Wikipedia talk:Tip of the day/Archive 2

message: *Not sure how best to add comments here, so I've put these as bullet points. I recently thought of two things that I found useful, and came here to add them as a tip of the day. The problem is that I don't know whether it is already a tip of the day! How can you search previous tips of the day? Carcharoth 18:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can look at what tips are currently scheduled by clicking here or by clicking on the project tab at the top of the page. --Hetar 22:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I have written a tip on this. Please see the new tips section above and feel free to improve it or move it to the Ready to post section. --Hetar 23:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See tip Wikipedia:Tip of the day/May 6, 2006 "Linking to a section".  Don't worry about duplicating tips.  Some tips need to be redisplayed more often than others, and if they are rewritten from scratch, it keeps them fresh for the next time they are to be displayed.
*The second tip was one I spotted on the Help Desk. Normally, to edit the lead of an article, you have to click the "edit this page" link at the top, and edit the whole page. This can lead to edit conflicts. However, despite the lack of an "edit" link for the lead, it is still possible to edit it as a section and (presumably) avoid edit conflicts. You merely click on any of the section edit links, and then change section=x to section=0 in the URL in the browser window. Reload the URL and there you go: editing the lead as a section! Probably only useful when an edit conflict is likely, such as on high-traffic pages. Carcharoth 18:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I have written a tip on this. Please see the new tips section above and feel free to improve it or move it to the Ready to post section. --Hetar 23:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool little trick.  I didn't know this one.  I like.  Keep 'em coming! --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm working on a tip library, where the tips shall be displayed by title rather than by date.  What there is of it so far is available through the category system. --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: This can be done for the tip library, I'm pretty sure. --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Wikipedia_tips is, I guess, the tip library you are referring to. One of my other interests on Wikipedia is Categorisation. I'd be happy to help categorise the tips. I'll start with the ones that are there already. Is there a place where those interested could discuss the setting up of a categorisation system (maybe based on the divisions of the current Help pages)? Some category criteria I've thought of already are based on things such as "topic", "essential tips everyone needs to know", and "complexity level" (basic, moderate, advanced). It should end up very similar to the help pages, but easier to browse and the tips would be useful summaries of certain points expanded on in the help pages. One thing - is it encouraged to rewrite the tips if you find they are wrong or out of date? Carcharoth 15:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, that is funny.  Another good tip though.  Would you like to write that one up?  --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, that tip is scheduled to display, with different wording, about once per month.  It covers a very common problem that new users have (not knowing how to sign a message).  All its permutations are already in place up until the end of the year.  --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the tip.  I'll write it up when I get a chance.  Each of the major policies needs a tip. So if anyone wants to write them, please feel free to do so!  --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I have written a tip on this. Please see the new tips section above and feel free to improve it or move it to the Ready to post section. --Hetar 18:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got one of those for the Picture of the day.  Concerning the topic of the above tip, I'm in discussion with CBDunkerson, who has done a lot with date math on Wikipedia.  We are discussing how to set up a warning template for Picture of the day and another for Tip of the day.  They would show the entry a month in advance, so that we would have advanced warning that the buffer is starting to run low. If I can find the time, I'll program it myself.  --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Can you provide a link?  I'm not sure to which spellchecker you are referring.  --The Transhumanist 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, its called Spellbound and its at: . --Hetar 19:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bullet points 

message: There's a new option in "my preferences" to enforce edit summaries.  No user scripts are needed.  I hope you don't mind, but I just updated this TOTD to reflect this. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No prob.  Accuracy is good.  Thanks.  --The Transhumanist 21:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TOTD - April 7th (today) 

message: I wanted a more compact version, with some minor changes, so I created  (b for brief or b for second in the series).  
I would suggest that the code for the Prior tip - Next tip links be moved out of the individual tip pages and into the template. Aside from simplifying the editing of daily tips, it allows alternative templates (like ) to use their own format. In particular, I would like to add - List of tips. 
(This also makes it easier if there's ever a change to be made to the format of these links - so it can be made globally. Better now while there's just a few tips.) --Singkong2005 04:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From a programming perspective, I don't know how this could be done.  Each tip is named by date, and the code for the Prior - Next links generates the links' page names from the current page name (whichever date-named subpage that happens to be) via a variable and some date math templates.  This allows all the tips to be linked together in a chain, so you can keep pressing prior or next again and again until you've come to the first or last tip in the whole set.  In order to accomplish this, the link pair had to be included twice:  once with  and once with , so that it would work from the template (which can only lead to the next or previous day's entry based on the current date) and also work from the tips themselves (to lead to the next or previous page in the sequence, based on the date in the name of the currently displayed tip).  --The Transhumanist 22:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thinking that through again, I believe the "includeonly" link pair could be moved to the template. --The Transhumanist 22:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm loving the new template. May I suggest placing a small lightbulb at the bottom of the box? (^'-')^ Covington 14:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate template, and format suggestion 

message: Maybe it's only my browser, but today's tip (April 9) didn't work as expected on pages like Help:Reader.
The original long URL managed to overrule the width 240 in  and also the width 20%
relevant for four help pages with the Totd (Help, Reader, Editor, Moderator - anything else belongs to a
chapter of the handbook with its own sidebar).
Here's what I've done, just in case if similar problems pop up again:
#Trimmed URL in today's tip.
#Added width="240" to  for old browsers without CSS - it already had inline style="width: 240".
#Simplified messy  to get two rows, customized header + Totd. That's the template automagically used by the four overview help pages.
#Forced width="240" for the Totd in its 2nd row.
The fourth point finally managed to display the original version of today's tip
without using the width of the long URL for the overall box. Actually my browser
displayed a truncated URL. With  the original tip (long URL) would
still cause havoc with my browser. If anybody else has similar issues maybe
replace Totd3 by MediaWiki links, the latter is
designed to survive within width 20% set outside of it. -- Omniplex 17:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm loving the new template. May I suggest placing a small lightbulb at the bottom of the box? (^'-')^ Covington 14:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template:Totd3]] 

message: Just corrected some vandalism on the current tip of the day, should it be protected?--Rayc 14:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had the same idea today after I fixed it, which would be impossible if it's protected. Maybe semi-protection is good enough (?) -- Omniplex 01:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Protect tip

message: As far as I saw it the TotD worked fine for some weeks on pages like Help:Reader and Help:Editor, in a  sidebar with width="20%". Today it was excessively long, therefore I've "truncated" it by <noinclude> excluding the bullet list. -- Omniplex 01:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Tip_of_the_day/May_30,_2006|May 30, 2006]]

message: When the Tip of the day is displayed on the Wikipedia:Community Portal, it causes a display error for IE6 users.  The culprit is centering using "Tip title".  Would it be possible to change the format to left-justified using "Tip title"? Rfrisbietalk 18:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't the best way to fix this be by editing :Template:Tip of the day - community portal? Or is there another way to change the centering so its work in IE6? --Hetar 19:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That uses .  The centering formatting is in every subpage.  There's no "template" to fix. :-( Rfrisbietalk 19:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: From what I read at the Community Portal talk they decided it wasn't worth changing the format for. I'd still be open to ideas or changes, but we need to find a way to do it so that it still displayers centered, otherwise it makes its section of the Community Portal (and elswewhere) look like crap. --Hetar 05:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting required for entries: - IE6 display bug 

message: Does anyone know how to make a template which displays a random page whenever the page it is on is accessed?
I for one would like to have a version like that on my user page. --The Transhumanist 06:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See . Randomly picks one of the currently defined tips. --CBDunkerson 16:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Awesome.  Thanks! --The Transhumanist 04:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random tip template 

message: This template is for monitoring project maintenance, to make sure the tip has been prestocked so the main template doesn't show up blank on the many pages of Wikipedia upon which it is displayed. --The Transhumanist 05:05, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template for project monitoring 

message: I've already posted the above award to CB's talk page, but I thought everyone should get a chance to see it. Thanks CB!  --The Transhumanist 05:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. I'm glad my template work could help with technical stuff for this project. Keep on being tipsy. :] --CBDunkerson 12:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TOTD barnstar