Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 9

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Video Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 9

Categorisation of merged articles

Moved to Help desk - - ukexpat (talk) 16:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 9

Editing while logged out

For those with questions about editing while logged out, we now have Help:Logging in#Editing while logged out, shortcut WP:LOGGEDOUT. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I just created WP:LOUT to save typing. - ukexpat (talk) 14:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Cool! Nick carson (talk) 06:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Editintro

Wikipedia:Help Desk/editintro is still hanging around from before the editnotice system. If there is no objection, I will delete it as unused in a day or so. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd just delete it per WP:CSD#G6 now. hmwitht 19:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. - ukexpat (talk) 19:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Done ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia editing basics: Talk pages - YouTube

src: i.ytimg.com

Accessibility improvement to header

For WP:ACCESSIBILITY by visually impaired readers, the header for WP:HELPDESK should mark its purely decorative icon Image:Blue question mark.svg with "|link=" instead of with alt text, so that screen readers don't bother visually impaired readers by announcing the image; please see WP:ALT#Purely decorative images. To implement this, please replace "?" with "link=" in Wikipedia:Help desk/Header. That is, please replace this:

[[Image:Blue question mark.svg|24px|?]]

with this:

[[Image:Blue question mark.svg|24px|link=]]

Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 08:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

? Done by User:MSGJ [1] ? Chamal ^talk ¤ 11:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Scsbot issues

Due to some corruption (described at User talk:Scsbot#Corruption in WP:RD.2FS) I've left a message on scsbot's talkpage, which I believe will cause it to stop working, presumably until its maintainer (who has been offline for several days) can attend to it. I guess this means it won't add the date header to this page tomorrow, so until it's fixed can I ask someone to take care of the header manually. Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter o Talk 00:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

London Metropolitan Archives - Wikipedia

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Wikipedia:Article wizard2.0

Hello all, I've added a reference to Wikipedia:Article wizard2.0 in the FAQ (WP:FAQ#CREATE), and also slightly re-written that part of the FAQ for clarity (I hope). Anyway, the Wikipedia:Article wizard2.0 (WP:WIZ2) is a great new tool for newbies to create articles, walking them through the steps - take a look and then consider when/where it might be useful to mention it. (Note that it does refer users to the AFC wizard if they don't want to sign up, which reduces the importance of distinguishing between anon and registered users when referring to it.) Also, any suggestions for improvement of it are very welcome (Wikipedia talk:Article wizard2.0). cheers, Rd232 ^talk 13:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

ReqPhoto

Second time of asking - got edit conflict.:(

I've tried to add an appropriate cateqory via the reqphoto entry on Talk:Church of St Matthew and St James, Liverpool but it comes up as a red linked category no matter what I do. Where am I going wrong? Even more frustrating.--92.40.14.30 (talk) 13:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed myself. But why should this be a difficult process even for me as a fairly experienced wiki user???--92.40.14.30 (talk) 13:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Sock puppet?

Why is my user name considered a possible "sock puppet"? --Jimmknows (talk) 07:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

This is the Help Desk's talk page, not the help desk. I have moved your post to the project page, here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Adding #wikipedia-en-help ^connect to the header

I see some layout discussion that this was briefly considered but turned down for fear that new editors would not know how to use IRC (this thread). I would like to discuss it more specifically though - adding to the header at the top of the page:

For live help, click #wikipedia-en-help ^connect

For live help, click here for instant access

Doing so would offer a different help medium for people who need it, and one that is currently buried on Wikipedia:IRC making relatively unused. An IRC chat is more amenable to the users who still feel clunky with editing and talkpages and having to wait around for a response. It allows for in depth articulation in a more nuanced way that I think would be quite beneficial as well. The cons are that it might overwhelm the channel with users, or users who don't really have help-type questions. However, new wikipedians are decreasing. Bringing more wikipedians now requires better help for those who run into the usual road bumps that divert them. Thoughts? JoeSmack ^Talk 05:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Im not one to use IRC often (in fact io havent since 1998) Im inclined to oppose this (but this is only my thought and others are open to their opinions) But I feel that a help furom for wikipedia should be centralized on wikipedia, not a help furom for wikipedia on a different medium. I think the help desk allows for giving more detailed (and accurate as your forced to think through and supply relevant links) responses. It may also draw away users from monitoring this page and decreasing the response time to respond to queries here. I know alot of experienced users like IRC, but many less tech savy indivduals may not be comforatble leaving wikipedia for help. These are just my thoughts Ottawa4ever (talk) 14:08, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess this proposal wasn't to say that the on-wiki help desk is worse than IRC, just that it is a different door to try. Like, behind door number one is the Help Desk, behind door number two is the FAQ, behind door number three is the IRC channel. Any door is the right door. I do think wikipedians need to 'learn by doing', e.g. editing and monitoring pages, but who is to say that they wouldn't do that with help from the IRC channel? And who is to say that they aren't tech savy enough to use IRC at all? JoeSmack ^Talk 15:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

very true points you made. If this is endorsed by others to add the link, i would support the second link you posted be added. To me its a nice user friendly way of providing the channel. This is a bit more simple than learning IRC all together. anyway it could work. But your right we dont know (my instinct though is i think its introducing more problems, but I welcome thoughts from others. Ottawa4ever (talk) 15:46, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)No one intends to force users to use IRC. The proposal is to merely make people aware that it exists as an option. It is up to them how they wish to receive help. As a helper in #wikipedia-en-help, I have seen many instances of a user being helped far more quickly and clearly in IRC than they would on help desk or on a talk page. In other situations the reverse is true.

The help desk has the advantage of many eyes watching it, whereas the help channel has the advantage of being able to instantly clarify and ensure that everyone understands each other, as well as the ability to perform step-by-step walkthroughs. The two forms of help compliment, rather than oppose, each other. ? AJCham^(talk) 15:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

It's worth a try.. can't hurt to test it out for a month or two.. see what kind of traffic we get in the channel. -- oe^(TM) 05:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Already in the sidebar of the header there is a link to "Special help services" which includes IRC. I am not sure how relevant an IRC channel is to most Help desk clients and keep in mind clutter in the header.--Commander Keane (talk) 10:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The place you're talking about doesn't exactly receive prominence (waaay off to the right, very small font, have to find it in a subpage). Acknowledged that the header shouldn't be cluttered, but I think something can be arranged. Why don't you think people from the help desk can be helped in the IRC channel? JoeSmack ^Talk 16:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in including it. It might increase requests at the channel, which might reduce requests here. Nothing bad about any of those. After all, the objective is to provide help, not to pile up help requests in our archive pages :) ? Chamal ^talk ¤ 16:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I support adding a link to the header. The problems could be confusion when a new user opens up the IRC window (the 20 lines of connection stuff, and the instructions are hidden in the channel topic, not that there is a better way) and dissatisfaction when they ask a question and don't get a good answer (I'm sure not all Help desk regulars are in the IRC channel). Having said that, IRC does provide an excellent alternative way to answer questions and I support adding a link (probably to the webchat.freenode.net option), at least for a trial. Somebody needs to figure out how to incorporate a link into the current header though. Also, it could be too late when someone has arrived at the Help desk to forward them to IRC. Maybe most new users use the "Help" link in the sidebar? If so then adding the IRC link to Help:Contents should be considered.--Commander Keane (talk) 07:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Let's start with the header as it has the most general and wide impact, and go from there to see if a link on Help:Contents alone is better. Agreed, just a trial. Agreed, the webchat.freenode.net option. I actually think the aesthetic of the header is gonna be the harder part to get agreed upon, but I've put a few ideas down in my sandbox. ("Behold the turtle! He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."). Here they are:

I think the most appropriate place to put it in the header order would be third, so it is three help options in a row. The last one up there was kind of an afterthought. I like the top one ("Help chat (IRC)") best personally. Thoughts? JoeSmack ^Talk 16:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Initially, I wasn't sure whether you were talking about adding an IRC link to Wikipedia:Help desk/Header or to {{WP help pages (header bar)}}. Either is possible.

I think the whole {{WP help pages (header bar)}} is due for an overhaul, with an explicit mandate to overhaul some of the pages it links to. eg the Wikipedia:Introduction is unlinked, and Editors welcome is a jumbled mess, and Wikipedia:New contributors' help page is unlinked, and Editor assistance possibly belongs somewhere in there?

We don't want it to get too big though (it already is!), because whilst we longterm editors know where all (or most) of those links will bring us, the majority of people will not, and will have to click through each to find the right target.

See also Help:Contents/Communication and Wikipedia:Requests for potential mergers/clarifications. (I get a headache just thinking about it...) HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, sorry, I meant {{WP help pages (header bar)}}. That is the top bar of links that is on many help pages. To be honest, overhaul is needed, correct. For now however, lets keep this thread focused on seeing this IRC link put in. It could have a fairly moderate change on how new editors receive assistance on Wikipedia, and keeping with this single change the effect will be more measurable for the moment.

That said, I'm actually glad I have your eyes too Quiddity because I really like your past mainspace/template work. Like you mention, we need a overhaul, and that'll be a much bigger discussion. I mean, I'm an experienced user and even I have confused moments about some of the help environments out there. Wikipedia_talk:Help_Project is one place I think that dialogue could be more centralized (prolly where this thread should have been really), unless you have another idea as to where to have it? You'll have my input either way. JoeSmack ^Talk 21:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Of your 4 suggestions above, I agree that the 1st (or 4th) would be preferable. Go for it.

You might also want to tweak Wikipedia:IRC so that the lead paragraph is a bit shorter, and copy the links to the main en-WP channels to the top of the page (either in the lead sentences or in a box of some sort). We could potentially link to that page instead, if it were a bit more instantly useful to users of all expertise.

The Help Project is a bit understaffed, and could use all of your eyeballs. However user:L?V is newly there and trying to get people to help do some overhauls, so now would be an optimal time to speak up, add your names to the participants list, and all that. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IRC and Wikipedia:IRC/Tutorial are not layman oriented at all, and are kind of dated by now. I actually don't have a ton of specific expertise on IRC (although i've WYSIWYG'd using it for years now), but think the above web-connect one-click link put into the header will be a start for the time being. I'll hop over to Wikipedia_talk:Help_Project and offer up the total overhaul discussion as well.

I guess then i'll wait for any other comment until the end of the day and then throw the IRC help channel up into the header, using the first suggestion presented. I'll try and keep my eye on the IRC channel to see any (if any) effects on traffic there. JoeSmack ^Talk 18:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, 3 2 1, liftoff! I'll leave some info of what I notice from the IRC channel back here if any. JoeSmack ^Talk 04:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the channel got flooded or anything all day, and it looks like people are using it. Phew! JoeSmack ^Talk 03:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Bit late for the party ... but good idea and Excellent! L?V 14:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Please, do offer the irc:// option. The first thing that bothered me about the help page was that the IRC link took me to a web interface, not to my IRC client. URL should include a single # to signify that the room is official, so irc://irc.freenode.net/#wikipedia-en-help Grahamperrin (talk) 02:30, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

File:Narbonne Cathedrale Saint Just et Saint Pasteur.jpg - Wikipedia

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ml.wikipedia Interwiki

Hi, Please add [[ml:???????????:???????]] to Interwiki section. Thanks--Praveen:talk 15:02, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. Bencherlite^Talk 15:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

src: interferencearchive.org

Additional help desk templates

I notice we get a number of users of other wikis asking questions here, presumably under the misapprehension that Wikipedia is in charge of or connected with all wikis. In response the {{astray}} template is often used, which is not entirely suitable. As such I have created two templates, modelled partly on {{astray}}, for dealing with these situations: {{Otherwiki}} and {{Otherwiki-sister}} for users of non-Wikimedia and Wikimedia wikis respectively, which produce the following outputs:

Hello. Your question seems to be related to another wiki. A wiki is any website using wiki software, of which there are thousands. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using this wiki. Thus, we are unable to assist you in matters concerning this unrelated website and the best course of action may be to seek appropriate avenues of help there. Alternatively, if your question concerns a problem or feature of the MediaWiki software on which many wikis are run, you could try the MediaWiki support desk. We also have a reference desk section dedicated to helping with computing related questions. Best of luck.

Hello. Your question seems to be related to one of our sister projects. Please note that you are at the English Wikipedia, one of hundreds of projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Each project is operated independently of one another, including Wikipedias in other languages. This page is a help desk for asking questions related to using this wiki, so we may be unable to assist in matters concerning other Wikimedia projects. You may have more luck trying to find help at the project in question. Best of luck.

I hope people find these useful, but of course welcome any comments or improvements. DoktorMandrake 11:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Good templates herr Doktor. A few suggestions:

When the question is about a feature or problem with MediaWiki software, which is not uncommon, the best place for them to be referred is mw:Project:Support desk I think. So maybe you should use this link instead of, or at least in addition to, the one to the computing reference desk.
Minor grammar nit: I would get rid of the "the" just before "Wikipedias in other languages".
In {{Otherwiki}} there's a great preponderance of the word wiki. I would modify "unable to assist you in matters concerning other wikis", to "unable to assist you in matters concerning this unrelated website", which also focuses back on the reason their specific question is not a good fit here, following the preceding explanation focused on teaching what a wiki is in general. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I've made the changes, although I was a little perplexed in trying to work in the link to the Mediwiki support desk. If any further improvements are required, feel free to be bold! DoktorMandrake 11:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I've also been bold and added icons: for Otherwiki and for otherwiki-sister. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 11:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Adminship

moved* --Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 16:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Formatting/Transclusion issue

The transclusion for the October 16 archive looks to be borked somehow. We're only getting half of it on the main help desk page. The section where the cutoff occurs is a lengthy discussion on templates, so maybe there is a stray noinclude or something; I can't figure it out. The archive itself is at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 October 16. Thanks! UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 19:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I have disabled onlyinclude tags on the page. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks. UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 12:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

About resolved tags

I noticed today someone adding a resolved tag to a discussion that he was not involved in. Over at the reference desks, we had discussed this, and come to the consensus that the use of the resolved tag should be left to the OP. I think that practice should be implemented here as well. Here is the discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. --Akrabbim^talk 20:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree for the Help Desk and NCHP. Most times we don't even know if the OP has read the replies to their question. When it has clearly been answered, I am going to stick a resolved tag on it to make it easier for help desk patrollers to see what is and is not an active question. Similarly I will tag a clearly stale question as such. In fact I would be in favour of using the {{Ear}} templates here too - they work well at WP:EAR. - ukexpat (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Previous discussions on this are here and here. I don't see any strong consensus either way in those threads. At the RD's, questions tend to be much more open-ended, especially at SciRef where the answer could use either Newtonian or Einsteinian physics. OTOH, at CompRef where the thread goes "1: My computer isn't working. 2: Have you turned the power on? 3: My computer works now, thanks!", a resolved tag is more appropriate.

I don't do tons of HD/NCHD patrol, but when I do I tend to read the resolved ones too, and sometimes check up on whether the editor was able to actually implement the advice. Unless it's something dead simple, I'm not big on adding a resolved tag just for the sake of having a list of green checkmarks. I would defer to massive patrollers like ukexpat though.

Asking / leaving it up to the OP to mark a thread as resolved is probably not workable here, given the nature of these help pages: almost by definition, the OP will not be aware of the "rule". At the RD's, I read the discussion more as "we the regulars are not going to put tags on threads, but if the OP does, that's fine". They really are different animals. Franamax (talk) 22:06, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm with ukexpat. The nature of questions at New Contributors, Feedback, and to some extent Help is that they are predominantly asked by new editors, who are not aware that they should add a resolved tag.--SPhilbrickT 16:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Feedback page for the help desk

We've been thinking at VPR to develop 'feedback' pages, to collect feedback, especially from novice users. We can use the new template {{Leave feedback}}. I created a feedback subpage for the help desk, Wikipedia:Help desk/feedback (it uses the generic {{feedback page}} at the top, which needs some work). The preload can be specified at Template:Feedback preload/Wikipedia:Help desk, and the editintro at Template:Feedback editintro/Wikipedia:Help desk, see the template documentation for more. You're welcome to make adjustments. Cenarium (talk) 03:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

How are you going to tell users about it? I imagined it in use on reasonably static pages, as a section at the bottom. You made a "link" style version, to add to answer templates perhaps? Rd232 ^talk 09:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Hows this look?

It could be added to the /header page along with the rest of the templates. With the other templates it will look like so:

Spitfire^Tally-ho! 08:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I think it would go better after the "If you can't find the answer..." box. --Akrabbim^talk 12:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Added in third position. Cenarium (talk) 03:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking good. Nick carson (talk) 07:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

WATER

I dig a well in my home town that is south of Sri Lanka and i found some water and that water quality is totally differant to drinking water standard , i need some expert advice to know why such a differant when i send the water samples for checking and also what can we do with this grade of water

pl. chekc below the qulity report PHYSICAL QUALITY Max.Concentration

                                                                        Desirable/Permissible

Colour ( Hazen unit ) Greater that 90 5/30 Turbidity ( N.T.U.) 160 2/8

CHEMICAL QUALITY

pH 7.0 7.0/8.5 - 6.5/9.0 Electrical Conductivity 9172 750/3500 pS/cm

                                                                             Results in mg/I

Chloride ( as CI ) 770 200/1200 Total Alkalinity ( as CaCO3) 100 200/400 Free Ammonia - 0.06 Nitrate (as N ) Less than 0.1 10 Nitrite ( as N ) Less than 0.01 0.01 Fluoride ( as F ) 0.5 0.6/1.5 Total Phosphates ( as PO4) Less than 0.04 2.0 Total Residue 6110 500/2000 Total Hardness ( as CaCO3 ) 2470 250/600 Total Iron ( as Fe ) 16 0.3/1.0 Sulphate ( as SO4 ) 222 200/400 --Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.195.184 (talk) 07:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Please see the reference desk. Ks0stm ^(ToCoG) 08:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Edit to header

{{editprotected}} Could the following template be added to the Wikipedia:Help desk/Header please:

If it could be added just below the If you can't find the answer in the FAQ, click here to ask a new question template that would be brilliant, you'll have to copy the template from the source above, as it messes up the formatting if I try and display it using nowiki. Once thats done could this string of text: <noinclude>{{Shortcut|WP:HDH}}</noinclude>{{#ifeq:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Wikipedia:Help desk|{{leave feedback|page=Wikipedia:Help_desk|coord=yes}} be removed from the header (you'll find it at the very top currently). Thanks, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 09:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I think we are trying very hard to keep the information there as simple and limited as possible. These people are already confused in general. Less options is usually better for them. What do others think ? --TheDJ (talk o contribs) 17:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

There is already the "leave feedback" link in the top-right corner. Do you feel it should be more prominent than this? -- Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Deactivated the request for now. -- Jake Wartenberg 04:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

See #Feedback page for the help desk. The general feeling is that it should be in a box, not a tiny link in the corner, nearly nobody will see that. Furthermore, the corner link was added without discussion, but the user who added it, Cenarium, invited it to be changed as per consensus, since this new box seems to have a higher support than the little link, it should replace it, kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 11:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Done -- Jake Wartenberg 14:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 15:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the feedback bar temporary or permanent? I am hoping temporary.--Commander Keane (talk) 04:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Permanent, I believe. If you have complaint you could try Template talk:Leave feedback. Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 09:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks good, I like it. Nick carson (talk) 07:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Last chance to vote in the Arbitration Committee Elections

This is a brief reminder to all interested editors that today is the final day to vote in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. The voting period opened at 00:01 on UTC 1 December 2009 and will close at 23:59 UTC on 14 December 2009 as initially planned. Updated 20:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC).

The voting this year is by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. All unblocked editors who had at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 are eligible to vote (check your account). Prospective voters are invited to review the candidate statements and the candidates' individual questions pages. Although voting is by secret ballot, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you are invited to leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. If you have any questions or difficulties with the voting setup, please ask at the election talkpage. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on freenode.

Follow this link to cast your vote For the coordinators, Skomorokh 13:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

New header for Help desk

I was looking at the help desk page, and it just seemed messy to me. Then I looked at the Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives and thought; The archives look better than our primary page. I have designed a new header for the helpdesk.

Full width. Provides a clean and structured layout.
No shortcuts (newbs don't know what they are, experienced editors will be able to guess them)
- I'm not particularly concerned with this one, but we could add them under the header, next to the TOC if we want.
Remove the feedback request (seriously, these folks are already confused, they aren't going to leave feedback and if they do, it will be in their helpdesk request edit.)
Moved the 'editor' ToC to the bottom of the banner. Most readers won't notice this information anyways, editors will find it regardless.
Did away with some of the bolding in the Header. We already know that most people won't read this information, so make sure that emphasis is there where it is really needed.

I hope you guys like the idea, I think it will be helpful for the help desk visitors. --TheDJ (talk o contribs) 14:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I like. Very sleek. - ukexpat (talk) 16:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Deployed, lets see what happens. --TheDJ (talk o contribs) 23:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It's causing problems; TOC is overlain onto the header, and seems to be thinner, for some reason. Intelligentsium 23:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed now. Intelligentsium 23:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Working on it. What browser are you using ? No trouble with Webkit here. I restored the protected version. --TheDJ (talk o contribs) 00:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Works now. Thank you for correcting it so quickly. Intelligentsium 00:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice, it's glassy, glistening, lustrous, polished, shiny, and silky! Spitfire^Tally-ho! 07:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I concur: thanks for doing this, it looks good! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I love it :) Ottawa4ever (talk) 13:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+It certainly is an improvement over the original! Intelligentsium 23:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good to me. Nick carson (talk) 06:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Admin needed to move a page

I created a new article Chain Lightning (1950 film) only to find that there already was a stub article called Chain Lightning (film). I used the specific wording of "1950 film" to differentiate the term "chain lightning". Can someone help? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 14:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

This is not the place to request help. For that, you may ask at the main help page. Alternately, you may suggest this at Requested moves. Intelligentsium 22:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

the redirect you reverted to is incorrect

Hi, Thomas Jefferson Hospital is an entirely different entity from WIlls Eye Institute. Fact: Wills Eye Hospital's name was changed to Wills Eye Institute a few years ago. Wills Eye is across the street from Jefferson hospital. The person who created that link on Jefferson's page made a serious error. IF you won't allow me to create a wills eye institute page, simply with it's name and date of establishment, without any other info', can you at least correct the factually flawed information you're allowing within that redirect. Jefferson and Wills are entirely different.

roger baronePhotosfromphilly (talk) 03:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Please post any follow up at the help desk and probably best at your previous post here: Wikipedia:Help desk#renaming a title. This page is the talk page for the help desk and is for discussion about the help desk itself.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:30, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

external link posting

I was posting a links on Wikipedia pages that linked to a website that contains formated information as shown here:

A Chorus Line Grosses

Because this information is in a graph format it abides by the rules for posting links in WP:EYLES #3. However, the admin *Ohnoitsjamie removed these links for spamming, what is the next level i can take this matter to for appeal. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Ridarek (talk o contribs)

You've been warned by myself and two other editors to stop spamming links. It won't get you anywhere to keep asking the same question over and over again hoping the answer will change. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 19:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank You very much for your assistance. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Ridaderek (talk o contribs) 19:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

delete iuvienna

OK, you need a reason , I'll give you several reasons, first wikipedia is considered an encyclopedia and not some magazine that is chatting around speculations. IU is going to become accredited, but it needs time, so far you have to wait until you write a comment on IU. Second, if you want to make wikipedia a newspaper, which tells the socalled truth on the first day and revokes it on the other day you can surely do it but then the public will continue to consider wikipedia as an untrustful source, in which to doubt. And third, imagine yourself , someone writes an article about wikipwdia and its non-reliable content at msn encarta, would it please you to have the rest of the world reeading about wikipedia as an unreliable source? --Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.112.168.187 (talk) 11:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

As stated at top of section, this discussion has been moved to Wikipedia:Help desk#delete iuvienna (which is where it should have been in the first place), please continue it there, not here. Also, please remember to sign your posts twith four tildes thus: ~~~~ Thank you. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Different times

I just went through the history of this page (only the past several edits). I noticed that the time shown in the revision and history of the last edit was exactly five hours behind what this page shows it to be. What would cause this discrepancy? edit: I am not sure it is exactly five hours at this time. But there is a noticeable discrepancy. NewYorkeruser (talk) 23:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC) I just verified that my post just above is showing a difference of exactly five hours. I could not find that same time discrepancy just moments ago. NewYorkeruser (talk) 23:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It is probably related to UTC. Your post will show your local time and the history shows the time in UTC. If I'm not mistaken, Eastern Time is 5 hours ahead of UTC. TNXMan 00:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Currently the U.S. is on D.S.T., so GMT-5 is actually Central Daylight Time. Go to Special:Preferences, click on the "Date and time" tab, and tell MediaWiki your time zone. Thereafter, times in history and logs will be displayed in your local time, while times in signatures will remain GMT/UTC.

Please note this is the talk page for the Help desk. Future question should go to the main page, which can be reached by clicking the "project" tab at the top of the page.

By the way, please consider changing your signature to match your actual username or changing your username to match your signature. Having a signature display a name different than your actual username causes confusion when, for example, someone looks up an edit you made in the history. They wouldn't find a "NewYorkeruser" and unless they inspected the source of the page or clicked on the link to your userpage it might take them a minute or two to realize your username is actually "JonC0001". Xenon54 / talk / 00:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought this was the Help Desk. I was totally surprised when I looked at the links on the top of the page. I clicked "project page" and indeed got to a different page. I never even realized that I clicked this page. I was on the other page earlier. How I got here I have no idea. NewYorkeruser (talk) 00:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

No line breaks

Edit notice - a bit of boldness by me...

I've been bold and placed the "do not leave contact details" bit in an ombox above the main edit notice, so hopefully it will stand out a bit more.

There have been a few times where I have been checking through older items, seen that (e.g.) a phone number has been removed, but is still in the history, and then I have contacted an oversighter to remove it permanently - which can be a pain if it wasn't noticed/redacted pretty much straight away.

If anyone has any objections, please feel to let me know! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

No objections here, just a suggestion for some tweaking -- I think the fact that answers are provided on this page and only on this page could be better emphasised. If people know their question is answered here, I don't think they would see the need to leave their sensitive details in the first place. I propose bolding "Answers will be provided on this page", and perhaps adding an "only" between "will" and "be". Xenon54 / talk / 19:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a query. Why does the edit notice appear twice in my browser (Chrome)? Any coding issues? ? ? Wifione ? ? _-OE ^{??eave ? ?essage?} 03:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you use wikiEd? I use it and ever since I have had two Edit notices on every editing page. -Turian (talk) 03:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I am a WikEd user and I see that too, but not on all pages. For example if I edit my talk page, I see a double notice, but I don't at the Help Desk. - ukexpat (talk) 03:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It can't hurt, but to be honest, I don't think most editors even see an edit notice, let alone read it. - ukexpat (talk) 03:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

True. I do use Wikied and perhaps that's the reason. But know what, it got corrected now (and I don't know how) :) Maybe the correction is temporary. ? ? Wifione ? ? _-OE ^{??eave ? ?essage?} 19:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Damn. Counted the chicks before the eggs... It's back. Two edit notices in full glory :) ? ? Wifione ? ? _-OE ^{??eave ? ?essage?} 19:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I get only one editnotice with Chrome. Do you see two editnotices on Arthur Rudolph? What happens when you log out? ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Gadget. I see two editnotices on Arthur Rudolph too. When I log out, it's all the same - two edit notices... ? ? Wifione ? ? _-OE ^{??eave ? ?essage?} 15:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Consistent indentation in Help desk templates

Folks, at present there is no consistency in the indentation of the regularly used HD templates (those listed in {{Help desk templates navbox}}). For example, {{Creation}} indents the substd text by one colon on the assumption that it will be used as the first reply to a question, whereas {{Articledeleted}} does not indent. I suggest that we update all the templates to indent one level (where they do not already do so). This is an issue because if you forget (as I have done several times recently in attempting to "manually" indent {{Creation}}) some templates can break. Consistency is always good. Thoughts? - ukexpat (talk) 20:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

No objections here. Inconsistency, even as small as indentation, needs to be rectified. The last thing a Helpdesker needs is for a template to break on them -- it makes it look like they don't know what they're doing. Xenon54 / talk / 20:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason I made creation indent one level automatically was because it has multiple paragraphs so the first indentation (i.e., a colon before the template code) would only affect the first paragraph, rendering the text spaced like this:

First paragraph

second paragraph

third paragraph

And a user would then have to manually space the second and third paragraphs after substitution. This could be taken care of by taking out the paragraph breaks and using <p> where they formerly were. Then we could remove the automatic indentation and a colon before the template code would work to indent all three. I personally think we should just leave it alone, but I would prefer to remove the automatic indentation from creation, than to add automatic indentation to others because this would not foster consistency, but rather create a set of templates that are inconsistent with almost all other templates on Wikipedia, i.e., most templates do not have automatic indentation, and users are habituated to prefixing a colon when they want a template's output to be indented. We should view {{creation}} as a one-off with this quirk, than the other HD templates being inconsistent with it (it is the only one with the indenting feature).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Fughettaboutit - 'creation' is the one that is different to not juse the other HD templates, but almost all templates around! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:54, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Editnotice for archives

Could we have some sort of editnotice or other notice to inform posters if they are trying to edit archives? There is no easily visible indication of whether a post is archived or not on the main help desk page. The only way to tell from that page is to check the edit URL for the word "Archives". PleaseStand ^(talk) 02:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

hi

Hello I received this paper from the Bank of bank Brkleiz I want to realize the truth of this if it is true Fa Send to a copy so I'll Spend This, along with thanks and appreciation --Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.91.196.99 (talk) 04:53, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

A web search for "Brkleiz" returns no results, so if you have spelt that correctly it is unlikely to be genuine. This page is for discussing improvements to the help desk, so if you need to ask more questions I suggest you ask at Wikipedia:Help desk instead. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Please add cy

cy:Wicipedia:Y Ddesg Gymorth/Pennawd. -- Xxglennxx ^?talk_{contributions?} 00:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you really wanted to link to the Wicipedia's "Help Desk Header", so I've added it without the "/Pennawd". If I've guessed incorrectly, mae'n ddrwg gen i! Bencherlite^Talk 00:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Signatures: How to link them to an actual userpage? (Done, Thanks Intelligentsium!)

As you can see by mousing over my signature (or clicking on it), your advice (Intelligentsium) worked perfectly, thanks! (Since neither this account nor my main one (once again, now correctly linked on this signature) could seem to edit the section my question was posted on, I had to make a new one, sorry if that is not okay). EvilXANA's public-com. acct 09:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

TINDAKAN KE ATAS LAPORAN POLIS BERSABIT SENTUL REPORT: 002832/08:

Yang benar.

Sarjan(B) Booloka Singam --Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.176.68.194 (talk) 09:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I appologize, but we cannot help you. No one at Wikipedia is able to provide advice on legal matters. The only recommendation we can give you is to contact a lawyer. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I made mistake in my article title HELP!

I have moved your query to the main help page. You can find it here. Intelligentsium 02:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Online Ambassadors program now accepting applications

I want to invite help desk regulars to apply for the Wikipedia Online Ambassadors program. It's a program for helping new users through their early edits, and will focus on students who are assigned to edit Wikipedia in their courses; it's part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative right now (see Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy and the Signpost article about it), and will hopefully be the basis for a longer-term effort at improving the way we nurture newbies.--Sross (Public Policy) (talk) 17:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

help please

<This post has been moved to help desk front page.> TNXMan 22:29, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Automatic archiving interrupted

The normal automatic archiving of the Help Desk by scsbot will not be working for the next week. It will be best if a few volunteers can archive the Help Desk manually, at least every couple of days. See this message from a year or so ago for instructions. --Steve Summit (talk) 03:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm back, and normal archiving is resumed. Thanks to Moonriddengirl and anyone else who took care of manual archiving while I was away. --Steve Summit (talk) 03:24, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

List of standard/templated responses

Would it be useful to put {{Help desk templates}} (or some similar listing) in the page-notice for WP:Help desk as a reminder to responders? It's been a bit of a learning curve finding them. Or is the more important result that questioners would see yet more stuff that they don't need to know (especially for this page, want to keep it clean and simple for them)? Maybe have it in a default-to-collapsed box? DMacks (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe it would confuse questioners further. Given the amount of users who can't even ask in the right place, I am fairly certain that there will be users who see that box and think "Oh, am I supposed to use these?" I think a better idea would be to transclude it somewhere on this page. Xenon54 (talk) 02:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Angels from Above (Band)

This is the talk page for the Wikipedia Help desk, where you can discuss and suggest improvements to the same. This is not the right place to write your article. Please consider using Article for Creation or the Article Wizard to guide you in creating it. Consider reading WP:YFA as well as WP:BAND and WP:SOURCE. Intelligentsium 01:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Angels From Above (band)

Angels from above (Later to be known as "The Angels" were formed in 2010 by Paul Rowland and Ryan Owens. Their debut single Flying without wings a cover of the famous boyband Westlife hit a commercial high getting 48 views in a day on Youtube. Their popularity was at a high when they released Gave it all away, A tribute to the late Stephen Gateley although this was seen as a commercial flop in many peoples eyes. The Angels are currently working on their third single. A Take That classic.

Paul Michael Rowland was born In Sidcup In Kent on the 21st September 1987 (22) And has always had the bug for music He was best known for his role as Joseph In the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He currently has produced both singles for the Angels From above

Ryan Denver Owens was Born In Rochdale Greater Manchester on the 21st January 1985 (25) And has also had a bug for Music. He has been known around the UK for having a great taste in Pop music. He is currently In a relationship.

Both band members were asked about their sexuality after their first single "flying without wings" was released, Both men denied this and insist they have slept with over 1000 women between them.

In December 2008 Ryan and Paul bashed their musical brains together for the first time, But for a very different reason, They were both invited to a major event party, which saw the brave duo, carry a unconcious lady from her vomit to a comfortable area, While they did this, an orgy in the hot tub was happening behind them.

They are now concentrating on there first album (name and release date yet to be verified) and they hope their strong army of fans will follow their careers closely. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauliscool1987 (talk o contribs) 01:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You've slept with 500 women each, and you were a Good Samaritan once, missing out on an orgy in the process? Impressive. I notice that you conveniently don't mention that your video was uploaded today, and thus it's received 48 views total. Nice try.

Wikipedia isn't a place to make you or your band seem bigger than it really is. Come back if your band ever becomes notable, but please make sure you read the directions before you do so -- this is the wrong location to ask questions and post prospective article text. Xenon54 (talk) 02:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Come to San Francisco for a weekend project?

Hi Help Deskers,

If you didn't see this announcement, please take a look! We (Wikimedia) will be flying several volunteers in (and covering expenses) to San Francisco, to work on some instructional screencasts about our projects. It's the last weekend of September, and I've just extended the deadline for applications until tomorrow evening (Wednesday, Sept. 1). Please take a look, and send me an app if it interests you! -Pete (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

email confirmation problem

Help! I'm getting this error: Waka could not send your confirmation mail. Please check your e-mail address for invalid characters. Mailer returned: Failed to add recipient: xxx@gmail.com [SMTP: Invalid response code received from server (code: 554, response: 5.7.1 <xxx@gmail.com>: Relay access denied)] --Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.29.53 (talk) 19:51, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you getting this at http://en.wikipedia.org and are you sure it says "Waka"? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you trying to join the mailing list at http://www.waka.org/ ? (If you're not, it's a fascinating website). --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:52, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

October 27

Due to a bot glitch, October 27th's entries got archived last night but not properly transcluded. So they've been missing from the main help for almost an entire day. For various reasons I wasn't able to correct the problem until just now. (And those entries will disappear from the main help page again, for good, during the next archiving cycle in about four hours.) --Steve Summit (talk) 20:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Newcomers help page

Please see Wikipedia_talk:New_contributors'_help_page#Redesign. Rd232 ^talk 09:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Help Page Format

Anyone think it is worth reversing the order of the posts so that the new questions go on the top instead of the bottom? Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

No, every other similar page has new threads at the bottom, so this'd just cause confusion. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 17:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Layout and all practice says to add at the bottom. And the new section tab automatically adds the new section at the bottom. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely love the idea! --Monterey Bay (talk) 06:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I just wonder when Wikipedia:LiquidThreads is going live.--Netheril96 (talk) 10:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The idea of adding threads to the top of the Help Desk as well as the Reference Desk and all the talk pages is brought up every couple months. Every time, it's shot down with the same "this is the way we do it" argument. Dismas|^(talk) 10:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

May I attempt to shoot it down in a different way then? I have never understood this desire because we come from a writing system that is top down. We naturally expect that new text follows older text. It's ingrained in our entire system of reading and writing. I expect that even if we reverse this by placing new threads above old, we would write the posts top down, i.e., even if threads were to go above prior threads, inside the thread we would have new posts below older--and for the same reason highlighted above: that's how we write and read. We would thus be using one rule for inter-thread writing, but doing the opposite for the thread ordering. This would be a strange incongruity. Newer below older is the way it's generally done throughout the internet in forums and so that's how it developed here, so bucking that would make us the Internet exception. Deeper, I think the reason this is the way it's done pretty much everywhere is ultimately a biology issue. It's not a coincidence that (as far as I know without a single exception) all writing systems are top down. I think this is a result of the human brain's natural preference for ordering symbolic logic systems that way -> so that's why writing systems are all top down -> so that's why Internet forums developed naturally to follow the top down scheme of how we read and write -> so that's why Wikipedia followed this trend -> so that's why it would be an unnatural and confusing thing to reverse.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh, a biological issue. Does that mean if I disagree, a reverse chronological order would be, uh, unnatural? :-) The best way (he says smugly) would be to do it table-like and give the user the opportunity to sort the topics in earliest-to-latest or latest-to-earliest chronological order. Within a topic, it should be top-down, but generally there is no connection between the topics themselves, so there is no real reason to sort them in a particular way. As to Internet forums, the comments within a thread are top-down, but many forums list the topics latest first.

Now, what I would really like is a way to watch particular topics rather than the entire forum. I believe this, too, has been brought up before, but I think it's been rejected because it's technically too difficult.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Wording of template

I have a concern about the wording in Template:Astray. I have put a note on its talk page. --ColinFine (talk) 00:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Hiding the ads

Given the enormous number of questions the help desk has received asking how to hide Jimmy's pleas at the top of the page, perhaps we should add a notice to the page or edit notice explaining how to remove it; everytime I look at my watchlist the latest help desk question seems to be how to hide the advert, usually in a somewhat less than civil tone. Saves us having to repeat ourselves every day. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I second the motion!! --Monterey Bay (talk) 03:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Kinuyo Yamashita

Moved to Wikipedia:Help desk#Kinuyo Yamashita - ukexpat (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Guides study/project

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to let you know about a study that we are getting together to start next month. As I'm sure many of you are aware we have had a decrease in new editors over the past couple years.

As a community we have a lot of ideas but We've been stymied by a lot of options and little data.

We want to conduct a study over the next couple months (with some resources from the Wikimedia Foundation) to help craft strategies to develop new users, to get data on exactly how our new users are finding their first, and later, experiences on Wikipedia and of course to help share the experiences of the experienced users who are here to find out what works, what doesn't and what resources they need to make their work easier.

The plan at the moment is to have several groups of users, 1 group that is just followed (the control) and several other groups with guides who actively reach out and try to help them edit and join the community. I hope that you can help us as we get ready for the study start next month and help the new users once we start! You can find out more information and sign up on the project page and if you can think of anyone who might be interested please please PLEASE point them this way or let me know so I can reach out to them personally! Jalexander--WMF 23:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Template for "Wikipedia on Facebook"

Also, I suggest we create a response to people asking about Wikipedia articles on Facebook, as they come up often. CTJF83 08:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean here, like how to reference a FB page? A p3rson ? 05:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he/she is referring to the pages Facebook mirrors (see WP:MIRROR), pages that we have no control over. I support the idea. [[CharlieEchoTango]] 05:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, like this if you can even link to it. CTJF83 22:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Additions to HD template

In response to adding email, Facebook or Twitter buttons

Sharebox is a script that reorders your toolbox. It adds new buttons that make it easier to mail, print or share an article on Facebook or another linksharing service. See User:TheDJ/Sharebox.

In response to adding Facebook style like buttons

We have an Article Feedback Tool that is in a pilot deployment as of September 22, 2010. Only a few articles have the feedback tool-- they are in the hidden Category:Article Feedback Pilot. You can ask more questions at the discussion page for the Article Feedback Tool workgroup.

----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Attracting an admin

When a post at one of the help desks needs an admin, what's the best way to get hold of one? I'd like to stick the {{adminhelp}} template at the top of the post, but the template documentation says it should only be used on user talk pages. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There's enough regulars who are admins that most things that require admin intervention are already seen by one, but if there's a real need, it is my opinion that you are free to just ignore the template documentation if it gets in your way here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks -- John of Reading (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}} makes a namespace detect and only works in talk name spaces. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Not anymore:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I will update the category and the documentation ~~Awsome EBE123~~(talk | Contribs) 19:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Being harassed - what should I do?

-- John of Reading (talk) 11:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

And why was this post moved to "archives" when posts before it were not? Or is what I have heard about Wikipedia true, and each of you use this site as a form of exclusive group that uses every tactic to drive away other potential contributors?

99.148.63.64 (talk) 22:38, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually it was moved originally to the Help desk. It was then archived from there according to the normal practice of that page. This page was only updated as to the current location of the thread. ~~ GB fan ~~ 22:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

So it's not some kinda insidious conspiracy? I'm almost disappointed. Rehevkor ? 23:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Contact us (not really)

"Wikipedia:Contact us" NO simple, clear contact link offered. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.198.51.211 (talk) 16:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no single point-of-contact because there is no single person or office in charge of everything (it's not an organization with a normal hierarchy and it's not a hidden back-end working-group with a front-end public-relations office). Rather, there are separate groups that handle different tasks, so the page instead does list details about them and each one's route of contact. In fact, there are specific email-links for some right on that very page, as well as pointers to talk-pages where to reach others, etc. If you are having trouble figuring out where to contact for a specific purpose, please let us know what the purpose is so we can direct you further. DMacks (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Popups

I suggest adding a note to the header on the helpdesk, Wikipedia:Help desk/Header, about the ongoing popups problem; see [2].

If you think it needs to be clearer, bolder, not collapsed, or whatever - sure, go for it.

And if you think it is rubbish / not worth bothering, that's fine; no worries.

Cheers, Chzz ? 13:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Self-tn'd 'coz Kingpin13 is looking at this right now. Chzz ? 14:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}}Please revert Wikipedia:Help desk/Header to this version (ie <24 March) because the bug has now been fixed [3]. Cheers, Chzz ? 18:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)}}

Done JohnCD (talk) 18:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

'The Following Discussion Is Closed' template

Hi there, I gave a couple of answers to a grammatical problem on the Language Desk yesterday, and then someone who had not contributed to the discussion then wrote a lengthy 'answer' on my talk page. This 'answer' was more of an expansion on the original question than an answer, but in either case it didn't really have anything to do with me. I asked him to post it on the original thread, only to find he had invited the OP of that thread to come and read and comment - of course, on my talk page. I have since copypasted the discussion back to where I believe it belongs but the person who posted it on my talk page has since been back to my talk page to edit his grammar and examples in his original message. I would like to collapse the entire discussion and put a 'please do not modify' notice on it, because any changes made to it now will not make it into the proper discussion. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (??) (TALK) 12:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking to do something like this?. If so add {{Archive top|Discussion copied to [[Specify where moved to]] and should continue there}} at the top and {{Archive bottom}} at the bottom. GB fan (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That's the one, thanks! --KägeTorä - (??) (TALK) 13:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that a user talk page is entirely under the user's control - simply delete the unwelcome posts. Roger (talk) 07:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:UPIMG

I think {{UPIMG}} could be improved, and have made a suggestion at Template talk:UPIMG. Please dive in with more ideas. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I made the change as you suggested. I think you're right that more people when broaching this topic are seeking help with uploading than image markup.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit notice

Any objections to creating something like this, with this to show up in edit mode for ease of responding to non-HD issues? CTJF83 08:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Not keen. Remember that a post at the Help Desk may be the first-ever edit by a new user. I think the edit notice should be aimed squarely at new users, not at the help desk regulars. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

What would it show for new users? We could do 2, have one that is visible for new users, and one that has a "show" link on the right for what I suggest. CTJF83 18:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Ctjf83 did a lot of work on this, so I am loathe to dismiss it all out of hand. Nevertheless, I am not sure exactly what he or she is suggesting, and a quick look at the links provided don't give me a clue either. Just what exactly, in plain English, is he or she trying to do here? And what does HD mean, as in "non-HD issues"? In puzzlement, I am your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I want to have a drop down menu at the top (hidden unless in edit mode) of Template:HD/doc, which provides quick and easy answers to non-help desk related issues. Like users asking for medical or legal advice. For example, my drop down menu would have "Template:HD/dyoh" and then next to it "No homework", so any person who comes along to answer a question, and see it is a homework question, they can easily post that template, to answer that we don't do homework here. CTJF83 22:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

We can't do a drop down menu, but we can do an FAQ page. See Talk:Order of the Arrow/FAQ for example, which is then transcluded into Template:Editnotices/Page/Order of the Arrow. Each answer could transclude the appropriate HD template. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Why can't we put them all in one "show" section? Like Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. CTJF83 18:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Now I am a bit confused as to what you want. The editnotice on the HD page should address the readers who are asking questions. Adding cheatlists and the like for the HD folks who answer the questions would be handy, but probably confusing. --- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I understand what Ctjf83 is suggesting, and I agree with it. Correct me if I'm wrong, Ctjf83, but when you say a drop down menu, you're suggesting the help desk edit notice stay basically the same as it is now, except there's a collapsed section (as unobtrusive as possible so as not to confuse the newbies), clearly labeled something like "templates for helpers". If, while in edit mode, you click on "show" in the edit notice, it expands to show the contents of Template:HD/doc for easy cutting/pasting. WP:RFPP does something like this, except I'd recommend the collapsed section be even less obtrusive; if formatted well, it wouldn't distract those asking the questions, but would be handy for those answering. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Just chipping in to say I'd find an addition to the editnotice as described by Floquenbeam useful too, and believe it could be made sufficiently unobtrusive to avoid puzzling the newcomers. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This would be a great addition to the editnotice. ~~ GB fan ~~ 13:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Floquenbeam...guess I missed your post. CTJF83 17:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Does someone want to start on one? CTJF83 17:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ So, where do we stand on this? CTJF83 18:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I interpreted your first post to mean you were volunteering... --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Ohh.....I suppose I could possibly rough draft something. CTJF83 19:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This look ok? I can add it at the bottom of Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Help desk CTJF83 19:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

The list of templates is fine, but can you throw something together to show how you anticipate the final edit notice will look? I think people's ultimate go/no go opinions are going to be based 95% on how unobtrusive it ends up being. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Ctjf83/HD Edit notice. It is a very rough draft. I think it is pretty long, can we fix that? I just think it would be a lot easier to have these responses on page. CTJF83 01:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I like that! It's very unobtrusive when hidden, yet shows a lot of useful info for the HD volunteers. I've been bold and reformatted it in four columns to reduce the overall depth. Better? -- John of Reading (talk) 09:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Perfect, IMHO. --Floquensock (talk) 16:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me, very useful. Might I suggest the usual "make sure you have read the template before using it" etc. Rehevkor ? 16:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) Two problems

If you have JavaScript turned off, the page User:Ctjf83/HD Edit notice displays all its content immediately, with no show/hide option. We shouldn't assume that users editing the Help Desk have JavaScript turned on.
Even with JavaScript turned on, the full content displays briefly before being hidden. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:52, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Reformat looks great John! How do we make it so those without Java turned on, still shows hidden for them? CTJF83 18:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I've asked for help at VPT -- John of Reading (talk) 12:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The below post didn't really go anywhere, does this look ok for a new answer template?

User:Ctjf83/FB

CTJF83 18:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Let's get this decided, please! :) CTJF83 06:35, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the design is good, but I don't know enough JavaScript/CSS to make it work, despite the suggestion by Redrose64. I had a play in my sandbox if anyone would like to continue there. Remember to test all three cases: JavaScript off, JavaScript on, and again with JavaScript on plus "Help desp volunteer tweaks" (tbd) in Special:MyPage/skin.js. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:35, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Can someone figure this out, please??? CTJF83 21:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made progress with this, but have had to ask another question at VPT. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit notice - Testing needed

I believe I've made progress on this. If you visit User:John of Reading/Sandbox (permalink) you should see some introductory text and then a copy of the existing Help desk editnotice. But if you opt-in by modifying your Special:MyPage/Skin.css, you can instead see the new edit notice aimed at the Help desk volunteers. The next step, according to Fetchcomms, is to prove that it works, and that there is a consensus for making the change. So can I ask some of you to try out both versions of my sandbox and to sign here to show a consensus? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I like it; it works for me, both ways, using Firefox 3.6.11 with or without JavaScript enabled -- John of Reading (talk) 16:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Seconded - Works perfect in Opera 11.01/monobook, also with and without JacaScript. ^Avic_ennasis @ 20:20, 10 Nisan 5771 / 14 April 2011 (UTC)

'Skip to top' button

Is it possible to make a button at the bottom of the help desk similar to the 'Skip to bottom' button already at the top of the page? This would be useful to prevent some scrolling, when I want to go back to the table of contents for example. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

On many browsers, the "Home" button on your keyboard will get you to the top, and "End" to the bottom. - David Biddulph (talk) 16:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Yupp. Works fine. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I made a custom "go top" link in my user JS page. Let me know if you want to try it out. -- Bility (talk) 19:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you in the right place?

"This page is only for questions about how to use Wikipedia. Are you in the right place?" Should that be "This page is only for questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia. Are you in the right place?" In this case, a question came to me instead of the help desk because it was about editing Wikipedia, not using Wikipedia, which he apparently interpreted as reading Wikipedia. Art LaPella (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I would support such a change. This example shows there is a potential for misunderstanding, although we have no actual measure, how many questions this actually prevents from being asked. And since this change doesn't seem to have any significant negative consequences, I see no reason not to make this change. Just my POV. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 19:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd support that too. We made a similar change to {{Astray}} earlier this year. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talkocontribs)} 10:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, go for it. -- Ched : ? 11:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Done Art LaPella (talk) 21:08, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Help desk template

Why isn't there a Help desk template for questions like How can I create an official page?. These questions seem to come up quite often, yet I was unable to find an appropriate template at WP:HDT. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking for something like {{creation}}? TNXMan 15:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think there should be a specific template for cases when people want to create articles about the company they work for, as this seems to be quite common. Yet there doesn't seem to be a help desk template specifically addressing this. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Create one at {{HD}}. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I will draft one in my userspace first and when its ready, I will add it to {{HD}}. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a draft ready at User:Toshio Yamaguchi/subst:HD/op. Would this be an appropriate addition to Template:HD? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Add a link to Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations and perhaps extract a few salient points. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I have tweaked the text a little. - ukexpat (talk) 16:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I added a wikilink to WP:ORGFAQ. If no one objects, I will add it to Template:HD now. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I added the template to Template:HD/doc. However it looks strange in the table. How can I arrange it such that File:Pictogram_voting_delete.svg appears in the same line as the bolded sentence? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 17:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I fixed that formatting problem, I hope. One other comment: The WP:COI page only says that such editing is "strongly discouraged". I remember a HD thread where one of the helpers said that the OP "should not edit", or some such wording, and this led to protests. So maybe we should tone the wording down a bit. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The image could be changed to something like File:Symbol move vote.svg. Instead of "Please do not try to create a page for the company or organization that you work for." maybe it should say something like "Please wait before creating a page about your company or organization"? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that it might be hard to capture the nuances of the COI guideline in a short template message, but you're right: Editors with a connection to a subject are not prohibited from editing articles about that subject. In fact, they are occasionally the best editors available to us, since they often know more about the subject, and specifically more about indepdendent sources for the subject, than anyone else. We don't want them unfairly/non-neutrally promoting (or disparaging) their employers; if they're providing uncontestable facts in a fair, encyclopedic, and balanced style, then the fact of the connection is unimportant.

Perhaps the message should say something more like this:

It doesn't tell them "absolutely no", but it discourages them. The wording probably needs to be improved, but what do you think about the overall approach? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks really good. I like it. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 19:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The FAQ really answers all the questions, so I suggest:

You appear to be interested in creating or editing an article about a company or organization that you work for or are associated with. Before continuing, please read our FAQ for organizations as it should answer most questions.

If the FAQ is missing something, then lets add it there.

I suggest the following:

Please wait before creating a page for the company or organization that you work for.
Since you have a close connection to the company or organization, you have a conflict of interest. Please read these FAQ first. If you still think your article is appropriate, you can submit it to Articles for creation. Just click this link and follow the instructions.

I fixed the markup and now it even indents correctly. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to work for an organization to have COI. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Right. Fixed Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 23:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Now it looks like this:

Please wait before creating a page about a company or organization.
Since you have a close connection to the company or organization, you have a conflict of interest. Please read these FAQ first. If you still think your article is appropriate, you can submit it to Articles for creation. Just click this link and follow the instructions.

Fixed inconsistency. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 23:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Request for legal-medical advice removed

I removed a question here: [4] which was a clear request for both medical and legal advice. I know that everyone will find that I was wrong in doing so, so please revert me at once. See Wikipedia:Reference_desk/guidelines#nodiagnosis for why I removed it. I know that applies specifically to the reference desk, but it seems it should apply here as well. Again, I know I did a great evil, so please feel free to revert me if you agree that I was wrong. --Jayron32 17:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Support removal, no argument from me. - ukexpat (talk) 17:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Jayron, I'm not sure why you now think you were wrong in removing the material but nonetheless telling the person that Wikipedia doesn't give medical or legal advice. I know that usually, from what I've seen, we leave the question in and respond in the same way as you did, but, frankly, I don't see why it must be done in that way. Plus, this was a particularly detailed description and felt like an invasion of privacy vis-a-vis the wife. I don't believe the material should be restored.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation template for online dictionaries

Is there a citation template to reference information from online dictionaries like this? bamse (talk) 11:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

~~Explicitly, not that I know of.~~ I didn't notice the line "This can include works such as encyclopedias and dictionaries". Therefore I would probably use Template:Cite encyclopedia. doomgaze (talk) 11:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

see also Template:1911. mabdul 13:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks and sorry for posting it on the talk page instead of the project page. bamse (talk) 16:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Effectiveness of help desk templates pointing people to the reference desk

Is there any measure, how many of the questions being asked at the Help desk, that belong on the Reference desk are actually brought up at the Reference desk after the person asking the question got templated here at Help desk? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Repeated urdu questions

Re questions like this, I think this is the third time I've seen someone asking about the urdu wikipedia but never for any other language. Is it not as visible as the others? doomgaze (talk) 20:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible there is a rumor floating in the Urdu-language community that we are pro-India and Indian languages, and stating this false "fact" as evidence? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I have seen questions for other languages. The Urdu Wikipedia only has 16,707 articles (84th by article count) so it doesn't qualify for {{Main Page interwikis}}. Apart from this, I guess it's just a coincidence that a few people have asked about it here. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that could be it. It seems to have a relatively large number of speakers and relatively few wikipedia articles. Odd. doomgaze (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Non-Roman writing system is one problem, and it's an impoverished demographic. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit notice - Testing needed

I like it; it works for me, both ways, using Firefox 3.6.11 with or without JavaScript enabled -- John of Reading (talk) 16:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Seconded - Works perfect in Opera 11.01/monobook, also with and without JacaScript. ^Avic_ennasis @ 20:20, 10 Nisan 5771 / 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, copied this from the archives, Wikipedia_talk:Help_desk/Archive_9#Edit_notice, I really need people to test this, so we can move forward with it. CTJF83 22:47, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

See: User:Ctjf83/HD Edit notice and User:Ctjf83/HD for examples. CTJF83 22:47, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Help Desk Template in regards to Facebook copying pages.

I'm looking for ideas for phrasing for a Help Desk Template that would be and appropriate answer for the semi-regular questions about Facebook (acceptable) use of Wikipedia pages for organizations. Something like Jayron32's

"You need to contact facebook, and not Wikipedia. Wikipedia has no control over what Facebook does. Once content is taken from Wikipedia and reused elsewhere, it is out of our control."

I think Facebook should be capitalized in both uses and maybe an external link to whereever people actually have contact at Facebook to complain about that. Ideas?Naraht (talk) 16:27, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Go for it. --Jayron32 22:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Support. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:53, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Started at {{HD/facebook}}:

----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Centralize talk page

See Template talk:HD#Centralize talk page. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Done ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Two different pages of Help Desk Templates?

What is the differences between those templates on Wikipedia:HDT and Template:HD? I know that all of the ones listed on Template:HD are actually "under" it in Template:HD/WXYZ (or whatever), but what why should a template be created there rather than separately the way that the ones on Wikipedia:HDT are?Naraht (talk) 03:20, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

{{Help desk templates}} (HDT) is a list of templates and includes {{HD}}. I don't think {{Help desk templates}} is actually used as a template. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

What about redirecting Template:HD to WP:HDT#Usage? Template:HD/doc seems to be just a copy of that anyway. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 11:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

It is the other way around-- WP:HDT# transcludes the {{HD}} documentation. When you click on the edit link at WP:HDT#Usage, you are editing Template:HD/doc. ----- Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Drama on the Help Desk

Should a noindex tag be placed on the page?

I noticed that many users post comments on the help desk that are not related to Wikipedia. Why don't we place a noindex tag on the page? Ryan Vesey (talk) 18:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought all Project space pages were noindexed by default. - ukexpat (talk) 18:55, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be, I did a search for "Wikipedia help desk" and the page appeared as the first result. Ryan Vesey (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

...which is exactly the right result if someone is hoping to find the Wikipedia help desk? -- John of Reading (talk) 20:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

^That. There are plenty of people who will legitimately search to find a page like this and use it for it's intended purpose. Rehevkor ? 20:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

But I am sure that if someone wanted to use the Wikipedia help desk, they would know enough to use a search within Wikipedia for it. The problem with the result being found in google is all the users who write here that they can't remember a book, or they want to contact Dmitry Medvedev. Ryan Vesey (talk) 21:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If you are wondering why people make non-Wikipedia posts here then I don't think that has anything to do with the page appearing in Google search results. Many people apparently start with an article for some subject and then use Wikipedias navigation to reach the help desk in the belief that we are associated with the subject. Or they confuse the help desk and reference desk. Google's search of Wikipedia is better than Wikipedia's own search in some regards and many people deliberately use Google to search within Wikipedia. I don't think we should prevent that for the help desk. It's usually only prevented for pages with some sort of sensitive information. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:02, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason at all not to noindex this noticeboard/help desk - the discussions all show up in the google results - you get a better result for wikipedia help after you noindex it and you will get less random postings unrelated to this desk/noticeboard. Off2riorob (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I don't know why I dropped this discussion personally. Normal internet users have no reason to see Wikipedia's help desk. I understand that Google's search of Wikipedia may be better than Wikipedia's own search, but it is insanely easy to do a search for the Help Desk on Wikipedia so using a google search is unnecessary. Ryan Vesey (talk) 15:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I question Off2riorob's reasons for suddenly becoming extremely interested in this to a rather rude degree. I favor not noindexing the page per the reason I've given earlier: The receptionist is in front of the building entrance, not shoved in the back of a broom closet.

Other than that, I'll leave you folks to it. I'd rather answer questions than be drawn unwillingly into drama, thank you.-- Obsidi?n^Soul 16:01, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

You can question as much as you like but you should rather AGF that I know my own mind. I was drawn to look at wether the helpdesk noticeboard was noindex'ed after some minor attacking type personal comments were posted about me in a thread - they were minor comments and bothered me little but led me to investigate the search results. All sort of content returns in a search that really has no place or reason to be published by wikipedia. Noticeboards (which this is even though its called helpdesk it is a type of noticeboard. It seems clear imo that noindexing this page will return much better wikipedia help results in the search engine returns. Off2riorob (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know whether the help desk specifically has been discussed before but see WP:NOINDEX#Past discussions. I think there is usually only consensus to noindex pages with sensitive information. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:10, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

As I have seen all sorts of uncited everything gets posted here. Off2riorob (talk) 16:12, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I still disagree with both of your statements. It does not matter whether or not the information is sensitive. The problem is, there is no reason to allow a normal person doing a google search to find the Help Desk and allowing them to find the help desk causes (semi)disruptive editing. The reason Obsidian Soul gave is totally irrelevent. The Help Desk is not a receptionist for all questions somebody may have on the internet. You don't place the receptionist for a bank at a hospital. Ryan Vesey (talk) 16:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Er... I don't get the analogy, since when did comparisons to a receptionist became equal to being an omniscient public help terminal? And the bank and hospital thing... *scratches head* Let me say it again, think of us as receptionists to a giant building known as Wikipedia. Should we be immediately visible for people looking for us? Or do they have to ask for an appointment?

Whatever the case, irrelevant questions get templated and ignored. It does not inconvenience legitimate helpees whatsoever. The main reasonings you two seem to be pushing ahead is that it brings in people who ask the wrong things thereby inconveniencing us. I say this for me, I don't mind if someone comes in here asking about a long lost second cousin in the deserts of Mongolia. I simply tell them they're asking at the wrong place. Problem solved. We got the same thing in the #wikipedia-en-help channel. What's the point of filtering helpees when it runs the risk of getting them totally lost in the process?

As for sensitive info, we redact that don't we? And there are specific questions that might already have been asked before, and Google helps people find those. Google Search is still far far better and easier to access (particularly for our target audience - noobs and tech noobs in general) than Wikipedia's search. If you'd rather have hard evidence for that, go ahead, try getting a survey from the people we answer the questions to day in and day out. Good luck. If there's one comment I've seen here more, it's (paraphrasing) "this place was so hard to find". And you're both proposing we make it even harder. -- Obsidi?n^Soul 17:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

If the help desk appeared prominently in vague search engine searches I'd support the noindex, but the worst I could find was Googling "help desk" which gives a non prominent link as part of the first result. We shouldn't stop people who might be searching for this page for legitimate reasons because people don't read the disclaimer at the top. Perhaps the disclaimer could be made more obvious? Rehevkor ? 16:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I very much doubt people that are looking for help at wikipedia come here by googling - help desk - . Is there any feedback/evidence of that? Off2riorob (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting they are, I'm just was researching how people might end up here for illegitimate reasons using vague searches. Even slightly more specific searches like "wikipedia help" do not give direct links to this page. Rehevkor ? 17:33, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The disclaimer is obvious enough, but nobody reads the information at the top. You could post flashing lights and nobody would care. The disclaimer on the edit page could be improved though. I still maintain that it should be NOINDEXED. Wikipedia users do not need to use a google search to find the help desk and non-wikipedia users have no reason to find the page in a google search. Ryan Vesey (talk) 16:28, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Eh, the help desk disclaimer could use some work to. It needs some sort of image to attract users to the notice. Ryan Vesey (talk) 16:29, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Here are the search engine return/results for Wikipedia help - noindexing this page won't alter the return results from that search. But noindex'ing it will stop search returns from such as a search for this name and rank - Hank Neigel S/Sgt USMC - returning unnecessary results from this noticeboard. Such top of the pile results return from all sorts of unconfirmed real life names. Its clear imo that the detrimental aspects of allowing this helpdesk noticeboard to return in search engine results far outweighs any possible benefits to people searching the WWW for help with an issue on en Wikipedia. Off2riorob (talk) 16:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob (talk) 16:35, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't really understand what you're getting at with the AVG Google Search there... Not alter? I don't think you get that noindex completely removes a page from the main Google search results. Even if you specifically search for "Wikipedia Help Desk", you won't find it if it has been noindexed. And no, it's not instant.

Furthermore your earlier assertions of there being a 'general agreement' that noticeboards be noindexed has no basis and your response to PrimeHunter puzzling, you just criticized yourself. See Wikipedia:Search engine indexing for something more specific. It's dead.

And pardon me for fuming, but it's very hard to AGF when you slammed me in my talk page for a perfectly civil revision (and that's after attempting to mediate between you and another user, ironic really considering a lot of things). Am I the only one supposed to assume AGF then and you're exempted from it because you're too awesome or something? Everything you've said so far is laced so thickly with condescension, it's no wonder FightingMac came to those conclusions.

All I'm bound to see is this: "after some minor attacking type personal comments were posted about me in a thread.." I was right, wasn't I? This was personal for you, and I find that a highly questionable motivation for attempting to enforce a unilateral decision without discussion on a long-standing oft-argued Wikipedia-wide issue for a section of Wikipedia you don't even regularly contribute to.

That said, How about complete redactions of irrelevant questions before being archived in the Help Desk instead? -- Obsidi?n^Soul 18:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

FightingMac (talk) 04:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

FightingMac, please read WP:NPA: Comment on the topic, not on the contributor. The topic of this discussion is not off2riorob but whether the Help desk should be noindexed; so your post is not only against policy, it is completely off-topic. --teb728 t c 05:20, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

(<-) Like PrimeHunter says, many people (including myself) use Google to search Wikipedia. That includes searches for questions concerning Wikipedia itself. Right now if I google wikipedia heart icon talk page I get a link to this thread, which tells me exactly what that's about. If the help desk wasn't indexed that wouldn't happen. Off2riorob, if you're worried about sensitive information in the archives, I'm sure no-one would mind if you made a minor redaction or two. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talkocontribs)} 07:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I appreciate the on topic comments and thank you Adrian for that suggestion. I do see there are some benefits or at least that a percentage of editors feel there is one. To reply to Obsidian - I do get that noindex removes a page completely frm a search engine result - that was/is what I consider a correct position for the type of comments that sometimes appear here - this was not personal for me at all, I noindex a lot of stuff - all my personal pages and others that I feel carry stuff that shouldn't have any reason appearing or need to return in search engine results, all noticeboards etc, I support that as a privacy benefit for all contributors. As for the AVG question,I have an avg toolbar if it showed in the link I don't know, excuse me for that. note - as a final comment - the only thing on wikipedia that needs to show in search engine results is our articles. Off2riorob (talk) 21:39, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I've cooled down a bit since yesterday, I'll take your word that it's not personal. I do get what you mean with the privacy argument, but I still think noindexing the Help Desk is counterintuitive. As a compromise, I propose we start removing any kind of personal information inadvertently left by helpees. I've personally started redacting names and addresses in addition to the emails and phone numbers we usually redact. I don't think users generally realize that pages in Wikipedia are forever. Would that be enough to deal with the privacy issues? -- Obsidi?n^Soul 22:05, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

No worries, we can all get a little peeved sometimes. I like your position , yes, if regular users like yourself just remove such needless personal detail like that any such issues will be kept to a minimum, I know at the BLP noticeboard myself and other regulars there try to keep it clean in this way. - thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 22:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Returning to the original question, I do not support adding a Noindex tag. As much as possible, we should allow indexing of pages. when we choose to NoIndex a page, it should be for a good reason, and not simply because on some day, there might be some awkward wording. I'll contrast it to the decision to NoIndex user draft articles. We want user to be able to work on draft articles, even ones that do not meet our requirements. If we allowed user drafts to be indexed, it would cause two problems; some editors would be fine with leaving a so-so draft in user space, because it would show up in Google, and second, people might stumble across such articles, and miss that they are not "official" articles, and lower their opinion of Wikipedia articles. In short, Noindexing user pages makes sense. In contrast, if someone remembered that something had been said at the help desk, they might decide to search for it using a Google search. I think it should be found.--SPhilbrickT 00:05, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request for fully-protected header

A bot has added a new interwiki at the foot of the Help desk, [[lt:Vikipedija:Pagalbos biuras]], but it actually belongs in the fully-protected Wikipedia:Help desk/Header (whose talk page redirects here, in case you're wondering why I've posted in the wrong place). -- John of Reading (talk) 09:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Done by User:Athaenara -- Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

A proposed solution to a Feedback problem involving Help

I posted about a problem at VPM. One of the suggestions involves diverting the questions to the help desk. I hope some of the other help desk regulars will weigh in.--SPhilbrickT 19:22, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for image

Source of the article : Wikipedia

Senin, 15 Januari 2018