Wikipedia:Suggestion box (resolved)/group1

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I am a Killer Instinct fan & it is hard to find a forum or anything about KI on the internet. There are very few good KI websites & everyone knows about Wiki. I figured that other fans & people who are just interested would love to find links to good websites, forums & pictures useful on here. The site is better & more informative than the other sites in the external links list and isn't this web site about correct knowledge? Who cares about KLOV, Dmozs listings, or Moby games when you are looking for information on the game its characters & what people are saying about the game over the KIO.net forums.

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[edit] Verdana must be banned from all our style sheets!

Some bad guys have made Verdana the default font in Wikipedia (probably in an attempt to emulate Encarta).  Now that we know about the Verdana bug, it is clear that Verdana should never be used in our style sheets (at least until someone fixes that font).  Do not turn Wikipedia into a Verdana Promotion Society! — Monedula 18:57, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

    • What do you propose instead? -Litefantastic 23:50, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
The best policy is this:  the defaul skin must use the browser's defaul fonts only (i.e. it should not mention any typefaces at all) — because specifying a typeface will almost certainly cause problems for some languages.  The user-selected skins, on the other hand, may use anything.  Still it is better to use Tahoma instead of Verdana.— Monedula 12:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with this last contribution - make no mention of typefaces whatsoever, so that a User's broswer can default to their chosen font. Another idea: What about incorporating via CSS the facility to adjust font sizes on the actual page.... this would be a big help for accessibility!! Failing all these suggestions, I would suggest using a Unicode-compliant / friendly font like Gentium (though this is still incomplete....!) in order to display all characters properly..... pjamescowie

[edit] Out with the new! In with the old!

    • I dislike the new "skin" rather a lot. In the first place it has that trendy "blog" feel, which irritates. Worse, it overrides the browser's font (Like Lucida Grande on OS X Safari), which wrecks things. The Greek alphabet polytonic doesn't display under the new "skin". Hmpf, I dislike the term "skin" too. Grumble. 19:56, 2004 May 31 (UTC)
    • I dislike the new style not only to the fact that it looks worse than the former one - it even overrides my fonts aswell as fontsize to the effect that a quick vistit to wikipedia isn't quick due to the oversized (malformed) fontstyle. It seems logging in is a cure to this 'problem' but on the one hand i use to delete my cookies so the 'permanent' login doesn't work and on the other hand i really don't want to log in for every little lookup once a day. Please make the old style the default one to keep it slim and functional.
    • I confess I liked the 'Pedia better when it looked like the skin had been invented in someone's garage. The wikilinks in the new version are hard to see. Plus, all the buttons are in different places, which makes them an absolute pain to find. Who do we petition to go back to the good old days? -Litefantastic 11:02, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
      • Just a note to you or other people reading this: I have been told you can change the skin in your preferences. Thue 10:22, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
        • I tried it. I got back to the original color scheme, but the logo was right-justified for some reason. Frustration... I had to go back to the MonoBook look. -Litefantastic 10:56, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)
          • I went back to the classic scheme. I had problems as well because other settings (new and old) weren't set for the original scheme. I had to play around to get all of it working right again. - Tεxτurε 17:14, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Now that the bugs are worked out, I think I like monobook. It's still got a few flaws, thoguh, but I seem to be able to mostly ignore them now. --ssd 03:27, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] About the new and old standard style

Jun 1 2004 I discovered that the default look of wikipedia had been changed fundamentally. It looks as if people have been working on it who think a glossy style is more important than practical considerations like readablilty, printablilty, easy access, easy links, etc.

I don't know whether there are a lot of those people, but I suggest that at least they also take into consideration other people, who want to be able to read a page with as little clutter as possible, a default (browser determined) font-size and font-family, a clear background, and, in short, are concerned with content before anything else.

Perhaps the new look of wikipedia is crucially important in establishing a higher status, more casual visitors and more donations. For the sake of argument, I assume that there is some usefullness in it somewhere. However, for the "other" reader, please do make easy links to change the cluttered page into something at least as clear as the old look. I know that for now it is still possible to choose the old look via login - preferences - skin - standard - reload, but this is a lot of work, especially because wikipedia still is quite slow (my connection is not).

If the wikipages were like normal webpages I suppose one way to do that is to allow an alternate stylesheet with only basic interference, via an easy to find link at the top of the page. Further, I personally I would also like an option for a permanent cookie set via my preferences, that would enable the plain style permanenly without the need to log in (some people don't like this, but as an option, what harm could it do, take it or leave it).

BTW, note that mozilla (at least) enables the user to choose a different (and plain) stylesheet as soon as an alternate one is defined in the header.

With all the changes going on, I am somewhat concerned that de standard look will disappear as well. For the record I would like to sum up (again) some of the aspects that I would not want to see lost on the standard (or any plain or basic) style.

1. Font-size and font-family (at least for the main text) are determined by the browser of the reader.
2. No distracting background.
3. A solid "printable page" option that removes navigation and possibly colliding foating things etc. (actually, I use this option for reading quite frequently as well).
4. No features that slow down loading the page unless really necessary.

I am pretty sure much more can be said about the new style and what a basic style should look like, but I am not a webpage designer, just a reader. I would however suggest as reading material http://members.optusnet.com.au/~night.owl/morons.html, which claims to be a rant, but makes many suggestions I agree with. --Kornelis 13:38, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

    • I haven't heard of a single person (yet) who actually likes the new look. Kornelis, I add to your list of complaints/suggestions:

5. The Wikilinks should have a permanent bar under them, so we can tell what they are. They're simply harder to see than before. 6. The tabs should all be put back where they go. Whose idea was it to put they all at the top of the page, in type too small to see? 7. The Wikipedia won two (prominent!) internet awards looking just the way it did. What people look for in an encyclopedia are ease of reference and content. The content is, as always, good, but the ease of reference, it seems to me, has lessened somewhat with all this flashy nonsense they've added.

In this spirit I've created this, and I encourage you all to sign up. It's the only way we'll get back a useful encyclopedia:

Wikipedia:Petition for the return of the Old Wikipedia

All those who want to join should sign up, and put the following message on their User Pages:

This user supports the Old Wikipedia.

This user supports the return of the Old Wikipedia, before it obtained this new "blog" look, and would like it changed back.

Code: {{msg:Goodolddays}}

I strongly disagree. The new look takes some getting used to, but I think it's a great improvement over the old one, especially considering how highly customizable it is. I think this look has a much better chance of grabbing the attention of newcomers; the only minor complaints I've had about it (font choice and link styles) are easily fixed by editing my user style. I don't know whether the editing/history tabs are "where they go" or not; those were always on the top in the old default skin (and you can put them on the bottom if you prefer); anything else that is moved is for the better, IMHO. Also, as far as I know the stylesheet used for printing has not changed, so I don't quite understand the request for a "printable page" option; with the right CSS, there is no need for a separate printable version. To get your monobook style to use your browser's font (at least for the main text), add the code:
body, #globalWrapper { font-family: inherit !important; }
to User:YourUserName/monobook.css. -- Wapcaplet 23:46, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I like the new monobook style, too. And it will definitely attract more people. I stayed away from WP when i first found it because it looked "shoddy" to me. Shoddy appearance implies shoddy content. However, it should not define a font that newcomers/anon users cannot easily change, and it should have underlined links and other typical website features as the default. Advanced logged in users can customize it if they want (as i do) but we should make it easy to use (while still being pretty) for the newcomers. - Omegatron 18:35, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Just clarifying my comment on the option printable page: in the standard style it enables users to remove everything but the body of the article. Also, it changes links to readable urls. I did not see this option on the new page, nor did adding &printable=yes to the url work. --Kornelis 09:39, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The Search Engine doesn't work

Yes it does. They fixed it. But trying to search for a keyword in a title gets you keywords in article bodies instead. And you can't search for a category either. I haven't tested if the caps problem is better with the search re-enabled. --ssd 05:58, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)


The site moves like a turtle at times. I'm using broadband and yet it still takes an almost unrealistic amount of time to save changes I've made to pages. Why is this, and can it be fixed? The capital letters issue. If it isn't already a pain to try and correctly type out exact punctuation and spelling in the Search (O Brother, Where Art Thou? haunts me), we must also get the captialization exactly right. I'm in college and this gives me trouble, I feel real pity for grade-schoolers who have to try and find things. -Litefantastic 00:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

The search is not optimised enough for our servers to be able to cope with it. Either it needs rewriting, or we need more servers, which are apparently coming. Angela. 19:44, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I've been having similar problems - I just created three new pages this morning, and when I do a search for the articles by name neither come up, whether in Wikipedia or Google; and I get some bizarre result in Yahoo. Secondly, when I try to move pages (after changing my skin and setting the quickbar, etc), Wiki keeps telling me I am logged out, though I am logged in and can make edits - what is wrong? Simonides 17 June 2004

The search software doesn't work, never has, never will, now and forever, world without end, amen. -Litefantastic 20:05, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

How in the world are we supposed to find an article/essay on a topic when the search engine doesn't work? I've entered "Wallace and Ladmo" several times, I know there is an essay in there and the message just pops up with Search has beeb disabled due to performace problems. When are you going to fix it? This is very annoying.

[edit] Getting exact punctuation right is a pain...and getting the capital letters all right is even worse

The capital letters issue. If it isn't already a pain to try and correctly type out exact punctuation and spelling in the Search (O Brother, Where Art Thou? haunts me), we must also get the captialization exactly right. I'm in college and this gives me trouble, I feel real pity for grade-schoolers who have to try and find things. -Litefantastic 00:44, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. It can be a right pain in the arse trying to get the punctuation spot on just so the link to some obscure song title will work. How come the capitalization of the first letter isn't critical but all the rest are??? Lee M 00:49, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
That was quick. How on earth did you find this page? and to answer your question, it might be because there are things like SPAM and spam with entirely different connotations and identical spelling. These would be a problem if caps were made uniform, but I still think it would be in the common good. -Litefantastic 00:57, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
I found the page on the New Pages list, which I regularly check to see f there are any interesting new articles. Lee M 01:17, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
The routine followed by pressing "Go" should perhaps involve a quick check of all pages with disregard of capitalisation (e.g. use a routine to convert both strings to lowercase). This might give better results. PS I don't think totally eradicating capitals is sensible. Consider mumps and MUMPS, which I disambiguated today.
JFW | T@lk 15:49, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
When the engine worked (the one time) it gave me a list of pages containing the things I had searched for by keyword, like Google. That would handily solve the problem of finding, as you say, both MUMPS and mumps. -Litefantastic 11:41, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
Why not just use Google to do your search if you want capitalization ignored for a certain case? Like this
http://google.com/search?q=keyword(s) here+site:"wikipedia.com"
Then it will search wikipedia and return the results similar to a web search, but only in the wikipedia.com domain! e-mail:mastermushroom(@)digitalcave(.)org AIM:azx3t)
No, not wikipedia.com. It should be Wikipedia.ORG :) \Mikez 15:35, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Complaint Regarding New Skin

It's hard to see line breaks in indented text with the monobook skin. See All Along The Watchtower; the lyrics are three stanzas with line breaks between them. In the normal skin, they are clearly seperated, but in the monobook they are not. Bamos 20:50, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

They look clearly separated to me in Mozilla Firefox (at least in this older version of the article, which is the one I assume you're referring to). Those stanzas use a definition list (indented via a leading colon ":" like we often use in talk pages) to achieve the indentation; I would guess it's either an issue of different browsers having differing default spacing for definition lists, or a stylesheet problem or maybe some of both. At any rate, you can change your own style preferences for this particular attribute by editing User:Bamos/monobook.css and adding the following code snippet:
dd { padding-bottom: 1em; }
That ought to create extra space. If it creates too much space, you could use 0.5em or some other variation. -- Wapcaplet 23:33, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] MAKE UP YOUR MINDS

  • My apologies for using all caps, but this complaint is about THIS page. Originally, I had it set up so that new complaints went on top, but people were used to new posts on the VfD list, which had newest on bottom. So I changed it. But now people are putting new complaints at BOTH places! Could we resolve this?
It is basically a de-facto Wikipedia convention to put the newest things on the bottom. It may be better to do it at the top, but we should stick with convention. Dysprosia 04:09, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] No ADD COMMENT button

Wikipedia has lots of articles that are really discussions and should be in Meta: or on talk page or something. Silly people keep adding to these discussions haphazardly instead of putting them on VfD or moving them. Would anyone care to stop this?

And while we're at it, it would be nice if these discussion articles had a +tab or a ADD COMMENTS link or whatever like the talk pages do. --ssd 04:01, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean? Discussions go in talk, but if they're Wikipedia namespace articles, discussion in the Wikipedia ns is less of an issue. Dysprosia 04:08, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
that was a joke.  :) But still, I wish these things had the add comment button like talk pages. Oh, and adding comments at the top triggers the add-section-causes-dups bug. I think. Or was it the sections-are-now-renumbered-so-you-get-the-wrong-one bug? --ssd 04:20, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cannot Work While Logged In

Even since the new software started, I have been unable to do anything while logged in. I am able to log in, but after that the watchlist and even regular article pages refuse to load. I posted a query on "village pump" but got no useful advice. Can anyone help? -- Dovi

  • Please explain further: you cannot work while logged in? Do you just get an error message or does it fail to save any changes you make or what? -Litefantastic 01:23, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • The pages just refuse to load. If I am *not* logged in, they load fine. -- Avi --
  • Further clarification: After login, if I try to go to any page, I wait endlessly for it to load (I have broadband). Even half-an-hour later it is still trying to load (and never does). But if I am not logged, it loads immediately! This has only happened since the new software. -- Dovi (that was me above) --
    • Hmm. This can't be a common problem or it would have been debugged by now. Offhand, I'm afraid I can only give you two solutions: Either get a new screen name or contact an administrator. I wish I could tell you more, but that's all I know. -Litefantastic 10:51, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Link problems

Does anyone else see that the link to Halifax, Nova Scotia does not work on many pages? See list of CBC television stations for an example. By the way, Halifax is not the only case of this, I think a lot of the links from Quebec City, Quebec don't work either, plus I have encountered this problem while making a page from a red link. Can anyone help? Earl Andrew 23:55, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This is a known bug with the links table. Sometimes editing the page which contains the link will solve the problem for that one page. Otherwise, you need to wait until the links table is rebuilt which happens periodically. Angela. 03:18, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Oh, okay thanks, Im not going to fix them all, as I have seen from the Wikipedia list of most wanted pages, there are over 100 links to Halifax that are like this. Earl Andrew 05:07, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia crashes every 5 minutes

What's with the constant crashing? I know that any website is subject to that problem every now and then, and I do appreciate that Wikipedia's very nature makes it even more vulnerable to it, but it's just too much. Most of the times it happens (and recently it's almost every time I edit something) I immediately test my internet connection and its working fine. I've just lost almost half an hour of work because when I tried to save the page it stalled for a century and then a "database error" message, or something like that, came up instead of the page and it simply reverted to the previous version, forcing me to start from scratch (there was no record of anything I had done, not even in the page's history). Another flagrant example of this problem is how frequently the main page "travels back in time" (which is evident in the part dedicated to the news). I've been contributing less and less recently simply because I never know if the site is going to crash in the middle of my edit and force me to choose between loosing the work and having to wait around until the edit can finally be saved. We've got to solve this problem as soon as possible. Redux 08:10, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Workaround: Before you click save page, select all your changes and copy them. Not a good solution, but better than nothing. -Litefantastic 15:14, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The Wiki Poorhouse

  • I just noticed that Wikipedia is now putting little messages - in red boxes - with 'please donate' in them at the top of all the pages. This leads me to suspect that the cookie jar is running a tad low, and thus I suggest:

All the Wikipedians converge on Fort Knox and order them to give us money for a Good Cause. Who's with me? -Litefantastic 20:15, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand the need to solicit for donations, but does it have to be on every page? Even the Editing Page as I enter this text! On my preferences page, watchlist, my talk ... etc etc. If it simply has to be on every page, why can't it be on the bottom where it isn't so obnoxious?
With all the talk about whether the new skin looks more professional or not, begging for donations on the content of each and every page is a step down. Another more appropriate place might be the sidebar -- perhaps another section between "search" and "toolbox" called "donate"? - Ghoppe 16:06, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)
Sounds good to me; but then again, my next idea was a bake sale. -Litefantastic 20:35, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The message is only temporary. It's up whilst Jimbo's interview is on Slashdot and has brought in $3,261.53 USD since the notice was put up. It isn't currently possible to specify which pages it goes on, but someone could certainly try coding that if they want to. Have a look at the Simple English Wikipedia where the message is at the end of the page instead. Is this preferable? Angela. 19:08, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)Category:Wikipedia community forums

[edit] Templates and Template-editing

Templates are a nuisance to edit throughout Wikipedia. You must first click "edit" in order to delve through the article and find the name of the specific Template you want to edit. You must then manually edit the URL line to include Template:(NAME OF TEMPLATE) and only then you can begin the normal process of editing the template. The other option is manually adding yourself an edit button within the content of the template -- but that's problematic for other reasons. For starters it goes against the natural division between the content and the mechanism for changing that content. Also it's often ugly to intrude an edit button within a template.

Can we please make it so that each page in Wikipedia *automatically* lists all templates used in that page, in a nice little box on the left side of the screen? The same way that Wikipedia currently says "other languages" and lists links to all the other-language wikipedia articles, it would be very convenient if it also said "This page utilises:" and then we got a listing of the templates of that page. e.g. This page utilises: Template: NATO - Template:EU_countries - Template:OECD

I think that would solve all problems.

- Aris Katsaris 20:37, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This was added in Mediawiki version 4, I think. It lists the templates on the edit page. JesseW 21:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Front Page: Featured Article

The featured article on the front page is extremely offensive, but I can't figure out how to change it... Is it even possible? (9/19/04)

  • You mean the one about Cricket? -Litefantastic 12:48, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • No, it was early in the morning. On September 19th, a bunch of swears, and someone talking bad about the Chinese government was in huge red letters.
You can comment on the featured article the day before it goes live at Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article. Angela.

[edit] Undesirable links

  • I was adding new city in the list of Bulgarian cities (namely Elena). Once I saved the page, the new city was linked to some kind of a game by the same name, which has nothing to do with the Bulgarian city. What can I do to break that link and add the article I had in mind?

I did notice, the same problem exist with some of the rest of the city names.

Try making 'Elena' a disambiguation page. Move the city page to Elena (city) and the game to Elena (game). Is that the sort of thing you're shooting for? -Litefantastic 23:56, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] White Skins

Does no one else think wikipedia is too white? I spend a lot of time reading it, and it would be easier on the eyes if a dark alternative were available. For example, Microsoft word has the option of "White text on a dark blue background", which works very well.

You can create your own skin. See m:user styles for information. Angela. 20:59, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
Removed the insulting comment from Sam Spade from this comment. We need useful things here, not moronic jokes, alright? For reference purposes, his link was White Power

Ariamaki

[edit] Bug

Intended to post this on Bugzilla under Wikipedia, but I'm receiving no registration email. On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zegunder there is an error where [[Gil Cohen]] produces no wikilink.

Usually due to misbracketing earlier on in the article. Let's see... Well, a CRT and spaces in a link will break it, uh? JFW | T@lk 20:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Searching

Is it possible to stop the search function or links being case sensitive? CheeseDreams 17:26, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Apparantly not. That complaint was the problem that started General Complaints. -Litefantastic 01:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It may not be a perfect fix, and I appreciate it would be better to keep it in-house, but I often use Google, restricted to search only the wikipedia site.

 http://www.google.com/search?q=site:en.wikipedia.org+&q=zigbee

I've used this trick a few times to find articles I failed to locate via the main wikipedia search

[edit] Ireland Article Edit-Flaw

The Article "Ireland" contains an unremovable "Charlie k is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the end of it's first paragraph! How can it be, that this awful thing is not showing up in the edit function?

[edit] Mojave/Mohave

Kinda a "dumb question": a fellow (new) user/editor has placed a redirect on Mojave to go to the unincorporated community of Mojave, California. There is also a Mohave page, without a redirect, which goes to the Native American tribe. Both spellings are pronounced the same, BTW.

Some months ago, Menchi redirected Mojave to Mohave. But Anon changed it to go to the unincorporated California community, which (to add confusion) is in the Mojave Desert, (California), and not the Mohave Desert (Arizona).

Because the spellings are different (but pronounced the same) and considering the word means different things to different people - especially when adding the word "tribe" or "desert" to it. . . Would there be some way to do a disambiguation page to straighten out this mess? (friendly grin) Granted, the spellings aren't the same, but the pronounciation sameness causes some difficulty - perhaps along the lines of "Joaquin" (as in San Joaquin Valley and "walking." You get the drift? Your thoughts, please. --avnative 18:10, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

  • I ran into this in another place and the disambig page is in place. Now to find the links to the wrong spelling of the tribe, Vegaswikian 08:50, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About Wikipedia Page Corrupted

The About Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About has been corrupted with some garbage text, but when going to edit the text is not there to edit.

[edit] Undefined Math symbols

On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Variables and on any page which uses those mathematical characters, most mathematical characters show up as single character boxes containing a 2x2 array of digits, e.g. &or on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic Can I fix this? If so, then how? I am running: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 for Linux with Character Encoding Western(ISO-8859-1) and loading of images enabled.

do you mean these? They work on my FF.
Mathematical characters:

∫ ∑ ∏ √ − ± ∞ ≈ ∝ ≡ ≠ ≤ ≥ × · ÷ ∂ ′ ″ ∇ ‰ ° ∴ ℵ ø ∈ ∉ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ⊆ ⊇ ¬ ∧ ∨ ∃ ∀ ⇒ ⇔ → ↔MarSch 16:00, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you see a square with a 2x2 array of digits on Mozilla Firefox, it means you do not have a font with that character. After you install the proper font, it will work. The numbers are the character's code; you can look at the Unicode standard to see which character it is supposed to be. --cesarb 20:02, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I had the same problem you describe. I fixed it installing a UNICODE-compliant font; I did it through MS Office --- "Microsoft Shared Functions", "International Support" and "Universal Font". Nivaca 19:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Catherby

I've just found a strange page called Catherby. Upon consulting the Internet, it would seem to be an imaginary place, located in a game-realm called RuneScape. The article is a very short stub, but I don't see that it could grow into anything. It could be transferred to the aforesaid existing article, I suppose, but I know nothing about RuneScape and wouldn't know how to fit it in. Kelisi 03:37, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I've redirect that to RuneScape locations and inserted the information into the Catherby section. One of the problems seems to be that there's quite a number of anonymous users creating these articles even though there should be contained in the RuneScape articles. --Ricky81682 (talk) 04:47, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Benedict XVI

There seems to be a picture of the leader of the Evil Empire from Star Wars on the new Pope's article, or at least there was at the time of writing.--217.42.208.169 18:18, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh wait, it's fixed now--217.42.208.169 18:25, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] British Columbia Moderate Democratic Movement

It lists their platform, and Wikipedia isn't a soapbox. Another user refuses to remove it, and reverts my edits. --Spinboy 19:53, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would add that Spinboy's complaint has implications for all political party articles. His concern seems to be that including a description of a political party's platform in the article about the party is "using Wikipedia as a soapbox".
I have made attempts to address Spinboy's concerns by editing the text on this article. He has refused to work with me on this issue. He has not responded to arguments that I have made on the Talk page. In particular, I believe that Spinboy has does not understand what Wikipedia isn't a soapbox means. It says:
Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view.
I have edited the text to make it a more objective, factual recounting of the party's policy proposals, which are of historical interest, and not advocacy for its program. For the record, I was never a member or supporter of that party, which was registered in a province that is 3500 km from where I live. I would be happy to work with Spinboy and/or a third party or mediator on this.
If I am out of line, then I will stand down, but it would be a shame if political party articles cannot tell readers anything about what the parties stand for. Ground Zero Ground Zero 13:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] "Save page" previews instead?!

Wikipedia appears to be requiring me to hit "save page" about three times before actually saving the article -- the first two times it acts as if I hit "show preview" instead. If I wasn't paying attention, I would have lost my changes by closing the window. What's up? Lunkwill 29 June 2005 07:44 (UTC)

(Oh, sure, so *this* time it worked fine. :/) Lunkwill 29 June 2005 07:45 (UTC)

Tabletop 29 June 2005 06:06 (UTC)

It's a known issue of the latest software upgrade. it should be resolved now. Elfguy 30 June 2005 13:42 (UTC)

[edit] Stupid.

I find quite a few of the people on Wikipedia really cold and unhuman. This was written on my talk page.

Please don't put your opinion or original research into articles. This is regarding the comment about Mario's original colors and current colors. Saying that most people don't notice the difference is an opinion unless you provide some hard reference of a professional study on it. That aside, the point itself is relatively minor and is more trivia than encyclopedic content. CryptoDerk 23:44, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

%this is me% -raises an eyebrow- Is this what you do all day? Remonstrating people on what you yourself brand 'trivia'?

I advise you to look at WP:NPA. Continued violation of official Wikipedia policy will result in blocking. CryptoDerk 00:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

This stuff really hurts my feelings. I am 13, have Asperger Syndrome and ADHD. As far as I can tell I had done nothing wrong [1] Funny how all these little deals add up, isn't it?

I also noticed how a 'trivial' edit, by definition harmless, was picked up upon quicker than major vandalism. By me. Nice prioritising, guys [2]. That beauty lasted TWO FREAKING HOURS AND TWENTY-SIX MINUTES. Jesus. Ajsh 01:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Your contributions certainly look like they were intended well; however, CryptoDerk is correct that Wikipedia is not the place for your own personal opinions -- see Wikipedia:No original research. Although I think he may have overreacted a bit by threatening blocking, I also think that the act of leaving messages like "Er... do you have a life?" on his talk page is more than a little inflammatory. Also, regarding your edit to Shigeru Miyamoto: please don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point.
I hope you understand that we hold you no ill will, and that we look forward to your continued participation in Wikipedia. I'm honestly sorry you seem to have a bad first day here. If everybody can just tone down the hostility, I'm sure we can all get along just fine. --David Wahler (talk) 01:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The worst part of it is, this isn't my first day. I'm getting a really negative picture of the Wiki community as a whole here. Ajsh 01:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, why is my page link broken? Ajsh 01:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

If you're having other problems, feel free to discuss them. I just hope you aren't going to judge the whole of Wikipedia according to your personal disagreement with one user. I apologize for my mistaken assumption, but it's hard to reliably find out how long a user's been around if they haven't been signing in.
As for your user page: since you just created your account about 10 minutes ago, it looks like you haven't created one yet. You can go ahead and create it; feel free to put anything you want (within reason) about yourself, your interests, etc. --David Wahler (talk) 02:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The page cannot be found, apparently. Ajsh 02:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Just to make sure we're on the same page, are you referring to the red Ajsh link? If so, that page doesn't exist until you create it. It's yours to use as you please -- for more information on the general guidelines for user pages and some examples of what other people use theirs for, see Wikipedia:User page. --David Wahler (talk) 02:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but it literally has the white screen and the 'This page cannot be found' text. Ajsh 02:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Hmm. If you're not getting the text box to edit the page, that sounds like a bug. Would you like me to try creating the page for you, and you can see if that fixes the problem? --David Wahler (talk) 02:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay then, whatever. Ajsh 02:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Screen Names should not be automatically capitalized

When you register for an account on Wikipedia, the first letter of your screen name should not be automatically capitalized. There is no reason for this website to feel the need to capitalize a screen name. I know it is probably proper grammar in the world, but it's just not right on the internet. Can you please change it so this does not happen? Thanks.

- dposse.

Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical_restrictions)#Lower case first letter, bugzilla:2118, and bugzilla:3362. Bovlb 21:06:49, 2005-09-06 (UTC)
i agree with dposse. this should be changed and there is no good reason for it. r b-j 18:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Harry Potter spoiler on Google

In the course of posting an article to my weblog about the new Harry Potter book, I Googled the phrase "half-blood prince" in order to find a link to another site that discussed the book. At the time I did this, I had not finished reading the book.

Halfway down the first page of results was the Wikipedia link. It looked like this:


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Wikipedia, the free ...
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth novel in JK ... Harry pursues -----, who identifies himself as the Half-Blood
Prince before escaping. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_ Potter_and_the_Half-Blood_Prince - 47k - Jul 27, 2005 -


I have replaced an important word with hyphens in the example above, but the link as it actually appeared on the Google page did not. Instead, it GIVES AWAY WHAT IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PLOT TWIST OF THE ENTIRE BOOK.

ARRRRRRRRGH.

Now, if one follows that link, it takes one to a Wikipedia page with a lot of general information about the book, and down near the bottom of the page there is a section titled "Plot overview" with a prominently placed "Spoiler Warning". All well and good -- if I'd seen the actual page before I finished the book, I wouldn't have read any further. I like being surprised, see.

But for someone innocently searching for a link in Google, the spoiler warning is invisible. All they see is the spoiler.

My point: I would like to urge all responsible parties, in the strongest possible terms (oh how my finger itches to hit caps lock) to reconsider the necessity and propriety of writing a plot overview that gives away a surprise ending. Why not change the offending sentence to "Harry discovers the true identity of the Half-Blood Prince" and leave it at that?

This is, I am sure you realize, about more than one particular book. It's bound to come up again.

  • I see your point, but I think you would be better off directing your complaint toward Google rather than Wikipedia. I don't think there's any guaranteed way that an outside web site can prevent something like that from appearing on Google, given the wide variety of possible searches. Note that when I searched Google for "harry potter and the half-blood prince", the following comes up as the fifth entry:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Wikipedia, the free ...
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth novel in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. Set during Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_ Potter_and_the_Half-Blood_Prince - 50k - Aug 13, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

... without any spoilers resulting from that search. --Metropolitan90 03:11, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

  • The internet is riddled with spoilers for Harry Potter books. The best thing is not to do any Harry Potter related searches unless you've finished reading the book. - 131.211.210.12 13:12, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Cookie Complaints

10 October 2005 created the screen name JohnMac777 and the cookies are not coming through. My Netscape browser had plenty of cookies on it, so the problem looks like something between Wikipedia and AOL. I have seen this before where some people will play with domain names, but when it is from AOL it is anonymous where each logon you get a new IP address from a block of domain names.

I found a cookie bug in Netscape that kept me from logging on. What to do:

  • 1. Go the preferences on the menu (on mine it is under Edit).
  • 2. Select Privacy & Security menu item from the drop down menu.
  • 3. Select “Cookies.”
  • 4. From the Cookie Screen, select the “Cookie Manager” button.
  • 5. One the Cookie Manager Screen selected the “Cookie Sites” tab.
  • 6. Scan each cookie site listed.
  • 7. For each cookie site you want enabled no matter what happens, then type in the cookie site exactly as listed in the text space, and select the “Allow” button. Delete all others and remove all cookie sites that start with "ad" or remove if it is a advertisement cookie site.
  • 8. When done removing cookie sites or "Allow" cookie sites, then select the “Stored Cookie” tab.
  • 9. Select the “Remove All Cookies” button to remove all the stored cookies. The cookie list should be blank afterward.
  • 10. Close the “Cookie Manager” screen (top right button) and the “Cookie” display should still be there.
  • 11. On the preferences menu go to the "Advanced" menu item and select it (the list is on the left on my Netscape).
  • 12. Under the "Advanced" menu item select "Cache."
  • 13. With the "Cache" screen being shown select the "Clear Cache" button. If your cache is full this can take a few minutes.
  • 14. Close Netscape.
  • 15. Reboot your computer.
  • 16. Get back online.
  • 17. Visit Wikipedia and attempt to log on. You should now be logged on after this.
  • 18. Enjoy.
  • Why? -- What happened is somehow the cookie sites were being set, but would not allow the cookies to update, and the cookie list seemed to regenerate (old cookies), so you could not get a fresh cookie. These actions fixed my problem. If you use AOL, then you should clear its cookie list and cache files from the AOL cookie controls.


[edit] Main page broken in Mozilla 1.7.3 on Windows XP

The main page doesn't work in Mozilla. It worked yesterday, but today when I went to it, words didn't wrap (so the page was extremely wide), and the whole main content area functioned as a link to the Chinese edition. Internet Exploder had no problems with it, though. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 16:20, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

    • I've run it in IE and Firefox; it works fine in both of those. isn't Mozilla the same thing as FF? -Litefantastic 00:33, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Images are not showing up in Mozilla Firefox, but are working using IE. I've tried this on three different computers now on the Columbia University campus, including my own. Any ideas? 160.39.232.221 19:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm using using Firefox 1.0.2 on Windows XP. The images overlap the text at the bottom of the page depending upon the size of the text. 9:10am PST, Apr 4, 2005


[edit] WikiSlow

Today it feels like Wikipedia has just eaten a tub of lard. Pages take ages to load, database errors abound. What's making Wikipedia sick today? Is it the Slashdotting (!)? --NightMonkey 04:28, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

This sort of thing happens now and again, and is generally attrbuted to heavy load or problems with the servers. However, since the "To help support Wikipedia, please visit our fundraising page" message is back up, I'm guessing that we're being featured somewhere, which is why a) the servers are slow and b) that wretched message is back up, begging all new visitors to donate. -Litefantastic 16:41, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We intend to order some new hardware as soon as Jimbo is back from his holiday next week. The fundraising notice is up at the moment because we are featured on Slashdot, which tends to bring in a lot of potential donors. Angela. 18:22, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WikiSlow: The Monster Returns

Yes, I know this is annoying, but there's been no long-term improvement in speed. This is apparent on several networks, done at several times of day (though it is better in the North American nighttime). Note that I'm NOT saying that it makes Wikipedia totally unusable, but it really makes editing a pain and is somewhat embarrasing to introduce Wikipedia to lots of folks with every one of them saying something like, "Wow, that sounds really cool! <45+ seconds pass to load the page text> Pretty slow, but I'll check it out more later." I love Wikipedia. I'll give it cash. But, I hate to view it through lard-colored glasses ;).

Isn't everyone experiencing this sluggish response? --NightMonkey 20:54, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

OK, I never knew I liked crow as an entre before, let alone a whole buffet of it. After looking here, I see that today and yesterday a hardware move is in progress, along with a network bandwidth megaboost. Apologies for the complaint. Keep up the great work! --NightMonkey 21:17, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] WikiSlow 3: With Apologies to NightMonkey

It's not as bad as before, but every twenty minutes or so the site just sort of seems to stall. I don't think we're on SlashDot again (how many times can we be featured, anyway?) but it just seems like the site is narcoleptic. -Litefantastic 14:47, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm new to Wiki and am enthusiastic about its potential however the server lag that I'm experiencing all too regularly here has me now doubting my ability to sustain participation (we're talking minutes here folks, and sometimes no load at all). As this, apparently, has not been commented on since 27 Oct, I thought I'd solicit some current observations on page loading problems. JakeInJoisey 20:01, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It gets better sometimes. Really. -Litefantastic 23:03, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I do not think that the site is getting faster at all. The idiot who said it was obviously had no idea what they are talking about. I'm using a LAN connection at 100 mps and it still takes sometimes minutes to load. This is obviously the sign of some moron in the management of this site. Idiots should not be allowed to govern over this information. Truly, the people of this site are fools and need to be shot as soon as possible. Thank you.

[edit] The printing option

In the olden days there used to be a "Print this page" button on all articles. What ever happened to that? Though most times today I'm at a computer when searching for or using knowledge, but not all the time. I would like to take certain Wiki pages with me to read, but as the Wiki stands now, you have to reformat most of the site. AFAIK it would be a simple task to implement this again, and I hope to see this in the future. --Gruesome 09:29, Aug 9, 2004 (CET)

The other skins (you can change this in your preferences) still have a link to the printable version. The default "monobook" skin does not have one, but if you press print in your browser, the print stylesheet will be applied automatically. Angela. 21:30, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Why not change the "monobook" skin so that it has a link to the printable version, otherwise people might believe that it's not there (as I did).--STM 16:57, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)
What about an export to PDF function? That would certainly be very useful for archival purposes. --STM 08:27, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
See the wiki-to-pdf converter. Angela. 23:27, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
PDFCreator[3] easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. It is a pseudo-printer driver; you use it just like a printer, but the output goes to a PDF file instead of paper. Kbh3rd 16:45, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On my browser, Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040917 Firefox/0.9.3, the printing stylesheet screws up badly around any font style change, causing massive text elements' overlap. Am I the only one, and is it a Firefox bug, or a CSS problem with the Monobook printing style? BACbKA 10:38, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • It's not just you; every now and again this happens in IE, too. However, if it happens to you constantly, you may wish to consider either switching browsers or an official complaint to the people who write the WP software. -Litefantastic 14:54, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Actually, neither Firefox nor Konqueror are good for me for any page, even without any embedded floaters. Konqueror seems better than Firefox, but also is a bit screwed up (sometimes inter-character spacing, but also with the pagination issue – it has massive overlaps between adjacent pages! or is that intentional?). It's either a browser bug, or a CSS bug, or both. The fact that you say it happens sometimes to you with the IE points to the CSS. Konqueror and Firefox use different rendering engines, so this is another clue against the CSS. Amaya doesn't support cookies :-) all the other mainstream options available that I know of on Linux are using one of the same layout engines as the ones already mentioned before, so I don't know what other browser to switch to :-( Can somebody else with a know-how of WP printing from Linux please step up and share the experience of successful (or insuccessful) printing, before I submit bug reports? BACbKA 19:39, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • The printing stylesheet commonPrint.css contains a FONT-SIZE attribute which unfortunately defines a fixed font size of 11pt for the #content div. This means that whenever I select a very small font size in Internet Explorer and then print the document I always get the same number of pages. That's not really a good idea, especially for longer articles, is it?


[edit] Spelling Spelling

I believe the correct phrase is spelling check rather than the word-processor-shortened spell check. The use of check in this manner is usually (always?) [noun] check such as reality check, sanity check, price check, or correctness check. Given this, a spell check would be something Harry Potter does, so I suggest the use of the more correct phrase spelling check. The How-To index is one of many places where the wizarding version is used.

Peter (Cactus Pete) 18:04, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Okay... what would you like us to do about it? -Litefantastic 12:23, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, and they also have street signs that say "drive slow." We'd need Harry Potter to change popular breAches of the rules of grammar.

[edit] The &$*# Search Engine is Broken Again


[edit] Hide edit section

As explained in the How-to page it is possible to hide all edit links with the code __NOEDITSECTION__ in a document. According to the same How-to page, it is also possible to hide a section from the Table of contents by using HTML-tags like <h2>sectionhead</h2> instead of ==sectionhead==.

Bug:
The edit link is hidden using HTML tags, but the next edit link links to the edit page of the first section marked by the HTML-tags, which was not editable. The second edit link to the second section marked by HTML, and so forth.

Ilse@ 12:51, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Please don't. Last time I checked using HTML tags to hide sections from the TOC interfered with the edit links of other sections. - 131.211.210.13 10:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Grey heading line extends too far

On pages like List of colonial governors in 1880, the grey line extends through the middle of the "See also:" box at the right. The same thing happens if you hide the table of contents on pages like List of state leaders in 2004. I don't know how to fix it.

The same thing seems to be true with any box on any page, though some boxes are not transparent. But even for opaque boxes like on Angola (and a million other pages), the grey line extends all the way to the edge of the box instead of stopping at the margin.

If the margin between the box and the right edge of the page is greater than zero, you can see the grey line sticking out the other end. For example, if you edit University of Notre Dame du Lac, changing "margin: 0 0" to "margin: 1em 1em", and view the preview (obviously, don't save the page).

For some reason, pages like Alabama seem to look ok. 68.225.20.115 20:26, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "pre" tags are badly rendered in Mozilla Firefox 1.0

Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul#Philosophical_views

The dotted border fits the screen, but the content of the tag goes far beyond the screen border.


The dotted border fits the size of the window/page, which is a measurement in pixels. The point of having preformatted text (PRE tags) is to let the text be as wide as it needs to be, even if this means being wider than the browser window.
For example, a family tree presented as ascii art that gets automatically wrapped will not make sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngling#Family_Tree
In other words, this is a general web thing, not specific to just this site.

[edit] Language specific accounts

Why is an account for only one language? Okay it might prevent some name clashes, but is this really such a great benefit? For multilingual people to have to have several accounts is pretty annoying. MarSch 17:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be, for the Wikiworld, with its tremendous technology base, a relatively easy fix? I second this suggestion. --Dpr 02:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I guess they are already working on it. Good job! --Dpr 02:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese Log in

I have no idea if I'm posting this problem in the right place since i'm quite new to Wikipedia. The thing is, though I have no problem logging into my account in the English area (where i originally created the acount), the Portuguese version of Wikipedia completly ignores my existance.

Is that just me or does everyone need to register on every language that they wish to contribute with? Is there any chance this could be merged into a single database of users? I have enough usernames and passwords as it is, and having another one for the same place seems pretty bizarre to me.

Fmafra 16:30, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, all the wikis are separate. See meta:Single sign-on. --cesarb 13:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Ragged text

The standard text uses ragged right edges (i.e. uneven line length). This affects the aesthetic layout of many pages such as this one (Taj Mahal). Instead the line length may be made constant to produce a more visually appealing effect.

This is a per user preference. Some people find ragged-right text easier to read, other prefer justified. In Special:Preferences, select Misc and check the "Justify paragraphs" box. -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 05:02, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The way I heard it right-justified text is easier to read on paper but less easy to read on a computer screen. This has to do with paper reflecting light and a monitor emitting light (making the extra whitespace in the middle of the text too bright).

[edit] verison = version

I went to look up 'Verison' in the search menu, and got a whole bunch of hits -- for 'verison' as a mis-spelling of 'version'. I fixed a few, but there are over five pages of this to be fixed! Is there some way we can quickly correct a lot of these sorts of typos? - Kit Foxtrot 22:37, 8 May 2005 (EST)

I've copied your question to User:Humanbot, it should be completed soon. Thanks for pointing it out! — Catherine\talk 05:51, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Invalid deletion of Hellenic Genocide page

The page on the Hellenic Genocide was deleted in violation of Wikipedia rules despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of users voted to KEEP it. After people companied that the deletion was invalid and resistated the page, the page was then locked in its deleted state so that it cannot be replaced.

The deletion of this page was out of order and carried out for political reasons alone in order to suppress the knowledge of a historical event equivalent to the NAZI holocaust. Wikipedia should be ashamed of itself that this was allowed to happen. The deletion of the Hellenic Genocide page is TOTALLY INVALID and is nothing short of HOLOCAUST DENIAL ! Overwhelming evidence and references was presented on the page to show that a premeditated genocide of 4 million Greeks from Asia-Minor was perpetrated by the Turks, including US congressional resolutions which recognised the mass murder of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians.

I demand that the page be reinstated immediately and that action be take against the apologists who deleted it and who have systematicaly been abusing Wikipedia rules in order to have the pages related to this page deleted as well including biographies of authors such as Thea Halo, George Horton, and Leonidas Koumakis who have written about the Hellenic Genocide.--Argyrosargyrou 17:38, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The vote was 16:5 in favour of deletion, after removing invalid votes, and completely withing Wikipedia procedures. DJ Clayworth 21:07, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
NO IT WAS NOT
This is what the RFD page actually say about how votes should be counted.
"Your opinion will be given the most weight if you are logged in with an account that already existed when the nomination was made. Anonymous and new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their votes may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith. "
There is nothing forbidding anonymous and new users from voting and since their votes were ALL in GOOD FAITH and they gave genuine reasons for why they wanted the page kept, (that the Hellenic Genocide was a proven historical event and it should not be denied for political expediency etc.), there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER for them to have been discounted, and since the votes to KEEP were in the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of 2:1 the page should have been kept.
This page was deleted in violation of Wikipedia rules and should be reinstated immediately.--Argyrosargyrou 21:31, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

-Edit-= Argy, isn't there a vote for undeletion page? That sounds like a better place to place a complaint like this. Also, writing fuming accusations is not going to help your case. Keep a cool head.

[The Mysterious Interloper]

[edit] Background of Pages, Skins

I do not think that I am alone in this feeling, but the stark contrast of a white background on most pages, along with blue links and black text, is VERY painful to me. All of the skins for Wikipedia simply change layout, not actual color, as most skins for sites and forums do. Is there any chance a "EasyEyes" skin, or somesuch, could be made with a dark background and lighter text choices? Even a dark shade of grey would be better then plain white. - Ariamaki Risenki Ariamaki


  • Quite sorry, I just noticed that above there is a link to fix this very problem. Sorry for the space-waste, but I will leave this here to ask anotehr question... Can anyone aid me by making a CSS style sheet that makes the pages look better from a harsh-on-the-eyes POV?

- Still Ariamaki Risenki Ariamaki


[edit] European accented characters search

I think it would be good if articles titled using accented European characters could be searched for and retreived by entering unaccented characters. For example the article 'Spanische Küche' would be suggested by entering 'Spanische Kuche'. Wikipedia: General complaints (resolved) There are projects working on redirects to create this effect, but it is a very long process. - Robmods 19:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Watchlist update

I am not getting updates on my watchlist today. I put in edits, and see no activity on the watchlist page. What is up? Dan Watts 1 July 2005 19:13 (UTC)

I am also having that problem, and I am really angry! Why does the wiki hate me so? -- Earl Andrew - talk 1 July 2005 20:12 (UTC)


[edit] Style Sheet Changes?

I love reading the wikipedia. I love that the links are so obvious, usually. When I'm on page 5 or page 45, black on white with blue links every other word get's old quick. I'd just like to be able to use a lower contrast version for more extended reading.

I'm not just whining. I know my way around a style sheet. If I can help make this happen, my time is wikipedia's time. I love this site. will at luktown dot org.

  • Support - I agree, Blue coloring makes words jump out when they're not supposed to. Red coloring is worse. I've found that going to "Preferences" and forcing all links to NOT be underlined makes it a little better.--Muchosucko 6 July 2005 21:03 (UTC)

[edit] Fantastic time-saver EVERYONE should know about!

These are shortcuts you can put on your Firefox or IE shortcut bar, known as bookmarklets in Firefox and Favlets in IE. Then what you can do is at any time highlight any word on the page you are currently browsing and click the link, to be taken straight to the corresponding Wikipedia article or Wiktionary definition, its fantastically usefull!


Wiktionary:

 javascript:q = "" + (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() :
 document.getSelection ? document.getSelection() :
 document.selection.createRange().text);
 if (!q) q = prompt("You didn't select any text.  Enter a search phrase:", "");
 if (q!=null) window.open().location="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/" + escape(q).replace(/ /g, "+"); void 0

Wikipedia:

 javascript:q = "" + (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() :
 document.getSelection ? document.getSelection() :
 document.selection.createRange().text);
 if (!q) q = prompt("You didn't select any text.  Enter a search phrase:", "");
 if (q!=null) window.open().location="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/" + escape(q).replace(/ /g, "+"); void 0

(What would be even better is if anyone could work out how to get the article or definition to open in a new page or tab, rather than the same one as it does now, ive tried but my java skills are far too poor to manage it!) Orgone 06:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(Done. To get window.open() to open into a new tab instead of a new window in Firefox, see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction for changing the about:config entry to 0.) 150.101.115.231 20:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)