Talk:Tinwiki:Help desk

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Hello! Welcome to the TinWiki.org Help Desk. Here, you can ask about anything TinWiki related. Baffled at TinWiki code? You have come to the right place. Here all the mysteries of the TinWiki universe will be answered. And if you ask a question that we don't know the answer to, well, I guess we will just say we don't know! To ask for help, simply click on the little plus symbol (+) at the top of the page, right next to the "edit" tab. Give a brief description of your question in the first field, and then a broader description in the next field. You see? It's easy! Remember to sign your question by typing in four tildes at the end of your question, like so: ~~~~

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Contents

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I need help with menus and images

I'd like to add info boxes to the sides of pages, as well as images, such as can be seen in many wikipedia articles [Example]

I can't find these anywhere in Tinwiki to copy the code, and the Wikipedia code doesn't work here. Is it even possible on Tinwiki???


  • Right now this is what we have.

Adding an image

--Umbrax:|Sysop 22:52, 2 June 2006 (CDT)

Here is an overview over the Template messages that exist right now in tinWiki and have been found. (The list is not necessarily a complete overview just yet.) Optimist 14:41, 15 October 2007 (CDT)
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Redirects

How do I redirect? I know I can move, but that's screwing it up if you try to redirect more than once.

--DP 19:43, 29 June 2006 (CDT)

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Redirects

Just type this in at the beginning of the page you want to redirect from.

#redirect [[Name of page to redirect '''to'''.]]

William One Sac 12:09, 30 June 2006 (CDT)

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So I need to create a new page to redirect?

Because I want Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird to come up by pressing 'Go' for SR-71 or Blackbird. So I would need to create a page called SR-71 and Blackbird and put that there? Is that it?

Oh, and how do I fix double redirects?

--DP 19:14, 30 June 2006 (CDT)

Another way (in addition to what William One Sac replied below) to fix double redirects, is to make sure all redirects are "single" redirects, that is, go directly to the target page instead of indirectly via another page (which is what a double redirect is, and which doesn't work). Instead of
a --> b --> target
it should be
a --> target
b --> target
which will work perfectly. There can be many redirects to the same page, but redirect to a redirect does not work. Optimist 05:52, 13 March 2008 (CDT)
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Yes, you will need to create the pages

They do not need any content, other than the redirect. As for double redirects, you should just delete the redirect you dont want. If your not sure how, tell me the pages that have these double redirects and I will try and fix them the way you like.

William One Sac 22:21, 30 June 2006 (CDT)

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"The" in Categories

How do I make it so that articles starting with "The" are not under the "T" section, but in the proper section? "Bases", "List of", and "Area 51:" as well. --DP-EBE 17 12:55, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

Using The NSA s an example, edit the article and change the category from [[Category:Conspiracy Theories]] to [[Category:Conspiracy Theories|NSA, The]]
Thanks for pointing this out I'm going to work on this today.

--Umbrax:|Sysop 15:00, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

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I need help with a copyright violation

I'm not sure how to go about removing this in a way that won't just re-appear. See Atmospheric_Beasts and Talk:Atmospheric Beasts for details.Jamiehall 15:43, 8 November 2006 (CST)

The article text is successfully removed (on 8 November 2006). Optimist 05:47, 13 March 2008 (CDT)
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making a submission

Hi, forgive my stupid question, but how do I make an article submission here? I'm not quite sure what to click on to begin writing about a particular subject so that I may earn some Above Top Secret points.

Thank you for your help.

Brett
The above was posted on 20:01, 25 October 2007 by user Bigbert81. Optimist 05:34, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

It's not a stupid question. First do a search for the subject you'd like to write about. If there is no existing topic, the page will ask you if you would like to create the page. Just click that link and you will be brought to the page ready for your editing. William One Sac | tinWiki Master 15:38, 25 October 2007 (CDT)

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I think my "External Links" are wrong

Howdy, please excuse an ignorant question but this is the first time I ever started a wiki (or even did an external link to anything, this is my first computer, very semi-illiterate et cetera) but I think I see now what I've done wrong but I'd like to double-check before I tear the floors out that the new plan is in fact correct. Okay,I think that in my article [ http://tinwiki.org/wiki/Mungiki Mungiki ] that what I have currently called External Links should really be footnotes, with the numbers after each URL there itemizing every instance it was cited in the article. I'm not sure how to do that. Optimist left me a helpful note, so that I realized maybe this is incorrect. I'd like to conform to the generally accepted best practice, yup yup. Then I'm thinking that after these current External Links become the Footnotes, the new External Links should be to not bare-character-string URLs but named sites...I mean, here's two I want to put as the new external links: [ http://www.rickross.com/groups/mungiki.html ] [ http://www.religionnewsblog.com/category/mungiki ] ...but should I leave them bald like that or should I make up some name for the entity that the reader can click on, for example: Mungiki Article Index or say Mungiki Archive Religionnewsblog.com

I don't know what would be best practice or which would be more lame. Thanks, I apologize for being lagging, but think how excited I'll be once you have helped me figure this stuff out.

(and I was just now previewing this, and I wonder, why am I not getting the blue-square-with-the-arrow-off-of-it on the second one up above "Mungiki Archive Religionnewsblog.com", what did I do there different or do wrong. Is there any difference between blue-square-with-the-arrow-off-of-it and just printed-in-blue, which mode is more for better for me to do...oh,well)9eyedeel 21:32, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

9eyedeel, good and interesting questions. Questions of this type are extremely welcome, which is also pretty much why this Help Desk was created, because questions like the ones you ask are welcome.
Now, I'll reply as best I can, but in a fairly random order. If I skip anything, please let me know, and I will try and address those topics as well. The arrow icon shows up next to external links. If a link does not have the arrow icon, that's an internal link to another page here in tinWiki. Internal links are formatted by putting two sets of square brackets around a term, like [[this]]. If the term has no article yet, it's going to show as a red link. (For some reason, some kind of mistake, I suspect, these red links will have the arrow icon next to them until the target page for the link is created, and the link therefore changes from red font color to normal blue font color. There's a way to remove arrow icons, but I can explain that in another reply if you are interested.)
Footnotes are explanations for numbers appearing in the article text. If there's something described in the text that could use some documentation or explanation, a number can be placed there in the text, and under the text the number is written, and next to the number an explanation is written for what is referred to in the text where the number is. Or I guess something like that is how footnotes often work generally. Here in tinWiki, such a number is created automatically when a link is surrounded by one left square bracket and one right square bracket. That will produce a number. Such numbers are indeed links, but even if it's possible to follow the link right from the number, the tinWiki article as a whole will be more complete if the reference numbers in the text are listed under the text. For listing the numbers, one can use an automatically formatted numbered list. That's done by putting a hash sign # at the beginning of each line or list item.
Footnotes are commonly to pages outside tinWiki, so in that sense they are external links. But the most important things about that section is not that it contains external links, but that it contains, specifically, footnotes. So a numbered list explaining what the reference numbers in the text are, should have a header like "Footnotes" or just "Notes". Then there are always external websites that could be relevant to link to, even if one may not have put any reference numbers to it in the text, since perhaps those external websites don't necessarily pertain to or explain what is said in any one sentence or paragraph. Links to external sites are then listed in a section called "External links", since there isn't too much to say about that list of links other than that they are, simply, external links.
If one has based the tinWiki article text on, say, two or three specific articles, books, or other specific sources, it is quite common, and probably a good practice, to name what the sources are. A list of such sources should get its own section, where the header is called something like "Sources" or "References".
When including external links in an article, for example in the "External links" section, I'd say it's never the best practice to just throw them in as plain URLs. It does work, but I would say it's definitely better to display the name of the target page, instead of simply displaying just the URL itself. If one wants to be a bit lazy or is in a hurry or something, including a URL just as it is, is done simply by pasting the URL like a normal text string. If one wants to include the link more properly, the link formatting for external links is to begin with a left square bracket, then paste the URL, then make one space, then write the name of the link, and then finish with a right square bracket.
Note that after the first square bracket, and before the finishing square bracket, there is no space.
Lastly, about the arrow not appearing in one of your links in your post, I saw arrow in all the links, so I don't know what that might have been.
Anyway, feel free to ask if there's anything at all you could use some pointers on. That's the only purpose for this Help Desk page. I'm happy to try and provide some answers, even if of course I may not always know the actual correct answer. I'll try, though, and if something I said wasn't put very well or was incomplete, let me know and I'll try and improve my answer. :) Optimist 11:44, 21 June 2008 (CDT)
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better to link to original source, or secondary source with more specificity

Also ,in the same article Mungiki I just noticed that I've been doing something else that raises a question. Like in some of the (probably-soon-to-be) footnotes, I cite a webpage say from religionnewsblog.com. Now that page is a reprint of an article say from the Daily Mail or the London Times or whatever. So, would it be better practice for me to go past religionnewsblog.com in this instance, and cite the article's first appearance, in the London Times? Or is it preferred to cite its more useful appearance in religionnewsblog.com, since the London Times only has a few articles on Mungiki if you search internally there, whereas religionnewsblog.com collects all the Mungiki articles it can find from all over, and would thus be a better place to land the TinWiki reader at, so they could improve their knowledge quicker and faster? Or is it a wash, no policy, I should do just as I like?9eyedeel 22:02, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

There's plenty of space in an article, so, if I understand your question correctly, I'd say it's probably best to let reference numbers in the text -- and the footnotes that go along with them -- refer to the most original source one can find. Then, in the "External links" section, the website that isn't the most original source, but that has a lot of good info on the article's topic, can be linked to from there. That's what I think, at least, after reading your post now. Optimist 11:49, 21 June 2008 (CDT)
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[Charles]

Hi Charles here. I am creating a page concerning the djinn and i find that the information we believe about the djinn to be incorrect, according to the djinn themselves. I have hundreds of original photographs of real djinn and an exquisite long excerpt from a published book, with permission from the publisher to use it. It was my intention to intersperse the excerpts with photo's and comments, leaving the prose intact. I am not intersted in blogging...suggestions?
The above was posted on 20:26, 27 June 2008 by Charles.

Charles,
Thank you for your reply.
I apologize that it took some time before I read it.
My bad.
I think I understand what you describe, and will think about it a little bit so I can give you my best reply. I have also replied to you in your user discussion. Optimist 00:46, 28 June 2008 (CDT)
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Initial Description of a topic

Ref: http://tinwiki.org/wiki/Remote_Viewing

Hello, I am Palyne PJ Gaenir and I wrote a good chunk of the issues (and a few pieces) of data in the 'remote viewing' page. I couldn't get back into my account so on ATS I was told to just create a new one.

When I click edit near the top of the page it does not show me the page that I'm looking at. It shows me some pieces. In particular it does not seem to lead to the initial definition of remote viewing at the top.

Which is a huge assumption and probably completely incorrect; certainly there is no evidence whatsoever that anybody's consciousness 'goes' anywhere. Further, that is a belief system held in many psychic fields from which RV is quite distinct and different in model.

Not a huge thing, but if the definition of something is some wild assumption in the first sentence or two it's a given people aren't going to take the rest of it very seriously if they have half a clue.

Best, Palyne

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Question about Image

I want to know if I can add an image that I downloaded from Google Images pertaining to the cursed pillar. It is now uploaded to my Above Top Secret media/video center Photo Album.

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