Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 5

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Help desk. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 3

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Removed instructions

I can see why someone would want to cut down on instructions, but I think a bit too much was removed. "Please do not include your e-mail address. This is to prevent you from receiving spam emails." is helpful advice for those who are not in the know. And for a lot of questions telling them to sign can help too. It's easy to retrieve the poster of the last question, but what if the question has been sitting for a while. (The automatic signing bot doesn't always catch everything.) Why were these particular tips considered unneeded? - Mgm|^(talk) 08:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried to cut out all the non-essential instructions, you can add them back it you like. My reasoning for removing the email instruction: does the instruction actually reduce the number of emails posted? Do email harvesters actually grab the emails on the help desk or is it paranoia? Do email harvesters go through the help desk archives? Is it too much work or a big disadvantage if Help desk helpers remove the email? My reasoning for removing the singing instruction was similar: does the instruction actually increase the number of people signing? Is it too much work for Help desk helpers to track down the person if they don't sign? Also I thought the signing bot did a good job, maybe it doesn't. It has been 4 days since I made the change. would you be interested in having someone calculate the number of non-signings and email-addings before and after the reduced instructions?--Commander Keane 08:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Email harvesters tend to be automated and harvest everything they come across. Wikipedia is well-linked, as is its Help Desk, so they can be expected to come across it rather often. I'm not sure whether the instruction change hinders significantly, though; if feature request 5175 is ever implemented, that would be a better way to give instructions, probably. --ais523 09:45, 21 May 2007 (U T C)

Look at the start of May 22. At least 3 unsigned questions in a row of which at least 1 would've benefitted from people knowing the page it was referring to. Unless we can have the bot sign stuff 24/7, I'd say signing is important. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the help desk should follow what the reference desk does as far as instructions. The headings to each page are aesthetic, concise, and not over the top. Scottydude _talk 02:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Deleting the instructions altogether is a bad idea. If we don't want too many instruction on the Help desk proper, we can link to a separate page with detailed instructions for those users who care enough to help us help them by learning how to write coherent questions, and how to do some background research on their own before asking. For example, the now-deleted link I added earlier to search the Help desk archive with Google has been consistently useful in my own research to answer Help desk questions. The great majority of new Help desk questions are mere repeats of earlier questions, and quite often a Google search finds previous answers to equivalent questions when I paste in chunks of the new question text. I generally get more usable results from Google search on the Help desk archives than from the surviving search the FAQ link, both because Google seems to be a better search tool, and because the resulting links to old Help desk questions yield already-formatted wikitext complete with links. Note that it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of an instruction that tells people how to answer their own questions, because if they find the answer, they probably won't tell us. --Teratornis 18:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Also see my comments in #"Please do not post email addresses" about the importance of repetition for learning, even if the first few repeats of a message don't seem to be having any effect. --Teratornis 20:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

A Resolved Tag?

Hey everyone, I was just wondering, if we could make it a little easier to spot the questions that may have gotten skipped (as this often occurs). Perhaps, we should implement a system, that when your question is answer, you add [Resolved] to the heading so that people know the question has been answered. I don't know if this ha been tried in the past or not, but it would seem pretty helpful to me for people whose questions get hidden under other questions. Redian (Talk) 20:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems reasonable; WP:BOLD may be a good way to implement this. If you go and add the {{resolved}} template just after the section heading of every single answered question that's on WP:HD at the moment, people are likely to follow suit on that. (This is better than changing the headings so people can click on the → in their contribs to go back to their question.) --ais523 10:17, 23 May 2007 (U T C)

RefDeskBot

RefDeskBot is currently running while logged out, so tonight's archive will probably fail. I'll correct the problem by tomorrow night, in the mean time, all the date headers need to remain intact. So do not revert 145.97.39.143 when it tries to archive the Help Desk. That IP is registered to toolserver, and will be RefDeskBot, so it's important that it not be reverted, even though, due to its malfunction, it will probably blank part of the page. I'll fix everything in a little while, and hopefully Martin will track down the problem so it doesn't repeat itself in the future--VectorPotential^Talk 22:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

All better now, here's hoping RefDeskBot is working correctly tonight--VectorPotential^Talk 18:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Too large!

This page needs a serious cut-down in size it's extremely laggy and jamms every second time I come here so could someone (Whose web browser does'nt "explode" when accessing the edit page) put the solved cases on to another page to reduce lag Please! And thanks. Peace keeper II 07:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That would require a radical change to the existing archive system, and is largely infeasible--VectorPotential^Talk 17:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The current page is 58 kilobytes long, on a dial up/56K modem that should take a mere 1 second(s) to load, any additional lag is server side, and can't really be helped by speeding up the archive. As it stands, questions remain on the board for 4 days, 2 transcluded, and 2 directly on the desk. Increasing the frequency of the archiving would leave less than a 4 day window for questions to be answered in--VectorPotential^Talk 17:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

56 kilobits does not equate to 56 kilobytes (or kibibytes) - otherwise, I would simply be sticking with 56k. Most 56k connections seldom go above 4 kB/s, meaning the help desk would take about 14.5 seconds to load. x42bn6 Talk Mess 21:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Still there are pages that are a lot worse, 4 days worth of questions is still pretty dial-up friendly--VectorPotential^Talk 22:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

problem

When I go to edit the page, I see only the questions from June 3rd and 4th. But when I actually load the page, I see the questions from May 31 onward. Whats up? ---CWY2190^T^C 03:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem has been solved. For some reason someone changed the date header for June 3, from = June 3 =, to =June 3rd=. Since the bot doesn't know how to read June 3rd it took the entire contents of the page and transferred it to the June 3 archive--VectorPotential^Talk 14:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

template/symbol

Anyone interested in creating a symbol for a partial answer. People who answer questions may feel that they are only partially answering questions. If a question is partially answered, other helpful people may think the question is fully answered and then not answer it. If one is too cautious, he/she may not want to partially answer a question for fear others may think the question is answered.

Possilbe symbols include half a pie, a slice of pie, etc. This is an example of a symbol, Clerk note: VK35 20:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

{{Work in Progress}}? x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

That template was intended for WP:WQA; it's documentation could be updated to indicate that it is also for the help desk. However, if {{Resolved}} is being used to flag items that are in fact resolved, then there is no need for any such "work in progress" or "partial answer" template, since any item not tagged "Resolved" is, necessarily, not resolved. If something has gone unresolved for a long time and needs to be cleared off the stack, there is {{Unresolved}}. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

New to IRC? Click here

I am new to IRC and would like to see what irc://irc.freenode.net/mediawiki-i18n is all about but don't know how to get onto it. However when I clicked on 'click here' towards the top of the Help desk page to explore another chat room I got a message that I didn't have any access. Any thoughts on this? Lloffiwr 18:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That is a MediaWiki development channel. The 'new to IRC' link is currently broken and we are trying to fix the link as soon as possible. Meanwhile, you can download a IRC client instead of using the web version. E ^talk 20:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick reply. Will wait for the link to be fixed. Lloffiwr 10:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The IRC client is down at the moment, currently unknown as to when it will return and to whether it's temporary. You can try to download one of the many IRC clients to do the same job - I prefer Visual IRC, but there is quite a few for different situations and operating systems. See Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients for the full list. Hope that helps you for the meantime. E ^talk 10:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It has now returned online for use. E ^talk 04:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Bug 5175 has been fixed; the Help Desk could do with an editintro

It is now possible to add an editintro to new-section links like that on the Help Desk, so that instructions can be given above the edit box after the link has been followed. As a result, I've added some relevant points to Wikipedia:Help Desk/editintro, and plan to implement it soon if there are no objections. (I look forward to the wiki process improving the instructions list.) My reasoning for the specific instructions given: the sig, header and email instructions are not very relevant for the main Help Desk page, but very relevant for the edit page (I suggest removing the 'give a descriptive subject/headline' message from the Help Desk header if this change is made), the location of the answer appears to be a major source of confusion, and a link to what page is being discussed saves time for Help Desk answerers and occasionally makes an answer possible when it wouldn't be otherwise (e.g. if the page has been deleted). --ais523 10:15, 14 June 2007 (U T C)

This functionality appears to be pretty new, can you explain the syntax? (reminds me of a cool Inputbox feature, but slightly different.) It looks like a good proposal, but it's hard to forsee any problems without any experience with this. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 12:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The syntax is to append &editintro=URL-encoded_page_name to the end of the link URL (for instance, the link needed on the Help Desk would be http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&editintro=Wikipedia:Help_Desk/editintro, which actually works so you can test it). You're right, it is that cool Inputbox feature, just generalised to work in more situations. --ais523 14:58, 14 June 2007 (U T C)

Hello

Yesterday: the article The Wealthiest Cities In The Middle East was deleted by Mike Rosoft. Is there any possibilty for letting me see the deleted article?

Eliko 10:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Contact that admin, and they may be able to help. -- Kesh 22:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Strange interwiki

There's a strange interwiki (Deutsch) on the helpdesk to Bild:Josef_Hellmesberger_senior.jpg yet I can't find the source. Maybe someone else knows how to remove it. Freestyle 10:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thnx! Free style 21:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

"Please do not post email addresses"

Would it be worth having a fourth bullet point under the "please read this before posting" heading advising people not to post their email addresses? Every other question seems to have an (email removed) in it. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 09:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure it would matter. People ignore the large links to the Reference desk as-is. I don't think they pay any attention to the header, sadly. -- Kesh 17:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Most people must hear a new message repeatedly before it sinks in. Advertisers, educators, religious proselytizers, and propagandists of every stripe have known this for centuries. When a company wants to market a new product, it does not expect to get massive orders by running just one commercial. If the product is different than anything people are familiar with, they may need extensive exposure from a comprehensive ad campaign before they decide to buy. You can't start a new religion by preaching just one sermon, no matter how brilliantly persuasive it is. No, you have to keep bringing people back for weekly or even daily indoctrination. Similarly, you can't start a new political movement by giving only one speech, even if you have the oratorical skills of a Martin Luther King, Jr. or an Adolf Hitler. Get the picture? (I employed the persuasive technique of repetition right there, and even if I made you fall asleep I bet it still works. Or starts to work.)

Learning to function in the strange world of Wikipedia works the same way. Therefore, each time we tell users to do the right thing, even if it seems to be having no effect right now, we are nonetheless giving users a few of the needed reps, hastening the future time when they will eventually get it. A large percentage of Help desk questioners seem to have few or zero previous edits; many have never edited on a talk page before, and if they did, it might have been a messy talk page where nobody else was showing them how to edit properly. However, if they are to become effective editors on Wikipedia, sooner or later they must learn the talk page guidelines (and many other things). Suppose a particular user will need to be told to follow the talk page guidelines five times before the message sinks in. If we fail to provide the first one or two of the repetitions the user needs, we merely delay the user's education and shift part of the burden of training that user onto other editors. For example, the user might go on to edit improperly on five more talk pages instead of just another three or four, and force a few more editors to do the work we should have done, and which we can probably do better (since users come to us in a more or less receptive state). This goes for all the principles, guidelines, and procedures on Wikipedia that are probably different from what the user became conditioned to expect on other user-editable Web sites, for example:

On Wikipedia, we rely mostly on talk pages rather than e-mail.
On Wikipedia, if we don't follow the policies and guidelines, our work usually gets deleted or greatly modified, perhaps rather cruelly.

Concepts like this are often strange and unfamiliar to new users. For the user to grasp new concepts, he or she may need repeated exposure. Let us not shy from our responsibility to give the first repetitions, even if we don't see immediate results. Accordingly, we should put the instructions at the top of the Help desk; repeat them again in a header section which appears above the Help desk edit window; and, if users do not follow the instructions, include reminder templates in our responses. That way we could give a new user up to three repetitions of an important new concept, something that might take weeks or months for the new user to get just by randomly browsing around and editing articles. --Teratornis 20:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

Template:Help

Template:Help appears to be an artifact of an older system, so it has been nominated for deletion (actually redirection): Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 29#Template:Help. There, I suggested that Template:Helpme could be moved to Template:Help. Since this possible move is of interest to those that help out other Wikipedians, does anyone else who frequents the help desk have any opinions on this? Gracenotes^T § 12:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

New FAQ for Businesses

For people offering help on these pages, please check out (and recommend) the new FAQ for businesses. Thanks. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 17:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Page protection please

Hello. Any way to put a temporary registered users only tag on the Edith Bouvier Beale article? It was mentioned on a chat board this morning and now lots of people are having fun changing names and dates. Help would be appreciated for the afternoon. J. Van Meter 19:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

While this page is for the discussion of the help desk (see the top header), you can request protection at WP:RFPP. --_Hdt83 ^Chat 19:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the roadmap to the right page. I had no idea where to go. J. Van Meter 19:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Help desk essay

I wrote an essay, with some guidelines on helping out at the help desk. It can be viewed here. Let me know what you think, how it can be improved and what can be added to it. Sebi _[talk] 07:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see some source for your claim that linking to shortcuts in an answer is a bad idea. I agree it is a bad idea to refer to unlinked shortcuts and abbreviations, as many people tend to do in their edit summaries, but what's wrong with linking via a shortcut? Do we have any objective evidence that questioners are unable to click on these shortcut links and read pages? Anybody who edits much on Wikipedia is going to see lots of shortcuts, many with no links at all, and they aren't going to make much headway here until they get used to that reality. Also, it's not necessary for an answer to repeat information which is already in a page we link to. The user needs to follow the link and read the page with complete information. Wikipedia runs on RTFM. Nobody can expect to have everything spoon-fed to them in a project run by volunteers. Spoon-feeding just isn't efficient enough. Everybody has to learn how to navigate the excellent help pages, learn how to find their own answers, and learn how to link to them to explain what they are doing. Most of what we know about Wikipedia we had to learn by following links and reading manual pages on our own.

The reason we have shortcuts is because they save time for the people who type them. People who ask questions on the Help desk should be thankful they get any help at all, since they aren't paying for it. It is perfectly reasonable for people who aren't paying for help to make the small effort to click on any link they don't understand. There is nothing unfair about that. One could argue that people shouldn't even need to ask most questions on the Help desk anyway, since almost all of them are already answered in FAQ pages or in the Help desk archives, and we documented how to search those things.

I would suggest that if we are going to add extra detail to our answers, the extra detail that really helps is telling the user how we looked up the documents we linked to. That teaches the user how to answer his or her own questions, a skill that every user needs to develop if they are going to get much done here. --Teratornis 06:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That being said, I want to design a set of templates that will expand into canned answers to frequently asked questions. Once we have such templates, anyone can edit them to add as much detail as we feel is necessary for the answers to be relatively self-contained and understandable, with no penalty in extra typing for the Help desk volunteer who uses such a template. --Teratornis 06:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps your essay could present the pros and cons of linking via shortcuts, rather than making a blanket recommendation either way. Someone who wants to present links in long form can certainly do so, but I think the user's greatest need is to get correct answers quickly. So if someone can answer quickly with a shortcut link, that is better than making the user wait longer for a more "considerate" volunteer to happen by and type the longer link. --Teratornis 06:12, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no source to back up my claim, the essay is my thoughts of how helpers can improve their answers. The banner at the top of the page clearly states "it merely reflects some opinions of its author(s)", ~~the essay is not built on facts~~. I'll agree with you that we shouldn't have to spoon-feed the newcomers. When I wrote that part of the essay, I thought that if we use shortcuts the user might get too confused, and will start to think that the help we have given is not making sense to them, "stuff this, I'm doing something else". It happened many times when I was a newcomer, maybe it is not the case with other users. Sebi _[talk] 06:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The template idea does sound good. Sebi _[talk] 06:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Help desk templates

Since we are constantly getting the question, "Why was my page deleted", I have created two templates: {{Creation1}}, for users with accounts; and {{Creation2}}, for ips. Hopefully, some users seeking to create appropriate articles will benefit from the information and avoid deletion, others will forego entirely creating speedy delete candidate waiting to happen (I think there's a distinct correlation between those who can't figure out how to create an article on their own, and those who aren't going to be creating proper content in any event), and those who create those types of articles anyway, can be said to have been forewarned. It is quite intentional that the actual information for page creation is at the end. Regarding the discussion above this talking about creating such canned templates for ad nauseum question, the timing here is complete serendipity; I started these two weeks ago and tackled them this morning, but I agree.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

If any kind soul would like to work on "How do I upload an image" and a "Please refer to the refdesk" template, that would be much appreciated. --Haemo 16:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

As for the latter, please see {{RD1}}, {{RD2}} and {{RD3}}. Use them all the time.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Could we possibly merge Creation2 into Creation1 and have some paramater, like {{Creation|ip}} or {{Creation|user}}? Sebi _[talk] 09:19, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Upload an image: {{UPIMG}}. I went ahead and created {{Creation}}, so typing {{Creation|user}} or just u will generate the registered user text, and {{Creation|ip}} will generate the unregistered user text. Sebi _[talk] 09:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea, but why would you do it in this way so the attribution is gone?--Fuhghettaboutit 12:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay fixed. Your functionality changes are in the first template (with attribution to you), which has been moved to {{creation}}.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:23, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You can always put in a little note somewhere in the documentation saying that you wrote the resulting text, and that I fiddled with the parserfunctions... Sebi _[talk] 21:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Created {{Lostemail}}, we often receive many email-related issues. Sebi _[talk] 21:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've created {{Vanish}}, for people asking how to delete their accounts. Some feedback would be appreciated. Confusing Manifestation 04:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like this is taking off. Looks good! One tweak: I changed {{db-author}} to {{db-userreq}}.--Fuhghettaboutit 05:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said on your talk page, thanks. I thought I might have the wrong template but didn't have the chance to find the right one. Confusing Manifestation 06:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Good work, ConMan. I have another idea for a template up my sleeve, I'll post it here soon. Sebi _[talk] 09:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Another new one, for users asking why their page was deleted: {{Articledeleted}}. Sebi _[talk] 09:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

ConMan: I posted that before you posted to my talk page (it sounds like you were wondering why I posted about it here after).--Fuhghettaboutit 12:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest the following text for {{Articledeleted}}

There are three processes under which mainspace articles are deleted: 1) speedy deletion; 2) proposed deletion (prod) and 3) Articles for deletion (AfD). For more information, see Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? To find out why the particular article you posted was deleted, go to the deletion log and type the exact name of the article, mindful of the original capitalization, spelling and spacing, into the search field marked "title." The deletion log entry will show when the article was deleted, by which administrator, and typically contain a deletion summary listing the reason for deletion. If you wish to contest this deletion, please contact the administrator first on his or her talk page and, depending on the circumstances, politely explain why you think the article should be restored, or why a copy should be provided to you so you can address the reason for deletion before reposting the article. If this is not fruitful, you have the option of listing the article at Wikipedia:Deletion review, but it will likely only be restored if the deletion was clearly improper.

--Fuhghettaboutit 12:37, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a good one, but I often tend to actually go so far as to work out why their page was deleted, so I probably won't use it as much. And Fuhghettaboutit, don't worry, I figured that out but thought it might be worth reiterating here, so you may appreciate the public expression of gratitude :) Confusing Manifestation 00:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

:-) I do the same as a matter of course. Since the template was posted though, I thought it needed more. Since I don't like to post substantial rewrites without consultation with the majority author, I posted the suggested text here. But since I haven;t heard boo, posting it to the template.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I created {{Help desk templates}}, and transcluded it on all the help desk template pages, so we don't have to go and manually update the list of help desk templates available. If you have more to add, add them before the coordination link. I also altered the header of this section to "Help desk templates". Sebi _[talk] 23:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

An excellent change. Is there a way to make that template recognize and not list the page it is on? Sort of contradicts with "see other held desk template, when it lists the page its on. If not maybe it should say "All help desk templates" or something in that vein.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

New: {{Renaming}}.--Fuhghettaboutit 00:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Did any of you catch the conversation on the help desk proper with Teratornis regarding these templates (here)? I think he made some good arguments for putting them all inside boxes making it clear they are canned templates. Also, I'm still not sure about the server load issue, but if it is a non-issue, keeping them transcluded may be a good idea, as he suggested.

On another issue, Spebi (or any other users far more adept at coding than I am), could you fix the usage display problem and the fact that all the code is seen in edit mode in {{Creation}}, as I noted at the start of the conversation linked above? Also, What does {{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|i|:|}} do at the start of {{Articledeleted}}). And why when {{UPIMG}} is used does "hope this has helped" appear strangely separated from the rest of the text with the coding before it {{#switch:{{{1|}}}|i=:|#default=}}. I would just move the text up, but I have no clue what the code is for:-)--Fuhghettaboutit 05:29, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the code in both cases is meant to result in auto-indentation, so by adding the parameter i in the template, it adds a colon and indents the response. I'll have to think about the implications of your first paragraph. Confusing Manifestation 05:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Aha. Thanks. I'm not sure all this esoteric switch stuff is working since there doesn't seem to be a way around having the non-displayed switch text cluttering the page in edit mode. By the way, two new ones: {{Linking}} and {{Reportvandal}}.--Fuhghettaboutit 23:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion(s)

I think these need to be documented on Wikipedia:Help desk/How to answer, and inluded in Category:Wikipedia standard response templates. I think the way to do this would be to add the category to {{Help desk templates}}, edit it so it's more like an infobox, and put that on the "How to answer" page. Thoughts? Confusing Manifestation 04:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Something like this? Sebi _[talk] 04:14, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Help desk templates:
{{Articledeleted}} · {{Creation}} · {{Renaming}} {{RD1}} · {{RD2}} · {{RD3}} {{UPIMG}} · {{Vanish}}

Coordination · This template

Something exactly like that. If you update the template to look more like this, I'll fix up the "How to ask" page. Confusing Manifestation 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. :) Sebi _[talk] 07:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Polypop poppas

I created an article that told of men who had fathered at least ten children by at least three women. I named the article Polypop and placed Brigham Young and Idi Amin on the list of five people. My article was deleted. I don't know why it was deleted. All five of the men in the article were real people, not fictional people. No "hoax" existed. Velocicaptor 03:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:V and WP:NEO. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 05:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Date headers

Hmm... the date headers seem to be messed up on the Help Desk page. Anyone know how to fix this? Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 14:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Fixed July 20 and 21. —Steve Summit (talk) 18:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The Page is upside down

Shouldn't the newest queries go at the top of the page as opposed to the opposite? Deathawk 05:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought so, the page generally follows the conventions of a discussion page, which has newer discussions at the bottom. AndrewJDTALK -- 09:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

It's generally how things work here. The plus link adds to the bottom, after all. And its preferential - some prefer newest first, so that they can get answers to new questions out quickly, but some might prefer newest last, just in case some questions are unanswered for a couple of days. x42bn6 Talk Mess 11:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It's structured the way it is because that's how English text reads: you start at the top left and read down to the bottom right. Top posting, like you suggest, is backwards from the way most people read, and extremely confusing to people who've never encountered a system like that. -- Kesh 14:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

True, but it's not that simple. Putting newer topics at the beginning of a page is standard practice in many other places; I know I'd never seen something where new threads went on the bottom of a page. Problem is, wiki structure makes it very hard to have a coherent top-posting system. -Amarkov moo! 00:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

August 22

August 21 has finished. The August 22 header wasn't added to the page. Do I add it manually, or is there another method? Astronaut 12:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe a bot does this automatically, as well as archiving the first day at the same time. x42bn6 Talk Mess 11:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Protection

I have a question about the page. Isn't the page violating WP:NFCC#9 (fair use outside of the mainspace)? I know there are some exceptions, but I've read Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria exemptions and the page isn't contained in Category:Wikipedia non-free content criteria exemptions. Can anyone answer this? Alpta 02:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Then ask someone to add the category to it. --tjstrf talk 02:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added the category now. It's an obvious exemption (not least because as it's a copy of the article, the fair use is legally valid there if it's legally valid in the article). --ais523 17:33, 14 September 2007 (U T C)

Wikipedia:Drawing board

Over the past month or so, I've been responding to the postings at Wikipedia:Drawing board, a much-less trafficked (and much more narrowly focused) help page. I'm going on wikibreak for a couple of weeks, maybe longer; if someone(s) responding to help desk questions wanted to help out over at WP:DRAW, that would be great. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You will be missed! I've been directing people that way routinely. :) I'll keep an eye on it, but doubt I can fill your shoes. You seem to do a great job making sense of some very sketchy questions. --Moonriddengirl 23:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

accountancy

Is there anyone who could tell recent happenings in accountancy field? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.98.27 (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

This is the sort of question that's best asked at the reference desk, after you've looked at relevant articles (which would be Accountancy, and articles linked from it) to see if you can find an article that answers your question. (It's also probably best if you disclosed what country or countries you were interested in - recent happenings in what part of the world?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Bedford High School Student

I am the mom of Chad Allen Richardson who graduated from Bedford High with a certificate of completion in Indiana. I need help getting records of him doing so. Can you please help me?

                              Sylvia Richardson

This Help Desk is for questions about using Wikipedia. Try the link to the reference desk at the top of this page. Many thanks, Lra drama 17:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

And this is the Help Desk talk page, which is for discussions about the Wikipedia Help Desk page. Confusing Manifestation 01:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Another Editor attacks me

Helo! I consistantly am attacked by another editor who disagrees with my contrabutions and he initiats edit wars and removes my sourced information. Where do I receive help from? The most recent attack, he called my contabutions "sloppy, skewed, and superficial" when I disagree with him, yet only in January did he prais my contrabutions to the same

Excellent work on the Politics of Wales article. You have improved it immeasurably. I have some minor suggestions, but I think this is a really solid piece of work. Normalmouth 06:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What do I do then if the editor is not contrabuting in good faith?Drachenfyre 22:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This is the Help Desk talk page, which is for discussions about the Wikipedia Help Desk page. I suggest you repost this question on the Help Desk page itself. -- Kesh 22:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Rfc gone awry

I tried the Rfc process to gain input on the pictures we should and shouldn't use on the solar energy page. There is one picture that has been kept in the lead despite 4 of 5 people disliking the picture because it is confusing and there are better pictures to use. There is one editor who likes the picture a lot so it keeps returning to the page. I was told there is an "I like it" policy that can help resolve this. I haven't been able to find this page. What is this policy called and where can I find it to move forward on resolving this issue? Mrshaba 02:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, (1) This is the talk page for the help desk, and hence the place to discuss the help desk itself, not ask questions about using Wikipedia. That said, (2) WP:ILIKEIT is not a policy, but a section of an essay talking about arguments to avoid when discussing the deletion of an article, so is not directly relevant to your situation. I'm afraid I can't help you further in resolving your problems, other than pointing out that there may be steps at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes still available to you. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Creating an article

I've made a substantial addition to Wikipedia:Your first article, adding a section about how to create a new page. Since that is now there I am making a small change to Template:Creation to remove the link to Help:Starting a new page - which was not very helpful anyway. Sbowers3 16:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

A previous revision of Help:Starting a new page was a lot more helpful, once upon a time. Maybe someone got the idea that it made starting a new article too easy. Hence, WP:WWMPD. Of course the smart solution would be to figure out how to automate the new article suitability evaluation so most new articles actually have a fair chance of complying with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, instead of the current system where we let naive users just go ahead and spend hours working on new articles that never had a chance to begin with. Unfortunately, computers might have to pass the Turing test before we can automate the type of expert judgment that our admins do now. --Teratornis (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

A good change. With regard to increasing new article suitability, I will also be updating the template once Wikipedia:Article wizard is finished. I think it's a great idea and if implemented so that many users wishing to create articles are directed there, we may seem some real improvement to the state of first articles, and some diminishment in numbers of articles that are pure speedy fodder (though I doubt there will be any way to measure the latter).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Any wizard that even partially classifies new articles should help, if it can allow new users to identify some types of articles that have little chance of surviving. When new users first learn about Wikipedia, they seem to learn how easy it is to edit before they learn how hard it is to create new articles that "stick." Maybe the Main page should list the number of deleted articles along with the number of articles. Probably the most important message for new users to grasp before they attempt to start new articles is to understand the scale of deletion. It would be nice to have statistics about new article survival rates vs. editor experience. If we find that, say, 90% of new articles created by editors with fewer than 5 previous edits get deleted, then obviously we would want the software to display appropriate warnings to new editors when they try to create new articles. --Teratornis 08:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Esskater11/Dirty images

Is a page like that acceptable here in wikipedia? Lex⁹⁴ ^Talk ^{Contributions} ^{Guest Book} 23:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. Perhaps WP:AN/I can be of more help? Though let's take a look at policy first. From What Wikipedia is not:

While obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site) is usually removed immediately, or content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy can be removed, some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content (such as the articles about the penis and pornography) and do not violate any of our existing policies (especially neutral point of view), nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where Wikipedia's servers are hosted.

And don't forget the userpage policy:

There is broad agreement that you may not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense. Wikipedia is not a soapbox is usually interpreted as applying to user space as well as the encyclopedia itself. You do have more latitude in user space than elsewhere, but remember: don't be a dick about it. Extremely offensive material may be removed on sight by any editor.

So, basically, that page is clearly inappropriate and should be deleted as soon as possible. You can also be bold and remove it yourself, though I think it would be best to let an admin handle the dirty work. NF24^{(radio me!}_{Editor review)} 12:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

There has also been this discussion. --Orange Mike 15:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Too big??

The helpdesk (at the time I write this - 09:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)) is far too large. At the moment, it has questions from 16 Nov to now (7 days). I think there is no longer any use for the questions older than 4 days, if not 2 or 3 days. Archiving this would greatly decrease the page size. JJIG ^(t|c) 09:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand the theory of leaving questions up, but you're correct, the page is quite often extremely long, and sometimes takes me 30+ seconds just to load it (with DSL!). I would love to see the archives run more often, as it is often difficult to reply when the page is 150kb+ in length. Ariel♥Gold 09:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. And whilst I guess many Helpdesk volunteers are brobably on broadband many questioners may well be on dial-up. I agree that we need to keep some older discussion but I think archiving after 3 days or so would be fine. Pedro : Chat 10:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I support a 3 days archive time. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Three or four days seems like a good idea. Woodym555 (talk) 16:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

~~Even less, 2 days? It seems more than likely that the users asking would have got it by then.~~ — Rudget _{contributions} 21:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I support 3 or 4 days. 2 days may be too little when a conversation develops. And even if there are no new replies, people may like being able to check that without searching for an archive. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest three days at the very least, due to some editors being busy during weekends, etc., and four days is probably better, in the case of holiday weekends. Either way, it would make the page much more manageable for those on dial up or slower internet connections. Ariel♥Gold 01:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess. — Rudget _{contributions} 19:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Someday Liquid Threads may fix this problem, so if we do nothing but wait, the problem should eventually go away. In the meantime, I like having a big Help desk page. It usually only takes a few seconds to load for me (especially now that I got a newer cable modem which doesn't flap constantly like the previous one). Anybody who uses dialup should be used to delays. At least we aren't displaying large images on the Help desk (usually). The New contributors' help page is quite a bit smaller. Could we somehow direct questioners who want a smaller help page to use that one? --Teratornis (talk) 01:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. This page has enough issues trying to direct people who want to know how to fix their car or how to integrate a function to Reference desks. If anything, I'd consider using those show/hide boxes for large threads more often, but that is cumbersome and doesn't decrease file size - it increases it. x42bn6 Talk Mess 01:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Style of this page

I was on the main page when I clicked on the Wikipedia:Help desk link. The first thing I saw was this.

Now, I, and many people appreciate the hard work you are doing helping people. You want newcomers to do their homework and not waste your time. But how far should one go along the path of warning people? I believe it is very bad taste to use Big red BOLD UNDERLINED FONT like that!

I suggest that for the respect of the reader we keep the bold, but without the red and underlined whch looks like shouting to me. Here's the proposed version. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The help desk gets a large number of posts which are not about Wikipedia and often they are so poorly formulated that we don't know whether they are about Wikipedia or not. (And a lot of posts that are about Wikipedia are also very unclear). I support an in-your-face banner if that can reduce this confusion. The first and often hardest step for help desk volunteers is figuring out what people actually want help with. PrimeHunter 16:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Judging by the amount of Reference Desk questions, questions that just don't make sense, and the amount of people that post their email, it's clear no one reads the header anyway. I don't believe that it's worth fixing if no one reads it. NF24^{(radio me!)} 21:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually the current version does look very ugly... -- Menti fisto 08:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not too pretty, but I think it's needed. It might help if the link to ask a question was "hidden" in the header somewhere (eg. click here to ask a question), although that might cause people to edit the page. <Karlww_{(contribs|talk)} 08:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

We waste a lot of time dealing with these posts. A post directed at someone in particular, in all caps, is considered shouting at that person. The banner here is generic, not directed at anyone in particular. I have trouble believing anyone would read that and think, "how rude" or something in that vein and go away or not ask their question if it is appropriate. Rather, they will read that and think, "wow, they must get a lot of misplaced posts not directed at using Wikipedia" and then ask their question. There is little doubt that aesthetically it is not as nice as black text but if it is shouting then so be it: we need to shout this. The header was changed in this manner on August 12, 2007 [5]. I said in my reversion summary that we used to get a lot more misplaced questions before the change. That was based on my impression. I wanted to see if I could back that up in some way. I searched google using text from {{RD2}} for the month before the change and after. During July there were apparently 15 posts using that template [6], as opposed to 5 in September [7]. I'll take a 2/3 reduction, if this small sampling is meaningful. Finally, if we decide we must take away the red, we should leave using as USING. We would be greatly emphasizing one short word. That's not in any way equivalent to a shouting post in all caps. Finally, maybe we can choose a color tha's a bit less fiery but still sets off the text from the rest, say purple. or maroon--Fuhghettaboutit 12:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

(undent) The Help desk has gone through multiple cycles of adding and removing instructions from the top of the Help desk page, changing their color and size, etc. "Nobody" reads the instructions, which really means a few people ignore all the instructions no matter what. We are pretty sure some (other) people read the instructions, because every time we cut the instructions down, the number of people who do things we previously instructed against seems to increase. Then somebody adds the instructions back, and later someone else decides the instructions are ineffective because someone else ignored them, and the instructions get cut down (which seems to increase the number of people who do wrong things, so the instructions go back, and the ergonomic pendulum continues to swing). However, I don't know that anybody has collected scientifically rigorous data. According to Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant), you have to carefully observe users to see how they react to things. The Help desk actually works pretty well considering it uses wiki software that wasn't at all designed for providing technical support. Obviously our new users who ask the bulk of the questions need a little more structure to guide them, such as a help wizard that would classify incoming questions and route them appropriately. It would also be nice if Wikipedia could automatically include a link to the last Wikipedia page or pages the questioner was just looking at, because many users are so new they don't know how to make links themselves, nor do they realize the importance of telling us what page they have a question about. In any case, about that big ugly red header. You say it was the first thing you noticed when you browsed to the Help desk. Regrettably, that is a compelling argument to leave the big ugly header in place, because we want people to notice the message. On the Help desk, we must balance competing interests: new users need help, but we don't pay the experienced volunteers who provide the help. The only reward for the helpers is that we enjoy providing help. Wikipedia will never have a shortage of users needing help, but it could develop a shortage of knowledgeable users willing to provide help for free. Therefore, we are necessarily biased in favor of ugly red banners that potentially make the Help desk more enjoyable for the people who make it work. I'm not trying to be harsh here, just stating the reality of the situation. In a volunteer project, everything revolves around keeping the "doers" happy first. If the doers stop doing, the project collapses. Help is free on Wikipedia, but not entirely free - the price includes having to look at the ugly red all-caps banner. --Teratornis 08:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The entire top section of the page Wikipedia:Help Desk is a hideous confusing mish-mash. It is not like the various instructions are going to be effective except for the small few people who patiently read from the top to the bottom of the section and then go back to find the link they want. Talk:Main Page is similarly overly convoluted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.1.100.109 (talk) 16:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure is a big bold warning all right. And people STILL miss it sometimes. We will need something like Do NOT click any links! to dissuade people from asking any more questions [joke]. Here's an idea: we could move the warning about providing email addresses from the white box at the top to the numbered list just below. That's where it goes semantically, along with the point about monitoring the page for responses, and it would reduce the number of different font styles used inside that box. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 00:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

We seem to be getting a lot of questions lately from people who come here from an article on a particular subject and think they are at the homesite of the subject and thus the help desk is for questions about the subject. The referenced template is intended to address those types of questions.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Help Desk Far Too Large - Bot Operator needs to fix ASAP

As we all know to well, the Help Desk is far too large, I am writing this at 17:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC). At the current moment it has questions from December 7th, which is almost a week ago. As JJIG has mentioned in an above conversation, there is no use for any articles that are longer than 4 days old at the very maximum, if not it should be archived every three days. Many of the wikipedia users have slow internet connection, so it takes a long time to load this page, for Wikipedians that want to ask questions or help answer ones! Very simple request, get the bot that archives the talk page to do so every 3-4 days.

The bot is: User:Scsbot

The bot owner is: User:Ummit

At least I think that is the bot, please can somebody do something about this... to help all of the Wikipedia Community and make Wikipedia an better encyclopaedia!

Please reply on my talk page if possible, which is User_talk:Thehelpfulone

Thanks!

The Helpful One ^(Talk)^{(Contributions)} 17:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit 1: PLEASE CAN SOMEBODY REPLY TO THIS!!! The Helpful One ^(Talk)^{(Contributions)} 19:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I have respond on your talk page signed by my signature, Warning: An IP Address was detected on your talk page, don't erase the comment, IP + comment reported. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 20:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

For future reference: the bot I operate (Scsbot) archives the Help Desk because the archiving scheme is similar to the Reference Desks, but I am not a Help Desk regular, so I'm unlikely to see any discussion here. If there are issues, please let me know on my talk page.

The bot is semiautomated, in that it does all the work, but only when I manually invoke it. Sometimes I miss a day or two, and then, I know, the page gets even longer. (But this is likely to happen some more over the holidays.) —Steve Summit (talk) 22:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Undoing Bot image deletes? How is that done after a message is received "OrphanBot (Talk | contribs) (Removing image with no copyright information. Such images that are older than seven days may be deleted at any time.)"-- mrg3105 mrg3105 10:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The question doesn't really belong here. I have replied at User talk:mrg3105#Image deletion. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

How do you insert a picture on a wikipedia page.Defender of Meese (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

You can find the answer here. :) ▪◦▪≡SiREX≡^Talk 18:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Help Desk Archive.

The help desk is getting way too long and certain browsers are starting to struggle with loading the page up and it's becoming too slow, shall i archive the help desk manually but up to section December 14th which is the latest.SKYNET X7000 (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Manual archiving is tricky and I don't recommend it. There is already automatic archiving by Scsbot who just archived two days.[8][9] We just have to agree on how many days to display at a time and then make a request to the bot operator. Currently 3 archived days are transcluded: December 10, 11, 12. Maybe we should simply stop doing that? PrimeHunter (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, eliminate the transcluded archives: that's half the current page right there. Transclude them (if at all) into a separate page. --teb728 t c 07:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the decision is, the help desk should be archived, my browser Mozilla including the standard IE 7 is starting to struggle opening the page, because of it becoming too big, and other people who have trouble with slow connections will need the page archiving so that they could view the help desk. SKYNET X7000 (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the 3 transcluded pages which are linked at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/December 2007, and informed the operator of Scsbot at User talk:Ummit#Help desk archiving. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Understood SKYNET X7000 (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I've just tweaked the bot script to keep 3 days + 1 transcluded day, because that was trivial. Leaving 0 transcluded days would be a slightly more invasive change, which I'll look into another day. (If I neglect to, and if the size of the page continues to be a problem, please let me know on my talk page.)

It would also be an option to keep 2 days + 1 transcluded day, if anybody thought that made more sense. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. All the options are fine by me (I have a fast connection). PrimeHunter (talk) 22:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia for the blind

I am Blind and I am new. I want to participate like everyone else. There is this bully out there named cliffC who is making everything very difficult. I am trying to give and all he wants to do is take away. can someone keep this guy out of my face... he is not helpful - he is a bully. --Trgwilson (talk) 00:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this straight: CliffC attempts to help you understand core Wikipedia policies and guidelines like WP:EL and WP:N and you turn around and call him a wiki-bully. I don't see how helping a new user grasp the (often complicated, in my opinion) workings of Wikipedia is disruptive in any way. I will also move this to the main Helpdesk page; this is the talk page, where improvements to the Helpdesk may be discussed. NF24^{(happy holidays!)} 01:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I have offered to help Trgwilson, tho' he hasn't edited for some time. DuncanHill (talk) 02:56, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

!

You should have a link to a page that is suggestions for features on wikipedia.
X××x××pink×jellocreature××x××X (talk) 01:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

We have many places to make different types of suggestions. If you have something specific in mind then you can say what it is at your post in Wikipedia:Help desk#help..., and ask where to best suggest it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed template change

I'm proposing an additional category in the Template:Editabuselinks to reduce the number of posts at WP:AN and WP:AN/I, please feel free to comment here User:Mbisanz/TemplateSandbox. MBisanz ^talk 13:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Zoo Template

→ Question moved to Help desk main page

Use of “by state” in subcategories

I noticed that "Category:Wetlands of the United States" has a subcategory "Category:Wetlands of the United States by State" before listing subordinate state categories while "Category:Parks in the United States" does not have a “by state” subcategory when listing state level categories. Is there guidance when to create the additional “by state” subcategory when developing separate state lists in a category? Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 14:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

image copyright question

can someone help me and delldot here[10][11] in figuring out the license for this photo???im pretty sure it's free it's just that delldot can't quite figure out what license to choose.thank you allGrandia01 (talk) 07:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

forget it.fixed.Grandia01 (talk) 01:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Prominence of Wikipedia:Help desk page "Click here to ask your question about using Wikipedia" link

How about making the "Click here to ask your question about using Wikipedia" box/text more prominent, e.g. increase the font size, change the text/box colour to something more visually prominent? It should stick out like ...

For newbies, I think it should be much more visible. BlueOrb (talk) 11:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people have clearly not read the instructions, causing significant problems. This number will probably increase if that link really sticks out, so I don't support it. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposed header

I propose a new header for the Help desk:

This is an old version

Please read the VFAQ before asking a question here!

This page is for questions about USING Wikipedia only.

For factual and other kinds of questions,
use the search box or the reference desk.

For your own security, please DO NOT provide your email.
We are unable to provide answers via email and this page is highly visible across the Internet.

Please read the following before asking your question:

Before asking, please read the VFAQ. Your question has probably been answered before.
Please be aware that we cannot, under any circumstance, provide medical, legal, or any other sort of advice that is normally regulated by governmental authorities.
To ask a new question, click the "Click here to ask your question" link below. Remember to fill out the Subject/Headline field.
After asking your question, check this page for response(s).

Special services:

If you place {{helpme}} on your talk page, an editor will visit you there ASAP! (Helpers can find you at Wikipedians looking for help.)
Join the #wikipedia-en-help IRC chat room for live assistance. New to IRC? Click here to be connected instantly!

After reading the VFAQ, click here to ask your question about using Wikipedia

Changes:

link to VFAQ, not FAQ
formatting to emphasize reading the VFAQ
reorder the "please read the following" section
remind users once again to read the VFAQ

If there are no objections I will install the new version. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I miss the "Search Help desk" link here. I think this should really stay in the header. It's very useful. Free style 10:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree; keep the very prominent search link. The "please read" section looks to be in the same order as the current page. Libcub (talk) 11:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

What is above is an old proposal. It was installed a while back and then the Search link was added. I've collapsed the proposal so that nobody else thinks it is a proposal to change what is there now. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

RSS to Wiki page?

Some time ago, I seem to remember that any Wiki article could be tagged for RSS feed whenever a change was made to the page. But now I can't find this feature. Can a Wikipedia article be syndicated for RSS feed? Thanks. 75.104.160.36 (talk) 01:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Syndication. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Archive (again)

The Help desk seems to always be over 100 kilobytes long. What does everyone think about it being archived more often? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 03:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)