User talk:It's dot com/The System Is Down

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The System Is Down

[edit] Technical help

[edit] How to add images

Here's a quick rundown of how to add images:

  1. If you haven't already, read the image use policy. Note that the PNG format is preferred.
  2. Over in the toolbox on the left, click Upload file.
  3. (A) Browse to the file on your computer.
    (B) Write a brief description in the summary area.
    (C) Click the copyright checkbox.
    (D) Click "Upload file".
  4. Place code on your page in the following format, usually at the very top of the page (although you can place it in other places):
    [[Image:IMAGE NAME|thumb and/or POSITION|SIZE|CAPTION]]

To make an image gallery, use the wollowing format:

<gallery>
Image:image1.png|caption 1
Image:image2.png|caption 2
Image:image3.png|caption 3
</gallery>

Start each picture on a new line. You can use links and full wiki markup in the captions.

Click on these links here for a tutorial and more technical info and syntax info. HRWiki policy allows one uploaded image two large personal images per user with no questions asked. For an example, I placed the following code at the top of your page: [[Image:cheatgold.PNG|thumb|300px|I've got a gold tooth. Wanna see it? Tough!]]
That's all. Have fun! — It's dot com 22:33, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanx a bunch for telling me how to add images and adding an image and all that crap. Love your page. Cheatachu72
Anytime, my friend. It's my pleasure. And thanks for your comments about my page. — It's dot com 21:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to revert a page

  • YO! I do like what you did to my gallery, but I'd like to revert it for the time being. I do want to change it to your suggestion in the future, though. But, um, how do you revert? Cheatachu72 02:56, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It was more complicated than normal to revert your page since you had already made changes to it. Here are some basic instructions on how to revert:
To completely revert a page to a previous version:
  1. View the history of the page in question.
  2. Click on the time and date of the version to which you want to revert; this will bring up the page as it was.
  3. Click "edit" at the top of the old version; it will warn you that you're editing an out-of-date version.
  4. Type a comment in the summary, usually something like "reverted edit of so-and-so; changed to last version by what's her face".
  5. Click "Save page".
To revert a page and keep some changes at the same time:
  1. View the history of the page in question.
  2. Determine what changes have been made since the version to which you want to revert.
  3. Copy the affected section to the clipboard. If there is more than one section, it may be necessary to do a normal revert (see above) and then make the changes again one at a time in later edits.
  4. In the page history, click on the time and date of the version to which you want to revert; this will bring up the page as it was.
  5. Click "edit" at the top of the old version; it will warn you that you're editing an out-of-date version.
  6. From the clipboard, paste in the new changes over the appropriate old section.
  7. Type a comment in the summary.
  8. Click "Show preview" to ensure that you pasted the new changes in correctly.
  9. Click "Save page".
In the section way above, I've included the syntax for the image gallery for whenever you want to go back to that. — It's dot com 03:48, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanx. One more helpful thing you can either
A. Strong Mad Bath
B. Crisper Drawer
C. Be Cheatachu72's homeslice
Cheatachu72 03:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'll take (C). — It's dot com 03:48, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where to link characters

I had a question. On the page for monster truck, should "The Sad kids" and "The King of town" in the transcript be changed to include links to thier respective pages? FYI, the sentence that would be changed is "{The Sad Kids and the King of Town appear on screen respectively crossed out}". —Smileyface11945

No. Characters are never linked in the transcript. Instead, they are listed at the top of the page in the order in which they appear. Also, whenever you post something on a talk page, type four tildes after it, like this: "~~~~". That will automatically sign your name and put a timestamp after it. It looks like this: — It's dot com 01:06, 24 Jul 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! Smileyface11945 01:08, 24 Jul 2005 (UTC)
No probalo! — It's dot com 01:09, 24 Jul 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to make the vertical line to appear

How do you make this vertical line appear? | It's used in a lot of links in the wiki, like this, but if I want to use the line, I always have to copy it from somewhere else. Can you press certain keys to make it appear? The Chort 14:11, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)

It should be on your keyboard. Mine's above the enter key. Homestar Coderhomestar-coder-sig.gif 14:30, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...let's see: | Hey, it worked! Thank you! You're my new best friend at this wiki! The Chort 14:33, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)

No probalo... Homestar Coderhomestar-coder-sig.gif 14:34, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)
I'm glad I could bring you two closer together. I have nothing useful to say here, but since this is my talk page, I feel compelled to comment. The character The Chort is speaking of is called the vertical bar, or pipe. It is used in wiki markup to create piped links, tables, and other things. As Amanda (H*C) said, the key is usually located at the extreme right of the keyboard, just above the Enter (return) key, grouped with the backslash. On some keyboard configurations, the key is on the top row, just to the left of the Backspace (in this case the Enter key is about double its customary size and the Backspace is about half its normal size). To type a vertical bar, you must hold the Shift key. Well, I hope you enjoyed my short essay. I now return you to the wiki. — It's dot com 15:46, 16 Aug 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blockquote

How do you make that "blockquote" (i'm not sure what it is called but thats what it said in editing) where it shows what Strong Bad wrote on his computer on the transcripts? Is there a way to do it in HTML or just plain text? I'm just curious, because I think it will be so cool if I write my internet blogs like that.

Thanks again and again. You are the one user that I always go to for help! THANKS!--Martin925 19:22, 18 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding. I might suggest that you would get a faster reply by posting questions to the FAQ talk page. Anyway, it's possible to recreate the blockquote style outside the wiki, but you need to know some CSS and where to find it. First of all, the HTML (<blockquote> ...blah blah <br/> ... </blockquote>) is the same as the code you get when you press "edit", so you could just copy one of those to practice. What you need then is the various definitions for "email" found in MediaWiki:Monobook.css (and possibly other CSS files... check the source code of a wiki page to see what they are). Also, you would need the image of Strong Bad's face copied and saved to your server. It sounds kinda coplicated, but I hope this helps. — It's dot com 21:55, 19 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Super-plain link

Is there any way to link something, but keep it just a regular black color, without underlining or anything? perhaps some kind of color tags or a 'no underline' tag before and after? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks. ⇔Thunderbird⇔ 19:42, 23 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Sure. One of the words in this sentence is a link to a page. If you wanted to be really sneaky, I think you could even force it not to show the "hand pointing" cursor that is usually displayed when you're over a link. Out of curiosity, what makes you ask? — It's dot com 19:58, 23 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm... The link is still underlined. And It's not that I want it sneaky, I still want the hand to pop up. I just want uniformity. Is there any way to get rid of the underline? Then I'll let you know why. ⇔Thunderbird⇔ 20:04, 23 Sep 2005 (UTC)
I will have to do more research. I don't know why the text-decoration property isn't being correctly displayed by your browser. — It's dot com 20:28, 23 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit comments

How does one make editing comments? -Thechamp 21:43, 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Click "edit" at the right over there → . Then look just below the editing window. See where it says "Summary"? Type something in that box. That's how you leave an edit comment. — It's dot com 21:47, 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IRC channel

How ... do you join it? This little experience has made me like this wiki, more, and now I want to join the chat channel. HOW?!?! H * R 7 0 0

There are several ways, but the easiest way is to go to chat.hrwiki.org and follow the instructions there. See also HRWiki:IRC channel. — It's dot com 21:56, 7 Oct 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help creating welcome template?

I'm kinda embarrassing, since this is the sort of thing that seems like it ought to be easy to find an answer to—but it hasn't been. I want to start welcoming folks formally, and thought it would be nice to make an adapted welcome message of my own. I know doing this would involve creating a subpage in my userspace—but I have no idea how to go about that. Thanks! —notstrongorbad 05:32, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Oooo! May I? (answer this one?) Making templates and new pages is really easy. So I hope I can explain well. First things first, new pages. All you need to do to create a page is to go to it and start editing it. Make sure you save the page, so it actually writes something down to create the page! Suppose you wanted to create a page called "strombalos" under your user space, then you'd go to User:notstrongorbad/strombalos (notice how it's in red now -- if you click on it now it'll take you straight to the edit page), and start adding information. It's that simple! You can even (from your user page) type the new URL yourself and start it that way. As for templates: all you need to do for the basic form is to put regular wiki code. There is more on templates that you can learn here, cuz they have neat stuff like variables and the like. There is more general help here. Now for your specific case, you want to make a welcome page for our guests. I won't go into detail here, but you must use the template format in a special way. Suppose you had a template User:notstrongorbad/welcome_template in that page. Then you inject the code: {{subst:User:notstrongorbad/welcome_template}} into the victims', er, guests page and hit submit. It will inject the code and replace the contents of the template in his page. To practice, you can always use the Sandbox. Good luck! I hope this helps. --Stux 07:57, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)
And that's what I needed to know! DONK! Many thanks. —notstrongorbad 08:12, 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

[edit] E-mail this User

Hey, It's dot com. Just wondering what's up with the E-mail this User feature. Whenever you press the link, it says that you need to log in or enter a valid email address in your preferences. Any ideas what's wrong? — Lapper (talk) 02:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Have you entered a valid email address in your preferences? Have you confirmed it? -- Tom 02:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
[Edit Conflict] You need to validate your email address using the link in your prefs. Also, if the person you're trying to email hasn't enabled the feature, you won't be able to send one. — It's dot com 02:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sig

Hey do you know how to get thoese awsom Signatures that people have -- Billy Bob Bob

see the help section under Sig. that's where I learned. followed steps and you'll be all set I R F 20:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, start by typing four tildes (~~~~). That should do you for now. — It's dot com 20:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Page

Hey do you know how to make a new article? I wan't to make one.

You just have to insert the name of the page into two bracets like this:[[pagename]] Then, hit showpreview and the link should appear red. Click on it and edit away.--minibaseball.png Bkmlb(talk to me·stuff I did) 20:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thermometer

Hey, do you know how to get one of those mood thermometer things for a user page? Because I want one. Well, bye. Please get back to me on this on my user page. -- NOT Billy Bob Bob 01:05, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, here's the code:
[[Image:Wikistress3D 1 v3.jpg|thumb|right|150px|My current stress level: not stressed]]
Don't change anything except what's in red. See the red number 1 there? That controls the stress level. It can be 1, 2, 3, or 4. The 150px controls the size of the image, which you can adjust. Last, you can make the caption anything you want. — It's dot com 01:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help me, It's dot com, you're my only hope

Hey Dot com, I recentley made a Homestar Runner cursor that I was going to use on my talk page, but I dont know where to upload it! Please help! — DBK! 01:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know whether we can upload custom cursors. And if we can, I don't know where. But I'm not your only hope. (Note: Dot com changed the section title to what it is now because he thinks Star Wars is cool. DBK did not originally say that Dot com was his only hope.) Try asking at HRWiki talk:FAQ. — It's dot com 01:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
You read my mind with the Star Wars reference, I just didnt want to sound like a complete dork :-p — DBK! 01:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC) P.S You might want to consider archiving your page, it takes forever to preview.
Archiving?!? No way, Lucy! Only big wusses and lesser wimps archive their pages. Besides, mine's not even as bad as some talk pages out there. — It's dot com 01:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Ha ha I guess you right, oh and I found a website to host my cursor. — DBK! 02:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I need help again! Ahh Im so confused. I have the cursor here but I dont know how to put it on my user page. The FAQ isnt helping either. Sorry to be bothering you. — DBK! 02:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm still not sure that it's even possible to use that here. At least not and have everyone see it. But you need to post your question on the FAQ talk page so others will notice it. — It's dot com 02:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
You could try talking to Teh Pape. He's got a special cursor on his Talk page, and I don't know how he did it. I don't know if you're able to do it with custom cursers though, or if he's got one of a few options or something. ⇔Thunderbird⇔ 23:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I knew there were other users that had done this... yeah I checked out his source and he has the following code: <div style="cursor:pointer;"> Insert your regular wiki code here </div>. I know someone else has a crosshair in their page. I don't think you can upload your own, these are standard cursors as far as I know. It's possible that maybe the cursor: option may allow a url for an image but you'll have to do some research on that.
If you hover over this bold text you'll see it in action
--Stux 23:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
We should take this convo on to FAQ, not Dot coms talk page. There's already a convorsation started there. — DBK! 23:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
And for those keeping score at home, that conversation can be found here. :) — It's dot com 00:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Block user

How do you block someone? TheThingé 00:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

List them on HRWiki:WikiTroll, and a sysop will handle it. — It's dot com 00:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lost password

Major crisas! I forgot my password for the fanstuff wiki is theire any hope of finding it? Your a syops please help me! If it'll help my user name is General Grape-Nuts! hr.png NBBB(Talk · Contributions) 20:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

See the little button on the bottom of the login page that says "Email new password"? That'll reset your password and send the new one to your email address. You should then be able to log in and change your password to something more memorable. — wikisig.gif Joey (talk·edits) 21:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Software glitches

[edit] A telegramophonic thank you!

Salutations, Sir Dot Com! Stop Thank you for reccomending the user name change! Stop However, it appears that I always have new electronic messages even though none are present in the actual talk area. Stop Can you perhaps suggest a remedy? Stop Thanks again! Stop Sir Strong Bad

I've heard of several people having this problem. I assume you've tried simply refreshing the page? And visiting your talk page by clicking the "new messages" link? If so, I'm guessing the next thing you'd hear from a lot of people is "clear your cache" (seems to be a popular cure-all). You could, of course, make an edit to the page yourself, which should clear it up. —AbdiViklas 03:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
AbdiViklas is usually right, but he's wrong in this case. I posted this on your talk page, but I'll put it here for anyone who's just passing by. When we upgraded to MediaWiki 1.5, it introduced a bug in the way the system handles the new messages indicator. Currently, the only way to get the message to go away is to click "unwatch" at the top of your page. This is necessary even if you yourself are the one who edits the page. We have done what we can to make sure the people who design the software are aware of the problem and we hope they will give us a patch to fix it. — It's dot com 03:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
A solution was found for this problem, and I applied it to our source code; the problem is now fixed. (See next section.) — It's dot com 03:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tape-Leg Huh?

What's going on with User Talk:Tape-Leg and User Talk:Tape-Leg 2? — Image:kskunk_fstandby.gif KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Hahaha! Let me take a guess at it: you applied the 3805 patch and are testing it... am I close? --Stux 00:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
You, sir, are exactly right. And it works! I'm debating whether to go around to all the threads and put "this has been fixed" in them. Maybe people will just notice. Once we isolated the cause, I knew the solution would be a simple one; I just needed someone more familiar with the software to point out where exactly to make the tweak. w00t! — It's dot com 01:09, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yup yup! That's awesome! That's one down, one to go! --Stux 03:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IRC Error

Hey, It's dot com. Sorry to bug ya, but I suddenly have an error with IRC. While I was talking earlier, I accidentally hit some key(s) that opened my email inbox in the same screen. I hit back to get back to the chat, which wouldn't work. So I went back to the HRWiki page with the links to sign back in, and it kept erroring, not signing me in and saying that my name was already in use. The exact words of the error is:

Connecting...
Logging in...
-- *** Looking up your hostname...
-- *** Found your hostname, welcome back
-- *** Checking ident
-- *** No identd (auth) response
DorianGray Nickname is already in use.
DorianGray Nickname is already in use.
Error : Closing Link: 127.0.0.1 (Connection Timed Out)
Disconnected from irc.freenode.net

If you can log me out or something, I'd be much appreciative. I even signed off the internet, but that didn't fix it. Nor did trying to sign on to the fanstuff chat. --DorianGray

Sometimes you leave the room but the program thinks you didn't. Eventually the situation rectifies itself, and at this point in time it has. I think if you try again now it will work. small_logo.pngUsername-talk 04:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
If you're registered with nickserv, you can always log in with a different nickname and then user "/msg nickserv GHOST <username> <password>" (I think that's the format, you can type "/msg nickserv help GHOST" for help). It'll kill your phantom account and then you can change your nickname with the /nick command (i.e. /nick DorianGray|all_fixed). --Stux 04:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, I dun even know what nickserv is, so there you go. And it's not yet corrected itself... Still coming with the same error. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow afternoon, when I wake up. Nice to know it's nothing really major, though, right? --DorianGray
Nickserv is a service that allows you to control your own nickname (and not let anyone else use it). Once you are able to log in, just type "/msg nickserv register <password>" (and make up a password of course) and it will register your nickname. Every time you log in just type "/msg nickserv identify <password>" and it will know it's you. Chat clients are good for this cuz they allow you to enter the password so that it can automatically identify you. Anyway once identified you can do all sorts of cool things with your nickname. As of right now, yeah your nickname's still logged in and hasn't timed out. Tommorrow it should, but you can always use a different name until tommorrow. --Stux 04:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
'Kay. Just thought I'd tell people that it's all fixed now. Thanks for all the help. --DorianGray

[edit] My Watchlist

Hi Dot com, I'm just curious: I just noticed that for some reason I cannot add my talk page to my watch list? (Although my User page is on my watch list.) I'm curious to know, why is that? --Stux 17:10, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It's part of this bug, which is the "new messages" bug. If you want, you should log in there and vote for that bug, so that they will give it priority to be fixed. — It's dot com 17:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Done! --Stux 17:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Did I miss something? How does a bug go from "unresolved" to "it simply vanished"? or even "works for me" status? I was a little confused when I first read it, I still am, unless the person was referring to MediaWiki's 1.5.3 release. Unfortunately I couldn't find a detailed changelog without having to download the distro. I'll have to look at it later. Anyway I just wanted to let you know the change in status and ask about it. --Stux 00:15, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Aye, Tom took care of it. Thanks Tom! --Stux 00:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so after a second viewing under the tutelage of Pom Pom's keen eyes, it appears that the 3805 bug (which has now been fixed) is not related to the behavior of the watchlist at all. It seems that users now have no control over whether their talk page is on their watchlist or not. If someone sends you a message, your talk page is automatically watched. When you check it, it is automatically unwatched. I have no information on whether this is a separate bug or an intentional new feature. — It's dot com 01:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It appears that this is intentional after all. Everything I've found in the source code indicates that they meant to make it the way it is. — It's dot com 18:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diff Problems

Is it just me or is the media wiki edit conflict fix thingy, actually being buggy? Seems to me like certain things got overwritten during the frenzy. And I don't think our editors would've simply ignored edit conflict warnings and would have just haphazardly overwritten stuff. I did find a problem when editing the same page myself with two windows at once, but I thought it was just a problem when the same user did the edit. I fear I may be wrong. --Stux 05:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd reason a guess that it's just users not being careful when they get an edit conflict warning. But you might want to direct your questions at the users invloved as to whether they actually got warnings or the edits just went through. -- Tom 05:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Although, Joshua made consecutive edits at one point, and stuff was lost between the two versions. Strange... — It's dot com 05:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I have posted my question to Joshua to see his take on this. --Stux 05:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi guys. I just got a response back from Joshua, and it indeed seems that something is amiss:
I don't recall making those changes, and I never got an edit conflict on "portrait". - Joshua 12:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
So... strange, huh? --Stux 16:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I was going through bugzilla and i think that this bug may be the one we're looking at or related. --Stux 16:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I was reading the bug report and came to comment #28 (previously all other bug comments focused on the problem centering around the same user doing the changes with two windows), and i think this paragraph describes what may have happened here, (however I'd probably like to ask Joshua again if he did anything like this, which I doubt, so I still think we have new behavior to report to this bug):
In other words, when I am editting, all my edits are made in reference to the version I opened for editting (call it version 1). Then while I am editting someone else makes some changes and saves as version 2. Now when I save the first time, it notices that someone else has made an edit and tries to merge them. If this succeeds, then we arrive at version 3A. Now, being dumb, I notice that I misspelled "celebration", so I hit the back button, quickly fix it and save again. This time the software notices version 3A, sees that I also made that edit and consequently, it cancels all edit conflicts. Since I used the back button, my edit is still based on version 1. So this time when it saves, the conflict with version 2 is ignored. Hence, whatever changes which were made in that version are dropped from the new version 3B.
--Stux 22:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Believe it or not, that explanation makes sense. I don't know whether it's right or how to fix it from a technical standpoint, but the lesson here is: never click "back" to move through the software when editing. Always click "edit" anew. — It's dot com 22:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It wouldn't be hard to have two people test this while on IRC. I'd be interested in seeing the results. -- Tom 23:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Confirmed and reported. Good work Stux. -- Tom 00:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I also wanted to let you know I asked Joshua again about the steps he took in editing and this is the response i got:
Hey! I wanted to ask you... yesterday when you were doing your edits, do you recall if at any moment you hit the back button to go back and fix edits? --Stux 05:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Umm... I'm not sure. I might have, but I usually don't. - Joshua 13:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I hope this gets the ball rolling on the fixes. --Stux 20:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Check this out:

Ok, so check out the current delete category. See something strange? The "Timeline" article is listed under the U's! Even though the tobedeleted tag uses the {{PAGENAME}} tag. Strange, no? --Stux 17:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parse error!

In HomsarQuote.php. You sure are good at bringing the Wiki to its knees ;) Homestar Coderhomestar-coder-sig.gif 17:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I always seem to forget semicolons at the end of lines. And it never fails that someone notices my mistakes, even when they're there for less than a minute. :P — It's dot com 17:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Ah, missing semicolons, the bane of a programmer's existence. (Unless you're coding in Lisp. Then it's missing parens.) Homestar Coderhomestar-coder-sig.gif 17:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I used to do C++ so remember the semi-colon plight, now I do mostly webdesign and so am plagued to make sure I have the same number of <div>'s and </div>'s. If I don't comment every single one I'm lost. My lastest creation is this It's mostly done although I can't seem to get things to line-up the way I want and no matter what changes that I make, it will only look right on one browser at a time! Grrrrr. I R F 23:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the page?

When I try to get into the "Where's the Cheat?" page from the H*R updates page, it says "no page with that title exists," but when I get into it from the "Toons" section, it works fine. Is there a broken link, or is the problem at my end? Point7Q 14:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, the link found at H*R.com updates 2002#Tuesday, February 26, 2002 for Where's The Cheat? doesn't work, but the one at Toons#Big Toons does? What's really odd is that the error you're receiving is MediaWiki:Nogomatch, which I thought was only shown when there's no exact match for a search done with the "Go" button. Is that the message you're seeing? -- Tom 14:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The closest I came to duplicating this problem is to type "Where's The Cheat" (without a question mark) in the search box. It also gives a similar error if you type "Where's The Cheat?" (with or without the question mark) in the URL. I'm going to make a redirect to fix those two things, but otherwise I can't recreate the problem as described. — It's dot com 15:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Error

Look at The House That Gave Sucky Treats - at this moment, it offers:

The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "The House That Gave Sucky Treats".
This is usually caused by following an outdated diff or history link to a page that has been deleted.
If this is not the case, you may have found a bug in the software. Please report this to an administrator, making note of the URL.

This is abnormal, no? - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 01:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I just purged it. Looks normal now. — It's dot com 02:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] <br> format

I was just wondering why you changed the <br clear="all" /> to <br style="clear:both" /> on Template:Strong Bad Email. Both are standards compliant ([1], [2]) so I was just wondering what made you make the switch. It's not a problem or anything, I'm just curious. Thanks. -- Tom 21:36, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Well, earlier this week I read this: "IE generally does not seem to appreciate using br as a clearing agent. Too, the clear attribute is deprecated in html4 in favor of the style property." Since I figured we also preferred styles, I changed it when I noticed it. — It's dot com 21:47, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. -- Tom 21:55, 17 Aug 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Offline

Hey It's dot com! I was wondering what you did with the 2005 updates page? Was it a ploy to annoy the troll? Rogue Leader / (my talk) 02:08, 8 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Hey Rogue. That troll is not a person; rather, it is some kind of bot that searches for the different sections on the page and adds links under each one. My reasoning was that if I removed all the sections, it would have nothing to do, and would quit. In the meantime, I put up a notice so that any regular user who was looking at the page would be aware of what was going on. I don't know whether my actions actually did anything, or whether it was just coincidence that the attack stopped (almost) at that point. Only further research will tell. — It's dot com 02:14, 8 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Another positive consequence: it may help the bot move on to less-visible pages. —BazookaJoe 02:32, 8 Sep 2005 (UTC)
It just happened again, and this time I think blanking the page actually did some good. The bot made one more attempt after I blanked it, but then it moved on. — It's dot com 03:27, 8 Sep 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The system is down, yo

Hey Dot com, you probably already know this/don't care, but earlier today the wiki wasent working at all. I'm no computer expert, but I do know that something was wrong with the wiki. Because all the pages on the wiki would refuse to load, but other sites loaded just fine. I was just wondering if this had anything to do with this site. Sorry for your time, — talk Bubsty edits 04:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I hear someone tried to cram-a-lam a Swiss Cake Roll into the disk drive. See Talk:Main_Page#What_Happened? for more information. — It's dot com 04:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Oh, my bad. — talk Bubsty edits 04:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
No probalo. — It's dot com

[edit] source code

First off, are you sick or somthing (I ask because of the whole Strong Sad picture)? Can you or someone else let the code be seen for Special:Statistics. I'd like to maybe use one of the {{ }} type item for my user page. Also is there any place that lists all of the things like this and what each one displays. Is there one the will return the number of edits that I have made? I R F 18:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, here is the code: 
There are '''$1''' total pages in the database.
This includes "talk" pages, pages about {{SITENAME}}, minimal "stub"
pages, redirects, and others that probably don't qualify as content pages.
Excluding those, there are '''$2''' pages that are probably legitimate
content pages.

There have been a total of '''$3''' page views, and '''$4''' page edits
since the wiki was set up.
That comes to '''$5''' average edits per page, and '''$6''' views per edit.
As you can see, it uses PHP variables instead of MediaWiki variables (except for {{sitename}}), so it wouldn't work on your page without editing the source code for the project. But there are ways to do interesting things with your page. A lot of Wikipedia users have developed custom tools like this. Unfortunately, I don't know where to tell you to look for them or even whether they would work on our wiki. I seem to recall Lapper experimenting with something like this, but for one reason or another he couldn't get it to work. Sorry I wasn't much help here. — It's dot com 18:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
And, no, I'm not sick. That's for a friend. — It's dot com 18:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I took out the <pre></pre> syntax and did show preview to see what it would look like, and nothing happened. Does it only work on that one page that i mentioned above? I R F 19:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Right. Those variables are filled in by the code that generates that particular page. — It's dot com 19:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The MediaWiki code is freely available. If you want the code behind Special:Statistics, it's there. -- Tom 19:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blanked out

What did you tried to do with this template? — Elcool (talk)(contribs) 18:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I was looking for a way to insert a space automatically in front of a sig. A almost got it to work, but nothing was simpler than just pressing the space bar before the tildes. — It's dot com 19:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
What about inserting the space in the sig preference, of the sig subpage? — Elcool (talk)(contribs) 19:38, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Already tried that. The system trims spaces from the beginning and end. — It's dot com 20:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
What about nbspc or whatever that code is? Would that work or does it also mess things up? or even have “nbspc[SPACE]<sig>”? --Stux 20:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
&nbsp; would work, but I'm looking for a way to insert a literal space—without any extra code. I tried making a template that was a completely blank page and then using the "subst" command, and it kind of worked, but it actually put "{{subst:blank}}" onto the page with the first edit, and it wasn't until the page was edited again that it disappeared. And that's more trouble than just pressing the space bar. — It's dot com 20:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Ahh! I see! I think I get it. Why then not put the &nbsp; inside your sig itself, instead of the sig nickname field thingy? --Stux 21:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm sure he could, but then until the cache of every page his sig is on was cleared, his sig would have two spaces in front of it. It happened to mine, but with an em dash. — Lapper (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh True! Good point! Oh well. --Stux 21:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Besides, I don't use a sig template. — It's dot com 21:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The weirdest thing

I don't know what I was thinking to myself when I decided to add another section to your talk page, but here is something weird: Link. Hide the TOC. — Elcool (talk)(contribs) 05:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC) (P.S.: Happy holidays!)

Weeeeeird. Later I'm gonna figure out what's causing that bug (if it is indeed a bug) and see if I can't use it somehow. Thanks, Elad. — It's dot com 14:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
You're weclome! — Elcool (talk)(contribs) 15:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
id='toc' is being used twice. An "id" is a unique identifier. Each time this attribute is used in a document it must have a different value. -- Tom 17:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I think I found a sneaky use for it in my user page. :) --Stux 07:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Book sources

Whats the Book sources thing?? TheThingé 17:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you ask on HRWiki talk:FAQ. — It's dot com 21:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CAPTCHA

I wanted to know what you did to get CAPTCHA up and running on 1.5.6. I stopped by the IRC channel & was told to ask you about it. :) On freenode, I am earthsound (registered user). Also, you can reach me at gmail.com (same user name). Thanks!

(He and I spoke via the chat channel, and the gist of the discussion was that I was not the author of the software, just an assistant implementor, and I directed him to the software author. — It's dot com 19:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] .swf decompiler

Where did you find a .swf decompiler? Stuntman021

I use Flash Decompiler by Eltima. A free download is available (which is the version I have, and it meets my needs pretty well), and the full version looks to have a lot of features. — It's dot com 00:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two Questions

Hey Dot com, what's up? I have two questions. First, where did you post that discussion where someone was asking how to do links that were not underlined and you tried an example which didn't quite work correctly? (This is indirectly related:) I was wondering if you could take a look at this issue. Thanks! --Stux 21:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

See #Super-plain_link. Note: old how-to questions from my talk page are filed under The System Is Down → Technical help. On your second question, I'm not sure what you're asking. — It's dot com 22:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
For the first question, I looked briefly and couldn't find it (actually i scanned the page twice) but couldn't find it. I was scanning too quickly. As for the second issue, it turns out to be a firefox issue :(. Nerd42's sig goes beyond the table borders for some reason. I looked at the sig code and all the tags were closed off. I hope you have a copy of firefox to look at this cuz i'm not gonna provide a screenshot of it right away! ;) I gotta eat! --Stux 00:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd post it in a more central place, like the FAQ talk. — It's dot com 00:31, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Good idea! Just so you know, I found out another reason why you wouldn't be able to see it: resolution. The problem only happens when you wrap text a certain way. As a result, I have posted an update and a screenshot of the problem, as well as an inquiry in the FAQ talk page. --Stux 14:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mirrors and Such

Hello, It's dot com. I'm now direction your admin-y attention to this little discussion in the far reaches of the knowledge base. - Joshua 15:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Tom currently handles all the mirror-type stuff. I would ask him. — It's dot com 15:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay... - Joshua 15:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Did I just miss that?

Did I miss something or is this just deja vu? I *just* noticed that the order of the "diff" and "hist" buttons are out of order from the other wiki's. In wikipedia, they are before the page title, here they are after the page title. How long has it been like that, and was that part of your recent tinkerings? Confused in Connecticut. --Stux 22:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

You live in connecticut? Bodacious in Buffalo Seriously (Talk) 22:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't see what you're saying at all. Whistlin' in Washington, Jay (Talk) 22:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
You sure? On the Bonus Stage Wiki, they also go (diff)(hist), so... I dunno. Not Doing A Name Thingy Like The Rest Of You in Pennsylvania. --DorianGray
I think what he meant, although I don't see it, is that he thinks that it was "{page title} (diff)(hist)" here. Lazing Around in Lynnwood, Jay (Talk) 22:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Hm. Odd. I see it the other way around. I mean, the correct way. Maybe Stux's internet is just going spastic. Not telling anyone my location, ♥ teeeffoh! 22:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it's a certain bug in the mediawiki 1.5 software, there were many other ones. Seriously (Talk)
OT: Jay? Lynn would wash? Silly in Sammamish, — Image:kskunk_fstandby.gif KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
How very Strong Bad-ish of you. :p --Jay (Talk) 22:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Wait, did anyone else just realizing us having this discussion that is getting off-topic on another user's talk page that isn't even responding? Confused in Crapland, ♥ teeeffoh! 22:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm thinking it's either a bug in the software, or a bug in Stux's compy. Seriously (Talk) 22:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I doubt that it's a bug in my compy since my watchlist is getting the code from the server as it's all server-generated. I know I have the "enhanced" recent changes turned on (I turned it off for a moment and it indeed showed it the other way, with (diff)(hist) first. But this must've been deja vu, cuz of that. Cuz I've had it "enhanced" for the longest time. So I dunno. I probably need sleep. As for my domicile: I actually don't live in Connecticut, nor have I ever even been in the state (sadly). I just picked the two words cuz they made good alliteration! (And I was surprised to be able to spell the state's name right.) I didn't think people would assume I lived in Connecticut. In fact I am Mindless in Michigan. --Stux 23:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Mindless south of Montreal, Bamboozled west of Boston, Really Confused north of Rio, Dazed east of Dallas. With crap, Yeltensic (T • C) 19:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You are s-smart

Brilliant random Homsar quote thingy!

You're pretty good at this, obviously. Take a look at this discussion and my idea at the end - would this be something possible to improve usability? - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 20:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess you're gonna have to s-spell out what your idea is, because I'm not quite s-seeing it. S-sorry if that cancels out the s-smart. — It's dot com 20:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
The ogg files. They confuse people, many players in use don't use them right out of then box. But Wikipedia has an interesting solution which we might be able to emulate. - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 20:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I should have been more s-specific. What I meant was, when I went to the page about the s-symphony, I wasn't s-sure what their s-solution was. — It's dot com 20:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
In the 1st paragraph, there's the Listen link (after the musical example) - there's a (listen (help·info)) thingy. The "Help" goes to instructions on how to get your player to play oggs. I mean, I was stymied by them until I was researchiong (on that page, actually) and stumbled upon that.
Of course, I don't know enough about Wiki to know a) if this can be done on our system, 2) how to do it even if it can be done, and III) if this sort of a thing would require "discussion" "someplace". SO that's why I ask you, Mr. S-smart. - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 20:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Just copy the source code of Wikipedia:Template:Audio to Template:Audio (or something like that), adjust the help link to the media help page on this Wiki, and it should work fine (apart from maybe the speaker icon). --videlectrix.pngENUSY discussionitem_icon.gif user.gifmail_icon.gif 20:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
It's that easy, eh? :\ Well, it'd take me a few days to figure all that out! (I spent a good part of today trying, haven't gotten far. Will keep trying.) But if someone who already has all that figured out wants to take up the cause, we could have better usability sooner. - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 20:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New special page

I've been seeing a lot of pages with the name Test being deleted, along with images. May I ask what going on? — DBK! 03:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

We're testing something. -- Tom 06:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
What I meant was what are you testing. — DBK! 11:51, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
It's a special page that has to do with image management. It's not ready yet, but when it is, it will be linked from an HRWiki page. — It's dot com 15:55, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
That's really, really cool. I've been waiting for something like that... A way to see who owns what image(s) quickly. This should certainly be helpful in managing 'em, eh? --DorianGray
Indeed. :) — It's dot com 05:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flagrant System Error

Your userpage is pimp-ed out! How'd you get it like that? - Super Sam 03:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Oops! You bwoke it! — It's dot com 03:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Now that it's all over, you can tell me how you did it! Wheeeeeeee! - Super Sam 05:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Er, well, I put special clauses in the PHP code itself (that actually builds each page) that suppressed the header and footer and changed the background to blue and the text to white for any page called "User:It's dot com". Then I just changed the text to the error message. — It's dot com 05:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My editing a-broke

Hey. This is Seriously. For somereason, my account can't edit. An internal error keeps happening. I'm seeing if I can use this to edit...The thing is, though, is that everyone else is still editing. It's getting strange. — 69.160.0.227 (Talk | contribs) 03:38, 2 April 2006 (UTC) (left unsigned)

What is the error? — It's dot com 03:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll look into it and try to fix the problem. — It's dot com 04:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Tavi monobook

Look, 'Tavi is somehow halting the appear of my monobook.css. Is there anyway to make it so that there are styled links to homestarrunner.com, and other sites? Bluebry 04:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Try editing the right page. --videlectrix.pngENUSY discussionitem_icon.gif user.gifmail_icon.gif 04:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't even bother doing that. — It's dot net 04:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay. I'll do it, and you won't. ;-> (Ima try!) Bluebry 04:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it's working, but, you may have another reason for telling me not to bother doing that. Bluebry 04:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Who, me? — It's dot net 04:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what happen to your userpage

Hey dotty, last time i checked your userpage, there was the blue fragment erroe page, what happen? Nikolce Kocovski 05:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, 'twas an April Fool's joke. See Flagrant System Error above. (By the way, I'm really not very keen on "dotty", just so you know. See the top of my (working) user page.) — It's dot com 05:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

OOO i'm sorry, i'll just call youi dot com then, if you like?

"It's dot com". Or "Dot com". Either one, really. They both fit. — It's dot com 06:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes

Hey there Dot com, I just have a question about my userboxes. When I try to make it align to the left side, it only goes to the right. Then, when I put it in my about me section, it goes above my text so it looks weird. Do you know what to do? — DBK! 04:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I tweaked it a bit, removing divs in certain spots and putting in some in other places. It was mostly trial and error, though. Maybe that will get you started. (I can't really say that all the scroll boxes make your page especially easy to read, but that's just my opinion.) — It's dot com 04:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah I realized that, I was pretty much experimenting with that stuff before. I got rid of some and just kept scroll buttons on the lists in my page, like my favorite music and cool users. Any way I was just curious why it wasn't aligning to the right, and now I'll experiment more. Thanks! — DBK! 04:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
No probalo! :) — It's dot com 05:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TaviStyle

Hello. Is there any way to put the TaviStyle skin as a choosable skin on the Fanstuff Wiki? Thank you. --Thatkidsam 14:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello? --Thatkidsam 22:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not ignoring you. TaviStyle will be included when we upgrade to 1.6 soon. Until then, we've frozen changes to the software so that we have a correct frame of reference. — It's dot com 22:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Thank you. (I just wanted to know when it will be uploaded.) --Thatkidsam 23:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Any chance we could get a version we could use on Wikipedia? Or one that I could at least install on the test Wiki I've got on my PC? — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 04:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [[Wikipedia: Extension]]

I'm not sure whether you made the extension that lets you link directly to Wikipedia articles using the [[Wikipedia:Article]] syntax, but if you did, can you share it? I'd like to use it on my own wiki. If you didn't, do you happen to know who did or where it's available? Thanks. --Soapergem • Talk.png • Contrib.png 06:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a standard feature of every MediaWiki install. See Meta:Help:Interwiki linking for more information. -- Tom 07:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiBot

If I wanted to program a WikiBot, would it be HAVE to be in PHP, Python, or MySQL? Bluebry 22:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty sure the answer there is yes in most cases, it's moot if you want to use one here. Only developers can run Wikibots. - KookykmanImage:kookysig.gif(t)(c)(r)
While that's true, Kookykman, he might asking in general. Sorry, Bluebry. I'm not the one to ask about bots. You might try Joey, Tom, Phlip, or even others. I'm much more content to hack the software from the inside rather than use a bot from the outside. — It's dot com 22:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Unless you have über-1337 haxx0r access like our friend It's dot com here, the only way you're going to be doing anything to the wiki is with normal page loads, ie exactly as if you were editing it by hand, just automated. So any language that you can use to access the net you could theoretically use to write a bot. However since many languages have packages to simplify HTTP, these languages would be easier to use, and some languages (like Python) even have pre-built wikibot frameworks for you to work off. But this doesn't say you can't go and write your wikibot in pretty much any language – it's simply a matter of how hard it is to write. Python is a simple-to-learn language anyways. I doubt you would ever write a bot that used PHP, and rarely would you write one that used MySQL. And of course if you prefer to work with socket and connect in C, there's nothing stopping you from doing that either... it would just be extremely tedious to write. --phlip TC 23:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Now, I'm still new to programing, but I heard C. Would C be anything like C++? And I don't want to hear anything about developer status either. Bluebry 23:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special Pages

Can only Sysops edit Special Pages? ----Dacheatbot · Communicate 00:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Generally, pages listed as Special pages are ones that are protected or generated by the wiki. As such, they are not editable by the common user, or by anyone. What makes a page uneditable to a common user like you or I is the protect template. See the image on the Main Page for an example, no edits can be made to it by someone lower than sysop. - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 00:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I understand, but how did someone add the template to recent changes? --01:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)--Dacheatbot · Communicate
The text on most special pages (including the recent changes page) is handled by pages in the MediaWiki namespace. And yes, only sysops can edit these pages. The text in the message at the top of the recent changes, watchlists, and login screen is sub-controlled by a template ({{recentchangesnotice}}) that we placed on the relevant MediaWiki pages. — It's dot com 01:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Checking IPs

I know I can't check them on here, but I was wondering were you go to check who has what IP.--H*bad 21:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

There are around half a dozen ways, none of which I'm going to elaborate on here. If you look through the MediaWiki documentation, it might give you some insights. — It's dot com 21:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the link in the special pages that let me check Ip addresses. (The reason for my asking is because of my wiki.) The thing that I know that if I go there here, I will just get an error.--H*bad 16:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
If you installed your wiki yourself, then you already have the access necessary to check IPs. If it's a wiki-in-a-can, then it's likely that you don't have the extensions installed that you would need for that. Again, check your documentation. — It's dot com 16:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idea'd

I have thought of something, that I think that needs changing. I believe that the fanstuff wiki should be able to use the Tavi style for our skin. Can that be arranged?--H*bad 15:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, is there a way to put it in a monobook? --TheThingé 15:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I was talking about a way to have it as a seperate option.--H*bad 15:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I know. --TheThingé 15:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
See above. --phlip TC 15:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Wait we haven't upgraded yet??--H*bad 15:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contribs

Do you think you could add the 'ctrbs' extension to the Fanstuff Wiki's recent changes? It'd make my job there a little easier. Thanks in advance. - Joshua 17:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

That is standard in 1.6 (where it will be spelled 'contribs', incidentally). I recognize that it's taking us longer than we originally anticipated to make the upgrade. Don't give up hope of its happening, though. — It's dot com 18:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
You added it here... is it difficult to implement? - Joshua 18:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it involves making changes in about six spots of existing code. It's not just like adding an extension. If we don't upgrade real soon, then I'll see about making an exception to our lockout of changes to 1.5. — It's dot com 18:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magical Sysop Powers?

I've noticed that you and the other sysops around here are able to identify a user by their IP number. I have my own little personal wiki, running on the exact same version of MediaWiki as this one, of course without any changes made to this wiki after installation. As far as I can tell, I have no such all knowing, ip reading powers as the sysop of my wiki. Is this something you guys have edited the HRWiki to be able to do or am I completely missing a huge power of being a sysop? —Zelinda 00:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have already asked. They won't say.--H*bad 00:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Eh, okay then. Another mystery of the HRWiki goes unsolved. —Zelinda 00:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I think they want to do this to us.--H*bad 00:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
The bureaucrats at this wiki have installed the position of "developer". On some wikis it is called checkuser. It allows users to check IP addresses of users in addition to the normal sysop powers. So yes, it's edited in. - BubTalk
That's not quite right, but it's kind of close, so, yeah, let's go with that. — It's dot com 01:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help Another Wiki?

Greetings from Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki. :) I'm one of the administrators over there (Jaymach, if you'd like to check) and I have been told by InterruptorJones that you may be able to help us with something we are attempting to implement over there. We're looking into possibly using your "Image Code" verification, but only want to use it for Page Moves rather than every Page Edit. Do you know if this is possible at all and, if it is, is there any chance you could inform us how to do so? Feel free to contact me on my talk page. Many thanks. (I'd sign this, but it'd be from my anon IP so there seems little point)

We are pleased to help you here, Andrew. Tom is sending you more info by email right now. — It's dot com 01:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki links

Hey It's dot com. I need some help with a link, it's Meta:Help:User style. It works here, but not on the Fanstuff User Preferences. Do you know why this is?--H*Bad 15:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It should work now. (I updated and synchronized the knowledge base and fanstuff interwiki tables.) — It's dot com 19:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. Now I can continue to make it more updated like.--H*Bad 19:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki pages

What exactly do MediaWiki pages do? I'm confuzzled...— Seriously (Talk) 18:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

See Meta:Help:MediaWiki namespace. — It's dot com 19:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting user names

Hey Dot com. I heard from some very reliable sources that you guys can delete user names.--H*Bad 14:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

"Can" is such a big word. Of course I can delete usernames. I can delete the whole wiki. (Not that I'm going to.) As for whether I will delete usernames, the answer is no; in general our policy is not to do that. Who said otherwise? — It's dot com 14:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
It just seems like its not a very good idea to keep a username on the list, like NSMC, some inappropriate usernames, Willy on wheels, etc. Well maybe not NSMC, for historical reasons. And I never said anyone said otherwise.--H*Bad 14:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, can can also just change there username to something else. I'm not saying that he's going to. He might but I doubt it. --TheThingé 14:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes you did. You said, "I heard from some very reliable sources." — It's dot com 14:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, well, I was on the mediawiki channel asking questions.--H*Bad 14:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it is technically possible, and yes, in certain very unusual circumstances it has been done, but no, we don't do it otherwise. — It's dot com 14:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Really? When was it done? Also, I found out mediawiki 1.7 will be coming out in July.--H*Bad 14:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Great. I'd hate for them to actually use a version for a while. — It's dot com 14:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, they told me that its going to look much better than 1.6.--H*Bad 14:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
In reply to the other question: It was used after NSMC's vandalism was cleaned up. All the individual accounts were deleted and consolidated into one account. - BubTalk

[edit] El Cid... lcid... Are Cid... rcid...

Hey! What's "rcid"? —AbdiViklas 16:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It's the "Recent Changes ID". Each entry in the `recentchanges` table has a unique ID, which shows up in the URL when you click "diff" from Special:Recentchanges on an edit that hasn't been patrolled. The "rcid" part tells the system to display the "park as patrolled" link as you view the diff (even if the edit has already been patrolled), and so it's not necessary to be included in a link on a talk page. — It's dot com 17:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subst signatures

Hi, this is CapitalQ from TMBW.net. We just upgraded to MW 1.6 yesterday (only to see 1.7 stable released today, but that's another story), and after seeing that templates in signatures automatically turn into substrings, ACupOfCoffee pointed us here, where you state "I have created a new variable that allows me to disable this so-called feature, which I now have done." If you could tell me exactly how you went about doing that, I'd be very greatful. Thanks. :) -CapitalQ 02:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I have replied on your talk page. — It's dot com 03:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, all set up! You rock. -CapitalQ 12:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] /wiki/ redirect

I asked Interruptor Jones about this, and he told me to tell you, so... I think /wiki/ should redirect to /index.php/ because whenever I want to look something up in HRWiki by typing in the URL, I invariably end up typing "/wiki/" and getting the ol' 404. I'd just add Redirect permanent /wiki/ http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/ somewhere in the .htaccess file, and it should work automatically. I think it'd be even better to do it the other way around and make "/wiki/" the canonical form and have index.php redirect to that instead, but not having used the MediaWiki software, I don't know the exact configuration options. Oh... and ever thought about moving some of the stuff on this huge talk page to an archive page? ;) - furrykef (Talk at me) 16:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't typing the URL out a bit cumbersome? Why not create a smart-keyword instead? -- Tom 20:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
It's the way I've always done it, and it doesn't feel so cumbersome after having done it a million times with Wikipedia. Other people might not be aware of smart keywords (I wasn't until just now). Besides, what's the harm in setting up a redirect? :) - furrykef (Talk at me) 21:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not inclined to hack the wiki to aid one person's "way of always doing it". There are easier client-side options for what I percieve to be a client-side issue. Sorry. -- Tom 00:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
But is it just one person's way of always doing it, or are other people doing it, too? And I still don't see the harm in just adding a line to .htaccess; you wouldn't even have to restart the server or anything. - furrykef (Talk at me) 03:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not that your request isn't easy to fulfill. I presented you with an alternative that would actually be quicker than if I made the change and you typed the entire URL. I don't see this as a problem with the wiki, I see it as an issue that is unique to a single user's behavior. Though I have to admit, I still might consider changing the index.php in the URL to wiki (making wiki the canonical form), but I'd want to go over the consequences of such a change with others first. (Note that this was discussed once before.) -- Tom 04:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm unindenting so this doesn't get too wide... anyway, we still haven't even established that I'm the only one who types /wiki/ -- do you have error log statistics to back it up, maybe? I also think the redirect would be a good idea because it would be more consistent with other wikis (I believe most of the most popular MediaWiki sites use /wiki/); inconsistency is why I make this error in the first place. I could make further arguments, for example, that the URL is part of the user interface of a website, and any user interface should anticipate user error. (It's not uncommon for a text-based program to understand both "exit" and "quit", for example.) I could make an analogy with "typo redirects" on wikis. I know, it sounds silly to back up such a little thing like this with so much, but it just feels like a redirect is the Right Thing. (I guess becoming a webmaster is having this effect on me.) Well, I don't suppose there's any more I can say on this subject, so do what you're gonna do. :) - furrykef (Talk at me) 20:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, guess what. We finally did this! The main chore was moving the wiki source files and setting it up in such a way that legacy links still work (which for a while seemed like they wouldn't work, and thus would have been a deal breaker). Ultimately it wasn't even that difficult. It's just one of those things that you do so rarely that it takes more than a couple of seconds to figure out. — It's dot com 18:16, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PHP upgrade

Special:Version still says that we're running PHP 4.4.2. Upgrade to PHP 5 unsccessful? — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 06:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Delayed. Turns out we need to upgrade RHEL so that we can upgrade Apache so that we can upgrade PHP so that we can upgrade MediaWiki. We're going to try again over the weekend. (We did upgrade from 4.3.x to 4.4.2, for any of you keeping score at home.) — It's dot com 06:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Upgrading RHEL and Apache might not be necessary after all. We should have the CAPTCHA problem (which is really a missing libraries problem) fixed with the upgrade as well, which according to my information should be any time now. — It's dot com 00:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special:Countedits

Could you please install the Count Edits extension on the Fanstuff? Many combolations, Super Sam 08:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

That function is a server-intensive function (which is why it's restricted to sysops on this wiki). Perhaps you could elaborate on why you need it. — It's dot com 00:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, we don't. I was simply interested (in counting edits). - Super Sam 06:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I see. — It's dot com 14:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am looking for documentation and an implementation of Special:CountEdits. If you can help, please contact me at the e-mail address here: http://en.csharp-online.net/index.php?title=User:WikiSysop.

Thanks for your help. --- Editor C# Online.NET

[edit] Old main page style

Don't get me wrong, I love the new style, but there are still people complaining (well, on the forum). Is there a way to put that old style as one of the skins in the preferences? If it's too much work, it's fine with me, I like this style better, but some people don't. Ed lim smildE / talk

We're not going to create and maintain another skin just for that old style. There are instructions out there somewhere on customizing one's personal CSS to make the main page like the old style. — It's dot com 17:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
That works. I'll just tell people that. Ed lim smildE / talk

[edit] Help, please?

Sorry if I'm bothering you, but I'd like to patrol recent changes, and there's no one else to really ask. What do the red "!"s and "N"s mean? Sorry if I'm bothering you. link_icon.gifThe Joe(Talk) 20:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

"!" means the page has not yet been marked as patrolled. "N" means that the page was created with the edit in question (and, thus, there will be no "diff" available for that edit.) --Jay (Talk) 20:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh! Now I understand. Thanks. link_icon.gifThe Joe(Talk) 21:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Text could not be found

On the Strong Badman page I got an error that says that the text could not be found, and I should report it to an administrator. Do you think it has anything to do with the recent maintnance? - link_icon.gifThe Joe(Talk) 00:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

That page seems to be working fine to me... --phlip TC 00:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
If that happens again, you can fix it by purging the page. — It's dot com 01:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki Question

Hey, IDC. I was wondering if you could let me know how you "hard-coded" the header for HRWiki:Sandbox to appear from MediaWiki:Sandbox all invisible-like. I just noticed it and I thought it was pretty nifty. --Steve (talk) 02:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I inserted some hooks into Article.php and wrote a hook function that draws on these two pages. The procedure might change when we upgrade to 1.8. — It's dot com 19:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Could you show me the code you used? --Steve (talk) 05:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
See this section. — It's dot com 02:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes and Homsar Quotes

Hi there its dot com!! Loafing redirected my problem to you. I made a Homsar random quote userbox (see my User Page - first on the userbox list) and was trying to add it to the Userbox page for the benefit of the Wiki. So everyone could see it and enjoy the bounty of it's... well whatever it is the same as I do. So I go to the Userbox page and try to add it in. Problem. It won't add into the <userboxsample> tag because of the homsarquote template. Of course, it works OUTSIDE of the tag, so it works on my page and everywhere else. I just can't make it display in the table on that page. Any way that can be fixed? Thanks a ton. --Image:Stinkwing.gif »Bleed0range« 08:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The braces around the homsarquote template have to be escaped inside the userboxsamples tags. View this edit to see the method and the result. — It's dot com 13:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Hey thanks. I thought the random homsar box would be a good idea. Heh, I like the change to "Words of wisdom" better than just Homsar Quote. Good call. lol.--Image:Stinkwing.gif »Bleed0range« 00:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Knowledge Base - Fanstuff Redirects

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you asking for a challenge I believe there's a column in the `interwiki` table named `iw_local` that allows redirects between local wikis. Could this be enabled for the Knowledge Base on the Fanstuff and vice versa? There are currently 18 such redirects currently on the Fanstuff and 3 on the Knowledge Base. It was prolly be more convenient if this was enabled. - Super Sam 06:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You are correct; that does work. I will have to discuss whether we want to enable it. Some might appreciate the click-through as notice that they were leaving the knowledge base. — It's dot com 15:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
We've enabled this kind of redirect from Fanstuff to the Knowledge Base on a provisional basis. Let us know how it works. -- Tom 17:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move Page Modification

I was thinking that it would be convenient to have an option for sysops (and other people with the 'delete' permission) to have a checkbox when moving a page that would delete the redirect automatically without having to do it manually. So, I went and made some code changes to SpecialMovepage.php, and I have what I think is a working implementation of my idea.

All the technicalities out of the way, I'm asking if you could put this onto the Fanstuff. It would be of great convenience when reverting the page move trolls which are all too frequent now-a-days, and when fixing things such as Text Adventures subpages, which are a large problem. The code for 1.8.2 is here, and the system messages required are here.

Could you please think about this and let me know? Thanks a plenty, Super Sam 16:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe there already is that function. I've done it a couple times this week. You have to press the move page button, and then another page will come up with the Delete & Move option. —BazookaJoe 16:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a similar function - it deletes the page you're moving to, rather than the redirect it leaves. - Super Sam 01:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Is this still a problem? The links to the code there are gone now, but I would think the easiest way to do this would be just to suppress the creation of the redirect page in the first place. — It's dot com 20:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Note to self: This is discussed at length at bug 1062, with various patches (including several by Super Sam). There are two styles of implementation: suppress the creation of the redirect or create the redirect and then immediately delete it. Currently, the requested feature is marked as WONTFIX. The reasoning behind their decision is not convincing to me, and so I'm going to think about it some more before deciding what to do here. — It's dot com 17:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
FURTHER note to self: Even though the bug was closed as WONTFIX, the functionality was actually added the to the code two and a half months later. The move page in our current version 1.12 doesn't have an interface to take advantage of the feature, but the one in 1.14 does (because they explicitly enabled it last October—go figure), so this will be available to sysops after our next upgrade on a provisional basis. — It's dot com 05:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Transclusion templates

Hi Dot com,

The reason I had 4 different templates was in order to have a separate category for each language, thus making it easier for speakers of specific languages to know which pages need to be verified in their language as well. A generic template wouldn't do that. --Stux 19:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes it will. — It's dot com 19:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
EDC: Ohhh! nevermind I see it now! oops! Hey what about the {{subtitlesLinks}} template, it doesn't seem to work. I was too slow to get to you first ;) --Stux 19:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh i see the language template, sneaky! I'm slow. And tired. Thanks for the fix! --Stux 19:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit conflict] The {{subtitlesLinks}} template (which could probaby use some non-transcluded documentation) adds links to the subtitles pages over underneath the external links (below the toolbox and search box) on the left side there. What seems to be the problem? It looks like it's working correctly to me. — It's dot com 19:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the info! Although I *just* saw the reply. (I'm rusty, I know.) I figured out what was going on just as Loafing had left me a message. It's all good now! But yeah documentation and some "advertisement" would help. My eyes are trained to pretty much avoid looking at the left column unless there's something there I know I need. --Stux 21:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I added some documentation. As for the placement of the links, we felt that they should be easily accessible for those who know where to look and yet completely out of the way for those who are simply reading the article. — It's dot com 21:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Noticed the doc. Looks nice! As for the link placement... Ah! Makes sense! --Stux 21:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice on Subtitles:sbemail/en

Your notice, though it would be useful, made the subtitles not work. I moved it to the talk page. --Addict 2006 15:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks like it wasn't the note itself, but rather the comment under it, that was causing the trouble. Can you confirm? — It's dot com 15:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
The subtitles viewers strip templates and <pre> tags from subtitles scripts. Everything else remains, and if something is left outside the <xml> element, the viewers won't be able to parse the script. It works now. Loafing 21:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
A comment can go anywhere after the <?xml ?> line – it can be outside the <transcript> tags without any problems, but it is important that the <?xml ?> line is the first thing on the page after <pre> tags and templates are removed, or the parser will fail. Incidentally, the box at the top doesn't have to be a separate template in order to be stripped out... <noinclude></noinclude> also works. --phlip TC 00:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, a template was where I was headed anyway, since it should also be used on the corresponding pages once the page gets translated. — It's dot com 01:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects A-Plenty

Hey Dot com, out of curiosity what are these pages for? If you're keeping track of all redirects, wouldn't a script do that? (Or doesn't Media Wiki already?) Also, unless it gets rv'd here's another one for ya (I dunno if you want anyone else to edit any of those pages). --Stux 04:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It's some research I'm doing for a linking project I'm working on, which will be rolled out with the next upgrade. It's for a special class of redirects, not all of them. — It's dot com 04:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page Redirection

Hello Mr. Its dot comerson If you don't know, I'm a new member here. I was wondering how to edit the main page of the wiki and make redirect pages. Both of them I've tried to do but couldnt figure out. I thoght you could tell me. -Homestar-winner

Hello, Mr. Homestar-winner. Several things on the main page are locked to help prevent vandalism, but there are a couple of sections you can edit, most notably the whatsnew page. ... Redirects are pages that have text in the following form at the top: "#REDIRECT [[page to redirect to]]", and are otherwise blank. See Meta:Help:Redirect. Cheers! Incidentally, to sign your name, just type four tildes, like this: ~~~~, and the system will automatically insert your name and a timestamp, like this: It's dot com 14:31, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks man, but I had gotten that far before (with the redirect page I mean). How do you automaticly make the page redirect such as with sbemail 1 instead of the redirect page i tried to do: User:Homestar-Winner? Homestar-winner 16:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that you had a space between the number sign and the word "REDIRECT". Incidentally, that redirect is unnecessary. I will be deleting it soon. If you would rather that your second name begin with a capital letter, say so here. — It's dot com 17:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I don't mind you deleting it. I was just trying it out. My name is fine like it is. Homestar-winner 17:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something's Fishy...

Hello Dot Com. I have a question. I am aware that the wiki upgraded to 1.9 and something doesn't seem right. In the Recent Changes, there used to be numbers by each change in the wiki showing how many bytes have been added/removed from the page. It is funny, because they do not show up on my computer anymore. Is there a reason for this? Thanks. --TheYellowDart—(t/c) 02:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

See his last post in this thread. Loafing 02:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Loaf. I haven't been here for a few days, so I kinda miss some conversations, if you know what I mean. TheYellowDart—(t/c) 02:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Randomizer

This conversation is copied from the IRC channel and edited to remove lines irrelevant to the point i'm bringing up:

[2007-07-30 02:31:56] <DeFender1031> hmm.. hrwiki's page randomizer seems to be biased...
[2007-07-30 02:32:15] <Bluebry> DeFender: a conservative or liberal bias?
[2007-07-30 02:33:41] <DeFender1031> Bluebry, in other words, there are a lot of pages that i've gotten 10 times and there are a lot i've never gotten
[2007-07-30 02:34:32] <Phlip> DeFender1031: You'd expect there to be a lot of pages you get 10 times, and some you've never gotten... if you get all of them the exactly same number of times, that would be an anomaly
[2007-07-30 02:35:32] <DeFender1031> Phlip, but it should be close to the statistical mean, shouldn't it?
[2007-07-30 02:37:26] <Phlip> hmm... it looks like the randomiser can be biased...
[2007-07-30 02:37:37] <Phlip> to make it run fast
[2007-07-30 02:38:38] <Phlip> each page has a random number assigned to it in the DB, which is changed every time the page is edited
[2007-07-30 02:38:56] <Phlip> Special:Random picks a random number, and picks the page that has the closest number assigned to it
[2007-07-30 02:39:33] <Phlip> so if the random numbers in the table aren't uniform, which they won't be, then the pages that're in the clumps will be chosen less often.
[2007-07-30 02:40:26] <DeFender1031> well that's just stupid
[2007-07-30 02:40:38] <Phlip> but it's much faster than any other method
[2007-07-30 02:40:58] <DeFender1031> each one should have a number from when it's created, from 1 - 17XX and then the randomizer should pick like that
[2007-07-30 02:41:12] <Phlip> when your site gets as many hits as WP, probably including a lot of bored users pounding the SP:R button, every speed increase helps
[2007-07-30 02:41:27] <Phlip> DeFender1031: how would you handle page deletions?
[2007-07-30 02:42:29] <DeFender1031> Phlip, very simple. when a page is deleted the last numbered page takes on that number instead, and the randomizer max goes down by 1
[2007-07-30 02:45:15] <DeFender1031> Phlip, here's the thing. all pages get numbered. 1-1769 right? and the randomizer max gets set to 1769. then let's say #537 gets deleted, 1769 becomes 537, and the randmax becomes 1768
[2007-07-30 02:45:28] <Phlip> hmm... that'd work
[2007-07-30 02:46:14] <DeFender1031> Phlip, yeah it'd work, i've used that method many times in my own programs and it's the fastest method i've seen/tested.
[2007-07-30 02:46:23] <Phlip> there'll be some extra SELECT MAX()s in various places... but I don't think they'd slow it down too much
[2007-07-30 02:46:47] <DeFender1031> Phlip, so why this random value ridiculousness?

So now I ask you, why this random value ridiculousness? — Defender1031✡Talk 02:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki is a wonderful tool, but there are some screwy things about it, and it's not always geared toward smaller wikis. Feel free, however, to bring it up with the main MW developers and see if they'll change it. As for our wiki, the expense of hacking it from the default and maintaining it each time we upgrade outweighs the marginal benefit of doing so. — It's dot com 03:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Garr! Every time i suggest a useful improvement you shoot me down. — Defender1031✡Talk 03:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
That's an unfair generalization. In this case, however, it's just too trivial an issue to worry with changing it on our wiki only. — It's dot com 04:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's my input. "Dice have no memory." Each roll of the dice is random; therefore, each outcome could be whatever. You could roll twenty 6's in a row. It's improbable, but it's certainly very possible. The question is, then, if changing the way the randomizer works would effect a real change? - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 03:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
It's not quite that simple. The way the pages are chosen makes it more likely that—at any one time—certain pages will be favored over others. Suppose we have six pages. Instead of being numbered 1 to 6, each time a page is edited it is assigned a random value between 0 and 1, which are not guaranteed to be uniformly distributed (let's say ours are .01, .40, .67, .68, .69, and .92). Each time a random page is loaded, it selects the lowest value higher than another random value. If it chose .25 as the value, the .40 page would be returned. Under this system, .40 is 39 times more likely than .01 to be returned, and .67 is 27 times more likely than either .68 or .69. On a very large wiki, like Wikipedia, you probably wouldn't notice this. On a smaller wiki, apparently it is noticeable. It's not a perfect system, but it gets the job done well enough not to worry over. — It's dot com 04:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
It's not "well enough". I sometimes do editing by clicking on random and reading the page to see what i can improve. It is annoying when the same page that i just read comes up 15 times without 75% of the other pages on the wiki coming up once. My system is just as fast and is even more efficient. And for the frequency that the wiki upgrades, i don't think it's that big of a deal. — Defender1031✡Talk 04:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
No, it does work well enough. I clicked on the random page button repeatedly, and it wasn't until the 49th click that I got a page that I'd seen before. Maybe the glitch happens enough to annoy someone looking for something to edit, but it's fine for someone looking for something to read, which is what the link was designed for. — It's dot com 04:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I had the chance to discuss this in depth with Phlip and Dot com, and what I learned is that the only way to make the results more balanced than they are now entails a lot more wear and tear on the server. Unfortunately, the way MW is set up this is the best they can do. - Qermaq - (T/C) Image:Qermaqsigpic.png 09:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
We didn't say it was the best we could do. There are ways to make the distribution even that wouldn't adversely affect the server, but doing so would require rewriting the code and maintaining it later. At this time, there's just no need to do something like that, because the function is already doing the basic job it was designed to do. — It's dot com 14:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions and waffles.

Why can't I get on the forums? I can't log in because I am inactive and I can't make a new account because my email adress is in use. Homsar44withpie 04:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've activated your account. Use it in good health. — It's dot com 19:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autopipe/Autodirect

Hey, I was wondering if you'd mind sharing the Autopipe / Autodirect extension you wrote. I just started a MediaWiki wiki of my own, and I'd really like to be able to have page titles starting with lower-case letters without causing a bunch of broken links due to capitalization--the Autopipe / Autodirect extension would be perfect. FWIW, I'll mention on the wiki where I got the extension from...

(If you've seen the post on the forums about this...yeah, that was me; that was before I checked the Talk page of the Autopipe/Autodirect page (can't believe I hadn't thought to check that before) and saw that you wrote the extension, so I figured asking about it on your talk page might be more appropriate...) Alun Clewe 20:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not an extension so much as a direct hack to quite a few of the core pages. Given that it's all about to change when we upgrade in a few weeks, I'm not sure I'm comfortable releasing it into the wild at this point. I'll let you know if there are any developments, though. — It's dot com 21:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Hm, OK, I can't say I'm not a little disappointed, but I understand. If it ever does get to a point where you're comfortable releasing it, please let me know. Thanks. Alun Clewe 21:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] modified SWF

How do you find out [that the SWF file was modified at a particular time]? Homestar-Winner (talk) 21:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Various browsers, including Firefox, let you see properties of the current page or file, like the modified date (Tools → Page Info). You could also wget the file using a shell and look at its properties there. Probably lots of other ways too. — It's dot com 00:46, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] You know you've made it

when people on Wikipedia want to use a feature you've written. Comment over there? 76.238.168.63 00:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] El Toolbaro

I have a question that involves my wiki and not HRWiki. See, I'm an admin on my wiki, The Simpedia. I'm wondering, how do you change the toolbar? User talk:Sam the Man Sam the Man 23:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you mean the toolbar in the edit window or the toolbox on the left side of every page. Either way, I don't know how to modify them off the top of my head and would have to research it to give you a good answer. I know that there are both JavaScript and PHP solutions to the problem; you might try searching MediaWiki's site or posting in a more public forum. — It's dot com 00:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm talking about the one that lists Recent Changes and Main Page, but thanks for trying anyways. User talk:Sam the Man Sam the Man 00:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Just edit Mediawiki:Sidebar. InsanityBringer 00:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I have Scribblewiki. Do you know how to edit that? User talk:Sam the Man Sam the Man 00:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
One good idea is to switch over to MediaWiki. It's a lot better. Homestar-Winner (talk) 00:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
That is actually mediawiki. What I said should work. InsanityBringer 00:40, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
As InsanityBringer said, MediaWiki:Sidebar on your wiki is the page you want to edit. For help see MediaWiki's help page on the subject. — It's dot com 00:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fonts Move

Thanks for getting that move done. A strange thing is happening, though. (continued at Talk:Fonts)

Retrieved from "http://hrwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:It%27s_dot_com/The_System_Is_Down"
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