Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 1

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

Contents

April 2004 comments

This looks great - and it's on my watchlist. :) Martin 15:25, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's on mine too. Great idea, whoever implemented this. Meelar 22:44, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Looks like it was User:Ludraman - and yes, it's great :) --Camembert

Yep, it was Ludraman's idea, and he set it up. He's done good work with the welcoming committee; he helped a lot with the tutorial too.

When this page was still in the idea stage there was some discussion of renaming it to Wikipedia:Newcomers' help desk. If I remember, no one objected and several agreed. I prefer the name Help Desk since it doesn't imply that we're segregating new users out of the Village Pump entirely. This is to provide an alternative, somewhere a newbie can ask questions without worrying about getting barked and without cluttering up the pump. It's not (AFAIK) supposed to imply that newcomers can't post to the main pump if they have reason. Anyway, if I don't hear objections, I'm going to move it tomorrow. Isomorphic 05:45, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Apart from anything else, the meaning of "help desk" is clear, while "village pump" is a bit cryptic. --Camembert
I agree that having a different name from the village pump is a good idea. Angela. 16:36, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Should I move it, then, and redirect this page? LUDRAMAN | T 18:01, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looks like Iso's done it already. LUDRAMAN | T 18:08, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's been under discussion more than once and was always supported, so I just went ahead and moved it. BTW, this page was a great idea Ludraman. Isomorphic 20:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Someone suggested it, I just implemented it. Thanks, though. Is the lead section ok? Also, how long should we let this get before we start archiving? I was thinking that as soon as it gets to forty rm the first twenty, or something like that. It shouldn't get ridiculously long like the main Village pump. LUDRAMAN | T 21:04, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The header looks good. I don't have a strong opinion on when to archive. Isomorphic 21:22, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure a lot of this needs archiving. Often, the answers already exist on the relevant help pages, but newbies haven't found these yet. They are no more likely to find them buried in archives than they would on the real help pages, so if an answer is nothing new, I think it would best be deleted. If it is something new, it should be added to a help page. Is there any objection to not archiving this page at all? Angela. 21:54, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Still, it might be a good idea to keep them as records. It also would be easier for a person to go find a question they asked here (even in an archive) rather than buried in some help resource that they mightn't know about. At least if we keep them they will know it's here and where to find it. LUDRAMAN | T 03:53, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me that if we kept an archive, it'd be for our own purposes. Might be useful to look over questions and answers any time we're revising a help page or a tutorial, first because it's a quick way of seeing what questions are asked often, and second because some of the responses might be worded better than what we have in the actual policy or help page.
All that said, I'm still not sure I think it's necessary. Isomorphic 15:46, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
An archive for frequently asked questions might be good idea, though there is already the Wikipedia:FAQ. Angela. 17:24, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Just a quick thought, but given the way that this is currently linked from the pump, how about removing the word "newcomer" from the title altogether, and just having it as a general "help desk"? (The only disadvantage of this name is that it sounds a bit like "reference desk", which could be confusing). This could take an extra bit of load from the village pump without losing functionality - just a place to ask those "how do I" questions that we all have from time to time, but don't really need extended discussion or the attention of every user, like the pump provides. What think you all? - IMSoP 19:25, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of just calling it the help desk. Sounds nicer. Helps reserve the Village pump for actual discussion. Isomorphic 19:52, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If noone objects to the title change, I'm going to move in a day or two (assuming I remember.) Isomorphic 03:12, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
This sounds good to me. :) fabiform | talk 04:13, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Ditto. Angela. 10:44, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
I'm a little worried that the new name would cause people to believe that it serves the function actually served by Wikipedia:Reference desk. Don't change your plans just cuz of me, but we should think about it. moink 20:00, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, certainly we'll have to make sure that the text at the top of the page is clear. Should have links to the Village Pump and the Reference Desk, with clear explanations of what should go where. But really, if we have a few misplaced questions it's no big deal. Isomorphic 20:23, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
No, you're right, it's not a big deal. moink 23:05, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm just curious. What happened to this page? Was it moved recently, say in the last 24 hours? The page history seems incomplete. --Voodoo 07:52, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The history looks ok to me. Are you confusing this page with the village pump or reference desk maybe? Angela. 03:58, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

"This is an experimental page"

I think the link to experiment when one clicks on experimental in the first sentence on this page is misleading. One would expect to be led to a Wikipedia page explaining what an experimental page is, but instead, one is led to the page that defines and describes a scientific experiment.

Thanks for pointing that out. As the page has been around for a while now anyway, I've removed the experimental note. Angela. 01:47, May 3, 2004 (UTC)
Yeah. It's not really an experiment anymore. It's more like a "success."  ;-) Thanks to everyone who've been maintaining it. Isomorphic 02:17, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Archives and summaries

I'm going to be bold and archive this--there's no reason not to, really, and it needs to be cleared out (for this week only I'm on a dial-up). Meelar 03:16, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Is there any point have both the archive and the summarised questions section? Perhaps the summarised ones should have been archived instead? It might confuse people to have both. Angela. 03:22, May 15, 2004 (UTC)
How about a rename to "General tips"? Meelar 03:27, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
I think that would be best in the tutorial or FAQ. I'm not sure it's beneficial to repeat it here. People won't want to feel they are expected to read too much of an intro before posting a question. It might be best to just remove the summarised section, though some links to things like the Wikipedia:Tutorial would still be useful. Angela. 03:33, May 15, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps just a few links at the top--to Wikipedia:FAQ and Wikipedia:Tutorial. Meelar 03:39, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
I like this page very much. I agree that the summarized section isn't necessary on this page, but it might be useful to keep it at the top of the archive page -- make it easier for people browsing to see if a question has been asked before to find quick answers. Then again, I don't know whether we need to go out of our way to construct summaries for future archives -- might be enough to make sure the TOC headings are clear and useful when archiving.
I do think we should continue make an effort to make sure that useful or well-written tips generated here are integrated into the FAQ or tutorial -- it would be a shame to have all this good advice languish in archives. Just dumping the summary section into one or the other is a bit disorganized.... Catherine - talk 04:54, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Did some archiving today; my first WkikiMaintenance attempt. Wheeeee!! hope I did it right. . . . . Soundguy99 17:05, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well done

I've just been looking over this talk page and it really strikes me as a big success and an example of Wikipedia editing at it's best. Starting off as someone (I think it was MyRedDice) having an idea to take traffic off the Village Pump, it developed through co-operative editing to a highly successful page which gives everyone, not just newcomers, a place to have their queries about editing or anything else answered quickly, and takes these queries off the Village Pump, leaving it free for discussion. Well done, everyone who helped make this page what it is. LUDRAMAN | T 16:20, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Frames, Firefox and Outofsync editing

I like the new (is it new? I don't remember its being there before a week or so past) left frame/right frame in - at least - Cologne Blue. Unfortunately in Firefox, when I'm editing a section of a page and especially if I'm previewing, if I pull the right sidebar of a page down, the editing text does not move in sync with the page as a whole, producing worrisome (what if the browser crashes?..) effects that are also difficult to read. Any ideas? Ways I can clarify? Thanks! Schissel - bowl listen 05:25, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC) (who sees he has just posted this is the wrong spot, was wondering why that took such a brief time to load after pressing submit, washes the egg off his face, and looks for the other page. Yep. Whoops.)

Songs and singles

There is different categories for songs and singles. Can you place the same song in both songs and singles?

I'll Be Missing You is placed in both Category:1997 singles and Category:1997 songs. Is this allowed? • Thorpe • 16:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is allowed--a Single (music) is not the same thing as a song. Hope that helps and happy editing. Meelar (talk) 16:34, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

wikipedia content

Hello, I just used a content fetching script to display wikipedia content in my website. It runs for some weeks and displayed properly. But recently It didnt work on my page. I think lack of copyright notice leads wikipedia to prevent me from fetching. What I want to do get things back well

Urgh. Please don't use scripts like that - they're incredibly wasteful of wikipedia's bandwidth and server capacity. You can download the whole thing (in an hour or so) at Wikipedia:Database download. Most likely one of our developers has noticed the traffic generated by your script and has blocked it as abusive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk July 9, 2005 17:42 (UTC)

Wikiproject disambiguation

Hello, I've recently started the WikiProject help desk which is for help with software which is used to help contributers. Because of the similar names I have provided a disambiguation link from that project to this one; I came here intending to add a disambiguation but I was not sure where the best place to put it is. Would it be possible for a member of this project to add a little advertising to WikiProject help desk since you would know the best place to place it? Thanks. Triddle 17:28, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Links

I've been trying to make it easior for clueless newbies, as well as impatient old-timers, to get quick answers to questions.

So far, my attempts have met with frustrating and even hostile thwarting. "Don't touch the help pages" is the message I'm getting here.

What's up with this? Don't we want to help each other? (Or am I missing something which everyone else but me already knows?)

Signed, An Old-Timer: Uncle Ed 14:30, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Could you give examples? -- Essjay · Talk 14:38, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
What sort of attempts do you have in mind? I'm all for improving respose time for questions... JesseW 21:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
See here and the relevant discussion. No need to open another thread about it here. —HorsePunchKid→龜 21:47, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Seems to me like the reference desk is the one no one can find. --Dmcdevit·t 21:55, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Dont say, do

I see a lot of these "factual questions should..." notes on the desk telling posters to move their questions to the ref desk; perhaps we should have a policy of "don't say move, just move it" similar to the "don't put a cleanup tag on an article if you can clean it up easily yourself." Certainly, the question heading should be left for a day or two with a link to where it was moved (so the clueless poster can find it), but I think the idea of "don't say, do" has a lot of merit. Other's thoughts? -- Essjay · Talk 15:58, July 21, 2005

I think it may be a bit of - "if you don't care enough about your question to move it yourself, you don't care enough for us to bother answering it" - being helpful can go only so far. JesseW 20:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
It's more of a "if you don't care enough to read the big red box at the top of the page, I don't care enough to answer your question, and you probably won't be back to read the answer anyway." -- Cyrius|✎ 20:27, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Careful there. In modern technological society, the number of things we are "supposed" to read far exceeds what we can reasonably have time to read. When you buy software, do you read all the doc's? When you go to a web page, do you read it all before entering info in forms, clicking on links, etc.? I don't. I've been using Wikipedia (and Amazon and my bank's site and ...) for years, and I have never read the main page all the way through (for any of these), top to bottom (have you?). Probably I never will. It's just not worth my time. I figure if a site is that un-obvious in its use, it deserves to be misused.
Now, I did read the big red box. Evidently, my personal notion of "what is important to read" matches the general consensus of knowledgeable folk on Wikipedia as well. But for some other people, it doesn't. They don't read everything, because they don't have time, and they don't quite catch that there is this thing that is important to read. So be easy on them. — Nowhither 09:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay. -- Essjay · Talk 20:42, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Providing links

I've just added the following to the instructions in the Help desk template: "If your question is about a specific page(s), please provide links to the relevant pages. (e.g. I'm working on the page for Pluto and...) " I thought it was a good idea since some people don't wikilink their own questions which slows down the answering process, IMO. Thoughts? Dismas 05:21, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good, but I have a feeling those instructions are hardly followed anyway. (Also, a substantial amount of the questioners here wouldn't know how to make a link, and sometimes we even get that question) :) --Dmcdevit·t 05:33, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
True but if it makes even one person link their question to relevant pages, that would help. I agree with you that we do get some real doosies as far as the questions go though. The reference desk has had some really odd ones today! Dismas 20:19, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
In my today's question, I have provided a link.Apnavana 12:56, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

breton vs new brazilian site

i'm not quite sure who to write to so i've sent this mail to a few places. the problem is ther's a guy called cyperpoeta who wants to set up a brazilian wikipedia as distinvct from a portuguese one (why, i'm not sure). but all things being equal, good luck to him. the hitch is her's occupying the br site which is already assigned to breton (where i contribute). he's already changed the welcome page several times. what can be done?? 81.60.240.99 14:46, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

My suggestion is to block him for disruption if he keeps changing the language (you will need to ask an administrator on the br: Wikipedia to do this, we have no powers on other Wikipedias)., and direct him to m:Help:How to start a new Wikipedia. Thryduulf 15:50, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Question Desk

In an effort to stop people from posting general factual questions at the help desk and Wikipedia-specific questions at the reference desk, I have created the question desk. It is designed to disambiguate the two. When you want to link to a place that will answer questions, please consider linking to Wikipedia:Question desk instead of linking to one of the real desks directly. This will help stop people from misusing the desks, which is very annoying to the contributors who man them. Superm401 | Talk 00:34, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

  • I have a feeling this will just confuse them more.. Elfguy 15:33, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I do tech support for a living. Most of it is helping people get their questions routed to the right person. The most unhelpful thing a "helper" can do is force people to use a FAQ.
The next time anybody is tempted to say RTFM I suggest they reread Wikipedia:Don't bite the newbies. Uncle Ed 18:05, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Elfguy is right. Yet-another-place to post questions is only going to confuse the issue more. →Raul654 18:09, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
I don't get it. Either you know what place the question should go to, in case you should just say it, or you don't know, in which case you shouldn't be answering questions. If you spot an easily-answered question in the wrong place, just answer it. Oh yes, misuse the desks! Ooh. You can clean your karma afterwards. The vast majority of people never come back after their first question, so "educating" them is a waste of everyone's time.
If you spot a hard to answer question, move it, leaving a pointer here. Everyone wins. Yes, this is more trouble than typing "Read WP:QD. ~~~~", so what? You're also free to ignore the question. Getting annoyed is also an option, but probably not a productive one. JRM · Talk 18:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I think there's a pretty clear order (from least to most helpful) in dealing with questions that are in the wrong place: a nasty response, no response, read WP:QD, move the question, answer the question. Since we are all volunteers here, I think any of those options is fine(although the more helpful ones are of course preferred). No problem. Don't bite the newbies just means don't *start* with a nasty response. JesseW 21:56, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I shall lay out a great and terrible truth. The general public is unteachable, a great mooing herd. No clever documentation is able to overcome this nasty fact. Individuals may be educated; this can be done one by one, perhaps class by class (where the efficiency of the process drops sharply after GROUPSIZE > 30). But nothing at all can be done for the mass of men -- not on the scale under discussion.
The most effective approach to technical support of all kinds is to listen patiently and answer directly each individual. This entails repetition and suggests template answers and customer service cannon fodder. Crafting a personal, intelligent response to each of a stream of stupid questions is the hallmark of a noble, patient soul. — Xiong熊talk* 02:28, 2005 August 13 (UTC)
First of all, I don't want to tell anyone to read the f*ing manual or use an FAQ. I also understand the public is a horde, and this is not going to keep everyone from the wrong desk. However, I think this will help people to find those who are most able and willing to answer their questions. I came back here to notify people that the page name has changed to Wikipedia:Ask a question. Please link to that or WP:AQ. Superm401 | Talk 01:30, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
I have a question this seems the place to do it. I don't really know where to go cause there are just a lot of links and references to other places. I'm confused. This is my first question, I was wonder I looked up a page that was deleted and seems to have been deleted based on the opinion that is was rubbish and anyone thinking of buying the production should get something else. My question is, [u]would it be alright to revive a page that isn't rubbish, but a way to inform people of a product that not everyone likes?[/u] I mean Wiki isn't about supporting popular topics and if so what is popular? The latter wasn't the question. Mrja84 | Talk 17:07, September 03, 2005 (ESDT)

Where does this stuff come from?

Why is it that people think that Wikipedia markets anything? The latest question about some mystery product really just throws me as to how Wikipedia could be connected in any way to the product. Does anyone have any idea why people think we're associated with companies, authors, publishers, businessmen, etc.? I'm not embittered by this or anything, just really confused... Dismas 12:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

The Carson/Johnson law of human behaviour: 80% of all questions that begin with the word "why" can be answered with the simple sentence "people are stupid". JRM · Talk 12:25, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
I created User:Dmcdevit/Help desk funnies yesterday to document this. I must have sensed there would be another today. Quite amusing, really. Dmcdevit·t 19:48, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Personally I believe in human stupidity. :P Elfguy 12:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree its probably stupidity, but it might come from connotation of endorsement on other topics. For instance, a relatively unknown company/product has a topic that was voted for deletion by three people with no votes to keep and the article was kept. The topic was posted by a known employee of the company, is added as links to other articles. Its an obvious wikipedia advertisment but for some reason, its kept on Wikipedia. I've seen evidence of this in other places too, but this one strikes me as obvious because software is my career field. Anyway, the post does look extremely funny. Sleepnomore 22:56, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
Some possibilities:
  1. The idea of "open development" is a new concept, one that many people have not really grokked. So they see a huge thing like Wikipedia, and they figure there must be a large profit-motivated corporation involved somewhere. Thus: advertising.
  2. They are stuck in their own little world, which they think everyone everywhere is terribly interested in. If that world revolves around some company or product, then they figure everyone is interested in it.
  3. They have learned that if you are always a nice little boy/girl and always follow all the rules, you never accomplish anything or get any recognition or money or anything. So they learn to Take Risks and Break The Rules. Lots of people do this. After all, if certain people hadn't Broken The Rules a few years back, we wouldn't have Wikipedia, would we? Some people Break The Rules by founding an open encyclopedia. Others Break The Rules by saying, "Hey, wanna buy my cool product?" to everyone they meet.
  4. They remember that there is a Real World. And in the Real World, a "help desk" is a piece of wood or metal furniture with a representative of some company or organization behind it. So they approach as a representative of their company/organization. And they do what organizational rep's do when they meet: they talk about collaboration between the organizations. (And then they wonder why we all hate them. "But these people said it was a 'help desk'," they think, "Why are they mad at me?")
  5. They learned about the Web by watching TV commercials and reading Business Week in 1998. They think, "The web is a place where people sell things." Wikipedia is on the web. Logic dictates only one possible conclusion.
  6. Or, yeah, maybe they're just stupid.
[Wow, that's a lot of possible reasons.] — Nowhither 09:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 :: This means, stupid or not, that any user can add an article about a company (big or 'small'?) ! into Wikipedia and it's not violating any rules! So if I add an article, about my own company or the company I work in, it's ok? Even if Wikipedia on the whole loses credibility? Egocentric


I'd like to edit the comments page on the page Kennington Park, which I have mainly made, Now I can only add comments. Some of the earlier comments were badly edited and are confusing. Can I sort this out?

Szczels 15:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Archival

Shouldn't the help desk be archived by now? 204 sections looks a bit too much. — JIP | Talk 12:30, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Now there are 223. It definitely ought to be archived. If nobody more experienced steps up to the plate in the next day or so, I guess I'll do it: should I just follow the instructions at Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page, making changes for the fact that it's not a talk page? —Josiah Rowe 02:18, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Name change

Considering the number of inappropriate questions (ie facutal and marketing) should we rename the Help desk to something that reduces confusion? Maybe a subset of the Village pump, which is less likely to be accessed by non-editors. It is understandable that when a person sees "Help desk" that they ask for help there, whatever type of help they need. Any thoughts? --Commander Keane 05:59, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'm against the name change. The "Village Pump" name, IMHO, is confusing- it took me a while to figure what it was, and even now, I rarely monitor it. Whatever we name the "help desk", I think we are still going to get inappropriate (as in non-Wikipedia related) questions. Besides, we do have a huge box at the top saying that this page isn't for factual questions... Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 12:15, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Listing something for deletion

I am having a tough time listing something for deletion. The page is Aidan Coughlan and I can't get the listing on the articles for deletion page to come up right. Can someone help me fix it please? Thanks Davidpdx 9/17/05 6:00 (UTC)

Seems to correctly be on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2005 September 17. If you're still having trouble seeing it perhaps you might try the "purge server cache" link near the top of the page. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:35, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Spammers

The HD seems to be being hit by a lot of spammers these last two days; I've gone through the history and identified each offending IP in that timeframe, and left a note on WP:AN/I. If any more turn up (which is likely), it might be helpful to make a note of the IP address as well as reverting it... Shimgray 12:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Is there a way in preferences to...

Make this: -- Rick Block (talk) 15:35, 17 September 2005 (UTC) (with the correct links and whatnot) included by default? Or do I have to keep typing KelticK Talk 00:08, 2 October 2005 (MST)?

Yes, under Preferences, you can type "[[User:KelticK|KelticK]] [[User talk:KelticK|Talk]]" where it says "Nickname" and then click on the Raw Signature checkbox. That's how I got the green text in my signature to point to my talk page. Titoxd 06:08, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Sweet! thanks much! How about the time part?KelticK Talk
The time is automatically stamped when you used four "~"'s, ie ~~~~. If you just use three you only get your signature, no date. --Commander Keane 14:24, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
And to round out Commander Keane's note, I will add that five tildes will produce only a datestamp with no signature. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thx much!! --KelticK{Talk} 21:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I think you have to select the "Raw signature" checkbox the User Profile tab of My preferences in order to get this to work. --Tiger MarcROAR! 06:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Back to top

Is there some way to go back to the top/index from a section of rather long pages, as this; other than scrolling. Thanks VivekM 03:27, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

In most browsers, the PageUp/PageDown keys will scroll up and down a "screen-length", and the Home and End keys will go straight to the top and bottom of the page respectively. Shimgray | talk | 14:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

A theory of why there is so much junk on this page

I have been wondering why there is so much junk on this page. By junk I mean questions that don't belong here. Having been observing the page for some time I observe that

(a) people who post junk questions never come back to reply.

(b) people who post junk questions frequently have no idea where they are, because they are asking very specific questions based on something that isn't on Wikipedia.

My theory is this. And sorry if it duplicates work already done.

(a) many people have no idea where they are on the internet in general. They click on links but aren't in the habit of reading URLs to see where they are. As far as they are concerned, they are just "on the internet". Hence there is little idea of what is or is not appropriate.

(b) many people are desperate to get a bit of help, and will try to pursue anything that might seem to lead there.

(c) most people do not read everything in front of them. Most people just skim looking for things of interest.

(d) (i) A user finds themselves on Wikipedia, by following a link, searching Google etc. and wants some help.

(ii) They click on Help in the left sidebar. The page that results is fairly intimidating and will drive away many. But those who persist will find the section Asking a question. The first thing in this section is Help desk. No need to read on, let's go to the Help desk.

(iii) The Help desk too has lots of words. Have you noticed how few people like a sea of words? And instructions are for geeks. Scanning down, they will come to a box that says Ask a new question by clicking here.

(iv) A page appears which looks perfect. There are two boxes to type in. Unfortunately "subject/headline" means nothing to many people, but they type stuff in one or both boxes.

(v) There doesn't seem to be an "ask question" button, but some will eventually try the Save page button.

(vi) This looks perfect. There, among a bunch of junk is my question. So I sat down to wait for a reply. Five minutes pass and the screen is unchanged. Many will give up at this point. The more experienced may try Refresh and see nothing has changed. So, there's nobody here. I'm off. The user will not bookmark the page and return for answers, because they have no idea this is not a chat page; if you ask a question in the pub you don't come back the next day to see if someone replied.

Dissenting view: yes, I have to contradict myself. Perhaps some people do return and see the replies. However, there isn't a "Send a reply" button, so they don't know what to do, and wander off.

Conclusions.

(a) People are people; you can't make them read instructions or understand the internet better just when they visit Wikipedia.

(b) One possibility is to make it harder to ask a question. Lose the Ask a new question by clicking here link. But some people wanting to help in Wikipedia won't get far enough to get past that.

(c) One possibility is to reorder the items in Asking a question. Some people will be diverted to leave exotic messages in a different place. Reference desk is the obvious choice. They still won't see their replies, but it may be better targeted. However Help desk is an attractive name.

(d) Change the name of Help desk to something less attractive. Assistance with Wikipedia might do it.

(e) Silently delete everything that looks like a poor lost soul. Their poor lost message won't do anything but annoy, and they will never see the admonishments or assistance, so just delete it.

(f) Make the Ask a new question by clicking here go to another page. This page could be a front end which linked back to the relevant thing after informing or intimidating the visitor. But it's no use repeating a bunch of rules. Just one point, perhaps. Or a choice of links e.g. Question about wikipedia, General question, Just help me now. The first would go to add a help desk message, the second to the reference desk, and the third to a lost soul page with a very short explanation or even suggestions.

(g) Set up a "live help" facility, manned by patient volunteers, and closed when they aren't active. A crazy idea, but there might just be enough. I suspect it will have to leave the Wiki World to provide something that makes sense to beginners. And it would have to have as its brief to deal with every kind of question equally.

Sorry to have made this so long, but I suspect many people share my frustration... torn between wanting to help, and not wanting to clutter up the help desk with off topic replies. Notinasnaid 13:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Rewording the "ask a new question by clicking here" link might help. I added "about using Wikipedia". Linking to a separate page with clicks for specific kinds of questions might help, but might be annoying as well. Live interactive help desk might be nice, but the advantage of the current mechanism is the help desk is just another page on the wiki. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Rickl; hopefully that small edit will make some difference, though you can't ever help all the sheep, all the time. If they won't read the big pink box.... nae'blis (talk) 18:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, when you click "edit this page" at the top of Wikipedia:Help Desk it says

"See before archiving this page Ask your question at the bottom of this page" underneath the header. Maybe we could add a qualification there too? Like This is not the page for factual questions. Please refer them to Wikipedia:Reference Desk? Then again that might be confusing for new users who won't know to exit the editing screen and look for the Reference Desk... --Kewp (t) 19:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC) User:AlMac|(talk) commenting on (vi) There, is my question. So I sat down to wait for a reply. Five minutes pass and the screen is unchanged. Many will give up at this point. The more experienced may try Refresh and see nothing has changed. So, there's nobody here. I'm off. The user will not bookmark the page and return for answers, because they have no idea this is not a chat page; Perhaps a partial answer is to review the text at the bottom of the edit box. People need to be reminded to bookmark either the page, or where on the page they posted the question, because "a volunteer will try to answer your question, as time permits, which may be hours from now." Better still, automatically capture the url of where the question was posted, and place that to the side of the page, such as just below the tool box, to facilitate cut & paste for easy revisit later to see if the question been answered. This concept thinking applies to Reference Desk, and other Wiki places where questions get posted. User:AlMac|(talk) 02:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Archive again

The page now has 196 headings. Isn't it time for it to be archived again? Titoxd(?!?) 00:23, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

There are at least 2 completely seperate articles on this guy one under Gatemouth Brown and one under Clarence Gatemouth Brown. Since I know very little about the man and am not sure how to fix this without drawing down the wrath of the gods I am just hoping someone who reads this will. Williamb 19:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be fixed. One way would be to list it on Wikipedia:Duplicate articles, but that seems backlogged at the moment. Alternatively there are instructions for merging the pages at Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages. I can't decide what name the article should be at, so I'll leave a message at the respective talk pages and let someone else deal with it. Next time, if you have a question like this it would be best to locate it at the Help desk directly, rather than here: the Help desk talk.--Commander Keane 12:26, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
A message on the talk pages did the trick and User:Dave Cohoe fixed up the problem.--Commander Keane 12:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Uploading new version of image

Hi, I am a Photoshop enthusiast and I have been trying to improve some images that seems to benefit from Photoshop. However, when I upload by clicking "Upload new version", it never seems to work, but when I use another name for the image, it works perfectly. May I know what is the problem? — PM Poon 14:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Supersectioning with dates

If interested could any of the HD regulars take a look at the RD supersection date headers to see if it would be helpful here. HD has about 250 questions and dating may help with navigation and archiving. --hydnjo talk 19:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Have you investigated getting a bot to do this?--Commander Keane 17:18, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I have asked at RD/talk. The first pass will have to be done by hand (me) I think. Maintenance (a newdate section added at midnight each day and archiving the stale section from x days ago) should be done by a bot. No answer to my request yet. I bring it up here to get some feedback on the look and feel at th RD before I start sectioning the HD. --hydnjo talk 18:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. I went through my first manual archive of the existing HD format today and it was a pain trying to find the right place to cut in the edit box. Supersectioning would help a lot. --GraemeL (talk) 19:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki Requests

Is it possible to request another InterWiki thing? -- Super Sam 13:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

could you clarify what you mean (and shouldn't this be on the helpdesk proper?)?.

General complaints

If you can answer questions on the Help desk, then chances are you could help out at Wikipedia:General complaints. Many of the questions, while being complaints, require help. DES seems to be on patrol there recently, but lets give him a hand.--Commander Keane 00:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


How is a redirect page properly made?

I created What's Her Face (disambiguation) after finding that What's Her Face was a redirect to Teen Girl Squad because it is the name of a character (I went hoping for the doll line). I then tried to set it so it worked-I removed the redirect from "What's Her Face" to "Teen Girl Squad", but I don't know how to make the correct redirection from the disambiguation page to the target pages. Please help! Alcy 08:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Alcy. Check out Wikipedia:Redirect for information on how to create redirects. Basically, you just want to stick #REDIRECT [[Go Here Instead]] into the edit box and save it.
However, in this case, you probably do not want to redirect What's Her Face to the new disambiguation page. I believe it is more customary to just put a notice on the target page (Teen Girl Squad in this case). Check out Infinity or maybe Power grid for examples on how to do that. Let me know if you have any trouble! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-19 08:37:19Z
I think the notice should go on the new page because its title matches whereas the title for the cartoon page is completely unrelated. If you do use a disambiguation page, I think that you should add a redirect for "What's Her Face (Teen Girl Squad)", so that the link looks similar to the disambiguated term. That's probably less important for a {{dablink}} on the new page, but is probably a good idea.
I can't actually find the new page, the disambiguation page has both cases pointing to Teen Girl Squad now.
In my view, the two possible solutions are:
  1. Change What's Her Face into a page for the doll and add a disambiguation link to the Teen Girl Squad page;
  2. Create the doll page as What's Her Face (doll), create a redirect under What's Her Face (Teen Girl Squad) and make What's Her Face be the disambiguation page.
Currently, the only links to What's Her Face are this page, a misdirected one from Fashion doll and your disambiguation page, so you won't have many links to repair if you do either of the above. (This is a check you should have made.)
Which choice is better depends on your judgement about how well known each of the meanings is. If you believe the doll is very much better known, I think you should go for the first option. If there is likely to be any dispute, you should go for the second option, or risk irate Teen Girl Squad fans complaining about being sent to the doll.
For future reference, you asked this question on a page intended to discuss the operation of the Help desk, not the the help desk itself. That means less people may notice your question. I'd suggest that you move the whole thread onto the correct page.
--David Woolley 09:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Do NOT list your e-mail address

I was searching for the rationale for this rule, but I couldn't find it. It's not a big deal though, even if I don't agree: I don't think we should be so nazi about this and keep removing email adresses. If they are posted, the posters are responsible for that and I can't see it does us or Wikipedia any harm. So why don't we just tell people kindly (but in bold and large type and perhaps in red to take this to the extreme) that we won't mail back, and posting their email makes no difference at all. — Sverdrup 17:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

It does, an email address here makes it very susceptible to spam. There is no reason why we shouldn't protect newbies from spam. Titoxd(?!?) 06:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

New tool to answer "how do I cite this?"

Developer Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason has created a Special:Cite page that uses variables to create standard citation styles; there's a new "Cite this article" link in the sidebar "toolbox" for every page in the article namespace. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Cite this article and m:Help:Cite. (The text is editable at MediaWiki:Cite text.) — Catherine\talk 06:00, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Help with images from the Commons

I recently uploaded http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lily3.jpg to the commons. However it is not showing up in Wikipedia see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lily3.png . Can anyone help me? --- JedOs 19:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

This page is for discussion about the operation of the Help desk page. You want the actual Wikipedia:Help desk page. --David Woolley 20:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Page header

That pink box at the top of the page - will anyone object if I change it so that it reads like this:

Shortcut:
WP:HD
This is a page for questions about how to use Wikipedia.

The way it is currently, with the examples of factual questions in the top line and in bold, it looks as though you can get answers to those sorts of questions here (to people who don't read carefully, at any rate).

--LesleyW 02:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the point is that there has to be more emphasis on "Some sorts of questions don't belong here". That was the point of that line, IMO. jnothman talk 13:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I have to say, I find it so irritating that there are like five pages for complaints/problems. This page is NOT for this, NOT for this, NOT for this. I am left asking, what the hell is it for? I think a large positive statement about the intent of this page should precede all the 'nots'. pfctdayelise 14:30, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
How about:
Shortcut:
WP:HD
This is a page for questions about how to use Wikipedia.
Note: This is not a page for factual questions (e.g., How does a car work? Where was Gandhi educated?).

I think we need to make that point clear as people still mistake us for the reference desk even with that header. WAvegetarian (talk) (email) (contribs) 17:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been bold and edited the top. I hope it stands out enough. If not, we can colour it all the colours of the rainbow and make it blink. =) jnothman talk 01:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Looks good. Thanks. --LesleyW 09:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Archive?

I think it's time to archive, no? It's nearly 200kb. Gflores Talk 01:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you know anything about getting bots to automatically archive? (Or should I ask on the HelpDesk? :P) I've been archiving after about 9 days, based on what people have previously done here. But I think 7 is usually sufficient. You have to only archive after people are likely to have come and looked at the page, and not based on size. jnothman talk 01:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

A little vandalism at Mamba. Can regular users revert? If so I couldn't figure it out. I could have just corrected the little vandalism manually, but wanted to learn how to do it the regular way (if possible for general users). Also, if reporting vandalism instead of fixing it myself is the way to go, where is the best place to do so? Thanks! --Bad carpet 16:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You're encouraged to revert it yourself, see Wikipedia:Revert. Widespread vandalism or any issues you can't handle yourself should be reported to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Problems on user page

Hi, I was trying to edit som Ndonga language template, but something happened on my User page: User:Juan de Vojníkov. Could you help me, how can I remove all that stuff?--Juan de Vojníkov 14:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

You should ask these questions on the Help Desk proper, not the Talk page. There is some problem with the template - not a mistake by you. I'm trying to find out how to fix it. pfctdayelise 15:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

What Code(s) Changes the Colour of Writing? (Formerly: Where do I Post For Tech Help?)

None of the (seemingly endless) links clear this up for me. I want to know the code for changing the colour of words. I don't know where to post this request to. Alternatively, someone could answer here and when I see the answer I will just delete this section. Cheers. 82.44.212.6 19:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You post it on this page, the help desk, if you have questions like this about wikipedia.--Urthogie 19:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, okay, cool. Okay, so does anybody have an answer for me, then? :) 82.44.212.6 20:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. To change the color of letters and numbers, use <font color="(color)"> in front of whichever letters or numbers you wish to transmogrify. As such in my example: MegamanZero -> MegamanZero; please see my edit on the page for a closer look. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh, thank you so much, Megaman!! :D 82.44.212.6 20:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

(And what Urthogie was saying is that questions should go on the help desk itself (Wikipedia:Help desk) and not its talk page (Wikipedia talk:Help desk). jnothman talk 01:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverted the Help desk page, sort of.

I just restored the January 1st section to the project page after I notice some links to spam sites. I did it by just copying the section from a pre-vandal revision becuase it seemed the easiest way to fix it. Hope I didn't mess it up. Here is the vandal's contrib page.--◀Pucktalk▶ 13:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

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