Wikipedia talk:Help desk

Praise for this item in Wikipedia

Can I just say that I think that having Wikipedia: Help desk is a marvellous idea? I remember Wikipedia: Please do not bite the newcomers, but I am willing to bet that many people (myself included) who have edited Wikipedia for years go this article on Wikipedia! So, a big round of applause to all who contribute to this aspect of Wikipedia. Keep up your tremendous work, ACEOREVIVED (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:08, 23 February 2012

ACC needs help!

Hello everyone, I'm DeltaQuad (also known as DQ), an account creation interface administrator and developer. Recently, our project has had an increased backlog in getting accounts for new users. Our numbers are currently above 250 people waiting for accounts on the English Wikipedia. If you could even spare a moment to do a few requests a day to help us clear this backlog. If this interests you and your willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply! Ideal users are:

• Identified to the Wikimedia Foundation
• In good standing with no recent blocks
• Understand and being able to apply the username policy
• Have worked with new contributors
• Have a good at dealing with a situation even while in a dispute
• The full list of requirements

We have a very friendly team to help you get started and we also have an IRC channel. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talkpage. If you can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC Administration and Development Team, -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Users accidentally adding their questions to the top instead of the bottom of the list

Hi. There are two questions from March 22 that are at the top of the list on the Help Desk page that have been sitting there unanswered for a few days. Wikipedia policy (or whatever you call it) is to add recent information at the bottom of the page, but these are new users and probably didn't know that.

Could someone please:
1. Move the questions to the bottom so they can be seen and answered.
2. Figure out how the questions got there in the first place.
3. Change things to make the system more idiot-proof. (This might involve editing WP:HelpDesk/Header)

I don't understand templates well enough to do this myself. Thanks! Mattj2 (talk) 04:48, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

This might be something to do with WP:TEAHOUSE, which has everything upside down, and is widely recommended to new editors these days. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:50, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I see the two questions from March 22 that used to be at the top of the list have been removed entirely. Does anyone know what happened and why? Mattj2 (talk) 21:18, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The questions were probably archived to Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/March 2013. Teahouse uses a javascript to create questions on the top of the page. If the user presses on the Ask a question button, then the script will work so that the question is on the top. But some users prefer manually adding their question to the page and sometimes they add it to the bottom of the page. Wikipedia:Help desk/Header does not use anything like that. It is just a URL to WP:HD with &section=new. My only guess is that they used Edit tab instead of New section and added their questions to the top. --Ushau97 ^talk 09:29, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

pletcherwub

<-- promotional material removed -->

My French is not great, and my understanding of dialect French ("vrrle rrtre") with all the accented characters (and characters following accented characters) replaced by Chinese is even worse. Even so, I am confident that the above paragraphs have nothing to do with the Wikipedia helpdesk. I think they are promoting a pyramid selling scheme for alternative medicine products. Maproom (talk) 23:34, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Lang templates

Hi. I have been using language templates in references. They were appearing really great some weeks ago. However, currently, they appear really in a bad shape. Formerly, language categories don't appear when I add the lang templates in reference titles (I think they were hidden categories). Now, they are included in the links.

For examples, see Ref # 8 in Earthquakes in 2013#References, and Ref # 4 in The Voice of the Philippines#References.--AR E N Z O Y 1 6A•t a l k• 07:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This is the talk page for the help desk, not the help desk itself. But rather than copying the question to the help desk, I've copied it to Help talk:Citation Style 1#Lang templates since that's where the citation experts live. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Replied there. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor

Have you all been looking at the VisualEditor? The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look the same (or nearly the same) in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. This new editing system is intended especially to help new editors, so anyone who works with new editors will benefit from spending some time with the upcoming WP:VisualEditor now, so you'll be able to answer questions when it's deployed this summer (current target is 01 July 2013 for the English Wikipedia). More than 1,500 editors have tried this out so far, and feedback overall has been positive.

Right now, the early test version is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out, but this is where we are with the development and testing so far. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages.

What the developers need from people like you—people who deal with basic questions from inexperienced editors—is for you to take it out for a spin and tell them how it worked. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "VisualEditor" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old "Edit" tab (which will still be present and still work for you). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences: Did it work for you? Did it screw up something simple? (Give a diff, please!) Did you try something complicated and it worked unexpectedly? Did something not work, but you think it should be a high-priority item because new editors are likely to encounter it? This is going to be a big change to the new-user experience, and they'd like to get it right. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

You have asked us to write reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. That page states that a better place for reports is here. And the Visual Editor is a long way from ready. From what I have read there, it does not even support the insertion of references. I consider that while it lacks such an important feature, it is not even ready for testing. Maproom (talk) 10:34, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

According to the posted notice, it's going to be turned on in less than three months, even if you believe that it's "a long way from ready". The plan is to solve the citation problem in between now and then (they acknowledge that this is necessary), but we can test the other features now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

How

How do I use the help desk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.15.67.222 (talk) 12:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)