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Old talk

I've rearranged and changed the Help page with the aim of making it more logical and friendly for new users. I'm also moving a few items, such as press coverage, to the FAQ.

There is still a lot more that could be done to make this page more useful. For example, we have no good instructions on how to log in and set preferences, or on how to upload images. Here's a suggested to-do list:

Enchanter

Nice work. I will take a look at this and tweak it some later. --mav

Since the FAQ and the Policies are the two main other documents refered to from both Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers and Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, it seems to me that the policies join the FAQ at the top of the help page. If you don't like the change, hey sue me, block my IP address, or just change it back :) I realize it's somewhat presumptious for a newbie to be editing high profile pages such as the Help and FAQ, but I feel it's needed. The help page has many links, each with many further links, forming a broad and deep tree of a huge number of documents, and the important information needs to be near the top of that tree, otherwise it's not going to be easy to find. -roy

Not sure if this was prompted by my comment (and edit) but thanks. The other frustration I had when I made my first edit beyond a very minor correction was that the Editing help link contains advice solely on the mechanics of editing, with no links to documents advising on the appropriateness of editing. I'm not entirely sure what should be there. Links to the policies (and perhaps the manual of style), I'm not sure. There might be other documents that are more relevent/ An enjoinment to Be bold in updating pages might also be reassuring to new users :) Roybadami


My opinion, FWIW, is that beginners are in a good position to edit help pages, FAQs and guidelines for clarity, because they are in a good position to rate their usefulness. -- Tarquin
I have to admit that I hadn't until just now notices that Editing help is just a link to a perfectly ordinary, editable, Wikipedia page. I might tweak it sometime. Roybadami

The link for "Help" in the default navigation box links to Help:Contents rather than Wikipedia:Help. Is there a reason for that that I'm missing? -Sean Curtin 06:33, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Help:Contents is the new location for Help. Wikipedia:Help is the old link. A redirect was used as temporary solution. Its been fixed now. Help now belongs in the Help: namespace. Krik 15:24, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC).
Are you going to move everything like the "how to edit a page" etc.? I lot of the WikiPedia space is arguably help. Is this discussed somewhere? --BozMo|talk 09:22, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Help namespace

Okay, I see the need for a central "Help" page, but what's the Help namespace all about? When I searched that namespace for "editing", for example (using the checkboxes on the search results page), it just returned a lot of the same pages (and articles!) as a combined search on (Main), Wikipedia and Help. - dcljr 06:06, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bit odd

Bit odd that the "sister projects" link at the top of the page goes to a template from the mainpage listing them. Shouldn't we really have an article about the sister projects under the link? --BozMo|talk 09:20, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Login not preserved across languages

Maybe I've misunderstood, although I have searched the documentation. I am making translations of pages from English to French, but it seems that each language's wiki requires a different login. Is it possible to have a wikipedia-wide login for all languages?

Not only seems the login not be preserved across languages but the whole account seems to be fixed to one language... At least my registered account in the English wikipedia is not existing at all in the German wikipedia. Isn't that lack of integration potentially opening a pandora's box (different users using the same name in different languages etc.)? Datschge 14:26, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Each language and each project has it's own login. So this login will only work on en.wikipedia. --michael180 15:35, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Change in lede

Should I assume that that overly-cautionary note in the lede is sufficiently NPOV (in it's clear attempt to *be* NPOV, ironically) as to merit reversion? I see no discussion of it here, and I'd expect some, since it's policy, not content. Baylink 19:13, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Out of place?

What does this: "I have a child of 8 years old. A beautiful son and had to have Invitro-Fertilization. I have been going through custody battles for the last 5 years. I am so tired and feel so helpless now, as it has been over 100,000.00 so far and now I can't afford a Lawyer. They always say the poor never win. 0" have to do with anything? Who is that? --Muhgcee 06:39, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A question on fonts, please

Ok. I'm trying to understand why my browser doesn't display some Unicode characters. Maybe it's that I have IE, maybe I don't have the correct font. Anyway, I then came across a new quastion: how do you change the font type? I thought it would be something like 

<p font-family="Font here">Text Here</p>

as I thing is in HTML. Can someone help me, please? Thx Jotomicron 22:18, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Golf History

Whoever made the oglf history page, or at least updated it, really seems to have screwed up. It arbitrarily skips all kinds of dates, such as 1850-1944. That's realy excellent for me, as I am looking for info for a school project. Thanks.

Category Creation/Finding

I was wondering if it's possible to search for Categories, or to create them.


Who's helping whom?

Seems like the title of this page is a bit ambiguous.

Seems like this page should either fork immediately based on whether the person clicking to get here wants help, or whether they want to help.

The vast majority of visitors will be wanting help of course, so adding a forking step makes no sense.

But maybe while keeping this page geared towards those who are looking for help it would also be worth it to mention somewhere prominent but not primary something in the vein of "Ways to help." Maybe in a callout box at the top right somewhere?

Tangentially, seems also like it might be worth having a "Ways to Help" link between Help & Donations in the main navigation that spoke to those who might want to help.

Project starting in that direction: [Click here].

File:Homepage add waystohelp to nav copy.jpg

Atomic mass

why is the atomic mass of an element not a whole number?

Because atoms have isotopes. It like the average american family having 2.5 kids. For example, the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1.(some small number) because the majority of hydrogen atoms have just a single proton in their nuclei. However, a few hydrogen atoms have one or more neutrons; because of this, the average atomic weight of hydrogen is a little higher than one. The atomic weight is a statistical average; a given hydrogen atom usually has an atomic weight of one, but occassionally has an atomic weight of 2 or 3. If this is confusing, click on the links in this paragraph. Samboy 19:42, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
For elements that are very unstable and not found in nature, you'll see their atomic mass in parentheses. This will always be a whole number, because it is the atomic mass of the most stable isotope. For this reason, many of the man made elements will have different atomic masses according to different sources, since physicists are continually finding more stable isotopes, especially in more newly disovered elements. Lepidoptera 03:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

New images

How does one creat a new image?--^~^Morgan^~^ 01:16, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Upload it. See on the left side it says "upload file" Click on that --Michael180 14:33, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

New templates

How can i make a new template? And when you answer this, please make it easier for newbies to find a How to make a new template article. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:57, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

I believe this page should also link to Wikipedia:Be_Bold and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. From my experence we need to let the novice user know what Wikipedia is not. We also shold encourage them to be bold --Michael180 14:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Help / Contact Us

Why has "Help" changed to "Help / Contact Us" on the toolbar on every Wikipedia page? Contact whom? Wikipedia is made by those who read it - "Us" is the person reading it. --81.146.47.6 14:15, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Help Me!

Is this the right place to ask for help? I NEED HELP! I need to know how to create a sub-artical. Their isn't an artical about how here, but I saw a userpage with sub-articals listed on it. Somebody help! --Wack'd About Wiki 23:28, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the right place to ask the question (or answer it), but I don't know where it should go, either. But to answer your question, you can just add the name of the sub-article in the edit string. For example, follow this link to create a subpage of your own user page called "Sandbox". You can just click on the URL in your browser and find the part that says Sandbox and change it to whatever you want. Hope that helps! —HorsePunchKid→龜 00:48, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)
Ah, it turns out that at the top of this page there's a link to the Wikipedia:Help desk. You may want to try there if my answer wasn't sufficient. —HorsePunchKid→龜 00:51, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

.css files

Where can I ask for help about my monobook.css? Jotomicron | talk 09:35, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I may be able to help answer specific questions, if you haven't already found the help you wanted. (my style) —HorsePunchKid→龜 04:27, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

"Upload file" page

Had no idea where to bring this up but on the Upload file page, there's this message:

You must be <a href="/wiki/Special:Userlogin">logged in</a> to upload files.

With the HTML showing just like that... fairly ugly. And the page is uneditable...?

This is fixed (see MediaWiki:Uploadnologintext) — Dan | Talk 02:47, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Attribute

Hey, I think this page lacks information about: how to attribute articles written anonymously to existing usernames.... I'm actually looking for that right now.Qwertzy2 10:33, 14 July 2005 (UTC)


The links to pages where to ask questions such as the help desk and reference desk are in their section. The help desk is filled enough as is it that there should not be a link to it on the top of the page. The purpose is for the user to view the help howto files *before* having the link to the question page. Elfguy 15:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)


List of templates

Is there a list of templates somewhere? I think that would be helpful, and if there is, I think it should be in the tutorial or help section... somewhere where people could find it. I've seen a couple "disputed" tags here and there, but I'm looking for something appropriate for this: Al-Waqidi's credibility Not only is the article unintelligble, I don't think it should exist at all... but I'm not really sure to handle this, especially since this a topic I know nothing about. Thank you! Lepidoptera 03:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

You may want to look at Wikipedia:Template messages. Scroll down a bit and you'll see a bunch of common templates. It's definitely not all-inclusive, but it will probably have the template you're looking for. You may want to list it on Votes for Deletion if it is a junk article; just read the instructions. —HorsePunchKid→龜 04:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
There is a shortcut to see all of the stub messages. It's at Stub types EdwinHJ | Talk 21:38, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Radical page re-organization

I suggest moving everything out of Help:Contents into some other page like Help:general help. Then just have a few links at Help:Contents.

Probably just the same half-dozen links that are at the top of this talk page (and several other helpful pages).

The idea is to make it quicker for both new and old users to find the kind of help they need.

Anyone want to help me re-organize? Uncle Ed 17:56, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

I also thought this page is too cluttered. Before doing any changes though, please note the discussion at Template talk:Welcome/Proposed version 1. There, it is argued that many of the links from the {welcome} template should be removed and one should be referred instead to the help pages. So, if you reorgianize this Help:Contents page, I would like to ask to keep the most useful links for newbies, which are now (not for long I hope) in {welcome}. Oleg Alexandrov 18:36, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm all for discussing reorganization here. However I won't let radical changes be apply without them first being discussed, especially when they are in my opinion very bad changes. Elfguy 19:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
  • No drastic changes please! I've just learned to come here to consistently find things I need. Gradual improvements within existing page are better. Thanks! -- Sitearm | Talk 04:35, 2005 August 25 (UTC)

As been mentioned several comments above, the point of having question links not be on top of the page was so people actually use the help articles before going to ask questions. And you can't possibly tell me adding Ask your questions to Ed every 30mins at the top of the page is good form. Elfguy 19:17, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I am in the process of disambiguating literally thousands of links to language pages throughout the Wikipedia. In this process I have found that nearly ALL links to a language page need to be disambiguated thus: [[French language|French]] or [[Basque language|Basque]]. I think this needs to be discussed somewhere in the help or how-to sections, but I am not sure where to put it. Maybe it's already here somewhere but I have not found it. (I really wish peoople would verify their links when writing or editing a page.) Thoughts, anyone? — DanMS 01:07, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Useful additions

The simplified ruleset and who can write or edit Wikipedia articles additions are useful fast start overviews for new editors and readers respectively. -- Sitearm | Talk 04:29, 2005 August 25 (UTC)

  • It's in the first paragraph, 3rd link. If you really want to add it in the lists, since it's not a "How to", add it to the 3rd section. Elfguy 19:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

New pages

Under using Wiki I think there should be a header for Viewing and Editing New Pages. It isn't at all obvious how to do this--the existence of Special:Newpages required questioning an admin on my part; I'd never have known. It seems to me a very obvious thing people getting into it would want to use. RC moves too fast to just track new pages and I'd suggest that caretaking RC is different than filtering New additions. Marskell 22:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. Under Modifying a Wikipedia page it already lists:
Did you have something more in mind? :) -- Sitearm | Talk 00:37, 2005 August 26 (UTC)
Yes--how to patrol new pages. If I sit on Special:Newpages I can make 4 or 5 speedy deletion requests in an hour (if its under 100 bytes it probably doesn't belong), tag a borderline one for regular VfD and make some Wikifying edits to others. The admin who pointed this out to me noted "I'm not sure how people are supposed to know this." Marskell 07:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
How about Wikipedia:RC patrol? -- Sitearm | Talk 17:38, 2005 August 26 (UTC)
Ok I added your tip about Special:Newpages on Wikipedia:RC_patrol#New_pages. But are you suggesting we mention RC patrol on the Help page (e.g., to make access to the RC patrol page easier)? -- Sitearm | Talk 04:35, 2005 August 27 (UTC)
Could we possibly set up an RC Patrol Help Page for new users lookiing to get involved in RC/New Page patrol? --Gpyoung talk 02:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Isn't Wikipedia:RC patrol already a help page for that? What would another one have that it doesn't? Jonathunder 15:45, 2005 September 4 (UTC)
Getting back to the orginal issue as I see it: An entry (NOT a sub-entry) on starting a new page is very much needed. What makes you think some-one new to Wiki is going to look under "modify" to find start. Listen, if I am planning on building a house, I don't look under "house-remodeling" in the card catalog... do you? Kdammers 05:52, 15 October 2005 (UTC) Okeh, I see the blue print above, and note that 'some-where there is such a page. But how is a newbie ever going to find that(s/he would have to know about writing Wik (properly) followed by a colon and then use the exact wording. That's asking too much)?

Open content

I added open content to the lead sentence in order to better qualify free. I hope that makes sense. El_C 04:02, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

What is allowed and not allowed to be posted on your user page?

What is your user page to be used for? A description of yourself? Anything you want? Could you host an essay there that doesn't have a place anywhere else on Wikipedia? Will what you post there be watched and moderated? For example, would I be right in assuming that pornography would not be allowed? What, then, would and wouldn't be allowed?

See Wikipedia:User page and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. —Wayward 07:57, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Usage Logs

I run a password-protected genealogy wiki for my family. I am interested in tracking user logins. Is there any way to do this?


Thanks, Alex Ramon - Sorry if this is the wrong place to post.

  • I don't think we keep logs of anything like that. It might not be very accurate if we did, since many users choose to stay logged in all the time; there's an option in the user preferences page to do that. --Merovingian (t) (c) 11:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

password security page

I am considering writing a page about how to keep one's account secure. Would this be a good idea? --Ixfd64 23:40, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't we have too many help pages already? --unforgettableid | talk to me 23:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with creating another if it's helpful. — TheKMantalk 00:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Offensive Users

Where does one go to:

1) See the rules on offensive users

2) Complain about offensive users

??? 4.240.201.17 22:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not know where this goes, but I recieved a message asking me not to vandalize... I just want to clear my name, as it was not, at least, me personally who did whatever act of vandalism on this IP. --67.176.28.140 01:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

You don't have your own username. Therefore you're likely to get complaints intended for someone else - I found them on my mother-in-law's computer even though she doesn't use Wikipedia. To register your own username see Special:Userlogin. A better place for these questions is Wikipedia:Help desk.Art LaPella 22:20, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

There are an awful lot of unnecessary redlinks on a lot of these help pages that could be cleaned up, however I am reticent to start because of the warning at the top of each page. How do I proceed to clean these up? Do I go to meta and do it? When will the meta version then be transferred across? -- Francs2000 18:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Adding a Language

I note that some users, on their user pages, have a box indicating their degree of facility in other languages. How do I add something like this to my user page? Unschool 07:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Babel for more information. -- Francs2000 12:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Broken link on page

I'm looking around for a way to search among files that have been uploaded (but this is not my question here), and saw "How to upload files to Wikipedia" under the "Modifying a Wikipedia page" heading, and thought it might have some clues. But the link just points to the upload page rather than a help page on uploading. I'll keep looking around for what I'm trying to do, but I just wanted to point out this problem. --Qirex 11:53, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I made the link point to Wikipedia:Uploading images instead of Special:Upload. Robert T | @ | C 04:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Random

How can you put up a randomly seleted picture, out of for example six preselected pictures? Is this even possible? Migdejong 20:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Ben Kuipers

Who or what is a Ben Kuiper? And how did Helps page histoy get moved it?---User:Rayc

I moved it back, though I have no idea how to revert what was orignially at Ben Kuipers.--Rayc 22:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Get an image in the commons on a Wikipedia page?

This is an animated attempt. It has failed. I don't say that I'm not blind - I did do some looking and trying. Would someone who knows how please fix it so it works. please Metarhyme 00:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Images from the Commons work automagically! :) Here's what to use instead: [[Image:Bball.gif|right]] —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-06 00:29:06Z
Thanks, HorsePunchKid - I made it too complicated. Metarhyme 03:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't log in

Logged out this evening and now can't log back in. Tells me I must have cookies enabled and they are. Several tries but no success. Can anyone help.--71.28.253.196 06:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've heard many reports of this sort of problem over the last few months. You may want to try at the Wikipedia:Help desk, since they've been asked the same question several times. (I'm not sure what the solution is, or I'd offer it here.) —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-10 06:55:18Z

Double click -> download?

Help! I'm having two problems which I think stem from the same root. I am using Internet Explorer 6, fully updated; whenever I double click on any page it brings up a download for index.php. The same thing happens when I click to 'edit this page' but not when I click the + sign. This all started yesterday (December 12th, 2005). I have not changed any settings for a long time.

When I use Firefox everything works fine.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Leave me a message in my talk.

Nhandler 05:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem with Line Breaks

Hi, having a problem with line breaks at Zero proof. Please help. Thank you!

Archival

When is this page typically archived? And where is it done so? --HappyCamper 02:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Help

== i am looking for god send to me to process my travel visa document get job or addimission to achieve my hope, my dreams, love, soulmate and my life!!! May be God Bless you. get back to me through my yahoo email: bodrich4u@yahoo.com ==

Help "God Send"

==I am looking for god send to me to process my travel visa document get job or addimission to achieve my hope, my dreams, love, soulmate and my life!!! May be God Bless you. get back to me through my yahoo email: bodrich4u@yahoo.com == God Bless you?

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