Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Help desk/Archive 8 (section)

== How to get tables to stay in their sections ==

Take a look at [[User:Pyrop/Table example]]. How do i get the tables to not do that, and stay in their sections? [[User:Pyrop|Pyrop]] 16:26, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

:You can use <nowiki>{{clear}}]] 16:34, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::If you don't like either formatting solution, try other editing solutions.  Without knowing which article/subject is vexing you, this has to be general:  
:::*First (and perhaps ideally), fill the section with an attractive (!) amount of text by finding more to write about the subject!  Describe the meaning of the tabular data, what distinguishes it from tables in other sections, provide sources, discuss historical significance -- make it an encyclopedia article that is more than just a collection of reference tables.
:::*Alternately, don't use sections at all:  include an extra row at top or bottom of the table as a caption, containing the text which is currently under the section header.  (Search for "rowspan" in the table markup help pages to make the caption row stretch across all columns -- I don't know how to do this in the new table markup.)  There may be a way to display the tables side-by-side, in this case (short of enclosing them in another table, which is dang ugly code-wise).  
::Good luck!  [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine]] | [[User_talk:CatherineMunro|talk]] 23:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

== "New messages" link to external site ==
I recently got the standard orange box indicating that I have new messages, only the link, oddly enough, sent me to [http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/sierranaked.jpg this site]. I am baffled as to how this happened. Any explanations? [[User:Livajo|Livajo]] 00:09, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:No idea, but note to others: don't follow the link, it displays "you are an idiot" in blinking lights, along with a song. [[User:Meelar|[[User:Meelar|Meelar]] [[User talk:Meelar|(talk)]]]] 00:11, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

::It was a vandal. He copied the format of the new message box and put it on recent changes. Grunt blocked him milLiseconds before I could. [[User:Theresa knott|Theresa Knott]] [[User talk:Theresa knott| (taketh no rest)]] 00:26, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::Aha. I didn't think the Recent Changes page could be edited. Oh well, glad to see justice served. Thanks. [[User:Livajo|Livajo]] 03:22, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::To edid recent changes go here [[Wikipedia:Recentchanges]]. The page needs to be updated every few days as requested articles become fulfilled. If you ever see a blue one, replace it with a new one from [[Wikipedia:Requested articles]]. [[User:Theresa knott|Theresa Knott]] [[User talk:Theresa knott| (taketh no rest)]] 17:35, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

==Creative Commons licenses and Wikipedia==
What's the deal with incorporating content licensed under various creative commons licenses, and images in particular, into Wikipedia? [[User:Matt Crypto|&mdash; Matt]] 22:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
: As far as I know Creative Commons ShareAlike is incompatible with GFDL whether noncommercial or not since it requires releasing the derivative works under the same license. Public domain is fair game of course, so do works whose copyright have expired due to licensor's choice of limited time (e.g., framer's) copyright. -- [[User:Ato|<tt>at</tt>]][[User talk:Ato|<b><tt>0</tt></b>]] 17:01, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:Images under Creative Commons licenses are allowed under the GFDL's aggregation clause (or at least the Wikipedia interpretation of it). Non-commercial is discouraged as it limits our ability to redistribute. No-derivs is frowned upon, but I think it's tolerated. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]]

==How do you find your number of posts?==
Hey everyone.  I've looked all over for a way to find an exact number for your number of contributions.  The my contributions page doesn't seem to give one.  I'm interested to find out how many edits I've made, so I'd appriciate it if anyone enlightened me. --[[User:Pie4all88|pie4all88]] 01:43, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:Go to your contributions page, then select "500" as the limit. Count the number of pages until you get to the last one, then set the limit to 100 and repeat. Do this until you get a working number. Hope this helps, [[User:Meelar|[[User:Meelar|Meelar]] [[User talk:Meelar|(talk)]]]] 06:32, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

::I've gathered from IRC discussions that this is very hard on the database and that the developers would like everyone to stop doing it. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 15:14, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::Ok, thanks for the help.  I wish there was a more convenient way of doing it, though. :) --[[User:Pie4all88|pie4all88]] 23:25, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::::Just so's you know, the reason an easier method hasn't been added is because there are worries that this would lead to undue importance being placed on the number of edits a user has made, as opposed to more accurate measures of their contribution to the project. Not having the feature creates a technical problem, as people try to find out manually, but having it might create a ''social'' problem, because it would be too easy to put importance on it. - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] 19:25, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:::::I agree that emphasizing the importance of number of edits is a bad idea, but as long as number of edits is a factor in evaluating, for example, [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship|Requests for adminship]], people are going to keep doing this.  Perhaps updating [[Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits|List of Wikipedians by number of edits]] more frequently, say once a week, would help? (Maybe this suggestion belongs somewhere else, but I don't know where.) [[User:Triskaideka|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash;[[User:Triskaideka|Triskaideka]] 19:42, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

::::::Well, that criterion for adminship is exactly the kind of controversial reliance on numbers that the developers are trying to discourage by making it harder. I'm pretty sure there has been some very heated debate regarding how strictly that rule should be applied. Not that that means it's ''wrong'', of course... - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] 19:58, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:There's always [http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/csv/StatisticsUsers.csv the CSV], an unformatted list of all contribs to all wikipedias, updated weekly (more often than [[Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits]]). See [[Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#Data in the CSV|here]] for a list of what each column means. [[User:Rdsmith4|Ðåñηÿßôý]] | [[User talk:Rdsmith4|Talk]] 23:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)