Template talk:Introduction to Wikipedia/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Test edits

This is really awesome, having a place where anyone can put stuff on a page which isn't made for that. I am not going to be bold and delete that. I will not put a link to the sandbox so people can't do it there instead. LC@RSDATA 12:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not LC@RSDATA 12:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Why not delete that? One REALLY can't say the page isn't intended for testing if there's a "test edits" section on it! Since it's vandalized so severily, maybe it's worth applying semi-blocking as well. — Vano 22:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

(read the page header more attentively...) My, is it IN FACT intended for novice testing??? I can't believe it! :shocked: — Vano 23:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Edits

Made some minor edits, just for kicks, on spelling, grammar and punctuation.

i tried to make similar edits to the intro page, under the "make ur first edit right now" section, but it doesnt allow users to. ill put my proposed edits here and someone can apply them to the intro: 1) all items should have a period, not just #4. 2) in item #5, the word "marks" should be inside the parantheses.4.230.183.227 01:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure it's one of the most vandalized pages ever.

Who watches this page? it stayed vandalized for like 40 minutes. 204.108.237.194 19:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

fer real, dough. 71.162.242.11 00:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Auto revert

I've been playing around with some of the fascilities that MediaWiki offers and come up with a little trick. To clear Wikipedia:Introduction of vandalism, just click

here

and it should clear up everything. --Leon2323

19:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Manual reset

If the bots aren't working at resetting the sandbox located at Wikipedia:Sandbox, there is an alternative, just click here. --Leon2323

19:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Grammar

Erm there's a grammar error right at the end of the page (the bracket has been put too early). I can't edit it so I thought I'd point it out. --Alex⁹⁸⁹¹ 14:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

See Template:Please leave this line alone. FellowWikipedian 13:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Fellow, i pointed out the same item on my comment on august 12th in the "Edits" section. i also pointed out another item i thought that needs addressing. we needa wait for an admin or sysops to fix it. 4.230.183.164 01:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone can edit?

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't cut out for me. I think only members of Wikipedia should edit, because lot's of noobs edit true things and replace it with false things. Some people even found Wikipedia to be unrelieable since ANYONE can edit it. The rule about editing articles should be changed.

Coconutfred73 00:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The idea that anyone may edit Wikipedia is one of the core policies that we have. It's part of the reason why Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger created it in the first place. You may not agree with this idea, that's OK. Yes indeed there are a lot of people that vandalise articles, but then again a lot of our lasting edits (not reverted) are made by anonymous people. There are many registered users who would not have joined if not for the fact they could edit what they saw like that. People keep suggesting the idea you have and it keeps getting rejected over and over. We make it clear that information can be unreliable, we're certainly aware of that fact. But Encyclopaedia Brittanica and Microsoft Encarta also make no guarantees on its validity. If you want to read more, I suggest you read Criticisms of Wikipedia. Harryboyles 06:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Link title in main page is misleading

When a new user comes to en.wikipedia.org, he sees:

Welcome to Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

and he clicks on "anyone can edit". Then he wants to edit the page, but he doesn't know that it's not a sandbox. I think making the page semi-protected can fix the problem.

Edit?

The project page says "anyone can edit almost any page," but when I clicked Edit this page at my school, it said I was blocked. Does anyone know why?

Maybe your school IP has been blocked due to vandalism in wikipedia?. --SkyWalker 12:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Addon: Yep its true. Most schools are banned due to people changing the pages for negative reasons. You can get your schools IP address unblocked by clicking on the link on the Blocked page when you see it. You may need your System administrator with you. Hope fully you should be wiki surching in no time. Alec1990 15:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Merging this talk page with Wikipedia talk:Introduction?

Since Wikipedia:Introduction basically is only a transclusion of this page, there is no real difference in contributions to the talk pages, and a lot of overlap. Because most people who post here want to change the introduction, I propose changing this page to a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Introduction. — Sebastian 21:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem I see with your proposal is that it removes the current and important distinction between the discussions of this template and the Introduction by established editors here and the discussions of the Introduction by first-time editors on Wikipedia talk:Introduction.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 15:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. There is indeed a distinction between these two types of messages, and there aren't many of the established editors, and half of them are by me. :-] — Sebastian 05:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Merging threads

I agree that the split is confusing. Particularly since that page is on few watchlists, due to its very high usage. I'm going to move the remainding (after my archival) threads from there to here. (Following) --Quiddity 20:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

(start of content moved from Wikipedia talk:Introduction)

Why a sandbox here too?

Why are sandbox tests permitted at the bottom of this introduction page? The Wikipedia:Sandbox is already sufficient, and I think making another page for tests just confuses users into thinking they will be able to perform their so-called "tests" on every page. Why have another sandbox when the original does the job perfectly? --[[ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.242.119.125 (talk • contribs)

The simple answer: Because people use it, and it doesn't harm. — Sebastian (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I second the concern. There should be a disclaimer like: "You may test here, but should you want to test again in the future, please use the sandbox." - Gilliam 07:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this a sandbox?

I think there should be some more explicit explanation in the Introduction page that the test space is a sandbox. I'm a new user and I wasn't very sure if it was. I was concerned that what's up there right now (a lot of text about Sudan) isn't very appropriate for the test space, or even Wikipedia itself. I am guessing that since it's a sandbox, it should clear itself out eventually, but if not, I'm going to defer to a more experienced editor on this one. Labrt2004 12:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)labrt2004

I don't know, I just came here showing someone the help system and how I thought it was good. This isn't really acceptable though, either this can be an introduction, or a redirect to the sandbox, but if it's a sandbox it shouldn't be linked from help as an introduction. I went back to mid December and it seems to have been a sandbox then too, was that the intention? - cohesion 04:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)hehe

Please add a note about signing with ~~~~

Since we have a sandbox here, it would be a great place to add a note about signing with ~~~~. People always love to see their own name written all over the place, as in Kilroy was here. — Sebastian (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism to page of image linking here

There is nonsense/vandalism on the page of Image:Edit-this-page-large.png,which is in use here. However, the page is protected. It would be helpful if an admin reverted this,--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 13:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It turns out the vandalism was to the commons file, which was unprotected, so I reverted it.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 13:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of the Introduction page

The Introduction page is being used as a chatroom. This page should be repaired and semi-protected by an administrator or system operator. BrianWong 14:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree, Brian. It should be one of the protected pages. I'm doing a 'tour' and search program with a group of teens next week at the library, to introduce them to new info sites like WP. Help/Intro is usually a good place to start with any website or db, but not here at the moment. Ericka --end 06:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Needs Protection

New Users keep deleting the information at the top of the page. Hokieman 23:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Add section instead of edit

While I'm adding the signature as proposed above I realize that we can reduce the risk of vandalism by using "add section" instead of "edit". I'm doing these changes right now; please let's discuss here if this works for everyone. — Sebastian 21:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Test edits

Instead of the "Test edits" text in the template, how about making it a new section? This way it's a bit less likely for new users to edit the whole page by mistake. Xiner (talk, email) 03:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Anything that can reduce editing of the whole page is an advantage. But I don't see how it would make a difference.

Either way, I like the idea because we could cut the wording "If there are already sections under "Test edits"". Do you know how to change the text the bot reinserts? — Sebastian 03:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Or did you mean changing the template so that there will be a real headline again, with an edit link? But then people would edit the template itself, which is even worse. — Sebastian 03:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

How about a bot?

It might be a good idea to write a bot to watch this page. It would just need to make sure that the introduction template is the first thing that occurs in the text. — jammycakes (t) 09:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, there are at least two...AntiVandalBot (which looks to be down for the moment) and my own EssjayBot. The problem is, users are so quick to revert these pages that the bots never get the chance to do so. I'll up the runtime to once every 15 minutes. Essjay (Talk) 09:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

That's good, if it's watched by a bot every few minutes or so there's little need to have any kind of protection on it. — jammycakes (t) 18:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

(end of content moved from Wikipedia talk:Introduction)

Talk sandbox

Please add the shortcut WT:SAND to the saved version of the talk sandbox header. --Random832 19:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Template documentation

This template should have documentation consistent with {{Interwiki doc page pattern}} and {{Sample}}.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 22:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This thing about signing your posts again

With the line "Sign by entering four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the signature icon. This will automatically produce your name and the date. " , we teach people to sign everything, and not only sign where signing should be. Greswik 14:00, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarified. --Quiddity 17:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Initial line directing people to the guideline on the intro of a section

I think this is unnecessary - and unduly confusing to the new users who are the target of this page - I plan to remove unless there are reasoned objections. --Trödel 23:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Anyone who knows how to use the WP: shortcuts will be able to find what they need. I'll remove that line now. --Quiddity 01:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Color between tabs -- edit protected because of cascade

{{editprotected}} Could we change the colour between tabs from #fff (white) to #f8fcff (background colour). It is just be a quick edit to Wikipedia:Introduction/TabsTop. Just a small visual thing. Thanks, Monkeyblue 11:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe this page is protected. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This page isn't, however Wikipedia:Introduction/TabsTop is due to the cascading protection of the header. I restored editprotected template. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 22:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. (I think.) I just made the background transparent. Re-enable the editprotected request if needed. Cheers. --MZMcBride 17:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The edit has been done now (by other admins, it seems multiple admins were involved; see the history of Wikipedia:Introduction/TabsTop for detailed information); disabling {{editprotected}}. --ais523 15:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)