look for a pattern of vandalism, I have to open "my contributions" in a new window, copy their IP and paste it in the new window's URL bar. It's a hassle. It'd be a lot easier to have a "User's contributions" link right on their pages. --AW17:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Try adding this to your user javascript file:
if (wgCanonicalNamespace.indexOf('User') === 0 ) {
user = wgTitle.split('/');
addPortletLink('p-tb', '/Special:Contributions/' + user, user + "'s contributions");
}
Me too. Look under the search box on the left of the screen in the "toolbox", and on every user page you should see a link for "User contributions". --MECU≈talk20:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, never noticed that! Thanks. I guess I can delete that code from the monobook page then? --AW20:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Working with various pictures from Ohio, I came across Image:OH_31_and_OH_38_West_View.jpg (I'd link to this if I remembered the right coding!), which was user-created PD, but which was not on Commons. Therefore, I uploaded it to Commons under that name. Now I'm wondering: what are the effects of having two different files under the same name this way? Thanks! Nyttend18:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I am writing an artical and have added a bunch of footnotes. However, although the footnote number appears where I place the footnote, the "notes" section at the bottom of my artical does not contain any notes. What am I doing wrong? (I am using the format ). The artical is currently on my user page user:vzmetzger. Please help. Vzmetzger19:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
You needed {{reflist}} at the point where you want the footnotes to go. I've added it for you. See {{reflist}} for more information and options.-gadfium19:39, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
When populating a WikiProject category by placing the project template on article talk pages, is there a way to provide a sort key so that pages are sorted alphabetically by article title rather than by talk page title? For example, category navigation is far easier if "Talk:An artice name" appears in the "A" section and "Talk:Different article name" appears in the "D" section, yet frequently all would be listed in the same huge section ("T" for "Talk"). I've noticed a bit of inconsistency in the way this happens though, as some talk pages do seem to be alphabetized by article title, while others do not. See Category:WikiProject Media, where only a handful are sorted by article title, yet the majority are lumped into the large "T" section. I've peeked backstage at various talk pages sorted differently, but could not account for the differences in the way they are sorted. -Tobogganoggin21:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
You need the {{PAGENAME}} magic word as a sort key. It removes the namespace, so for this page it produces: Village pump (technical). I have updated {{WikiProject Media}}, so the contents of the category should change shortly when the job queue gets round to updating the pages. The articles that were sorted beforehand were all people, and they were sorted because {{WPBiography}} contains {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}}, which sorts all categories on a page with no sortkey. mattbr23:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I hope this is the right place to seek advice for a technical question. Draft texts relevant for the Wiki will often be written in another format than the Wikimedia, usually doc or rtf. I wonder, and have searched the net without any success, if there exist some kind of software that can convert such files to wikimedia format, so that we keep the formatting (bolds, italic, tables, etc). Thanks Bertilvidet11:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I just made an edit to Buffy video games with these changes (this is using a diff between my edit and the previous previous previous edit). However, the diff between my edit and the previous edit is showing this . Any reason for this? --- RockMFR14:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Hope that helps. --ais523 16:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Sign up instructions
Following a recent spree of improper (per WP:U) company-usernames that have been listed in WP:RFCN, there was a short discussion in its talkpage. It seems that the information that no company names are allowed, is one of the very few restrictions of WP:U that are not explicitly listed in the create an account page. A few concerned editors came up with the proposal to add the following restriction below the "names of celebrities":
existing company names (including not-for-profit organizations) and trademarks
We think that this will seriously help in limiting the backlog of improper usernames in RFCN and AIV. Furthermore, the selection of those usernames, may actually be in good faith, since people may be creating accounts from e.g. their office. I'd be really mad if I were in their shoes and found myself listed in RFCN or AIV without a warning from the sign up page. Can we include that in the sign up page please? NikoSilver20:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Finding cities for your country using, UTC, UTC-5 and other timezones per WP:CCT
Can we sort [this list in alphebetical order. I've attempt to make a category but it doesn't appear to have the concensus of the community. The usefull category helped me sort through the cities and make the appropriate corrections. You may find it usefull to peruse cities that link to the different timezones. (ex. Got to UTC-5 and click what links here) There are however, limitations. One is that we can't browse in alphabetical order.
I did try to make a category for cities by UTC timezone but a CfD prevailed and it was removed... taking away a list of 5000+ cities categorized (see my back-up. There was not enough support for such a category.
Many cities currently utilize the {{template:Infobox city}} and have a link to the related UTC timezone. Use this to your benefit. You can find a list of cities by clicking the corresponding UTC timezone. And, if ever you feel like bringing back the category we will need at least 5 to 7 people to support this. GO to my project WP:CCT and start a section to voice your opinion. When we have enough people we'll start the cat. --CyclePat23:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Shared IP addresses
Can someone please give me a brief, understandable tutorial on how to interpret the results of using WHOIS or Reverse DNS lookup to determine whether an IP address belongs to a proxy server? Thanks.--Vbd (talk) 02:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The WHOIS record will inform you of the Company & Person to whom a Public IP, or block of Public IP addresses is assigned to. It may be hard to determine the use of an IP just based on WHOIS alone. A DNS lookup on the other hand, could provide a clue regarding the use of an IP address, for example, from the command line, the entry "ping -a 64.233.183.104" tells you the FQDN of the IP address as "nf-in-f104.google.com". Sometimes this can give a clue to the use of the IP. In this case it doesn't really tell us much, other than the server may be located in the first floor computer room in room 104, for example. If it response was proxy1.google.com this may give an indication of the use. However, this is just a hostname assignment and does not explicitly determine the exact use of the IP address. You may wish to use some other tools to carry-out an more in depth analysis of the IP address belonging to the server, port scan, OS fingerprinting (use with caution). If the proxy is transparent, you may never know about its existence. § SCF - 17 March 2007
DXF to SVG or something similar
I have (and I can create) quality DXF drawings that I could contribute with. My guess is that the preferred format for any technical drawing is the SVG format. Can someone confirm this and if so, where can I find a free application to convert DXF to SVG? Thanks in advance for the help. --ChaChaFut03:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if Inkscape does it natively yet or not, but a quick google showed some promising tools like this. Good luck! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
If newer accounts (including IPs) make many edits in a row quickly, they have to fill in a captcha. You created an account about one or two days ago, so you're not autoconfirmed -- a status automatically given to people that have accounts for 4 days or more, or more accurately, 345600 seconds (as the server variable is in seconds). Sorry for the inconvenience! Gracenotes § 16:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
It's probably because the revert added a new external link to the article, at least that's what special:captcha suggests.--VectorPotential16:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Must be, because it happened twice again , I added a link to Santa Paula, California and it asked for a captcha when I reported an ip vandal it did it again. I think I can see the rationale for the links but not reporting a vandal. It is a little frustrating.--Paloma Walker21:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, template {{IPvandal}} does incorporate multiple external links, and yes, it is frustrating, and probably unnecessary, the good news is that this is yet another special privilege granted to users with the autoconfirmed flag, which means it goes away five days after you register your account--VectorPotential23:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
My user page has gone very strange today. Not a problem, as I can fix it and improve the layout, but I a) wondered why, b) wondered if the cause may have caused other problems. RichFarmbrough, 14:19 16 March2007 (GMT).
I did a preview with {{babel}} removed and it looked pretty good. The babel template hasn't had a significant change since January 27, nor have any of the {{user en}}, etc. templates. You have a stray </div> after babel, but that doesn't seem to affect the goofiness. Dunno. —EncMstr07:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I've reverted the changes made on March 15 to the template and your page now appears fine. Then I reverted back with a change to see if that would work (it didn't). Drini removed links to non-existant categories from many of the babel templates and that seems to be the catalyst for the change. It appears to have affected everyone's pages. I've left a note on Drini's talk page. Harryboyles12:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
The removal of the reasonlink parameter. This has been superseded by a change in {{db-meta}} that was suggested on the talk page.
Making the the link to a criterion have a normal font size. E.g., instead of(<small>]</small>), (]). This will make deletion summary... well, well ugly, and it may also be useful in
Shortening each criterion link (indicated by 1=value, so the it can easily fit into a deletion reason, if any are not short enough already.
And another one:
Encouraging the use of the wpReason parameter for admins, since it makes clearing CAT:CSD a bit easier.
I hope this proposal is sane, or at least makes sense. I would be fine with implementing it myself, iff there is consensus. Gracenotes § 16:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I lost my images?
I was trying to copy the symbol (image) for CHAOS and I did something to prevent me from viewing any images now!
Can you suggest something I can do to return the images?
I'm going to assume you're using Firefox and that you right-clicked and hit "Block images from...". If so, you can go into your preferences (Tools->Options on Windows or Firefox->Preferences on Mac OS X), click the "Content" tab, click the "Exceptions" button next to the "Load images automatically" option, and click "Remove site" when Misplaced Pages is selected in the list. —bbatsell¿?✍19:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Purge squids on article lock
I suggest that when an article is locked, all squids purge their cache of the article. A vandal recently edited Sinbad to say that he was deceased, and then started sending out e-mails. As the e-mails spread, more and more people visited the article. It was locked and the vandalism reverted, but the people who clicked on the links in their inboxes still saw the text saying he was deceased, both on the disambiguation page and in the article itself, due to the caches retaining the vandalized versions. To those who do not know, if you are logged in everything (or at least, almost everything) is generated dynamically for you, but non-logged in users see cached content. A more general solution to this problem is to purge all caches of an article every time that article is reverted to a previous state. This will be a good step towards stopping readers of our encyclopedia from seeing any vandalism, as we tend to revert it quickly. Cheers, --Alterego20:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
An article is purged from squids when locked -- that has always been the case.
People following links to old versions, however, will see the old version because the link is to the old version. --brion15:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
It wasn't a link to an old version. I personally saw the old content, and when I logged in it switched to the new content. --128.138.114.15121:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I have created the template {{sort}} according to current recommended practice at Help:Sorting, and used it at List of U.S. states by population. What does everyone think? I would like to see this used in all tables where the column should be sorted by something other than the visible text (persons' names, numbers of varying magnitude, etc). The template should probably be protected in that case, I already set it up with the /doc system in anticipation of this. --Random83203:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
One disadvantage springs to mind: consider a table like in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Oregon/Admin where there are more than 2500 rows. If the {{sort}} template appeared on every line once, well there would be a lot of template expansion. Would it be that bad? I don't know. Judging by the new statistics in periodic table (Pre-expand include size: 102013 bytes, Post-expand include size: 91248 bytes, Template argument size: 25690 bytes, Maximum: 2048000 bytes) it looks like previous problems with template expansion size have been addressed, and it shouldn't bother the servers any more than not having/using the template. I really like the idea of separating the mechanism for sort order from the apparent text, as the tricks to do it are ugly, not to mention tedious. Sort isn't a bad name either, though I toyed with variations involving key and index. Great idea. —EncMstr04:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Are there any monster tables like that in article space? It seems to me a table that large may be awkward anyway - the one you linked takes ridiculously long to run sort on. --Random83206:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Not that I know of. That table is an experiment to see how useful it is for managing the wikiproject. The sort speed is dependent on the speed of your computer, so maybe you need to feed the squirrels in it more often. :-) —EncMstr06:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Kudos on a good new tool in the toolbox, but it needs categorized... special effects templates of some kind (per Mike Peel or David Kernow's reorganization of template categories), and your /doc page wasn't quite standard, which I just fixed up so it's close enough for the moment--but substing that new {{template doc}} template really adds to the pre-expand size, so the pretty stuff needs put in the doc page. That at least now gets categorized as a template documentation page. // FrankB20:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
The point of the template is to make tables that use it more easily editable (less extra markup) and to allow it to be changed when/if table sorting provides for a better way to specify the sort key. Substing it would be against the purpose of the template. WP:PERF is relevant here I think. --Random83221:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Error message
I got this message in one article after posting a reference (scroll down until you see a red text). What does it mean and how do we I get rid of, without removing the reference? The colour of the error message was red, but when I tried to post it here, it turns black and puts a reference number after it. It also blocks any text written beneath it. --Thus Spake Anittas22:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, well; I don't know in what way I am using the source wrong. Can someone point it out to me? This is not the first time I'm posting sources. --Thus Spake Anittas22:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Does anybody know how to stop scripts in my monobook.js from running in Internet Explorer. I am using Firefox and when I use IE7, the scripts don't work and sometimes error message popup saying there is a script error. So is there a way to make scripts only work on Firefox but disables when IE is running on Misplaced Pages? -- Hdt83 | Talk/Chat23:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
You can put a check for the browser around the inclusion of the scripts that don't work in IE:
if (navigator.userAgent.match(/MSIE/)) {
importScript('Example.js');
}
You could require that when the parameter is used, it places the article in a certain category. Something like: {{#if:{{{2|}}}|{{{2}}}<includeonly>]</includeonly>}} Cheers. --MZMcBride00:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
That's an interesting idea, but is it allowed? This would be a category, albeit temporary, that should not be on the articles. --NE200:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's what you do. Copy the codes the MZMcBride gave you to the template, create the category page, wait for it to fill up (this may take anywhere from a couple of minutes to a day), do what you need to do, remove the code from the template, and put {{db-author}} on the category. I'm doing the same with Category:Articles with incorrect school infobox format, and it has helped tremendously :) Gracenotes § 02:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Might be easier and less intrusive to use Whatlinkshere... {{#if:{{{2|}}}|{{{2}}}<includeonly><span style="display:none;">] <!-- temporary to find template parameter usage --></span></includeonly>}} and then watch Special:Whatlinkshere/User:NE2/temp for population (still relies on the job queue like Categories). --Splarka (rant) 07:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Idea for alleviating vandalism
I have an odd idea for alleviating some of the pressure of vandalism on the quality of wikipedia. Would it be possible, once an anon IP were blocked for vandalism, to put a cookie on the anon's computer which disallowed further editing from that computer without signing up for an account? Obviously the more computer literate and determined vandals would figure it out and delete the cookie, but I wonder if it wouldn't make a difference? --Bmk03:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, in all likelihood people would not be happy with an eternal cookie. However, the real problem is that it would require the user to attempt to edit after being blocked. Since only a few do (which triggers the autoblocker anyway), it is not all that effective. And soon it would be all over the internet on to delete your cookies. I would say it is not worth it. Prodego03:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair points - I suppose it would only help for repeat offenders, which, if you are correct, are few. --Bmk03:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
How/When will an update of the interwiki map occur?
Hey guys, I was wondering when the latest version of the Interwiki map will be rolled out to the Misplaced Pages, Wikibooks, etc. databases, or even if there's someone here who might be able to speedy this process along. It's been a few months (I believe) since we changed the address of our wiki from .net to .org within the interwiki map, and we've been hoping that the change would soon be reflected here so we won't have to worry about the various server maintenance kinks on our end that seemingly always manage to break the redirect when we're not looking. I don't mind waiting, but it'd be great to know when we can expect this update to take place if it's possible to find out that information. Thanks! echelon06:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Preventing a page from being created
I've just deleted a page with an offensive page name. Is there any way of stopping that page being created? ( it's been recreated a numbrer of times already) Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn09:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
view · edit Frequently asked questions (see also: Misplaced Pages:Technical FAQ)
Click "" next to each point to see more details.
No article changes required
Increased load on servers, stopgap measure
