User talk:Go for it!/archive03

Tip of the day - February 20, 2006: Effective searching

Using the advanced settings of Google, that search engine can be used to search Wikipedia much more effectively than Wikipedia's search box. Once you've entered the desired search term (at Google), go to Google's advanced search screen. Then, for the entry "Domain", insert Wikipedia's URL (web address) in the provided input box, and click "Google search".

RfA

File:Order of Smile.png

I declined it. This gesture was one of the nicest gestures I have received in WP. You don't know how much I appreciate it. However, a pact is pact and I will wait for Durin's verdict, whatever and whenever that will be. Hope you understand. RfA is a big deal for me and I don't mind to spend a week or a month here or there. I don't see a need to rush. But I surely thank you very much! And here you get a nice little sun to your talk page, hope it will find a place in your archives ;) Renata 00:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I do understand, and look forward to supporting your nomination, when it occurs. Be sure to drop me a note at that time. --Go for it! 00:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Motto of the day

Might I interest you in another project? :) I came across this page and I think it it is a very neat idea. They already have about 100 mottos. It's not been too active lately, but it would be a shame to trash away those funny taglines. So, I suggest we implement the idea of the motto of the week (there is plenty of good mottos to start with). Just create a template and put it on the comm portal(?). What do ya think? Renata 01:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

How about making it motto of the day? There's enough on there already for 3 months, and with the increased exposure from being on the Community Portal, it will likely accumulate more, real fast (assuming we provide an edit link like those found on many user pages). There's plenty of room in the featured contents box, so this little project could be set up under a level 2 heading after the featured content list. --Go for it! 02:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, that was nice of you to go down to the WTC and take pictures of the construction site for Wikipedia. --Go for it! 02:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, WTC is not that far away from my college, so it's not a big deal at all. About daily motto... I think we should start with weekly and see how that goes. There are 95 mottos, but not all of them are worthy to be featured. Also, it is less labor :) (I am lazy and busy). Can I be bold and put the motto right under "Welcome to the Community Portal!" ? (there is a little space there in both IE and FireFox) Or do you think that's way too bold? Also, I think we should put it on the talk pages first and give a couple of days to object.

It could go something like: Weekly Community Motto: blah blah. WCM would be linked to the template (Template:motto which is not used anywhere?).

Another trouble: how to choose the next motto? Vote or featured article style when one man decides?

The first one should be: "This motto is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy" - my bets are that will really happen :) Renata 03:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It's whatever you feel like doing and have time for. The bigger the production, the more labor intensive the oversight will be. If you keep it simple, and update it personally, the project can always be expanded later when enough users express desire to participate. A nomination page would also be pretty simple: have the list on the discussion page, and anyone could add to the list there and nominate any item on the list (with a bulleted signature). The line with the most nominations goes next and gets erased from the list.

To make it a daily feature with the least amount of effort, dated subpages can be used to stock the template up in advance, like is done with picture of the day. --Go for it! 03:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I started to write procedures for the motto thing... and I caught myself making another bureaucracy with voting systems much like Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week. And then I remebered that it should be fun and easy-going and stress releasing... So I dunno what to do now. I could follow something like Wikipedia:Today's featured article where one man decides what to do (very efficient I should say). But... I dunno... a self-declared tyrant? :) It is very anti-democracy and anti-community and anti-me... So, um, any advice/ideas? Renata 07:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the procedure, it is probably best to keep it simple. Check out the instructions I wrote for the Tip of the day project. It takes 2 editors to ratify an entry. (Also, as coordinator, I watch over the whole operation and apply a bit of quality control of my own). --Go for it! 23:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), February 21, 2006: Getting a subpage listing

To get a list of all the subpages for a particular page, click on Special pages in the toolbox. Then click on All pages at the top of the list. Then select the namespace the page is in (from the pulldown menu), and enter the pagename in the inbox with the caption Display pages starting at, and press Go. If the page's name was "pagename", then all the subpages would start with "pagename/".

Tip of the day (preview), February 22, 2006: The topic list

One type of article found on Wikipedia is the topic list. It is a list of links to articles on a particular subject. It is different than categories found in Wikipedia's category system in that categories are usually limited to one level each in a tree, while lists can be an entire tree, with many branches and many levels. This gives the benefit of having all the topics on a given subject in one place - this allows you to scoll down and read the whole tree, and every topic in that tree's subject.

Read more: Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)

Tip of the day (preview), February 23, 2006: List building

There are three basic steps to building a topic list for Wikipedia: the first is to search Wikipedia to make sure it doesn't already have a list on the subject. The second step is to hunt down every word you can find on the subject, from your own memory, books, web directories, dictionaries, etc. Surround each term with double square brackets, and save the page. Because Wikipedia has become so extensive, don't be surprised if most or even all of the links turn out blue (those are live links, each leading to an article on Wikipedia). Dead-end links are red, but don't remove them, because they show what articles Wikipedia is missing — anyone can click on a red link to create an article on that topic. The third step is checking each live article in the list for links to related topics. When you find one, add it to the list.

Read more: Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)

Tip of the day (preview), February 24, 2006: When is a wikipedia project a WikiProject?

The term "WikiProject" is reserved for projects created for the purpose of managing a specific family of information within Wikipedia. It is not a place to write encyclopedia articles, but a resource to help coordinate and organize article writing. The attached talk pages are a convenient forum for those interested in a particular project. WikiProjects can also have associated Portals. The Tip of the day project is not a WikiProject, because it coordinates the development of self-referential content (Wikipedia instructions) rather than content of the encyclopedia itself (such as Roman Empire). Note that some self-referential projects have broken this guideline.

Read more: Wikipedia:WikiProject

Tip of the day (preview), February 25, 2006: Centralizing project discussion

When a project has more than one page associated with its key functions, such as a project or operations page, an archive, templates, etc., it is generally best to redirect the discussion pages for all those pages to the main discussion page for the project. That way, participants remain aware of what is going on with the project without having to search out every nook and cranny where discussions may be taking place. The exception to this strategy is when a task is delegated that would generate a great deal of discussion, and centralizing it with the project's other discussions would create a discussion page of unmanageable size. For an example of this overall strategy, see the discussion pages of the tip of the day project:

• Template page: Template talk:Tip of the day
• Operations page: Wikipedia:Tip of the day
• Project and instructions page: Wikipedia talk:Tip of the day
• Userbox template: Template talk:User tipster

Note that there is no page called "WikiProject Tip of the day" because the term WikiProject is generally reserved for projects that develop and maintain the subject-matter of the encyclopedia itself. Therefore, the talk page for the Tip of the day's main operations page is used as the project page and its forum.

Thank You

Hey, thanks so much for the very kind words at WP:RFA. I don't expect to make it this time.. I've noticed with a lot of voting that happens on the Wikipedia, trivial matters get pointed out and people get ravenous about them. For example, see my current FPC Nomination.. and though the arguments there and on the RFA may be valid, I think the positives outweigh the negatives in both accounts. Anyway, I really appreciate it. If you're ever applying for an adminship, look me up and I'll support you all the way drumguy⁸⁸⁰⁰ - speak? 13:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You'll make it. If not this time, sooner or later. In the meantime, as long as you enjoy your participation in Wikipedia, that's what counts. --Go for it! 14:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day April 21, 2006: Thanks for helping a newbie!

Filmcom 14:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I award this random acts of kindness Barnstar to Go for It! for being very helpful to a newcomer wikipedian, without being asked to.Filmcom 19:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I just want to thank you for building on my tip and making it a true wikipedia tip of the day. I'm still learning a lot about how to do things around here, so your help was greatly appreciated! Keep up the great work, and keep on Going for it!

My RFA

Thank you for the kind words and your support in my successful RFA. The admin tools will definitely be useful for dealing with vandalism. Needless to say, if you notice me doing something not quite right or have questions about any of my actions, please drop me a note on my talk page. Thanks. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 15:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Will do. And thank you. --Go for it! 16:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

New Message

ROFL! I love that special thing you have on you workshop page! How can I put it on my user page? Filmcom 22:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC) Thanks for putting it on my user page for me! 00:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Main page redesign

I sincerely appreciate and accept your apology.  :-)

If you don't mind some constructive criticism, it's my observation that your biggest wiki-weaknesses are your impatience and impulsiveness. These, of course, are side effects of your ambition and boldness, which are admirable qualities. In time, however, you'll learn that good things come to those who wait. You also will learn that sometimes, "less" is "more." The fact that we can do something doesn't necessarily mean that we should. Being "bold" sometimes entails experimenting in manners that might not sit well with the community at large, but it doesn't mean forcing through unpopular proposals or gambling that they'll pay off in the end. If something is met with resistance from others, there usually is a good reason. Some ideas simply aren't well-liked by the community, and it's unfair to claim that the failure to implement them is due to "playing it safe." In other words, prudence != a lack of boldness. —David Levy 01:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, when it is the community-at-large who are actually responding, rather than somebody who is merely trying to anticipate what their response will be. Wikis are set up for direct participation, so the above doesn't usually happen, except in the case of draft-preparation for protected pages. Then you have to deal with meta-reasons: when the reason given is based on fear or speculation that something won't be well-received by others, rather than the reason actually coming from those who aren't well-receiving it, then that's rhetoric, and it tends to misguide development or slow it down. This seems to be most prevelent on drafting projects. I've not yet run into this on pages that can be edited directly, because everyone (the community-at-large) is expected to speak for themselves on those (and for this reason I am very happy that the vast majority of pages on Wikipedia are unprotected). If you look at my contributions, you'll find that I don't take on projects simply because I can, but because they provide some specific benefit or improvement to the community. Examples include a rewrite of the Philosophy project page, the List of basic topic lists, overhauling the Help page, overhauling the Community Portal, etc. All of those projects were completed in a fraction of the time of the Main Page redesign, and the latter 2 have nearly as much exposure as the Main Page. Specific elements on a specific page may be impulsive, but those are smoothed out by the community pretty fast via direct response, which in my humble opinion is the best thing to happen to the Internet, and is precisely what makes a wiki a wiki. It's the single reason why no non-wiki encyclopedia will ever catch up to Wikipedia (that is, until they invent AI's that can write as well as people). --Go for it! 02:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand what you're getting at, but our concerns are far less speculative than you seem to believe. My statement that the extra search box was supported by roughly half of the community (and therefore lacked consensus) was based upon the feedback that we received. Thus far, the current straw poll has delivered similar results.

Likewise, it's a simple fact that we have not been able to agree upon which new portal links to add (which isn't surprising, given the limited amount of discussion and need for reorganization), so throwing in the ones that you or I happen to like (at the exclusion of portal links that other people might want to include) is not a viable option. But again, this is something that can be discussed after the new main page design is approved (fingers crossed). To combine these issues into one would be very confusing and counterproductive, because people would be forced to vote on both at the same time (in all-or-nothing fashion). Even if they were to choose "all" over "nothing," that wouldn't be fair.

In summary, these ideas were shot down not because we aren't bold enough, but because we're sensible enough to reject them. —David Levy 02:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Tipster & other

Hi, I have not been around because as my user page says - I am busy. Besides, I just got an infection and I am sick, once again... I am still thinking about motto procedures and I cannot decide. I think you can put tipster on the CBB :) On newbie tips, hm, {helpme}, what is namespace, where to find wiki syntax, how to cite sources, what types of templates we have (infobox, navigation, warnings, etc), page moving, something along those lines. Renata 18:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day

Hey, I just came across this project, very nice idea. Where are you planning to plant the links to it? Also, I notice that WP:TIP is available, do you like it?  :-) hydnjo talk 23:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I'll snag that shortcut. Thanks again! --Go for it! 07:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A link to the project will be incuded in the project's template.

What tips do you think I should write for newbies? --Go for it! 08:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), February 26, 2006: Working with table formatting

Some table formatting has color codes, margin codes, etc. repeated throughout. So when you want to change the color scheme throughout the whole table, each code needs to be changed multiple times. Don't fall into the trap of modifying these manually! Cut and paste the whole document from Wikipedia's edit box to a word processor in another window (Wordpad works well for this). Then use the wordprocessor's replace command to change each code throughout the whole document. --Go for it! 14:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you noticed

You have a dead image on your user page. -- A Clown in the Dark 03:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. --Go for it! 03:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer De.Doit

Excuse me for my poor English. I'm sorry for asking this question on this discussion but I want to design a portal with a white background coulor on the German Wikipedia site. Nobody knows how you have changed the background coulor to white at your drafts. Usually the background colour is defined by the software and can only be changed in personal sylesheets (user/monobook.css). Is there a way to override the default settings? I hope somebody can help us. Thanks --

(above message posted on wrong page - didn't find it until just now. Luckily he found the answer to his question). --Go for it! 14:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), February 27, 2006: Need ideas for your user page design?

Are you are ready to build your user page, but don't have a clue what to put on there? For some great ideas check out the user pages from the weekly Esperanza User Page Awards. There are 5 winners each week. Winners can be found on the Esperanza User Page Awards Hall of Fame. To browse the user page nominations (there are 15 in each contest), you'll have to explore the history page of the contest page.

Tip of the day (preview), February 28, 2006: Counting your edits

Instead of counting your edits 500-at-a-time in your contributions list, you could use Kate's Tool.

Read more: Editcountitis

Tip of the day (preview), March 1, 2006: Keyboard shortcuts

Like most other programs, Wikipedia has keystroke combinations that can speed up your use of the program. Like alt-e to edit, alt-p to preview, alt-s to save, and many more. See: Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts.

Read more: Access keys

My RFA

Thank you for supporting my successful request for adminship. I'll try to put the admin tools to good and responsible use. If I do anything wrong you know where to find me. Raven4x4x 08:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Main Page election

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad that we've managed to set aside our differences for the sake of the project, and I hope to work with you again on the portal reorganization and main page alternates.

I intended to protect the page, but Titoxd beat me to it by about a minute.

No worries regarding the mistaken reversions; that's all sorted out now. (And I know what you mean about the edit conflicts!)

Fingers crossed,
David Levy 00:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Main Page alternates is complete, except for some last minute details on the pic of the day support. My goal was to get that department serviceable, and it is. If somebody wants to improve that department, then I think that's great. One caveat though: resist the temptation to standardize the pages and their links. The whole reason for the project's existence is variety, in form and function.

That's where we differ. I believe that the alternative designs should differ primarily in form, not function. If a design differs in function, there should be a specific rationale, and such differences shouldn't be combined without rhyme or reason. While diverse, the present layouts are seemingly random in some respects, and they need to be...well, standardized.

The rationale, is that different people think (function) differently. Different people have different tastes and different interests. Not to cater to those is to force everyone along the same path. Of course I'm referring to link-paths here. Wikipedians are as diverse, or even more so, than Wikipedia itself. --Go for it! 15:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

My objection is that rather than being tailored to meet specific needs/preferences, the designs appear to have been assembled in a semi-random fashion. There should be clear logic behind the combinations of elements. —David Levy 17:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

But please, let's not debate this now.  :-) —David Levy 05:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't intend to debate it at all, as it is a bridge project, and therefore temporary. Any conflict over it will be a waste of time. Wikipedia itself is becoming more mainstream. Therefore, the next obvious step in Wikipedia's evolution is customization, ala Yahoo. --Go for it! 15:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

On this, we agree. —David Levy 17:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Topic Tree

The Topic Tree discussion will likely go the wrong direction, focusing on form rather than on function, unless enough polls are taken. As for me, I've got my sights set on the Wikipedia namespace. I'm in the process of learning Wikipedia's policies, and how to use Wikipedia in greater detail.
Cheers. --Go for it! 05:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 2, 2006: Think outside the box

Just as Google can be used to supplement Wikipedia's searchbox, your browser's toolbar can be used to supplement Wikipedia's navigation aids and the Main Page. Use it to create alternate access points to Wikipedia, and as your own customized navigation bar.

Read more: Main Page alternates

Help for External Wiki Site (Please)

I have an external Wiki site im trying to do, i need some help please I am trying to do the Content Box with no luck. is there a tutorial on how to do this from scratch(fresh installed wiki) or maybe a help of any kind (or eavn a kind hand from Go for It) I am also interested in the "on this day" (you have on the main page suggestions) You can reach me at perndrgn at yahoo dot com. thanks for any help you may provide
Johnny (User talk:24.166.231.142)

To create a content box, find one on Wikipedia that you like, and study its source text.

See also Help:Contents/Technical information.

Please provide me with a link to your external Wiki site, so that I might take a look. I would then be able to communicate through the Wiki, rather than email. --Go for it! 18:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

---

http://argodragonsoftware.info/wiki/index.php?title=Example2

i tryed to fix the redirect thats the problem im having its not working right (i dont know enoph about wiki yet to fix it) thanks for the help

See Wikipedia:Section#Section linking --Go for it! 20:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Thank you very much for your help so far.
The above example worked fine altho i did notice a small adjustment.
As i linked it to a picture(icon), you have to encaase the compllte line in <h2> or aproprate size, ie <h2>[[Image:Nuvola apps display.png|40px]] Program Information </h2> as ===Program Information=== will not work, i am asuming its due to the image being a link. but it works if encased in <h?>.
Example:
no H tags & === heading:
===Program Information===
with H tags & no ===:

Program Information

Again thanks for your help
{im going to see if i can figure out the "on this day (Happened), anything you can point me in the direction would be great and very welcome}
Johnny 15:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

did you try this:

Program Information

and this:

Program Information

What you really need is time on Wikipedia. All this stuff you are doing can be found relatively easily in the Help system, and in source text (just find a page that has page design elements you like, and look at the source text). Go to all the major pages, and study the source text: Help:Contents, Main Page, Wikipedia:Main Page alternates, Wikipedia:Community Portal, Portal:Browse, other Portals (they are listed at the previous link), and all the pages listed on Template:Browsebar. For some really advanced stuff, look at user pages. Then build a page or two for Wikipedia, and I can continue helping you in the context of your work on those Wikipedia pages. We're not supposed to use these talk pages for non-Wikipedia discussion. Sincerely, --Go for it! 16:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Nope never thought of putting the heading tags in that way...(i will adjust them to the correct format.)
I have been looking at the pages and what not...as well as reading the help sections too. as for talking about wikipedia stuff wouldnt this be concidered the same as its pertaining to how to do things in wiki envoroment?? non the less i have the wiki set up on my site if you wish to discuse it there farther.
i need to find out how to add the div (i assume its a css mater) to my site for rounded coners and what not... i have them setup in the css for the main part, so i can add the pages like you and cyberjunkie have, i moded my user page to reflect a moded version of yours and cyberjunkies user page (gave credit line too)
Thanks again for your help - will continue any father discusions on my site if youd like.
--Johnny 18:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Nope, this is an encyclopedia, run on a wiki. Wiki discussion without the "pedia" is not Wikipedia-related. I've already got my hands full here, but thanks for the offer. And good luck with your new wiki! You'll be an expert before you know it. --Go for it! 18:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 3, 2006: WP-specific Google searchbox

Here's a customized Google searchbox, already preset to search Wikipedia:

[1]

Read more: Using external search engines

Help site map TOC glitch

Fixed. Just add the following code if you want to add a right-aligned TOC to a page, but don't want it to be displayed on "derivative" pages.

<noinclude> {{TOCright}} </noinclude>

I've started TAFE, so my time here has diminished, but I will use the <noinclude> code to put a template on Wikipedia: help pages that have a Help: namespace equivalent, and I will continue to work on help pages from time to time. Gareth Aus 04:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip! I've added it to the Tip of the day project...

UPDATE I've created the template I was talking about at Template:Wikipedia-specific help. If you want to help tag all the Wikipedia namespace help pages with this feel free! (boring I know).

re. the tip - maybe adding (copy a page's content into another page) after transclude would help explain the jargon. Gareth Aus 06:00, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 4, 2006: Transclusion caveat

When you transclude a page (that is, automate the display of a page's content on another page), all its tags (like {{TOCRight}}) go with it, which will be implemented on the host page. Just add the following code if you want to add a right-aligned TOC to a page, but don't want it to be displayed on "derivative" pages:

<noinclude> {{TOCright}} </noinclude>

Read more: Transclusion

Signpost on comm portal

The way you put it in is very ugly, IMHO. I don't think it belongs to featured content (what could belong is new admins). I think signpost belongs to CBB box. I know it's template in a template and there is something that says don't do it. But isn't there something we could do about it? Renata 12:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the template belongs inside the CBB. I don't think that every story needs to be formated as an entry on its own, because it's manual maintenance and they will mix up with everything else. Now it would be nice to get rid of some template over-formating. But I guess that will be decided once you are done with overall comm portal structure.

I would also think about adding new admins under a new heading in "new featured content." In a way, they are a featured content :) Renata 01:55, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Could you please take a look at this and express your opinion? Thanks. Renata 04:06, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

My signature

Thanks! I've tried to shorten my signature, but unfortunately, I've got a link to Esperanza in the sig (the green e), and this makes my sig look much longer in edit mode. Still, I'll try using line breaks after signing.

smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 17:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

re: Village pump question

Good evening. I took a stab at answering your question. You can find my examples and tests at User:Go for it!/table tests. Hope that helps. Rossami (talk) 21:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I was browsing the Village pump as well, and saw that your question had been unanswered for a bit. Unfortunately I seem to have duplicated Rossami's excellent work; if it helps, I've added my solution to the same page. Good luck! — Catherine\^talk 22:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Attempting to answer your follow-up question at User:Go for it!/table test 1. If you're still online, meet me there. Rossami (talk) 05:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Glad I could help. I'm dropping off now. If you're going to do a lot of complicated tables, I recommend following Catherine's lead and using comments to document what you're doing. If you have any other questions, leave me a note. Good luck. Rossami (talk) 06:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

So you want something like this? If so, that has three columns and 5 rows. At the start of every oversized cell (or if you're familiar with Excel, every merged cell), specify whether the cell is merged across multiple columns or rows. Assuming that's what you want, I'll mock it up on your test1 page again. Rossami (talk) 08:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

-------------
|            |
-------------
|     |      |
|     |------|
|     |   |  |
|     |   |--|
|     |   |  |
-------------
|            |
-------------

I thought you dropped off, so I continued tinking with it on the test page, though I'm not even sure how I managed to get it. --Go for it! 08:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I had dropped off but couldn't sleep so I came back... To answer your latest question, you merge cells with the colspan and rowspan commands. These commands live in the first section of the cell and define how many cells right (or down) should be merged into the specified cell. By the way, I think I know an alternate way to do this. I'm going to play with a few of your test tables again. Rossami (talk) 15:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

TOTD lightbulb

How's this then?

--Keycard ^(talk) 17:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's my new transparent model

--Keycard ^(talk) 08:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I could recolour the bulb, but I thought the "cartooniness" was quite good. Thanks for your help, though. BTW, when will the TOTD project restart?--Keycard ^(talk) 11:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Larry the Lightbulb sounds fine! Thanks again for your help!--Keycard ^(talk) 07:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Motto rules

Ok, I drafted something. I used a lot of ideas fromWikipedia:Esperanza/User Page Award. I don't really like it. I need some feedback. Do you think it is too complicated? (I know that the wording is awful and it needs more explanation) Also, it is missing about the overseer. Might I talk you into becoming a co-overseer? In previous link, the "unfit" would need two more votes to be removed. I just tried to organize the list and see what are the results so I could decide something on rules.

BTW0, do you think those unfit are really unfit? BTW1, looks like TotD is gathering some interest. Congrats! :) BTW2, I have one more crazy idea for comm portal... :) BTW3, why you don't have your email enabled? BTW4, WP:WOTTA :) Renata 19:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll discuss mottos some other time...

• Did you know about Special:Random/Wikipedia?
• My crazy idea is about comm portal is to make it a real portal using all portal layouts (and maybe renaming Portal:Community). I think that would solve the table problems :) But I know it is not happening any time soon.
• IAGIMY YMWF ILFTRYE - huh? :)
• Now signpost. I trimmed the template, but some nice background color needs to be found (something darker). But I think it looks pretty good now. Now you need to find a way to auto-update it. Also, I removed the image (it just looks bad on colorful background), so if you know how to change fonts in WP, you could add some fancier font to compensate for the loss. Renata 18:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 5, 2006: Preventing markup glitches

One problem that often occurs when building a complex table-based page, is that glitches show up on the page when viewed in other browsers, even though the page looks fine in the browser you used to build it. This problem is most prevalent when using new generation browsers and then viewing with Internet Explorer. Once the page is built, it can be very time-consuming to track down the bug, and may be faster to rebuild the page from scratch using IE, rather than spend time bug hunting. To prevent this problem, build the page using IE. If a page views properly in IE, then the chances are greater that it will display properly in other browsers, rather than the other way around.

Thanks

Hey thanks for adding to my deep questions. How profound that you responded with a question instead of an answer. - ElAmericano (dímelo) 18:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't kidding about adding questions: I did appreciate that. Oh, and I've decided to move the answers people give me to an 'opinions' page (because I don't always agree, but am interested to analyze people's views on the world), so different people can put radically different responses. Thanks again for the input. - ElAmericano (dímelo) 00:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the Day Project

Hey - This is just a note to let you know that I'm interested in working with you on Wikipedia:Tip of the day. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help prepare tips or help organize things. --Randy Johnston 01:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I can use all the help I can get. What we need right now are more tips. Please do the following:

1. Read through and proofread all the tips we've got so far, including the ones on the archive recycle page. This is to familiarize you with the selection so you don't accidentally write a duplicate for a tip we already have.
2. Make a list of all your favorite techniques and tricks in using and developing Wikipedia, and those lessons that were especially hard-learned. Then write tips for them. If you need help writing them, share the list with the team. Let's teach this community how to get the most out of Wikipedia, and how to put their best into it.
3. When your well runs dry, hit the help pages, the Help desk, the Village Pump (technical), and Kmf's Wikipedia namespace indicing project for more ideas.
   --Go for it! 06:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Psst

Check out this page. Pass it along. Nudge nudge. -- evrik 15:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Concerning Featured Content Portal

I'll have to respond fully later, but you might be able to get the gist of the reasons for the move from Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Featured content.--cj | talk 11:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC) PS: my apologies for accidentally mistaking your user page for your talk page ;)--cj | talk 11:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 6, 2006: Create your sister accounts now

All of the WikiMedia projects are closely related, and support each others' operations in various ways. If you stay involved with Wikipedia, the chances are good that sooner or later you will find yourself participating to some degree in one or more of Wikipedia's sister projects. If and when this happens, you will naturally want the same username there that you have on Wikipedia. Many Wikipedians maintain a single user identity throughout all the WikiMedia wikis. Even if you don't ever go to the sister projects, you don't want somebody else using the same username as you, potentially causing identity confusion. Therefore, create an account identical to your Wikipedia account on each of the Wikimedia projects before someone else chooses your name as their own. Even if you never need those accounts, they'll be ready and waiting in case you ever do.

Tip of the day (preview), March 7, 2006: Section edit button

At the top of each section of an article (if it has sections, that is), located on the far right of the screen, is an [edit] button. The button is offset slightly above the section, and sometimes new users get confused and think it belongs to the section above it. When you click on the edit button, the edit window opens up, displaying the source text from the section immediately below the edit button.

Thanks

This user thinks it is ironic that thanks for supporting Cyde's successful RFA came in the form of a userbox.

Here's a userbox for you. --Cyde Weys 04:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 8, 2006: Ask intelligent questions

When asking a question at the Help desk or the Wikipedia:Reference desk, please include all the facts needed to answer the question (like the country you are referring to). This prevents the volunteers of those departments to have to ask follow-up questions just to get an answerable question. Remember, the Help desk is for questions on how to use Wikipedia, while the Reference desk is for questions about anything else (real word questions).

Tip of the day (preview), March 9, 2006: Some pages have rules

Yet some users skip reading them and go straight to making edits or leaving messages. This causes clutter which others inevitably have to clean up. This happens a lot at the Help desk, the Reference desk, and at Articles for creation. If you visit those pages, please take the time and read the rules before making use of those helpful departments.

Tip of the day (preview), March 10, 2006: Inserting a picture in an article

The syntax used for displaying an image is:

[[Image:{name}|{type}|{location}|{size}|{caption}]]

Only [[Image:{name}]] is required. The other details are optional and can be placed in any order.

Type

'thumb' / 'thumbnail' or 'frame'. Causes image to be displayed with specific formatting.

Location

'right', 'left', 'center' or 'none'. Determines placement of the image on the page.

Size

{width}px or {width}x{height}px (e.g. 50x40px, would limit width to 50 and height to 40).

Caption

Any element which cannot be identified as one of the above is automatically treated as caption text.

If you have a picture, that isn't already in Wikipedia's image collection, that you want to include in an article, you will need to upload it first.

Read more: Image link syntax

Tip of the day (preview), March 11, 2006: Beware of instructionitis

Instructionitis is the tendency for instructions to grow and grow, until they become so long and complex that nobody wants to read them. When editing help pages, or instructions for Wikipedia's departments, please make them clear and concise, reducing them to absolutely essential text whenever possible.

Steveo2's RFA

Thank you for voting to support me in my RfA!!! JaredW! 12:12, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Smashing!

Smashing job on Tip of the day!

You've done a great job getting the Tip of the Day off the ground. As a result, I think you deserve this! smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 17:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

HD header

Good job tidying up the Help desk header. One problem, though; Many people ask refdesk questions at the HD, which is inefficient for all parties involved, and we have tried to make the header state as clearly as possible that these questions do not belong here. The way you have rewritten it makes this less apparent. I will try to fix this issue, if you don't like it feel free to change it but in a way that addresses this concern. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

I'm leaving this macrophage, a particularly hungry white blood cell on your talk page, I just finished a rewrite of its article and realized they're not so different from administrators, as they keep their surroundings clean, doing away with anything that's not supposed to be there...
Anyway, with that short lecture on cell biology done with, I'd like to thank you for your vote on my RfA, which passed with (49/2/0), I'll do my best to not let you down, and if you see me heading towards a common newbie mistake, please nudge me in the right direction :)

--Obli (Talk)^? 20:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

JDoorjam's RfA

Thank you! Go for it!/archive03, thank you for your support in my RfA: it passed with a final tally of 55/1/2. If you want a hand with anything, please gimme a shout. Again, thanks! – JDoorjam Talk 22:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hey Go for it!/archive03, how is it going? Thank you for supporting my Request for adminship! It passed with a final vote of 73/1/1, which means that I have been granted adminship! I look forward to using these tools to enhance and maintain this wonderful site. I will continue regular article/project contributions, but I will also allocate a sizable portion of my wikischedule toward administrative duties :) Thanks again, and if you have any questions/comments/tips, please let me know! — Deckiller 04:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day

Sure, I'd be glad to help out. It's after midnight, so I'm going to get some sleep and donate my two cents first thing in the morning ^_^. Deckiller 05:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board

I don't need you to remind me of the 3RR, which I have no intention of violating. I am, however, disheartened that you would exploit the timing and implicitly threaten me in this manner, given the fact that I was willing to overlook your 3RR violations at the main page draft.

Don't be disheartened. We're on the same side. You should lighten up a bit.

I'm sorry, but "I have one revert left, so I win!" is not the most appropriate justification. Can we please not play this game today?

Yes, a vote is taking place. But it is not a majority/plurality vote, and no "debate" has broken out as to whether or not it is. Wikipedia is not a democracy, and we never make decisions based strictly upon numbers.

I never said it was.

You've implied it. Why else would we display the percentages?

And the debate isn't about whether/whether not, but exactly how the votes and the comments are going to be interpretted.

There is no such debate. The discussion in question was initiated due to your unfamiliarity with our process. That isn't intended as an insult, incidentally.

That could turn out to be an interesting discussion. The process does not seem to be well documented anywhere, and the most detailed description I've gotten from you is that it is a matter of "common sense". Well, that's pretty subjective, so there's a lot of room for argument, and I'm just concerned by that, and want to lock down the details of how this works.

I suggest that you observe any of the project pages on which such discussions occur.

My wording mentioned both discussion and voting. Yours includes no mentions of "discussion" (excepting a false indication that the "comments" might not be considered), but it includes five instances of the word "vote" or a derivative. What sort of message do you suppose this sends? We've had several respondents who believed that this was a purely numerical vote, and you're helping to perpetuate this misunderstanding. —David Levy 14:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I had not read in the context of the comments not being considered. Though I don't have a clue what the process to be used for weighting them will be. Hence the statement. I was hoping to get more people involved in the discussion.

Again, this is not a subject of "debate." No offense, but your unfamiliarity with the established protocols and desire to codify everything are indicative of your inexperience.

By the way, could you please point me to the discussions where it was decided that the announcement would not be displayed on the Main Page? It seems to me, for the election to be as solid as it can in the face of critics' opposition, that awareness of it needs to be as high as we can make it. We could be fairly certain that most everyone will be aware of it if it were announced on the Main Page. I've pushed that concept from the start, but it seems to have been casually cast aside. If you would apply your assertiveness in that direction, it would certainly improve the overall fairness of the election, because it will prevent most if not all users from being blindsided by the change.

I agree that the discussion should have been announced on the main page, but this was opposed by a number of individuals. (It was not formally "decided," and I don't have time to search the archives.) The turnout, however, has been very strong.

The only other issue that remains that I can think of is whether or not the current turn out was a random sampling (representative sampling) of the community. My guess is that we are not far off from it being a reflection of the community as a whole.

I agree. The breakdown has remained fairly consistent throughout the process, even when we were inundated with votes from members of the Digg community.

But there is only one way to find out, and that is to open this up all the way with an announcement on the Main Page. We need to be as sure as we can that everybody knows about it.

"Everybody"? That will never happen.

And remember, we're on the same side. I didn't coordinate five rounds (rounds 2 through 6) of feedback/development sessions for nothing.

No offense, but your "coordination" was stifling productivity. You placed yourself in charge, and you dictated exactly what edits would be made and when they would be made. Frankly, the draft that I discovered upon my arrival was a mess (and it drew overwhelming opposition from the community). It was only when I complained about your behavior that you decided to "open" the draft to editing (which you never had the right to restrict in the first place), and this is when things started to come together. I didn't fix the draft, mind you; I convinced you to allow the community to fix it.

Before I came along, there was no productivity. The project was dead in the water.

And after you came along, the project was steered off-course and nearly capsized.

If you go back and look, you'll find that when I started work on the Main Page redesign, I simply carried on the same basic method that was being used before I got there. --Go for it! 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

If that's so, you copied an incorrect, anti-wiki method.

And I didn't open the draft because of your complaints. I don't even remember you complaining.

Okay, but it's a heck of a coincidence that you declared an "open editing session" less than two hours after I complained. I noted the correlation once before, and you didn't attempt to refute it.

I opened it up based on results obtained in the Help Page redesign.

What you fail to understand is that you never possessed the authority to restrict editing in the first place (nor did anyone else). This is a wiki.

The help page was open, even though there was a draft, so I bypassed the draft project and went to work directly on the Help Page itself. That page was revamped in a matter of days, due to a collaborative approach - and a lot of users joined in. On the other side, after Round 6's feedback session, the Main Page Redesign was bogged down in the consensus-building approach, which has dragged on for weeks. Productivity exploded during Round 6's mult-draft feedback session, which I implemented,

You attempted to transform the round into a "full-blown election" (with the "winner" becoming the new main page), and you pinned this shift on me (because I forked our draft into two versions)! HTH and I had to convince you that the independent drafts should be considered only as presentations of potential design elements (which we had been doing since long before I forked our draft). You generated a great deal of confusion by assigning seemingly official status to some (but not all) of the independent drafts, thereby creating the appearance that they were finalists in winner-take-all competition (which is exactly what you unilaterally deemed it).

and was stiffled again during the next open editing session due to excessive reversion. --Go for it! 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. "Productivity" is not defined by the number of changes or variations, and at no point were users prevented from creating personal drafts.

I want this thing to go through without any hitches just as much as you do.

Yes, but I feel as though I've had to go out of my way to prevent you from derailing the project (again, no offense). For example, can you imagine what would have happened if we'd followed your plan for a multi-draft election? The roughly 25% support for keeping the current main page would have constituted the plurality, with the remaining 75% split among a dozen slightly different redesigns and those "conditional support" comments ("The draft is almost perfect, but I won't support it unless you change one thing.").

But you are ignoring your own position that you have adamantly proclaimed time and again: that Wikipedia is not a democracy.

I cited the numbers for the sake of convenience. My point is that the corresponding lack of consensus would have killed the redesign.

The consensus is not determined by vote counts, but by interpretation of the results. So if there were 6 drafts almost identical to each other, and those got more support than the Main Page, the Main Page would be replaced -- probably by and amalgamation of the six drafts. --Go for it! 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

1. We took care of that before the election. 2. You're missing my latter point. We have numerous "conditional support" (id est "neutral") votes, and we would have received many, many more if people had seen multiple drafts and wondered why their minor preferences had not been included among the choices. 3. You're failing to consider the impracticality of determining which combinations of elements to include, explaining such an elaborate setup to the community and expecting people to view and compare a dozen or more designs.

By the way, the project could not, by definition, be derailed. Pushed into another round of development, maybe, but "derailed" is nothing but hot air.

I believe that some of your ideas had the potential to generate enough apathy and opposition to render the project nonviable.

The multi-draft election proposal that I finally supported was one in which the winner would go up against the Main Page, thus avoiding the problem of vote dilution (not that vote dilution makes a bit of difference in the consensus building process).

That's the idea to which you eventually switched, and it made absolutely no sense. We did almost exactly the same thing, except instead of employing the winner-take-all method that you advocated (in which 30 votes for one design would have been worth more than 20 votes for each of four highly similar designs), we combined the most popular elements of the various drafts in the most logical manner possible.

The benefit of such a preliminary run-off would be that talent would have come out of the woodwork, and we probably would have wound up with a lot better design than we have now.

No offense, but that's utterly preposterous. Again, we did almost exactly the same thing, but without the astounding absurdity of declaring the specific, seemingly random combination of elements that received the most votes "the winner."

But one problem with the current polling method, is that people change the draft(s), while the voting is taking place, even when the drafts are protected. This risks rendering the results of the poll that much harder to interpret.

How so? This is a wiki, so respondents shouldn't expect their support or opposition to count toward a precise design that will never be changed. By doing so now (instead of after the election), we actually provide the opportunity to reevaluate the proposed main page before it's implemented (assuming that it will be).

In this case, though, since it's just a page of text and colors at stake, I don't think anyone is going to take defeat that seriously. And the old version is still going to be made available, so it's not worth fighting over. Because of this there will unlikely be any major problems in terms of opposition to install the new design. Our job is almost done.
--Go for it! 17:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

We merely differ on approach, and have some philosophical differences, but those are rather minor, seeing that the project is moving forward regardless. We shouldn't be draining our resources fighting each other, correcting each other every step of the way. It's counterproductive.

I agree, but I also believe that I'm right. Why don't you stop "correcting" me?

You're the conservative one, remember? I'm the bold one. It's you who steps in to bring me in check, after I've plowed ahead in one direction or another. I've never monitored your discussion page. That's been you all along. I think it's a waste of time. I'd rather be editing. Even this protracted discussion goes against my favored appraoch, which is to develop, not endlessly argue over process. And that's where we differ: you seem to be process-oriented, while I just want to get as much done in as little time as possible. If others want to grab a page as their own and revert the hell out of it, let them. Wikipedia is huge. I'll just go off and create or overhaul three more. --Go for it! 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what most of the above is supposed to mean, but I will note that there's a difference between "boldness" and "brashness." I've made many bold edits in the past year (without prior discussion), but deliberately bypassing clear opposition for the purpose of "plowing ahead" with one's plans is irresponsible. —David Levy 20:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Why are you so afraid of pushing for an announcement on the Main Page? Come on, it's the opposition's main argument ("that the poll wasn't fair because it was not announced where everyone could see it").

--Go for it! 15:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not "afraid," but we need to pick our battles. As I said, we've received a very strong turnout. —David Levy 16:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

That's right. It's how the the overall war (campaign) is fought (run) that matters. And that includes advertising. Why do you think I upgraded the Community Portal? --Go for it! 18:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

This (imo) is the exact point at which philosophies diverge. You want to "upgrade" an "advertising" "campaign". Whereas, because I am positive that the redesign Will be implemented, and that after it is implemented there will be continued changes and development by the people who actually maintain the front page and everyone who discusses it at the talk page, There is nothing to win or lose. (i think maybe it is best summarized as the difference between meta:Eventualism and meta:Immediatism).

I agree. There are no losers, because the Main Page will keep on improving. Check out the version from 2004. Way different. And in 2007 it will probably be much different than the current redesign. I'm very patient, as long as I find something to occupy myself with while I'm waiting.  ;-) --Go for it! 22:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Specifically on the announcement issue, we have already gotten more feedback than i have seen anywhere on wikipedia before. And the ratio of results has been completely consistent for the entire 'vote' period. Therefor further announcements would be redundant. Those who havent voted would better spend their time editing actual articles, than adding more "me too's" to our redesign discussion. (There are 1,000,000+ registered en: users. Can you imagine if 10,000 more people added their vote to the discussion?!? that would not be good!) --Quiddity 21:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Why would that not be good? --Go for it! 22:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Really? think about it...

1. None of us has time to read 2,000 edits a day! (or if we do, we could be vastly more productive using it elsewhere. like at WP:MPA...;)
2. There is no race to weigh in. barring disaster it will get implemented, anyone who hasnt can weigh in then.
3. (idealistically and subjectively, and 'imho' caveats) anyone who is particularly active in backend details will be browsing one of the many places it already has been mentioned. Their comments will be more relevant and informed (notice i didnt say "carry more weight") about actual functional issues. the majority of the hypothetical 10,000 would be aesthetic judgements, which while potentially interesting, are, as has already been explained, personally-subjective and we've already finalised the aesthetics of the overall look. they can quibble over details once it's running. and would frankly be better served by having the further options you've started implementing at WP:MPA.

What it boils down to, analogously, is some people prefer minimalism, some people prefer lots of pretty icons. some people change preference based on their mood, whereas some have specific and unchanging aesthetics. Neither is wrong, and both can be supported. (but both respond better to gentle nudging than to strong debate (debate is exhausting. whenever i see people training to be debaters, i question why they don't want to be mediators instead. it seems like a rudimentary form of mediation. sorry, tangent.))

What i want, and I'd guess your thinking that it could be a good thing for 10,000 people to suddenly vote on this, is a misdirected enthusiasm for it to be implemented last week already!. patience grasshopper ;) go work on something else for 3 days, like i plan on. --Quiddity 22:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, though the process of votes and comments can be sped up using various programs and software tools. BTW, I have been spending most of my time here working on other projects. And the posting of the announcement on the CBB took a small fraction of the time that it takes to answer one of David's messages. I really don't like his approach. His idea of consensus is very hands-on... his hands. It borders on omnipresence. Someone described his behavior as "rabid campaigning." Aside from being funny, it unfortunately was very accurate. --Go for it! 18:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

David, your method of operation seems to be to simply inundate anyone you don't agree with with so much argument that they don't have time to answer it all. You also make baseless accusations, for which if the person doesn't answer, may falsely appear that they didn't disagree with your disparraging remarks, and you use that as an argument. Well, for the record, I disagree with most of what you've said above, and resent your disparraging remarks. You've gone from blowing hot air to blowing steam, and your rhetoric is becoming more and more blatantly obvious to anyone who reads it. Anyone who carefully studies the edit history of the Main Page Redesign talk page will see how you attempted to usurp its coordination without consensus-building discussion first. Such as your all-of-a-sudden posting of instructions on the page for Round 6, even though you knew I would be posting the instructions for that round (as I had been doing for weeks). And you did so without discussing it with me first (nor in public for the sake of building consensus), which was a pretty rude thing to do. You blindsided me and the project with that maneuver. I returned the favor by expanding the scope of that round, and adding the other drafts. A move which anyone can plainly see had several positive benefits including increasing participation in the project and generating interest. Once the design was fairly stable, I moved on to handle the wider aspects of the project - posting announcments, improving the venue for announcements (creating the CBB), prepping the pic of the day project, etc. Though the MPRP was only one of the reasons I upgraded the Community Portal (I've always had my eye on Wikipedia's "Big 3" (MP, Help page, Comm Portal). And please refrain from chopping up my messages, it disrupts their flow. Thank you. We should simply agree that the project turned out well, and leave it at that. We made a good team, in spite of our differences. --Go for it! 18:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring your argumentum ad hominem, I'll address your specific claims:

Your allegation that I attempted to "usurp" the project's coordination is downright laughable. Which "consensus-building discussion" determined that you would be the leader? There was none, of course. You placed yourself in charge (forbidding users from editing the draft without your approval), and you're annoyed because I forced you to back down (without ever claiming that I possessed any of the authority that you falsely bestowed upon yourself).

I did not post the instructions for round 6 (or any other round, for that matter). That was HereToHelp, as anyone can plainly see by taking your advice to study the revision history. Do you still believe that he and I are the same person?

HTH had every right to post the instructions. This did not require your permission. You were not in charge. Furthermore, my decision to fork our draft was based upon a previous discussion and the split nature of the consensus at that time. Conversely, your decision to transform the discussion into a winner-take-all competition among all of the independent drafts (except, of course, for the one that you personally disliked) was made without any discussion (and, as you acknowledge above, out of spite), and it defied the nature of the project up to that point. And again, you're taking credit for increased participation that had already begun (while ignoring all of the confusion and conflict that you sparked). —David Levy 19:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I was only coordinator because there wasn't anybody else to push the project at that time - it was a defacto position, nothing more. And I didn't place myself in charge, I merely took the lead. There wasn't any discussion because there wasn't even anybody there. I simply encountered a dead project, and with very little knowledge about how Wikipedia worked, picked up where the previous leader left off. Through trial-and-error, and your willingness to point out every slight misstep (which I've found to be valuable feedback by the way, though a bit on the acidic side), I've been learning the ropes. The experience acquired on that project (mostly what not to do) has been applied on every project I've tackled since. Your accusation that I "fail to understand" was particularly hurtful, since you haven't taken into account my participation in Wikipedia since that occured. By the way, that (one page-layout person) approach is far too exhausting -- it's better to spread out the work, and the fun. Which is exactly what I did at the end of Round 5.

With respect to the posting of the instructions, I stand corrected. You didn't post the instructions, though you were working closely with HTH at the time. Not that that's a bad thing. It can get a lot done if applied toward that end (of getting a lot done). But you supported his approach, and if I remember right, he stated that the whole idea was yours (but he might have been talking about just the forking of the draft, but the instructions pertained to the whole draft-forking).

I didn't say nor acknowledge that my response was in spite. In your interpretations, you tend to assume things that aren't there. It was just a maneuver in response to a maneuver - a counter-agenda move. "I returned the favor" is just a figure of speech.

The only reason I left out that one draft from the poll is because I didn't believe it stood a snowball's chance in... Wikipedia:Snowball clause ...of winning. On retrospect, I should have just included it.

Also, with respect to the posting of the instructions, I wasn't talking about rights, I was talking about courtesy.  ;-) I would have appreciated a heads-up. I have no idea how I would have responded to a proposal to fork the drafts. But it would have been nice to have been given the opportunity to find out.

But we need to get past arguments and accusations. We are bound to cross paths again, and we should figure out a better way to work together than wasting so much bandwidth in these ceaseless debates. Upon this I agree wholeheartedly with Quiddity - it is exhausting. Might I suggest in the future that we skip the argument and reversion war step (as we both know the other side can be relentless) and move on to the negotiation step rightaway instead. The solution HTH came up with was fine by me, but since you and I were so strongly locked into battle with each other, neither of us suggested it. If you had, I would still have seen that as a better alternative to wasting so much time defending edits.

So now, let's move on to better and brighter things. I don't hold a grudge. Nor do I find your conservatism a bad thing, just frustrating. We're two mules that won't budge. A round of congratulations are in order, so I'll start it off... You did a fine job of overseeing the Round 6 open-editing session, and monitoring the election. Because you were there meant I didn't have to worry about it, and that's a good feeling. We were a team in spite of ourselves. Thank you. In honor of this occasion (the rapidly approaching end of the election, and the huge turnout we influenced), I'd like to propose a toast...

...while you were holding the fort on the main discussion page, I was prepping the Pic of the day for the changeover. While I was going through pics, I found a featured pic from well over a year ago that was missed by the pic of the day project. By sheer coincidence, it's theme happens to coincide with the end of an election, so I took the liberty of scheduling it for March 19th. (Take a look). A toast, to the end of the project, and the winner of the election, whichever page that may happen to be. Cheers. --Go for it! 21:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Poll results reporting discussion

Furthermore, have you actually stopped to consider why it's beneficial to include these statistics? What difference does this premature tally make, and why is it important for readers to be made aware of it? Is this supposed to influence their opinions? If so, that's unfair. If not, what's the point? Why not simply inform them that the discussion is taking place and invite them to participate?

To improve community involvement, and increase voter turn out to as high a degree as possible. That's the only way to optimize feedback. The more people who vote, and more importantly, the more people who comment, the better we'll know what modifications are needed.

You didn't answer my question. I understand why it's beneficial to advertise the election, but what is the benefit of including the premature numerical vote tally?

You still haven't answered my question, and your latest edit was a reversion. (We define reverting as "undoing the essence of a change," not as "restoring an earlier version word-for-word.")

The reason I didn't answer your question about the poll reports is because it was buried in the middle of this book you are writing, and I missed it. So here's the answer: Why do they report numbers in any election? It's the obvious information that people want to know. It's much more convenient to check the community portal than to go back to the Main Page Redesign every time and scroll through to the end of each voting section to see the ordinal number on the last vote in each section. That's what you are forcing the curious to do. I don't think it's right that you are censoring reporting of the poll results. --Go for it! 21:30, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Of what value are these counts (which are both premature and misleading)? What difference does it make how many "support" or "oppose" votes the proposed draft has received at any given point during the election, and how does knowing this infomation help anyone?

2. Your analogy is invalid, becuase the media do not report election results before the polls close! (Well, they aren't supposed to, anyway.) People shouldn't be basing their opinions on these numbers, and you're encouraging them to do just that. —David Levy 22:00, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

David, the difference is that actual governmental election results aren't made public, but Wikipedia's are.

The news agencies have access to exit polls long before the real polls close. Even when an election's outcome is obvious, they generally wait until one minute past the end of voting before reporting this information.

So how many users go there to check the results? My point is why make them go through the extra hassle of doing it that way? --Go for it! 22:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You still haven't explained how this information is useful or relevant. It's bad enough that some people might ignore the comments and skip straight to the (largely meaningless) numbers, and you want to make it much easier to do this. You want to officially announce these figures, thereby implying that they (and not the discussion) are what's important. —David Levy 23:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The compromise you and Heretohelp have arrived at is fine by me. --Go for it! 23:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. —David Levy 23:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Categories can be displayed as a tree...

Regarding the "topic list" tip further up the page, I just wanted to briefly point out that while categories cannot yet be displayed as trees within Wikipedia, there are several tools out there that do allow you to browse categories as a tree structure. The one I found is linked from my user page (don't have time to put a link here, sorry). Maybe you are aware of this, but it is just a thought. I've noticed some of the tips of the day can contradict each other, which is understandable as I don't think many people know all the tricks and tips for something as large as Wikipedia. Carcharoth 15:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. I'll definitely look into it, and will write a tip on the category tool. And of course I'll modify the topic list tip for consistency, so the two tips don't contradict. Again, thanks for the heads up. --Go for it! 15:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what are your favorite Wikipedia tricks? What were your hardest lessons learned, so that newcomers can benefit from your experience. If you don't have time to write these up as tips, please just jot down some quick titles/links, and post them on the tip page (or here), and someone in the project will write them up. --Go for it! 15:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

my RfA

Hello Go for it! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to consider my RfA, which passed this morning. Admins are sort of like vultures, cleaning things up and whatnot... well, as long as you don't think too much about it. Anyway, if there's ever anything I can help you with, just ask; you know where to find me. ×Meegs 08:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Tipping

Just wondering if you think a bit about spell checker addins is worthwhile - I've got one for IE but never got round to installing the firefox version as it wasn't as straightforward. Cheers SeanMack 09:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It sounds cool. Write it up, and I'll make use of that tip! --Go for it! 09:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we want to give external websites as guides? Here's the websites I used, I got the firefox one working for v1.5, but can't vouch for the older version.

• Spell checker for IE:

http://www.iespell.com/download.php

• Spellchecker for Firefox and the Mozilla Suite = SpellBound 0.7.3

http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/index

http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/install

• & Firefox 1.5:

http://www.wildtangents.net/2006/02/04/how-to-get-spellbound-spell-checker-working-with-firefox-1501/

Just not sure about writing it up with external links - whats your thoughts? SeanMack 15:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. Those programs aren't available on Wikipedia, so it's okay. Here's a link for you:

Read more: External links

FAQ move

Thanks for letting me know. I'm not too bothered about it, since there is a link to the FAQ right there at the top of the page. If you know who put the FAQ content on the same page and then changed all the links you can ask them to fix it. It was a terrible idea.--Commander Keane 15:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

But being the one who reverted, shouldn't you complete the task? And being an administrator, shouldn't you be taking on mop and bucket chores like this, rather than creating them for someone else to do? I just find the above response surprising, coming from an admin. Just my 2 cents. --Go for it! 15:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I have gone through and done them. Being the one who reverted I probably should have fixed up the redirects. But they weren't vital, and being an administrator I am busy with other things ;). --Commander Keane 16:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

You've restored my faith in admins!  ;-) --Go for it! 16:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

File:Atlanticpuffin4.jpg

This puffin looks friendly.

Thanks for your support in my RfA. It passed, with a final tally of 62/0/1. I'm touched by all the kind comments it attracted, and hope I'll be of some use with the new tools. You know where I am if you need to shout at me. By the way, I like the way your username emphasises your comment. Flowerparty? for it! 17:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 12, 2006: How to take a screenshot on Windows

In Microsoft Windows a screenshot of the entire monitor, complete with taskbar, can be copied to the system clipboard by pressing the Print screen key. Alternatively, pressing Alt + Print screen will copy just the active window to the clipboard. You can then paste the clipboard into a program like MS Paint or Paint.NET using Ctrl-v, and then save it as an image file (for uploading to Wikipedia, for instance).

Read step-by-step instructions: Screenshot#Microsoft Windows

My RfA

WikiThanks

Thanks for supporting my RFA. I really appreciated the show of support and all the kind words from so many great Wikipedians. I hope I live up to them! -- Vary | Talk 17:54, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 13, 2006: What are templates used for?

Templates are pages that you can include on another page. They are usually used to insert boilerplate messages that need to be displayed on more than one page. But templates are quite versatile and can be used to accomplish many things. Some specialized uses for templates are:

• Displaying a different page each day (like the Tip of the day, Pic of the day, etc.)
• Infoboxes (e.g., Template:Infobox_Philosopher). To see Socrates in this infobox, click here.
• Displaying a random page (see this implemented at Wikipedia:Featured content).
• Navigation bars (e.g., Template:browsebar).
• Navigation boxes (e.g., Template:Greek myth).
• WikiProject task boxes (e.g., Template:PhilosophyTasksBox).
• Page headers, like the header at the top of the Help Desk

To include a template on a page, enclose it in double curly brackets, leaving out the prefix "Template:", like this:

{{In the news}}

Help page

I noticed the box you placed on the Help Menu page. I've folded its contents into the Menu, as Asking Questions, and removed the box from the menu page. If you have any questions, please drop me a note. --Go for it! 20:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said on Help talk:Contents, WP:HELP has to have a link to Wikipedia:Help desk. A complete newbie does not know that a table of contents page on asking questions will lead him there. It has to be on the page explicitly. Therefore I revert. -lethe ^{talk +} 23:40, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Read more: Templates

Tip of the day (preview), March 14, 2006: Wikipedia-search with auto completion

A useful external Wikipedia search box, called Wikipedia Search with LuMriX sports an automatic drop down box that provides a list of avaiable Wikipedia articles that match the string of letters you have typed in, the list changing with each additional letter you type.

Read more: Using external search engines

Tip of the day (preview), March 15, 2006: Wikipedia for your cell phone or PDA

A free cell phone version and PDA-version] of Wikipedia are available, called Wapedia.

Putting things off

I found the book first. When it got its AfD I found the article. I'm expert at putting things off, rather than what is called for, which is figuring out how not to do that. If someone were to call me lazy I would need to respond, "Guilty. Well, guilty. I mean yes, really guily." By the firm rule of the three finger I'm bound to see stalling and sloth everywhere, so all I can say is that I'm very upset with myself, and some of this came out on the Procrastination Talk page. If you felt it was directed at you, know for sure: it wasn't. Metarhyme 12:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Wha? What are you talking about? I was pointing to the dead version of the article in the dim hope that you (or anybody) might be bold enough to revive it. --Go for it! 13:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought you were offended - that you thought I'd called you lazy. I left a note about the book on the Talk page. If the self-help book survives its AfD, which it's apt to, it is alive and worthy of editing. Here is the link: 63KB fork

Metarhyme 15:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The amount of traffic to the book copy has been a small fraction of that of the Wikipedia version (based on the number of edits to each over the same period). If Wikibooks becomes its permanent home, then I would consider it a waste of time to work on the document, as my time would be better utilized on Wikipedia, where more people will benefit from the pages I work on.  ;-) --Go for it! 15:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, we've got philosophical differences, but that doesn't mean we can't agree that each is free to do as he pleases within the bounds of NPOV, NOR & sourced. The quest for gentle speech impels me to advise that utilizing utilize is utilization of obfuscational utilizationage - using use is better usage; but other than that I do not urge - suit yourself. I believe that the self-help section is more appropriately placed at wiki books - I do not think that chunk of article belongs in an encyclopedia. It's OK if you don't agree with that. Metarhyme 18:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

My RFA

Thank you for supporting my RFA. I appreciated the show of support and all the kind words. If there's ever anything I can do to help with my new administrator status, please don't hesitate to contact me. --Myles Long 14:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Some mop and bucket stuff for you

I'm not exactly sure what it is you would like me to do?--cj | talk 05:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Slow down

You have been making several changes in the area of help in Wikipedia. Unfortunately you don't discuss beforehand, even before massive changes. So slow down, discuss first. Wikipedia works using Consensus.--Commander Keane 14:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Question about cleanup

Hi, can you explain to me what the AWB-assisted cleanup just did to the Product (category theory) article, for instance, replacing &...; with unicode? or whatever it is? I once had some of those symbols show up at the bottom of my edit window, but only have a small nunber of them being visible now. Thanks, Jon Awbrey 16:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Back again, I put a reply on my talk page by way of keeping the discussion in one place. Thanks, Jon Awbrey 18:00, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Successful RfA

Thanks for your support and kind words on my recent RfA, which I am pleased to say passed with a final tally of 80/1/1. If you ever need any help, or if I mess something up as an admin, please let me know. Cactus.man ✍ 20:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

re: Copyright question

Hi there. I hate to be the anti-niceperson but no, those images cannot be used in userspace, either. They can only be used in article space. the Wikipedia:Fair use criteria are explicit that they may only be used in article space — not in Wikpedia: space, User: space or even Template: space. This is because fair use is intended to cover use for purposes of critical discussion and research and scholarship and that defence only holds up in articles which are actually the encyclopedia. On user pages they are simply decorations (pretty ones, but still decorations). Fair use is only a defense against copyright infringement, it is not a 'right' to use copyrighted material, since someone somewhere laboured and probably paid good money for the work and it's not fair for someone else to come along and take it for free just because it's lying around. So that userpage you pointed out needs changing, too. In fact, I see that the very first one in your list at WP:VPT is tagged as GPL (i.e. free use) so technically you can use it. My personal opinion is that it infringes copyright since it is essentially a slavish copy of a two dimensional work and there's a US Supreme Court case that found that such work does not result in new copyright i.e. that the copyright in the 'new' work rests with original creator(s) and use of the 'new' work is thus infringement. Hope that helps. -Splash^talk 23:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Mac images

I wasn't sure of the answer to your question until yesterday, when I got this message. Apparently, we can only use those images in articles specifically alluding to the programs. Makes sense, I guess, but it's a shame. The first image you showed me, however, is usable anywhere. - ElAmericano (dímelo) 21:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --Go for it! 03:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

New Community Portal design

I like the edits you just made (my only complaint being some of the images, which I've fixed). However, can you move the blue border down below the menu, right above the CBB? I don't have a clue how to do that, but it looks bad the way it is now. Other than that, well, Go for it!--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 12:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll do what I can (I'm working on it here.) but will be on dialup for the next week. What are the stipulations on the menu? Do the icons have to be a certain size? Does it require certain pictures/logos (for example, the featured content logo)? - ElAmericano (dímelo) 16:42, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the day (preview), March 16, 2006: Search box bookmarklet for Firefox

Bookmarklets are javascript programs that are stored as bookmarks in your browser, and which activate when you click on them. Here's one that conducts a search in Wikipedia on any text you happen to have highlighted in whichever window you are in (or if no text is highlighted, presents you with a popup search box): http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/bookmarklet.html

Read more: Bookmarklet

Tip of the day (preview), March 17, 2006: Search Wikipedia and Google at the same time

A9, Amazon.com's search engine, conducts multi-searches. Just checkmark the web and wikipedia boxes, enter your search term in the search box, and click Go. There's a box for each type of Google search, and you can select as many as you like.

Read more: Search engine

Community portal

Hey, i just wanted to request that maybe you add back in the links you removed during this edit. They seem quite useful and pertinent, and removing useful links just to make columns balance aesthetically isnt a justifiable reason ;) --Quiddity 21:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. Please let me explain my overall approach to upgrading the Community Portal page (and the Help system), so you know where I'm coming from and so you can see where I'm heading...

Before changing a single thing on the Communtity Portal, the Help Page was completely revamped. During that project, myself and others gathered as many help links as we could possibly find to integrate into it, in order to make it a complete directory of help files (and of the Wikipedia namespace). One place that had a lot of links that were missing from Help was the Community Portal. So we captured all of those links and organized them very well onto the help page, which was soon chopped up into the menu system that sits in its place today.

So, all the sections (such as "policies") on the Community Portal got their own section (or even their own subpage) in the Help system. None of those sections were entirely removed from the Community Portal, even though it looked that way. As they were phased out, their headings were retained as link items in a relevant section of the page, leading to each of their help pages. The "Policies" link is currently in the About Wikipedia section (waiting for the Resources section to be rebuilt), and leads here: Help:Contents/Policies, conventions and guidelines. Note that every link in the section that was removed is covered there, in an easier to read format. The link to that page will be made more prominent...

So each "deleted" section was replaced by a link. By the time the department section is completed, the most prominent help sections will have an equally prominent link on the Community Portal, under the most relevant department listings. Anything that doesn't fit into a department, will go into a rebuilt "Resources" section. But only major links (that is the previous headings), rather than the entire lists will be included, since that is precisely what the Help system was designed for - but we will be hooking in to those relevant pages, rather than just directing folks to the top Help menu.

I hope you find this solution to your satisfaction. --Go for it! 21:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the Day

hey, I just submitted a new tip on keeping things short and sweet on the CBB under the New Entries category. What page what I link it to(read more)?Osbus 01:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

FYI

The "Today's second feature" is still supporting the Classic Main Page for those who wish to keep using it. Please don't redirect any more pictures of the day. Thanks. --Go for it! 13:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about Main Page alternate (Classic 2006)? That page uses Wikipedia:Today's second feature/Saturday and Wikipedia:Today's second feature/Sunday, which simply use Wikipedia:POTD column. So Wikipedia:Today's second feature/March 25, 2006, for example, will never be used by any of the Main Page alternates, as far as I can tell. dbenbenn | talk 14:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know. After writing you the above note, I rethought the approach, simplified it with the aformentioned redirects, and then removed the extraneous Main Page pic slots from the POTD archive pages for March and April. Thank you for noticing. --Go for it! 14:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)