Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 5

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Video Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 5

Daftar Isi

Something serious needs to be done about the table of contents on this page... maybe {{TOCleft}} or {{TOCright}}, or better yet... ___NOTOC___? ChewyLSB 02:39, October 7, 2005 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 5

New Question

Is there a way to see only the latest questions? - Think Fast 14:54, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess you can not scroll to the bottom of the page? - Jmabel | Talk 18:45, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I need the source code for WPRD (no, clicking in the display source will not do it: just show: (RD header)). I need to translate into Portuguese, including subdivisions: history, sience, literature, miscellaneous, etc. thank you

User: Mdob | Talk 18:48, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

View Template: RD Header. Superm401 | Talk 21:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanxs! But I need the source for template {{/How_to_ask_and_answer | [[WP: RD/S]] or [[WP: RD/SCI]]}}, as well. User: Mdob | Talk 22:28, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

View the following pages: [1] --HappyCamper 03:15, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

To see/How to ask and answer, go to Wikipedia: Reference table/How to ask and answer. Wikipedia uses relative links, even for templates. By the way, if you copy this to Wikipedia portugese, do not forget to quote the source. Superm401 | Speak 03:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

src: interferencearchive.org

Archive!

I've archived the thread recently associated with recent changes made to the reference table. It might be a little too WikiBold, so do not hesitate to recover some threads that should remain active. This page is too long to browse easily, I thought. --HappyCamper 03:30, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

A Compensatory Pause

After about three days with categorized formats: With all the strong activity over the previous few days, this talk page seems very calm and quiet. Questioner RD seems to have adapted well and I do not see any reduction either in the level of question or answer. Ãƒ, :-) hydnjo talk 21:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

That's right when you think about it. Now the 6th day... let's try some charts to see the impact of the changes? RD supports about twice number of questions than before... I can not imagine what it's like to have ~ 200 active questions on the same page! --HappyCamper 00:06, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's Image: Question mark.png enough bold . Sorry about statements . Heck, time passes quickly when you have fun. I want to see the actual statistics, I only see statistics' Got ~~milk~~ ? hydnjo talk 00:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

According to the history of the page, there are 21506 edits to the page until midnight before the split... --HappyCamper 00:49, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

WHAT ?! Already in September ?! And here I think it's August! The question mark should be a little smaller in my opinion, but much better than the medical symbol :-) --HappyCamper 00:52, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. It looks so much cooler now! --HappyCamper 02:26, â€‹â€‹Ã¢ â‚¬ <Ã¢ â‚¬

src: 4.bp.blogspot.com

Graph - Reference table changed
Look at this graph, is not that interesting? This is a graph of the number of edits made to the reference table by month. Look at the recent spikes in July and August - I think splitting a table is a good move after all !! (Is not it also interesting how the talk about page splitting begins around May, when the first wave and the increase of editing to the RD happen?) - HappyCamper 01:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
For your viewing pleasure: --HappyCamper 01:20, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well done HC. I do not know how you do it! The exact data indicates that WP: RD becomes more useful (almost twice in a month). Let me add some thoughts about this page in some. hydnjo talk 01:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's quite a spike in July. August is even higher. I wonder what will happen in September? Archiving is not much easier than before. Sooner or later we will need additional help. I think we should form the club "RD Brigades" somewhere :-) --HappyCamper 16:04, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I will help you, but some guides may be useful. For now I will stick to "seven days without editing" for section. Physchim62 23:58, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Yay! See below for some tips. --HappyCamper 03:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

src: webwit.nl

Geography
Just to clarify: In what categories of geography questions go, questions about the country? CG 18:00, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Not sure... Maybe in various ways? --HappyCamper 18:02, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

This kind of query occurs a lot, and is currently found in three categories. CG 19:43, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that geography is a problem. This should be specially inserted somewhere in the header. Misc is probably the most suitable. hydnjo talk 19:55, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... I think in our categorization of this page will definitely happen. Are the questions answered in a useful way, despite the fact that the related questions are not centered together? --HappyCamper 19:56, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I'm just saying that although geography has no category of its own, this is a significant subject. Someone (you) should select the most appropriate category and add the word Geography somewhere in the header. If it turns out to be wrong, we can change it later. We just need to provide some direction soon. hydnjo talk 20:36, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

The more I think about it the more complex Geography becomes. I took back what I said because it did not match any one category. It depends on the context of the question. hydnjo talk 22:36, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

I will put it in the Humanities, but I will not force anyone to do it. Superm401 | Talk 22:21, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Physchim62 23:51, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

So, do you think the word Geography should be added to the WP: RD header? Helpful or not? I'm just trying to help by getting some sort of consensus, so please give your opinion. Thanks, hydnjo talk 00:58, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I got brave. Add a word to science on the grounds that it has a shorter list of words. View Template: RD header. I should add that it's okay to restore the change :-) --HappyCamper 01:11, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Looks okay there. Thank you for asking this question from a dime. Now at least we have a starting point if someone fights. There is no rv from here. hydnjo talk 01:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I have to say. Your basics do not really impress me. :) It also disturbs me to put it under Science and Math, because scientific inferences are inherently correct (if research is done correctly), while many facts Geography is true only on the basis of human approval of them (and sometimes not agreed upon). That's why I advise the Humanities. I would be fine with leaving it altogether, but the categorization in science bothered me. It seems to mix the policy with irrefutable facts. Superm401 | Talk 01:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

If no one is following up on this, I might just delete it. Superm401 | Talk 01:43, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Or move to a more appropriate category. hydnjo talk 03:01, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Or create a subpage? * Gasp * :-) Take it out if you like, I do not mind at all. --HappyCamper 03:06, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

src: interferencearchive.org

The atomic reference table
Just a random thought: is not it cool to have an RSS/Atom feed from the reference table? The RSS/Atom technology is working for wikinews, and I'm not sure where it is, but once they make it work, I think it would be great if it has a Reference table feed (or one for each cat). That means that individual titles may have to be a bit longer and more specific, but that's not a bad thing, right? The bellman 06:38, 2005 September 4 (UTC)

There is an RSS feed for Wikipedia: Announcement... hmm. Help/Reference Desk and Village Pump are pages that will definitely benefit from this. Shimgray 12:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering how someone made rss feeds using wikipage? Did they find all h1 and create & lt; item & gt; of the? I would be interested to feed all questions. - Il ????? (T? l?) 21:34, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure, that sounds really neat! Please let me know if we know if we know how to do this and I will try to help. I am wondering if this will impact how archiving is done? And how often do we need to patrol RD to make sure we send quality materials? --HappyCamper 22:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it will involve writing scripts that will take the page, then convert each header to & lt; item & gt; header title becomes & lt; title & gt; and maybe the first 200 characters under the header become & lt; description & gt; (Is that his name? I have no experience with RSS or XML). This will probably be something that involves C #, PHP, CGI, Perl, or something similar. The RSS feed should also be hosted on a different server I think... - Il ????? (T? L?) 00:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

This shows possible scripts. - Il ????? (T? l?) 00:24, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Ugh... saw it and tried to do it in PHP... too much work! Do not want to get perl, so I leave this to someone else. - Il ????? (T? l?) 01:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'm actually close enough to get it. I just need some regexp tweaks and the host and I will finish. - Il ????? (T? l?) 20:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

RD Brigade (for not wanting a better name)
The archive on the reference table is pretty easy. Some heuristics to use:

Archive every time the page looks very long

Archive every time a page has an old question (usually a 5-7 day question since the last thread looks good)

Sort a question - all unanswered questions are logged in one place, answering a question in the subpage.

Follow the pattern in the archive. If that does not make sense, change it so much easier to use: -)

In addition, these are some of the other things I've done in the archive:

Delete questions relating to quoting Wikipedia unless there is more content related to answering the question

Remove question "without content" - single word query is an example

Try to make the least amount of edits to the main question page during archive editing.

Exit archive editing summary!

The date on the archive is associated with the posting date of the question, not the date of the last post to the question (but this is really arbitrary too, so it does not matter if this is done or not.) I've done this because it's more convenient for me when it comes to sort questions into answered and missed questions.)

To prevent possible spam, remove the email address in question, or obfuscate it so it's harder for automatic crawlers to capture addresses

Rewrite any posts that have been posted entirely with caps lock. Alternatively, surround the text of the caps key with the "small" HTML tag

--HappyCamper 03:29, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Rearranging archive page
I tried to redesign the Archive page: First, I created three {{Question answered question}} categories, {{Unanswered questions}} and {{Answered questions no categories}} (You can change the design and color if you like ). Secondly, I changed the Instructions for archivers to fit the division of the Ref table.
Just a few comments: At the end of the archive page is a Note, a link under the heading "Deletion log", and a section called "Helper File". Can someone tell me what these things are for. CG 11:41, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Beautiful! Currently, Wikipedia does not let me open those pages, so I'll get back to you when the error goes away. --HappyCamper 14:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

CG
I believe the deletion log is an old version of an archive that's never been anywhere. This is dated March 2004, and if we have a backup copy in the same question archive, we recommend deleting it. It was made by Paddu in one of the first 20 edits. The helper file seems to be the record of the title of all the archives of 2005. This is a good idea, although the search algorithm will probably do a better job. I like the new format, but I think the idea is to sort by the first year, then categories like humanities, science, etc. Rather than the opposite. This will allow for easier archiving, although I do not change anything if I misunderstand the original system. Please keep me informed. Dariusthegreat898 10:59, September 5, 2005 (EST)

I deleted the "Removal notes" section, containing some unarchived archives from March 2004. work done. CG 17:29, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Please use {{unsigned}} span>
Please use Template: Unsigned for anon comments without signature. That makes it easier on certain scripts that run on the page. - Il ????? (T? l?) 21:44, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

What is this script? --HappyCamper 22:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

See below. - Il ????? (T? l?) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

How do I enter the parameters "1", "1" and "2"? hydnjo talk 00:17, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

{{subst: unsigned | Username | Time}} - Il ????? (T? l?) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Just try: ( precedes the unsigned comment by hydnjo 00:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)) using five tildes. hydnjo talk 00:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Using five tildes will just put the current time, while you usually want to put the anon time posted. - Il ????? (T? l?) 03:08, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Good point, thanks. hydnjo talk 20:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

You can also use {{unsigned2}}, which can be faster to use (copy the username and date of the page history, paste both at the same time, and just add in the middle). It has the order of opposite parameters and add (UTC) at the end (note: You can not use the timezone offset in your preferences if you want to use the trick). --cesarb 20:41, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

The Atomic Reference Table
View the new RSS feed from Reference Desk. Thanks to User: Talrias for helping me MUCH in this:

Reference table: Humanities, Science, Languages, Miscellaneous (Updated hourly)

It will be updated every hour starting this weekend, but now they only snapshot once. - Il ????? (T? l?) 00:31, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

What does RSS stand for? How do you use RSS feeds? --HappyCamper 03:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

RSS (file format). ~~ N (t/c) 22:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks (mmm... I like wikis), is it possible to have all the categories already put together? The pipe dream would be a bit more work for the code (I think) would be a bait that has Q in front of new questions but also repeat the question with A in front when someone gives an answer (I 'm assuming it will be easier on something more traditional like forums) - maybe something like this requires something more than what is provided by the RSS template. After all, it's really cool like that. You reign. The bellman 10:25, September 14, 2005 (UTC)
src: upload.wikimedia.org

Why do not people search their own answers?
I can not help but notice that a large number of questioners not only do not realize that this is an encyclopedia - they are not even trying to find answers to their own questions. Is there any way how page titles can highlight the fact that they have found a huge source of reference and encourage people to seek answers for themselves. After all, that's the purpose of Wikipedia. Shantavira 13:56, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that this is a problem, but I do not think that expanding the headers any further will help. I doubt people who do not bother looking for things for themselves will read or pay attention to the canopy. If anyone is willing to help someone who does not know anything, then we provide the service. If it does not exist, then in the end the question will be moved to a missed file, and no harm will occur. The people who monitor the page should not be obligated to answer any questions. I usually ignore unclear questions, or, if I feel generous, point them toward the appropriate Wikipedia article. I do not answer questions for them, though, if there is an answer in the article. Ground Zero | t 14:16, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed this and changed the headers, before the Ref Desk is split into sections, to read something like "Check to see if we have an article about this issue before asking your question". In many cases, I would do something like G. Zero. I'll just point them to an article that answers their question without actually giving them the right answer. Maybe it will encourage them to actually search the data before asking the next question. I do not understand why they are asking these things either because they have to wait for someone to be good enough to retaliate rather than go to the article and find out soon. : Shoulders: Dismas 14:28, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

For case sensitivity WP users and correct spelling requirements are sometimes a problem. Some people (like me) get used to getting rid of anything that comes close to Google and getting what they want. I think that providing an article link (if any) is a useful thing to do as it will help falsify new users with WP. hydnjo talk 16:15, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it's too much work or not in the wikipedia idea to first provide search results for the given question. it will definitely help to many of these so-called questions that are answered by finding the right articles. Boneyard 13:05, September 19, 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

become a member
what do you mean by being a member? does it cost money?
DJ

Hi, DJ. Signing up on Wikipedia is absolutely free. You may read this page to find out what we are all about. If you want to sign up for an account, you can do so here. If you have other questions, click the link after my name reads "talk," and I'll be happy to help you. Joyous (talk) 00:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I think he was referring to HappyCamper's request for members of the "Reference Desk Brigade". If I'm right, DJ, it's just a very informal grouping of people. Feel free to participate in any activities they follow (ie archiving, structural changes to the RD, answering questions). In fact, although many projects love to track members, registration for activities on Wikipedia is almost never compulsory. As a general rule, if you see an established editor doing so, you are also allowed. Of course, try not to violate any policies. Superm401 | Talk 01:30, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

"RD brigades" are just a few terms I've made for "Wikipedians who archive a reference page whenever they want." Basically, anyone can do it, and it can be very fun when you read what questions have been asked! You can help too - there are some tips for archiving at the top. --HappyCamper 18:06, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

HappyCamper and the RD brigade, congratulations on taking a step to the Main Page Browse bar! I hope the people of Portal and RD can make some kind of agreement with you; while I can not speak for them, I think the change is a bit unexpected for them; if you have other designs in mind, you might discuss them on the Portal talk page, for example. As it stands, we currently have no links for Portals. Does anyone have a concept to share with others about this? Any ideas, anybody? Ancheta Wis 00:21, September 16, 2005 (UTC)

Link to the talk page for the Browse Bar Home Page

What's this? Reference table splitting? I have not really done much for table references other than archives since the split end of August. I'm not sure what you mean, so if you can give me speed, that's good.

PS - & gt; "Brigades RD" does not really exist. This is entirely just the term I am proposing for wanting a better term. Over the past few months, I've done most of the archives, so that's just a nice way for me to ask for help, that's all. It's also a subtle way for me to thank everyone who has hands with a turn, sort of a joke I suppose. --HappyCamper 00:50, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The RD now has a link on the Home Page

Can we change the link that leads to Wikipedia: Ask a question? --HappyCamper 04:17, September 16, 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Spammers...
Looks like we're still getting people who put their email addresses at the bottom of their questions. Do you think mentioning the fact that spammers scans Wikipedia (including RD) for email addresses can help convince them to stop doing it? --Robert Merkel 03:22, September 15, 2005 (UTC)

I do not know how many of the headers people read. I just delete it as soon as I see it. Anyone who actually wants to give RD answers to those who leave email can always check the history. I personally usually try to tag that I just delete the addy email. - Laura Scudder | Talk 07:04, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

For some it may be the lost cause however; anyone who participates in a large number of mailing lists and newsgroups will have long stopped keeping their email addresses pure. (In fact, the more spam I receive, the better my spam filter prevents spam!) - mendel? 17:26, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Latest archive
I recently archived all 4 page reference pages... however, I have not saved archived questions to Wikipedia, because I do not have time to complete them. They are currently stored on my local desktop as text files, and I will soon submit them to the archive. --HappyCamper 04:16, September 16, 2005 (UTC)

Done. --HappyCamper 21:47, September 18, 2005 (UTC)

src: wikibulz.com

Long page
I think I just archived the page... how did they grow this big so fast ??? --HappyCamper 21:50, September 18, 2005 (UTC)

School back in session.Ãƒ, ;-) --hydnjo talk 19:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Yup, and I suggest for everything that appears to be homework, we refer to the top of the page (where we say we do no homework) and ask them to ask more specific questions about what they do not understand. Since most of them may ask at the last minute and do not even check their class notes or books, they probably will not clarify. So we do not waste time and everyone is still learning :) - Taxman ^Talk 20:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless it sometimes seems more productive to direct users toward articles that may possibly stimulate curiosity (I hope). At any rate, I think we should face homework questions in a way that does not change anyone, even if they do not complete their homework for them. --hydnjo talk 01:25, September 20, 2005 (UTC)

Source of the article : Wikipedia