Help:Editing FAQ

This page is meant to accompany Help:Editing.

These questions and answers have been culled from some of the talk pages of the various editing-related Help: pages. If you see a useful answer there or anywhere else, please add it here.

Editing

Q: How do I sign the content I edit?

Four consecutive tildes (~~~~) will insert a link to your user page and the save time and date. Five (~~~~~) insert just the time and date.

Q: Can I link to a specific section header if there are multiple section headers of the same name? If so, how?

A: Yes, you can. Each section header, regardless of size or depth, has a number corresponding to how many times that header's name has already appeared on the page. The number is "1" for the very first instance, "2" for the next, "3" for the next, and so on. You can link to each header just like a normal header, but using that number after the header's name (i.e. if there are three headers named "Foo," then the first can be linked to like so: [[#Foo 1]], the second. [[#Foo 2]], and the third, [[#Foo 3]]). Using the number "1" for the first header is generally superfluous, as the software will automatically link to the first header without using the number (i.e. [[Foo]]). If you don't want the number to show, then you have to use a piped link (e.g. [[Foo 2|Foo]]).

If you don't know how many times a given header has already appeared on a page (and thus the number to use), there are two ways to find out.

1. Use the table of contents.

   If a table of contents appears on the page, click on the header whom you wish to link to. The page will jump to that header. Now, look at the URL. At the end, it will show the ID of the header in question. An example of a URL who has just been linked to a header, whose name has already appeared twice (and so is the third instance), and whose name is "Foo:"

   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Example_article#Foo_3

   The header link at the end of the URL shows that to link to this header, you would use [[#Foo 3]].

2. Look at the source.

   While looking at the source, first find the section you're looking for, and then look at its ID tags. It will show the number in that tag. An example for a header, whose name has already appeared once (and so is the second instance), and whose name is "Foo:"

   <p><a name="Foo_2" id="Foo_2"></a></p>

   <h3>Foo</h3>

   The ID and name tags (the ones that say "a name=" and "id=") show that this header can be linked to with [[#Foo 2]].

Miscellaneous

Q: How do I get a page deleted?

For example, if I'm done fooling around with some sandbox pages created as sub-pages of my Wikimedia user page, how do I get them deleted? The Help mentions "contacting an administrator", but if there is a list of admins somewhere, I was unable to find it.

A: Post on the Moderator noticeboard.

A: The list of admins is here: Special:Listadmins

Q: How do I archive my User Page?

A: Four possibilities are:

1. move talk page to page like User:a/b (history is now in this archive)
2. move page contents to such a page (history is still in the regular talk page)
3. just delete content (it is still in the history, but one can less easily search in that text) -- Patrick 14:32, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
4. Use a link to an earlier version of the page in its history. It does not require creating "sub pages" for archives.
   • Click on the history tab
     • Click on the first version listed there
     • Copy the URL from the address bar. Let's say it is http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?User_talk:a&oldid=12345
   • Edit your talk page.
     • Delete all the stuff you want to remove from the current version of your talk page.
     • Link to the archive version as [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?User_talk:a&oldid=12345 Sept 2005 archive]
     • Save the new version of your page.

Q: Can I generate a frame-like structure on a Wiki page?

(I have a chart generated dynamically in Bugzilla and I would like to display it within my Wiki page.)

A: ???

"Technically, you can do this with html div's and inline css styles, i.e. use a div with height and width set and overflow set to scroll" --68.170.246.50 01:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

A good suggestion, but that won't work for the originally requested use case. You can't make your DIV pull external content from Bugzilla, like frames do. You can only lay out the wiki page content in a frame-like design. Alexey Feldgendler 09:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Q: Can I display only so many lines of text?

I want to set up a template that pipes in 'n' lines of text to a page, and then provides a link to the rest of the article. Can I do this?

Not in the current version of MediaWiki, as far as I know. -- Alexey Feldgendler 09:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Tables

Q: Can I make transparent borders and rules on a table?

A: Yes.

That's a tough one because there is no "cellborder" directive for the table style. You can play with the BORDER and RULE attributes of table, but it seems that you cannot rely upon your browser to interpret that stuff the way you want it.

I think the easiest way to write this is using wiki table notation with a different background for the table and for each row.

abc def ghi jkl mno pqr

{|style="background:white" |- style="background:lightgrey;" | abc || def ||ghi |- style="background:lightgrey;" | jkl || mno || pqr |}

Redirects

Q. How do i make a page redirect to another page?

A: use the #REDIRECT directive. This must be at the start of the first line of the page, and should be typed as:

#REDIRECT [[link target]]

"link target" should be the page being linked to, including a namespace prefix if needed.

Any lines after the first will be dropped when the redirect is saved. A category link can be added after the link, on the same line. This will but the redirect page in the category.

It is posisble to redirect to a specific section, by putting a section name in the link, but since section links work by name, and section names can change, this is not always stable. Such a redirect looks like:

#REDIRECT [[page name#section name]]

on preview, a redirect is displayed as if it were a one-item numbered list. This is normal, the redirect will work properly when saved.

{{HelpSourceMW|Editing FAQ]]