Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 5

message: Something seriously needs to be done about the table of contents on this page... perhaps  or , or better yet... ___NOTOC___?
ChewyLSB 02:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Table of Contents

message: I've archived the recent threads related to the recent changes made to the reference desk. Might have been a bit overly WikiBold, so please feel free to recover some threads that should remain active. This page was getting a bit too long to navigate around easily, I thought. --HappyCamper 03:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archival!

message: After about three days with the categorized format: With all of the vigorous activity over the prior several days this talk page seems eerily calm and quiet. The RD questioners seem to have adapted just fine and I don't notice any reduction in either the rate of questions or answers.  :-) hydnjo talk 21:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's true come to think of it. It's day 6 right now...let's try some graphs to see the impact of the changes? The RD is supporting about twice the number of questions than before...I can't imagine what it would be like to regularly have ~200 active questions on the same page! --HappyCamper 00:06, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that :Image:Question mark.png was pretty bold.  Sorry about the understatement with the stats. Heck, time just goes by fast when you're havin' fun. I'd love to see the actual stats, I'm just eyeballin' Got milk stats? hydnjo talk 00:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the page history, there were 21506 edits to the page up to the midnight before the split... --HappyCamper 00:49, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WHAT?! It's September already?! And here I was thinking it was August! The question mark needs to be a bit smaller I think, but much better than the medical symbol :-) --HappyCamper 00:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. It looks much cooler now! --HappyCamper 02:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A Compensatory Pause

message: Look at this graph, isn't it interesting? It's a graph of the number of edits made to the reference desk by month. Look at the recent spikes in July and August - I think splitting the desk was a good move after all!! (Isn't it also interesting how talk about splitting the page started around May, when the first surge and increase in edits to the RD occurred?) --HappyCamper 01:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done HC. I don't know how you do that! The data certainly suggests that WP:RD is becoming more useful (by almost doubling in one month). Let me add some thoughts about this page in a few. hydnjo talk 01:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, quite the spike in July. August is even higher. I wonder what will happen in September? The archiving isn't any much easier than before. Sooner or later we'll need extra help. I think we should form an "RD Brigades" club somewhere :-) --HappyCamper 16:04, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'll give you a hand, but a few guidelines might be useful. For the moment I will stick to "seven days without edit" for sections. Physchim62 23:58, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yay! See below for some tips. --HappyCamper 03:30, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphs - Reference desk changes 

message: Just a random thought: wouldn't it be cool to have an RSS/Atom feed of the reference desk? RSS/Atom tech is being worked on for wikinews, and im not sure where its up to, but once they get it working i think it would be awesome to have a Reference desk feed (or one for each cat). It would mean that the individual heading would probably have to be a bit longer and more specific, but that's not a bad thing is it? The bellman 06:38, 2005 September 4 (UTC)
:There's an existing RSS feed for Wikipedia:Announcements... hmm. The Help/Reference Desk and Village Pump are pages that'd certainly benefit from this. Shimgray 12:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm wondering how one makes an rss feed using a wikipage? Do they find all h1's and make an <item> out of it? I would be interested in having a feed of all the rd questions. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:34, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, it sounds really neat! Let me know if we know if we figure out how to do this and I'll try to help out. I'm wondering if it would this impact how archival is done? And how often we would need to patrol the RD to make sure we are sending out quality material? --HappyCamper 22:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would involve writing a script that would take the page, then convert each header into an <item> the title of the header into <title> and maybe the first 200 characters under the header into a <description> (is that what it's called? I have no experience with RSS or XML). This would probably be something that involves C#, PHP, CGI, Perl, or something similar. The RSS feed would also have to be hosted on a different server I guess... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: This shows a script that might be useful. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Ugh...looked at it and tried to do it in PHP...too much work! Don't want to get perl, so I'm leaving this up to someone else. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I'm actually pretty close to getting it. I just need a few more regexp tweaks and a host and I'll be done. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atomic reference desk 

message: Archival on the reference desk is quite easy. Some heuristics to use:
# Archive whenever the page looks really long
# Archive whenever the page has old questions (typically 5-7 day old questions since last thread seems good)
# Sort the questions - all unanswered questions go in one place, answered questions go in their subpages.
# Follow the pattern in the archives. If it doesn't make sense, change it so it's easier to use :-)
In addition, these are some other things I have done in the archives:
# Remove questions relating to citing Wikipedia unless there is more content associated with answering the question
# Remove "contentless" questions - single word questions are examples
# Try to make the least number of edit to the main question pages during the archive edit.
# Leave archival edit summaries!
# Dates on archives are associated with the date of the posting of the question, not the date of the last post to the question (but this is really arbitrary anyway, so it really doesn't matter if this is done or not. I've been doing this since it was more convenient for me when it came to sorting questions into answered and unanswered ones.)
# To prevent potential spamming, either remove e-mail addresses in questions, or obfuscate them so it is more difficult for an automated crawler to capture the address
# Rewrite any posts which have been posted entirely with caps lock. Alternatively, surround the caps lock text with the "small" HTML tags
--HappyCamper 03:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Beautiful! Right now, Wikipedia isn't letting me open those pages, so I'll get back to you when the error disappears. --HappyCamper 14:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I removed the "Deletion log" section, it contained some archives from March 2004 that weren't archived. work done. CG 17:29, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
===Please use ===
Please use Template:Unsigned for anon comments without signatures. It makes it a lot easier on certain scripts that are running on the page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: What scripts are these? --HappyCamper 22:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See below. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

text: How does one enter the parameters "1", "1" and "2"? hydnjo talk 00:17, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:   — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just trying: (preceding unsigned comment by hydnjo 00:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Using five tildes will only put the current time, while you usually want to put the time the anon posted. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, thanks. hydnjo talk 20:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can also use , which can be faster to use (copy the username and date from the page history, paste both at the same time, and just add a | in the middle). It has the opposite parameter order and adds the (UTC) at the end (note: you cannot be using any timezone offset in your preferences if you want to use that trick). --cesarb 20:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  RD Brigades (for want of a better name) 

message: I tried to redesign the Archive page: First, I created three templates ,  and  (You can change their design and their colors if you like). Second, I changed the Instructions for archivers to match the splitting of the Ref desk.
Just some remarks: In the end of the archive page there's a Note, a link under the title of "Deletion log", and a section called "Helper files". Could someone tell me what these things are for. CG 11:41, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
:Beautiful! Right now, Wikipedia isn't letting me open those pages, so I'll get back to you when the error disappears. --HappyCamper 14:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive page redesign

message: Please use Template:Unsigned for anon comments without signatures. It makes it a lot easier on certain scripts that are running on the page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What scripts are these? --HappyCamper 22:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See below. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

text: How does one enter the parameters "1", "1" and "2"? hydnjo talk 00:17, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:   — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just trying: (preceding unsigned comment by hydnjo 00:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Using five tildes will only put the current time, while you usually want to put the time the anon posted. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, thanks. hydnjo talk 20:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can also use , which can be faster to use (copy the username and date from the page history, paste both at the same time, and just add a | in the middle). It has the opposite parameter order and adds the (UTC) at the end (note: you cannot be using any timezone offset in your preferences if you want to use that trick). --cesarb 20:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Please use <nowiki>{{unsigned}}</nowiki>

message: Check out the new RSS feeds of the Reference Desk. Thanks to User:Talrias for helping me a LOT on this: 
*Reference desk:Humanities, Science , Language , Miscellaneous (Updated hourly) 
These will be updated hourly starting eventually this week, but right now they're just one-time snapshots.
— Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What does RSS stand for? How do you use RSS feeds? --HappyCamper 03:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: RSS (file format). ~~ N (t/c) 22:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atomic Reference Desk (Update) 

message: I can't help noticing that a significant number of questioners not only do not seem to realize that this is an encyclopedia - they don't even try to look up the answers to their own questions. Is there some way the page heading could highlight the fact that they've come across a huge reference resource and encourage folk to look up answers for themselves. After all, that's what Wikipedia is for. Shantavira 13:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've noticed this and changed the header, before the Ref Desk got split up into sections, to read something like "Check to see if we have an article on the subject before asking your question".  In most cases I'll do something like G. Zero does.  I'll just point them to the article that answers their question without actually giving them the exact answer.  Maybe that will encourage them to actually look for the data before asking the next question.  I don't see the point in their asking these things either since they have to wait for someone to be nice enough to reply instead of going to the article and finding out immediately.  :shrug:  Dismas 14:28, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For the novice user WP's case sensitivity and correct spelling requirements are sometimes a problem. Some folks (like me) are used to throwing anything close into Google and getting what they want. I think that providing an article link (if there is one) is the helpful thing to do as it will help falmiiarize the new user with WP. hydnjo talk 16:15, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  i assume it's too much work or not within the wikipedia idea to first give a search result for a given question. it would certainly help for a lot of these so called questions that are answered by looking for the right article. Boneyard 13:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why don't folk look up the answers for themselves?

message: It seems we still get people who put their email address at the bottom of their question.  Do you think mentioning the fact that spammers scan the Wikipedia (including the RD) for email addresses might help convince them to stop doing so? --Robert Merkel 03:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how much of the header anyone reads.  I just remove them as soon as I see them.  Anyone who actually wants to cc their RD answers to those who left emails can always check the history.  I personally usually try to mark that I was only removing an email addy. — Laura Scudder | Talk 07:04, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For some it may be a lost cause anyhow; anyone participating in a large number of mailing lists and newsgroups will have long since given up on keeping his email address pristine. (In fact, the more spam I receive the better my spam filter is at keeping spam out!) — mendel ☎ 17:26, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spammers... 

message: I recently archived all 4 reference desk pages...however, I haven't saved the archived questions to Wikipedia yet, as I haven't had the time to sort them out. They are currently stored on my local desktop as text files, and I'll commit them to the archive soon. --HappyCamper 04:16, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --HappyCamper 21:47, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent archival 

message: I thought I just archived the pages...how did they grow this big so quickly??? --HappyCamper 21:50, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: School is back in session. ;-)  --hydnjo talk 19:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, and I suggest for all those that appear to be homework, we refer to the top of the page (where it says we don't do homework) and request that they ask a more specific question about what they don't understand. Since most of them are probably asking at the last minute and not even checking their class notes or books, they probably won't clarify. Then we don't waste time and everyone still learns :) - Taxman Talk 20:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Except sometimes it seems more productive to steer the user towards the article which may stimulate some curiosity (I hope). Anyway, I think we should deal with homework questions in a way that doesn't turn anyone off, even though they didn't get their homework done for them. --hydnjo talk 01:25, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long pages