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Virtual classroom on advanced Wikipedia skills Forum for discussing advanced editor topics - anything goes Become one with the wiki Shortcut: WP:VC While this page is for communication between myself and my assignees from the Esperanza coaching program, anybody and everybody are welcome to join in and participate. If you are a beginner and have found this page, be sure to see also the New contributors' help page and the Help desk. The goal here is to fine tune our Wikipedia skills. You are welcome to join in as a student, as a coach, or both!

Pages you might find useful on Wikipedia
Curriculum Essential reading for becoming a well-rounded Wikipedian	Admin coaching One-on-one training with an experienced Wikipedian	Wikipedia:Contents Centralized directory to the encyclopedia proper, and a key issue here	Department directory Centralized Wikipedia administrative directory	Editor review Where contributions to Wikipedia are evaluated by peers	RfA Where admin status is nominated and determined.

Recommended reading... The Essence of Wikipedia: A Crash Course in Wikipedianism Tips and tricks library Wikipedia's tools page My tools page Bots Coaching advice archives Successful adminship candidacies Unsuccessful adminship candidacies Help:Contents, and all sub-levels Wikipedia:Contents, and all sub-levels Wikipedia:Department directory, and all sub-levels Wikipedia:Administrators Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship

Virtual classroom assignments 2. Grutness's guide to stubbing 1. Compare your user interfaces with what others use  .  .  .  .

To display the above box on your userpage, use {{VC assignments}}.

{{User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom/Userbox}} :

Welcome to the Virtual classroom. As time progresses, sections for discussion and assignments will be added, in which participants are encouraged to share and compare their philosophies, approaches, tools, and methods. A general Q&A section is also provided for asking any question you want. Also feel free to respond to anybody else's posts with questions or comments. This is a completely open learning environment, so come on in and enjoy yourself. Let the fun begin...

Contents 1 Announcements 2 Moving along... 3 Grutness's guide to stubbing 3.1 What are stubs? 3.2 Why do stubs exist? 3.3 How are stubs marked? 3.4 Why are stubs sorted into different types? 3.5 Why are the stub categories different from other categories? 3.6 How is stub-sorting done? 3.7 "Having too many stub templates"? 3.8 Are all short articles marked as stubs? 3.9 Where can I find out more? 3.10 How can I help? 3.11 Further discussion on stubbing 4 External interfaces - let's compare 4.1 Transhumanist's external interface 4.2 AMK152's external interface 4.3 Budgiekiller's external interface 4.4 CBDunkerson's external interface 4.5 Interiot's external interface 4.6 Translation of interiot's interface notes 4.6.1 Keymarks (Smart keywords) 4.6.1.1 Edit counter smart keyword 4.6.1.2 User contributions smart keyword 4.6.1.3 Block log lookup smart keyword 4.6.1.4 Help:Special pages 4.6.1.5 Google's the better way to search Wikipedia 4.6.1.6 Google namespace searches 4.6.1.7 Google advanced search on Wikipedia 4.6.2 Installing these all at once 4.6.3 Moving around fast, and tab tricks 4.7 Ansell's external interface 4.8 Rich Farmbrough's external interface 4.9 Mac Davis's external interface 4.10 Cynical's external interface 4.11 Drumguy8800's external interface 5 Internal interfaces - what do you use? 5.1 AMK152's internal interface 5.2 Budgiekiller's internal interface 5.3 Transhumanist's internal interface 5.4 CBDunkerson's internal interface 5.5 Interiot's internal interface 5.6 Ansell's internal interface 5.7 Rich Farmbrough's internal interface 5.8 Mac Davis's internal interface 5.9 Cynical's internal interface 6 Questions and miscellaneous comments - anything goes 6.1 Areas of weakness 6.2 Hi Quiddity! Feel free to join us 6.3 But don't forget the point of this 6.4 The only difference between admins and other editors... 6.5 Analyze me! 6.6 Me too! 6.6.1       General learning tip 6.6.2       RfA standards 7 Some script-related questions

[edit] Announcements

Interiot has completed the beta version of his new keymarks extension for Firefox, and it is ready for testing. To try it out, just point it at Interiot's server-side files (here). Interiot says "It should be well-behaved, or at the very least be easily uninstallable." 09:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moving along...

Tip: to help keep up with discussions here, add this page to your watchlist, and add the assignment template to the top of your talk page with {{VC assignments}}.

Many ideas came out of the user interface show and tell, and I pulled many of those out and have started a new tools page, accessible on my user page menu above. The user interface discussions continue below, so if you have anything to add, please feel free to do so. We're always looking for ways to improve our toolboxes.

Grutness, our resident expert from the stubs project, has written a short course on the topic of stubbing, and that project is our current topic of discussion. Please share your ideas, methods, and questions directly into the course itself. And of course, have fun...

[edit] Grutness's guide to stubbing

[edit] What are stubs?

Stubs are simply very short articles - articles which don't provide much more than a basic description of their subject.

[edit] Why do stubs exist?

It is rare for a new article to be submitted in full "finished" form on Wikipedia. Many editors write a small amount about a subject to get it started, in the hope that other editors will come along and add more information. Because of this, a great many articles start out as stubs. Often, there isn't much known about a subject, so an article will remain a stub for a long time.

[edit] How are stubs marked?

Stub articles are marked with a specific type of cleanup template called a stub template. This is put right at the bottom of the article with the category links (often immediately after the categories), but before the interwiki links.

There are over a thousand different types of stub templates, the simplest of which is the generic {{stub}}. The many different types each describe the article in terms of its subject matter: there are stubs for geography articles, biographies, science articles, articles about movies, and so on.

[edit] Why are stubs sorted into different types?

There are a huge number of stubs - some estimates put it at 40% of Wikipedia's articles. If all of those were put into one category it would be an impossible task for anyone to find articles which they could expand. It would also create difficulty for Wikipedia's servers, since the categories would be of unmanageable size.

When Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting started up, there were about 30,000 stubs in one category. In order to make it easier for editors to find particular types of article which they could expand, the project has been sorting these articles into hundreds of different types so that, for example, someone who knows about the history of France can simply look through a stub category containing stubs about French history.

[edit] Why are the stub categories different from other categories?

To put it simply, the main categories are designed to make it easier for readers. A reader looking for an article on a particular subject can go straight to a category on that subject and find the specific article they are looking for. In contrast, stub categories are aimed at making it easier for editors. If an editor knows about a particular subject, they are likely to want to be able to pick and choose between a number of articles they can work on. For that reason, your are unlikely to find stub categories with only one or two articles, like you can with permanent categories. The Stub sorting WikiProject does its best to ensure that stub categories are of a reasonable size - not so big as to overwhelm an editor, but not so small as to make it necessary for an editor to look through lots of categories (ideally, we use about 50-500 articles as an optimal size for stub categories). For that reason, stub categories aren't always identical to main categories, although we aim to make the discrepancy between the two as small as is practical.

[edit] How is stub-sorting done?

Usually by hand, though bots are sometimes used. The basic tools of stub-sorting are paired templates and categories. A specific stub template will usually put an article that contains it into one dedicated category. In general, when a stub article is made (for example, one on a neighborhood of St. Louis), it will be given a fairly coarse stub template type such as {{stub}} (the most basic template). It will be sorted from there into a more refined category using a more specific template (for example, {{geo-stub}}, since it's a geography-related article) and eventually will be moved into whatever the finest-grained category is for that specific article (in this case, Cat:Missouri geography stubs).

Checks are regularly made by the stub-sorting project to see which categories are no longer optimal in size, and in these cases proposals are made as to how to split any large categories into smaller ones. In addition, editors from outside the project also make proposals if they think up possible useful categories for stubs. The proposal process is only a guideline on Wikipedia, not a rule, but it is useful in that generally the stub sorters have the best idea as to which types of stubs are likely to be most useful, and specifically which ones are likely to clash with existing types. Since there are a very large number of stub types and a general dislike among editors of having too many stub templates on an article, creating a useful stub type can be a trickier process than it sounds. The proposal process often leads to long debate as to exactly what would be the best way of wording a stub template and category to be most useful for editors.

[edit] "Having too many stub templates"?

Ideally, it would be great if all stub articles only contained one stub template, but this is not practical, and isn't as useful to editors as having more templates. Although having several templates on an article can look messy, a case can be made for saying that a stub is pretty messy anyway simply for being so short. If an article has two stub templates, it will be sorted into twice as many stub categories, and therefore theoretically twice as many specialist editors will see it. Having too many stub templates on an article is very cumbersome, though, so it's better not to have more than three or (rarely) four stub templates on an article.

As the number of stub articles has increased, the number of 'cross-referenced" templates has increased, which has reduced the need for multi-stubbing articles a little. For example, at one time an article on a Canadian politician would have needed both {{Canada-bio-stub}} (Canadian biography) and {{politician-stub}}. Now it only needs {{Canada-politician-stub}}.

[edit] Are all short articles marked as stubs?

Most of them are. Disambiguation pages aren't, lists usually aren't (they have their own related template, {{listdev}}), and sometimes an article will be fairly complete even if it is very short. Note that only articles are stubs - categories are never marked as stubs (again, there is a related template for them, {{popcat}}), and pages in other namespaces like User pages and Talk pages aren't marked as stubs.

There is a tendency to mark article that are hardly stubs, but could use devellopment as stubs, such as Luton Town Hall. While the stub discussing a complex topic could be long, such as the curent Law of France, which can reasonably be called a stub (Compare Law of the United States, and remember half Law of France is a bibliography.), a stub is "article that is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of the subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information." In that sense, Luton Town Hall is not a stub, but Law of France is. Circeus 20:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

True. There is a separate template, {{expansion}}, which is used for articles which aren't stubs but still need expanding. An example I often use is the article on the village where I once lived, Croughton, Northamptonshire. It's short, but isn't a stub, whereas if the article on London or New York was that long, it definitely would be. Grutness...wha? 21:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where can I find out more?

Wikipedia:Stub is the most obvious page to look at. Others include Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting and its subpages, and also the deletion process page Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion.

[edit] How can I help?

The simplest way to help is to make sure that any articles which seem very short are marked with a stub template, even if it's only the basic {{stub}}. The full list of stub types (at WP:WSS/ST) is pretty daunting even for regular stub-sorters, but even learning just the basic few (like bio-stub, geo-stub, hist-stub) and the way the names are normally created (shown at WP:WSS/NG) will give you a rough guide to how things can be marked. If you're willing to help out in a big way, the stub-sorting WikiProject is one of the busiest in Wikipedia and is always on the lookout for more keen helpers.

[edit] Further discussion on stubbing

If you have any questions for Grutness that don't fit in any of the sections above, please feel free to post them here. -- TT 11:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External interfaces - let's compare

See also Comparison of web browsers.

Please describe the programs (browsers, browser extensions, other programs, etc.) that you make use to navigate around and work on Wikipedia. Feel free to ask questions of any participant below about their interfaces. Immediately following this section, we continue with a comparison of our internal interfaces.

[edit] Transhumanist's external interface

For example, I use Windows XP, and usually have 9 windows open for Wikipedia purposes alone (with a dozen other windows open for other purposes). Firefox takes up 6 of those windows, usually with several tabs open in each. A macro program in another window. Wordpad in another for data massage, and to provide an environment in which to use the macros (they work directly in the browser's edit window too, but much faster in wordpad). And Internet Explorer/AutoWikiBrowser in another (though I haven't used the being logged-in on two accounts at the same time trick, recently).

• To make macros, you need a macro program. I use Macro Express. You can download it from most major download websites, and use it for 30 days free. I swear by it. It's pretty inexpensive, but there's a free macro program called AutoHotkey.
• Alternately, you could learn how to write java or perl scripts.

I used to only have 13 bookmarks on my toolbar. But as I've memorized all of those, I've found I could shorten their names to almost nothing to make room on the bar for more book marks. Now I have 30 up there, with half of them devoted to Wikipedia links or tools (which include the Wikr bookmarklet, which comes in very handy for Wikipedia lookups when you are browsing the rest of the Internet. Just highlight a word or phrase in the text of page you are on, click on wikr, and it automatical searches for and jumps to Wikipedia's page about the term you highlighted. It of course also works from within Wikipedia. One very fast way to add bookmarks to your toolbar is to hover your mouse over a link, press and hold down the left mouse button, and drag the link up to the toolbar and let go. Instant bookmark. Delete and create more each session to accomodate the pages you need to return to the most.

I use the Firefox extension "Session Manager" which automatically remembers what was opened in each window and each tab, so that if I turn off the machine purposely or accidentally, and most importantly when Firefox crashes, when I log back in all my Firefox windows are restored to their last location/contents. The new version of Firefox has this feature built-in, but you may want to wait, because that version of Firefox is still a bit buggy. Windows XP does the same for my other windows.

I've just started using the Firefox extension called Linky, and it's pretty powerful. It's a tab and window autocreator, and provides a great deal of navigation control over links and pages. Awesome little tool. Now you don't have to remember where the links are you want to navigate, just open them all in tabs and read them at your leisure. While middle-click already allows you to this one link at a time, Linky grabs all the links on the page in one easy operaton. With or without Linky, press ^F (Ctrl-F4) to remove a tab you are done with, and the next tab is intantly shown on the screen. Saves time waiting for page loads from the server. It also works specifically on images and/or image links too, but I haven't tried that out yet.

Of the six windows in Firefox, 4 are set on Wikipedia (User pages in one, project pages in another, main namespace browsing in another, and one for miscellaneous), the 5th is reserved for Google site-specific searching of Wikipedia, and the 6th always has interiots external edit counter in it (I started using this extensively when I started coaching).

And that's just the external interface. But it's a starting point. Okay, your turns...   The Transhumanist   13:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AMK152's external interface

• I just use Windows XP and Microsoft Internet Explorer. -AMK152 14:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• I also use AutoWikiBrowser. I ahve downloaded VandalProof but don't use it. -AMK152 17:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Budgiekiller's external interface

I use XP & IE6 and/or Firefox at work and at home, and also use Safari and Firefox under Mac OS X Leopard at home. I've got pop-ups going, but as I've said before, it kills Safari pretty regularly. I'm also just getting into VandalProof which is a great tool, but seems very buggy at the moment. I've used the Interiot edit counter several times and link to it from my User page. I'm just about to check out AWB to see if it makes life easier as well. As for browser configurations, I'll typically have three or four IE's open, one on my watchlist (although I'm using this less now with VP), one on RC patrol and when I'm stub-sorting I'll have a couple pointing at the list of categories and stub types. That's about it! Budgiekiller 16:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, AWB is a power tool. You can feed task lists (in the form of lists of page links that you need to work on) into it, and it automatically loads the next page on the list when you save the one your in. It also does search/replacing. And once you've mastered it, consider applying for a bot account, because AWB has an automatic mode in which it performs as a bot. When combined with a macro program, it is already a defacto bot, but if you ever use it that way, you should have a bot account (bot edits are hidden from recent changes, to avoid obscurring in-person edits) -- and you have to watch it extremely closely when macro-controlled, with your finger ready and your mouse hovering over the kill button. As a rule of thumb, you should never leave any bot unattended, because if something goes wrong, it could go really wrong, especially if you have several thousand pages in its task queue. Walking away from the computer when a bot is running on Wikipedia not a good idea.

The user to watch as an example of bot expertise is Bluemoose and his bot account.

By the way, have you ever wondered how Steve Jobs got his position at Apple back? I mean, what leverage did he have? What he had was the NEXT operating system, and its development team. It became OS X. (I'm sure there's more to it than that). And I've heard that they've switched over to the intel chips, a move which looks like they are getting ready to make their OS available for use on PCs. Is OS X PC-compatible yet? If it ever is, let me know, 'cuz I want it.  The Transhumanist   08:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've heard that quite a few people have gotten OS X running on regular non-Apple x86 PCs, but it's difficult and certainly not blessed by Apple. --Gwern (contribs) 00:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CBDunkerson's external interface

I use the current version of Firefox on one machine and the v2.0 beta on another. Probably going to switch to using v2.0 on both as it has many of the options I like (e.g. recovery of tabs from last session) built in and extensions for others (e.g. cloning a tab). When working on templates I will frequently clone a tab to show what it looked like before the change and then update the original tab and do a 'side by side' comparison. Likewise I will often open my watchlist in a tab and then clone off tabs for each page on the list I want to review. The recursive nature of the pop-ups script helps with that as I will often get the pop up, go to the history option, get the pop-up of the page history, hover over the 'last' links... and thus get a pop-up of the change to the page without ever clicking a link - if the change looks like something I want to review/comment on I'll open a new tab. I rewrote the search window logic for Wikipedia to perform a default 'Go' action rather than 'search' and generally use that for navigating around now... only drawback to that is when I am on Wiktionary or another project I'll often forget and type something in there and get the Wikipedia page rather than the Wiktionary page. Have vandalproof and similar tools, but don't use them much any more. I actually use Excel and Word for alot of 'automation'... copying things out to word for search and replace or Excel for formatting or building something which follows a formulaic progression. Haven't looked into AWB yet - powerful tool, but a computer can't detect and adjust for subtle differences the way a human can. --CBD 15:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

AWB has an interactive mode and a an automatic mode. I'm pretty sure most of the users use it in interactive mode. It includes a full editor and can accept lists of pages, so when you save the page you are working on, it automatically loads the next page on the list for you to work on. When in interactive mode, you are always in control. Hope that description helps. It barely scratches the surface, of course. The Transhumanist   07:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interiot's external interface

I use Firefox on Windows. Lupin's popups was causing excessive memory usage on an older machine, so I rely heavily on keymarks, much in the tradition of unix aliases. For instance: "con $username" shows someone's contributions, "wiki $search" shows google with site:en.wikipedia.org, "wikic $search" shows google with site:en.wikipedia.org inurl:wiki/category (and others for templates, wikipedia space, etc), "cnt $username" runs an edit count of the user, "slog1 $username" uses Special:Log to show who $user has blocked, "slog2 $username" to show when they've been blocked, etc.

In addition, I have a small Firefox extension that lets me run "w $page", and it will show the page. But also, if "[[..]]" is spotted in the page name, it will ignore anything before and after the square brackets. As a result, I don't have to do anything special to make wikilinks work easily in IRC or email or personal notes, I just copy-n-paste a line over, and the non-wikilink text is ignored. (granted, it ignores the 2nd, 3rd, etc. wikilinks, but in 95% of the cases, you're interested in copy-n-pasting just the first link on a line) (actually, my keymarks setup is a little more complicated than that, but you can see my latest keymarks here)

Per above, if you're not using tabs and middle-click a lot, you're not moving fast enough. Also, if you want to rack up your edit count with Special:Random, tabs are a good way. Set up a bookmark folder with 40 bookmarks to Special:Random. Open it up, and ctrl-f4 until you find a page that needs to be tweaked. Fix it, and keep ctrl-f4ing. When there are no tabs left, open the bookmark-folder again. It's probably a bit tough on the server, but it minimizes waiting time. --Interiot 02:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of interiot's interface notes

Is your head spinning from reading the previous section? Okay, let's see if I can translate the above...  The Transhumanist   07:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keymarks (Smart keywords)

"$" stands for "string", which means the keystrokes you need to enter. "$search" means "the search string", "$username" means "type in a username here", etc.

Mozilla's name for keymarks is "smart keywords", and the link provided explains how to set up keywords for search boxes.

[edit] Edit counter smart keyword

To set up an edit counter smart keyword using this method, you've got to find one that has a search box. Here's one: Interiot's external edit counter. It's slow, but good. When you use it to look soemone up, switch to another window and work on something for a minute or two while you are waiting for the results. Use the procedure at "smart keywords" to create a command for it.

[edit] User contributions smart keyword

You might be asking right about now: "How did Interiot get "con $username" to show someone's contributions?" Well, he cheated. He wrote his own Firefox extension (he'll let us know when it's ready for release). However, there is a standard way to do this in Firefox:

1. In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
2. Enter 'User's contributions' as Name (without the quotes).
3. Enter 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/%s' as Location.
4. Enter 'con' as Keyword.
5. Click OK.

To test this, first type ^L (Ctrl-L) to jump right to the location box, and then type 'con interiot' in the location box of Firefox. (Where the current URL, or internet address, is displayed at the top of the screen).

[edit] Block log lookup smart keyword

To set up a block log lookup smart keyword ("slog1 $username", above), use the same procedure, just change the data accordingly, like this:

1. In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
2. Enter 'block log' as Name (without the quotes).
3. Enter 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=%s
4. Enter 'slog1' as Keyword.
5. Click OK.

To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'slog1 interiot' into Firefox's location box.

In case you haven't guessed yet, "%s" means "string" in Firefox, or more precisely the "string variable". But when inserting it as code, you don't replace it with anything (you do that in the address box when you use the smart keyword).

To provide the above URL, I typed in "Special:Log" in Wikipedia's search box, and then I set up the log search the way I wanted, and then modified the URL in Firefox's location box, added "%s", and then cut and pasted it in above.

[edit] Help:Special pages

You may be wondering where Interiot and I got the names for the special commands of Wikipedia. They can be found at Help:Special page. The underlying linknames (that is, the real names) for Wikipedia's "special" commands are not always the same as the way they are displayed in the special menu, so it helps to know about that page.

[edit] Google's the better way to search Wikipedia

In most cases, Google does a better job of searching Wikipedia than Wikipedia's own search box. [Note that Google will be days to weeks out of date, though. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23 10 November 2006 (GMT).] Here's how to set up a smart keyword for a site-specific search (of Wikipedia) using Google:

1. In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
2. Enter 'Google search of Wikipedia' as Name (without the quotes).
3. Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site:en.wikipedia.org+%s'
4. Enter 'wiki' as Keyword.
5. Click OK.

To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'wiki meaning of life' into Firefox's location box.

[edit] Google namespace searches

To set up a google search of the category namespace in Wikipedia, do the following:

1. In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
2. Enter 'Search category namespace' as Name (without the quotes).
3. Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+inurl%3Awiki%2Fcategory+%s&btnG=Search'
4. Enter 'wikic' as Keyword.
5. Click OK.

To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'wikic google' into Firefox's location box.

To set up smart keywords for each of the other namespaces just repeat the steps above but change the description and url by replacing the word "category" with the name of the namespace you want, like "portal", and then change the c at the end of "wikic" to the first letter of the namespace. In this example, make it "wikip"

Besides article space, the various namespaces on Wikipedia are: Category, Portal, Help, Wikipedia, Template, Image, User, and MediaWiki.

[edit] Google advanced search on Wikipedia

Interiot didn't cover this, but I prefer the advanced search window of Google, and so here's how to set a smart keyword to search Wikipedia with Google advanced:

1. In Firefox, create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark)
2. Enter 'Adv search Wikipedia' as Name (without the quotes).
3. Enter 'http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%s&num=100&hs=lnk&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=title&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F&as_rights=&safe=images'
4. Enter 'w' as Keyword.
5. Click OK.

I've set it to show 100 results.

To test, hit ^L (Ctrl-L), and type 'w Glossary of' into Firefox's location box.

[edit] Installing these all at once

So now you know how to turn Firefox's location box into a command line. But to load all of interiot's keymarks into Firefox manually could take a long time. We can either wait for interiot to finish and release the firefox extention he is working on, or we can create a bookmark file to import into Firefox. I'm looking into the latter, 'cuz I'd like to start using these right away.

[edit] Moving around fast, and tab tricks

Why use tabs at all? Interiot mentioned that "if you're not using tabs and middle-click a lot, you're not moving fast enough". Creating tabs is easy, just press ^T (Ctrl-T) to create a new empty tab, while middle clicking on a link opens a new tab with contents of the page the link you clicked on leads to. Tabs can be navigated very rapidly using ^Tab (Ctrl-Tab), and you don't have to lift up on the ctrl key before pressing tab again. Shift-Ctrl-Tab navigates through the tabs in the opposite direction.

Firefox extensions, like Linky, expand this functionality to be even more powerful. Linky lets you load all the links on a page into tabs in one operation: Once you have Linky installed, highlight all or part of the text on a page by holding down the left mouse button starting at the top of the page and drag the mouse to the bottom of the page. Then right-click to bring up the drop-down menu, and click on Linky, and then click on "Open selected links in tabs". A list of all the links will come up with a little checkbox next to each in case there are links you don't want opened in tabs, deselect any you don't want, and then click on "Open selected links". Linky doesn't open tabs for duplicate links (a convenient feature).

Interiot's example of creating a lot of tabs on random articles requires using an external website. The same thing can be done right in the window you are on, without going anywhere, by middle-clicking on "Random article" rapidly 40 times (I suggest 80) at the sidebar menu. Then use ^F4 (Ctrl-F4) to cycle through them.

I didn't realize how fast middle click was until interiot mentioned trying it. I don't know what your middle button does, but when I click my scroll wheel (it also serves as the middle button), it invokes a very fast scroll mode (unless I click on a link). The scrolling doesn't apply to Wikipedia's edit window, as it scrolls the whole article/page. But it's great for skimming/scrolling through long articles. It's funny how long you I've gone without learning this useful feature that was literally right at my fingertips.

For more advice on how to use tabs effectively, see Ansell's post immediately below.  The Transhumanist   08:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ansell's external interface

I use Firefox under both Windows (Uni) and Linux (Home). I am a pretty simple kind of editor, with the exception of the 50+ tabs I usually generate during a session. Couldn't do without tabs!

I am doing some initial research into an Open Source .NET library to use against the api.php and similar Wikipedia interfaces, as I have not found any .NET open source libraries for doing similar things. I would rather use a standalone client which just gets XML responses as it reduces the server load, and means I do not have to cope with Firefox taking up large amounts of memory (as expected with 50 tabs). Ansell 02:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

How do you keep track of what's in 50 tabs!? Do you have any special ways which make 50 tabs manageable?  The Transhumanist   14:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For navigation I use "Control-Tab" with the Tab Mix Plus extension to give me listings of what are in each of the tabs. I also used to use another extension which gave me a screen full of miniature icons for each tab, but that one used too much RAM so I got rid of it.

I also use an extension called Ageing Tabs, which makes tabs that I have not been to recently gradually go black (or any other colour I choose).

I also make sure that newly opened tabs have italic titles so that I know if I have middle-clicked and then not gone to the resulting tab. (See Tab Mix Plus for this one)

Tab Mix Plus also gives me the option of opening new tabs next to the current tab, and in a "different order", so that related tabs always stay next to each other. The default which opens new tabs on the far-right doesn't make logical sense to me. I think that is the main set of things that I do to make tabs useful and manageable. Ansell 22:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rich Farmbrough's external interface

I use Firefox by choice, with two primary (power) machines, and a networked laptop. I have other machines where I have Firefox with plugins but no other tools, and none of my database in general. At work I use IE, as Firefox is reserved for my on-laptop wiki, avoiding all the proxy problems of a large organisation. I use the spellcheck addin with firefox and linky to open lists of pages generated externally. I rarely have more than one window open, but can easily get to twenty or thirty tabs in normal usage (I beleive I have an algorithm which supresses openning new tabs and promotes closing of old ones as the number of tabs increases). I make extensive use of AWB for manual editing and for robotic editing using a robot account. I use perl to extract lists of articles that need fixing from database dumps - and to extract stats. Oh yes, I have used various anti-vandal tools, but generally find Anti-VandalBot and the speed and accuracy of other vandal fighters makes it fairly fruitless. Rich Farmbrough, 11:03 7 November 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Mac Davis's external interface

I've tried a bunch of browsers (Netscape, Firefox, Seamonkey, Camino, Safari, Internet Explorer) on my iMac, and have found that Safari beats them all, and by far. The normal Google search up at the top right is instead where I type whatever comes after "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/", for a direct approach to the article that is a lot faster than editing it in the address bar. If I want to use Google I hit ⌘⌥G (or if Wikipedia, I append "wikipedia" to the search words). Also, if you put an exclamation mark at the end of whatever you typed in, it gives you the first result in Google. For editing or researching Wikipedia that is handy if you can't guess the name of an article. If anybody wants to try the same approach, just mention it on my talk page or here! ;)

I also have a "Wiki to-do" folder in my bookmarks (not the bookmarks bar or menu), that I stick articles in that I need to edit later, other webpages that I need to use for a Wikipedia article, or just something I want to read later.

When doing my daily editing I use one window with many tabs, and when VFing, I use VandalFighter, which gives me a ton of seperate windows with one tab. Vitally, I play my favorite iTunes playlist during all editing hours. :) X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 17:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I have some questions for you:

1. When you said "I hit G", did you mean that you click on a G (Google) icon on your toolbar?
2. Why append "wikipedia" to the end of a google search when you can just hit another G, such as this: G. (To save this to your toolbar, just left-click, drag, and drop it there.)
3. Yes, I'd like to try the same approach. I tried the exclamation point thing, but I'm not sure I understood your description, as it doesn't seem to be doing anything different. Can you provide step-by-step instructions?

 The Transhumanist   23:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cynical's external interface

I use Firefox on my home machines (or Opera on the too-frequent occasions when Firefox 2.0 is in a crashing sort of mood) and Portable Firefox on a USB drive whenever I edit WP from uni (all Windows). I used to have 'wp' set as a shortcut in the Firefox toolbar (for example, if I typed 'wp Wikipedia:Articles for deletion' then it would take me to that page instead of having to type the full URL) but I haven't got round to redoing it since I reformatted my laptop. I use AWB occasionally, nowadays I generally use it for fixing disambig links more than anything else. Cynical 19:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that you replace links that lead to a disambig page rather than to the appropriate page?  The Transhumanist   23:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drumguy8800's external interface

I use Firefox 2.0 on my tablet and desktop which both run a modified version of Windows XP. I'm in the process of developing a bot (DallasBot) using Python with PyWikipediaBot. The most efficient method of browsing online I've devised is:

• g <search> does a google search
• w <search> opens that page in the Wikipedia
• d <search> opens that page at dictionary.reference.com
• t <search> opens that page at thesaurus.reference.com

I use the "w" one more than anything, of course. One thing I enjoy doing when I go to any article is converting local units into metric and vice-versa according to standards set at WP:MOS. For that, I can just type, for example, "Ctrl+T g 89 mi in km" and I have the conversion using google's handy calculator service :). It's a great idea to learn shortcuts.. Alt+P for preview, Alt+S for save, Alt+H for history, Alt+E for edit, Alt+D for discussion, etc. Also, I use AWB for disambiguation repair but I really enjoy using it to do complex regular expression edits. Another great program for batching regular expression edits when you're working on a single page (say you want to convert a horizontal list (list item 1 {{!}} list item 2 {{!}} ... {{!}} list item n) into a vertical list, you can go into Notepad++, key Ctrl+H, and tell it to replace | with \n and it automatically makes a bulleted list for you (assuming you have regular expression enabled on the Replace window.) drumguy8800 C T 12:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. I've been wondering if there is a way to search and/or replace carriage returns in Notepad and Wordpad. Is there? And is there a way to enter ASCII codes into the search/replace strings?  The Transhumanist   12:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup, this is pretty similar to how I work. "w $page" is most important. I use "wiki $searchterms" frequently too, to run a google "site:en.wikipedia.org $searchterms" when I don't know the exact pagename (or "hist $page" when I know the pagename and it's a redirect and don't want to follow the redirect). Re: Transhumanist... Use a better editor... either Notepad++ or Vim (my preference) or something. --Interiot 13:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's Notepad++ that I use, from sourceforge: Notepad++. On a sidenote, whenever I see a "$" in coding, I flip out. I'm used to object-oriented and html/dhtml/xhtml/xml/whateverothermlmlml not PHP and whatever mush that is. :D. drumguy8800 C T 13:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Internal interfaces - what do you use?

How do you have Wikipedia set up? (What scripts do you have installed, what do they do, what skin, do you use the edit tool bar, etc.).   The Transhumanist   00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been urged on my talk page to expand this project, so we might be getting more people in here, therefore for each section each responder should set up a subsection so that it is easier to read each person's contribution.

[edit] AMK152's internal interface

• I don't have any scripts set up. I do not use the edit toolbar, I just type in wiki mark up manually. -AMK152 02:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Budgiekiller's internal interface

• Pretty much ditto for me. I'm using the standard monobook skin and do my markup manually. Budgiekiller 13:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, so I use pop-ups but have (well-documented by me) problems with it under Safari. I have a number of links in Safari and IE6 to get me to WP:AIV for example. Budgiekiller 18:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transhumanist's internal interface

Skin: monobook. Nothing special.

Edit toolbar: I definitely use this. For some reason, when I started here I didn't even touch the thing for nine months. It just looked so cryptic, and it was hard to memorize the buttons. But eventually I discovered it can be a real timesaver. I started using it to do redirects, as clicking the #R is much easier than typing it all out. And it puts the edit cursor right there inside the brackets so all you have to do is type the page name. After that, I was convinced that the toolbar was useful, so I opened a sandbox and practiced with the other buttons for about a half hour. So now I know what's up there, and have several more of the buttons memorized. They keep adding new buttons to this, and one of my favorites is the table button. That makes creating matrices a breeze.

Scripts: when Interiot's went down, I used the script to make use of Interiot's 2 (on a previous account). I also had popups installed, though I never really understood it (I only used one feature of it, so I'll have to try it out again sometime soon). I copied a whole bunch of scripts to my monobook.js page at one time, but since few scripts are documented adequately, I never could figure out what any of them did! At this time, in order to make heads or tails of the scripts you pretty much have to know Javascript. Weird things happen for no apparent reason (hitting certain key combinations) when you don't know what you have loaded, so someone will need to organize the script department better before it will be very useful. I'll let you know if I discover anything.

Navigation aids: Wikipedia provides many ways to use links.

• I use my userpage header and menu as a navigation bar (tools are hard to make sense of on Wikipedia, for instance, so I created my own tool page).
• I've redesigned my workshop to double as a navigation console. There are 4 navigation headers at the top of the page to choose from (contents, editorial, communications, and administration). The default is contents.
• I've streamlined the linknames on my Firefox toolbar to make room to add more wikibuttons, and have 13 of them crammed up there, which take up about half of the toolbar.

(If anybody else is reading this, please create a subheading and tell us all about your internal interface).  The Transhumanist   17:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CBDunkerson's internal interface

I'm always changing things around... sometimes I use the classic skin and sometimes monobook. Use popups and 'godmode lite' extensively even as an admin. I like the 'deep history reversion' feature of god-mode lite for vandals that coordinate multiple accounts to vandalize the same page... can go back to the last clean version with one click. Also use automated warning template scripts. Popups are great for getting a preview of what the change to the page was, seeing all changes since my last edit, getting to the talk or history of a linked page with one click instead of two, et cetera. Easily the most useful scipt available and works on both classic and monobook. Don't use much local css, just to hide the '.spoiler' class so I don't see the 'spoiler start/end' section notices. When using classic skin I suppress the search box entirely because I've got the same functionality set up in Firefox's search option. Haven't looked into getting this to work in monobook yet. Like flexibility of the classic skin better overall, but often need to use monobook to see how things will look for the majority of users since it is the default. --CBD 14:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

What is "godmode lite", and please provide a link to the page it is available/described on.  The Transhumanist   23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

See this site for info on the 'godmode lite' script and Wikiproject User Scripts for a list of that and other javascripts which can be used to add/change various custom features to the Wikipedia 'internal interface'. --CBD 11:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interiot's internal interface

See #Interiot's external interface, above. Most of my tools are Firefox-based rather than being in monobook.css or monobook.js. The only thing my monobook.js does is include CSS that makes the left column totally disappear. The "go" textbox is replaced by my "w" keymark. I memorize most Special: locations, and go to them with "w". For the whatlinkshere/relatedchanges/etc, I memorize their keyboard accesskey (which still work because the left column is hidden, not deleted). And by some lucky mishap, the interwiki links appear just off the right side of the screen, so I just scroll to see them. This makes it a little less obvious that I use Wikipedia from work, and makes articles look a little cleaner. --Interiot 18:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ansell's internal interface

I use the Cologne Blue skin as I do not like the colour scheme that comes with Monobook, and well, I have kind of got used to it. Albeit there are random disadvantages, like the common assumption with "popups" and other JS helps that Monobook is the underlying skin. I guess I could go back to Monobook and just customise the CSS to my needs, but I am comfortable and productive still so it is not a driving force. Ansell 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rich Farmbrough's internal interface

I use monobook, with extensive Javascript addins, both my own and borrowed from others - mainly to do simple search and replace. I use popups which I find good for antivandal work, but sometimes gets in the way. I have my raw sig set to include the date so that I save a keystroke when signing my posts. I use WerdnaBot's good offices to archive my talk page, and I have a box of "admin links" on my user page (can't remember who I copied that from).Rich Farmbrough, 11:08 7 November 2006 (GMT).

Oh yes I also have User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary on my talk page. Rich Farmbrough, 11:52 7 November 2006 (GMT).

I've merged the box of admin links above with the one on my old userpage, and have made the new one available at the top of my workshop page, which is accessible from my userpage menu.  The Transhumanist   00:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

For those interested in that shorter sig, it's actually pretty clever. It goes like this: "{{subst:CURRENTTIME}} [[{{subst:CURRENTDAY}} {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]] [[{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}]] (GMT)". It has to be added into your signature preference, and that has to be raw, or else things get messed up; obviously you'll need to prepend to those templates whatever your regular signature is, like for me, I would append to the templates "--[[User talk:Gwern |Gwern]] [[Special:Contributions/Gwern | (contribs)]]" I've added it into my signature; should be fun! --Gwern (contribs) 19:16 15 November 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Mac Davis's internal interface

I've recently switched from Cologne back to monobook. I like Colonge better, but monobook is more the standard. I don't have anything at all. No popups, no javascript. Manual editing. I never use the javascript editing toolbar either. Just text. X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve) 17:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cynical's internal interface

I use monobook, with assorted javascript addins which have been acquired from other people (my knowledge of javascript consists of document.write and little else). The most important of these is popups, which is an absolute gem. In fact, I usually find myself RC patrolling manually (rather than using the snazzy 'alternative interfaces', some of which I have the javascript for set up) just because Popups is so effective at diff viewing, reverting etc. I never use the editing toolbar - I know the appropriate wikitext for everything I want to do, and having to scroll up the page to click a button (which sometimes puts the markup in the wrong place) is distracting. Cynical 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions and miscellaneous comments - anything goes

[edit] Areas of weakness

Hi, well here goes! Your original advice to me was to get into some of the tools for vandal hunting and also to participate in the non-admin closure of AfD's. So far I've managed to convert to a PC (from my iBook) in order to get Lupin's pop-ups working without killing my browser, and I've been approved for, and am using, VandalProof with, I think, some degree of success - approximately 1000 edits in the past three or four days.

Unfortunately it appears that VP is a bit buggy at version 1.3, I'm hoping it'll be fixed soon so I can back on it.

So, I guess my first question is: looking at my contributions, can you identify areas which I need to work on right away? I must confess that vandal hunting is my primary contribution at the moment, but I have created over sixty articles so my non-vandal mainspace edits aren't too shabby either.

Anyway, let me know what you think, and thanks for agreeing to participate in coaching me! Cheers! Budgiekiller 12:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• I too would like you to look through my contributions and tell me my weaknesses as well. Thanks. -AMK152 12:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My advice: emphasize your strengths, rather than worry about shoring up your weaknesses.

It is true that some nominees get denied admin status because they lack edits in one area or another. I think this is rather short-sighted of the people who happen to be "voting" at the RfA when this occurs, because there is no reason why a particular editor couldn't specialize and still be considered a valuable member of the sysadmin team. Wikipedia needs editors of all types and with different strengths, and that applies to sysadmins as well. I don't see the logic in demanding that system admins spread their edits out equally amongst the namespaces nor throughout the activities on Wikipedia. A sysop who specializes in vandal hunting, for instance, would most likely have more expertise in this area than an admin generalist with the same number of overall edits. And that's a good thing. If Wikipedia only had generalists, then the highest levels of expertise in each area would be lower. And that's not as good. Therefore: Viva la difference!

I've taken a look at your contributions, and both of you are very strong editors. There is no reason why you shouldn't go for adminship on your current strengths. Trust is the major factor by which editors should be judged to be worthy sysadmins. But the reality is that users participating in RfA discussions can lend their support or object for any reason they see fit, and the reasons run the entire spectrum from the on-target issue of trustworthiness to minor peripheral tastes. I've seen RfAs turned down for lack of edits (based on one's overall total and on section totals), lack of participation in a specific area like AfDs, lack of consistent use of edit summaries, for grudges held by those they conflicted with in the past (such as on AfDs, etc.), and even based on a person's voting record at RfA, or for the fact that they nominated themselves! I've been informed by some that they wouldn't vote for me because of my colorful signature, or because of the way I emphasize my VERY STRONG DELETE or VERY STRONG KEEP votes (I'm sorry, "opinions") at deletion discussions (they said it represented a bad attitude and annoyed them because it meant I was shouting). And even though this situation exists, preparing openly specifically to overcome these potential objections is frowned upon as "gaming the RfA system". There is even criticism of aiming to become an admin in the first place.

On the other hand, I've seen RfA's of extremely narrowly specialized individuals succeed with great support. So there is hope. It's pretty much the luck of the draw in terms of whomever happens to be participating on the RfA page when you make your request or are nominated.

Wikipedia needs more sysadmins. The team of sysadmins we have now cannot keep up with their maintenance duties, and the backlogs continually grow. Therefore, my best advice is to seek nomination and run on the strengths you currently have, and emphasize your strong interests in those areas in which you truly have strong interests. If you are turned down, then deal with the objections by correcting anything they've pointed out, and then ask your nominator in a few months to nominate you again, and explain at the RfA that you've worked on the areas pointed out to you the last time.

In my opinion, you are both ready to become sysadmins now. If you feel you must prepare more first, study the pages listed on the recommended reading list above.

In the meantime, there's no reason to discontinue receiving coaching here, or ever, because there is little difference between those who wish to become better editors and those who wish to become admins. Great editors make great admins, and generally get nominated sooner or later in recognition of their contributions and their integrity. Take a look at the most prolific accounts on Wikipedia, and notice the proportion of those who are sysadmins, and you will see what I mean. Being an eventualist is by far the least stressful way of becoming an admin: that is, recognize that it will happen naturally anyways.

I will continue to add new subjects to this page for your benefit and the benefit of all. I'm planning to create new sections in the future for sharing expertise on countering vandalism, running bots, AWB techniquies, approaches to resolving conflict, monitoring the state of the 'pedia, and more. If there are other specific areas you are interested in, please let me know. Sincerely,  The Transhumanist   08:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Quiddity! Feel free to join us

And by the way, we have an audience. Quiddity is in here with us. He is very knowledgeable about Wikipedia, especially page layout. Quiddity, you are cordially invited to share your Wiki-expertise here whenever you see fit. You are warmly welcomed to participate. And anyone else who is reading this, please feel free to join in. Since comparing activities is a good way to learn from others, please share with us a description of the programs you make use of on Wikipedia. "What programs and power tools do you use?"  The Transhumanist   23:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Firstly, hello Quiddity! I look forward to learning from you too. As for OS X, it truly is a thing of beauty. All Macs now ship with the Intel PC, some with the shiny new dual-core job which makes them amongst the fastest machines available. I'd rather that Apple didn't try to usurp the PC OS market - like most Mac-ites, I'm just a little bit smug about the whole thing! Budgiekiller 13:49, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] But don't forget the point of this

Don't over talk things too much. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the best way to learn what goes on here is to just start doing it. Yeah, you can figure out ideal interfaces or whatever, but don't spend so much time on that that you don't get experience in what actually matters. The interface is just the means to an end, not an end in itself (unless you're an interface programmer, but we have very few of those). --Cyde Weys 02:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I hope it didn't sound like I was rambling about the interface without emphasising the usefulness of the interface to my work on the encyclopedia. On the other hand, I don't mind being an interface programmer, its what I do i guess. Ansell 02:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Cyde for the caveat. I agree, "at some point you have to shoot the engineers and just build the thing". (I have no idea who I just quoted). So one approach would be to add a single improvement, and then apply it for awhile before adding another, rather than trying to revamp your entire system all at once.

Here are some links to help find areas of Wikipedia to work on:

• Wikipedia:Contents
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory
• Wikipedia:Community portal
• Wikipedia:Department directory
• and random article on the sidebar menu.  The Transhumanist   03:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The only difference between admins and other editors...

Note that there is only one thing that differentiates between administrators and other editors. And that is trust.

Administrators gain their position because the Foundation and the Community trust them enough to allow them the use of powers which could -- potentially -- be harmful to the encyclopedia. Otherwise admins are much like other editors: some know a lot about policy and get involved in enforcing it and some don't. While it's all very useful to learn about policy whether you are intending to be an administrator or not, that isn't the critical factor in passing an RfA. The critical factor is getting the community to like and trust you and that requires showing involvement, good judgement, people skills and commonsense above all. In short you have to be seen as an active, useful and likeable member of the community. Sure, knowledge of policy helps with that but it is only part of the formula. In the end Trust is the big thing you have to gain if you want to be an admin. Lose it and you won't remain an admin for long. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Analyze me!

As I asked above, can you, from my contributions, tell me where I'm most likely to be considered weak if making an application to become an admin? Cheers! Budgiekiller 17:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As I answered above, that depends upon your approach or how you are presented. Many RfAs of specialized editors succeed on their strengths by emphasizing those strengths in the nomination. I believe that is the best (and most honest) approach. Vandal hunters are by far the most favored type of specialist at RfA, because Wikipedia needs as many vandal hunters as it can get. Trusted vandal reverters who can block vandals are in high demand. If you still want to take the generalist's approach, then work on Categories, Portals, templates, and pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Some Wikipedia namespace activities you can try are more deletion discussions (especially the types you haven't tried much WP:MfD, WP:CfD, WP:TfD), volunteer at Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, Wikipedia:Editor review, Wikipedia:Requests for comment, Wikipedia:Third opinion, Wikipedia:Help desk, Wikipedia:Reference desk, participate in the discussoins at the Wikipedia:Village pump (any or all), Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (providing useful commentary and not just "support"/"oppose", etc. When you spot a red-linked username or an IP contributing to a page send them the an appropreate greeting from the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee. Engage in policy and guideline discussions (found on the talk pages of policies and guidelines). Edit/cleanup/improve Wikipedia's help pages (some of which are in the Help namespace, and some in the Wikipedia namespace); those in the help namespace must be edited at Wikimedia (a link is always provided), except for the Wikipedia-specific portions. Wikipedia's daily departments, such as the features on the Main page (picutre of the day, etc.) need constant volunteer support (to select and schedule the contributory pages). Install an admin navigation bar on one of your userpages (see the one at the top of User:Rich Farmbrough's or the Go for it user page, and start frequenting the pages those link to. Hang out at Wikipedia:Administrator's notice board. And close some deletion discussions. Basically, general involvement in a wide variety of activities on Wikipedia's "Blue pages". The more areas you have experience in, the better. Put in a couple thousand edits, amongst the areas from those just mentioned which you've participated in the least, and you should be fine. But don't resign from the article namespace. Articles are the raison d’être of Wikipedia.  The Transhumanist   00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Me too!

Same goes here- CattleGirl ^{talk | e@ | review me!} 23:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an easy one. Continue editing articles and reading help pages. As you proceed, familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's style guides, templates, and categories. As you become more experienced in editing articles and participating in article discussions on their talk pages, delve into Wikipedia's blue pages more and more (especially Policies and guidelines and choose areas you find interesting from my reply to Budgiekiller, above). Get to know your way around the encyclopedia (see Wikipedia:Contents and Wikipedia:Navigational templates) and the Wikipedia namespace {get to know Wikipedia:Community portal, Wikipedia:Shortcuts, and the Wikipedia:Department directory like the back of your hand). In about 6 months to a year, you'll be an obvious candidate for adminship. When you feel you are ready, read all the pages on the recommended reading list above. And of course, start using the tips posted on this page and at the Wikipedia:Tip of the day project. One of the fastest ways to learn is to teach, so putting in time at the Help desk and Wikipedia:Reference desks will improve your learning curve (be sure to browse their archives too). And throughout all this, remember, be supportive of your fellow Wikipedians (see Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, Wikipedia:Barnstars, and Wikipedia:Esperanza. Enjoy yourself, and edit away!  The Transhumanist   00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit]       General learning tip

Learn from the example of others. Pick some mentors. Choose some experienced Wikipedians you admire, and study their recent contributions (now that they are experts). You can find the most prolific and experienced Wikipedians at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Read their user pages, and when you are there, click "User contributions" on the sidebar's toolbox menu. Use the diff command to study their edits. To learn what admins do, study the best admins.  The Transhumanist   00:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit]       RfA standards

The standard is that there is no standard. For an example of this, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards/A-D.

The last chart on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards shows how articles are growing faster than adminships. It will be harder and harder over time for Wikipedia's admins to keep up with their responsibilities, unless an effective way to approve admins is found and adopted.

Another chart on there shows how long editors wait before going for their RfAs and their success rate. Based on this chart, it doesn't help much to wait.  The Transhumanist   02:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some script-related questions

Rich, I 've started looking over your monobook.js, and have some questions for you:

I've cut and pasted your Lupin popups calling script, and it works fine. And it's better than copying the whole program in. Will that syntax work for calling any script?

I noticed you have {{User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js}} commented out on there. Did you actually have this transcluded and working?

What does the "clever watchlist stuff do?"  The Transhumanist   12:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that syntax works for any script. And it's been suggested I should make some of my stuff subpages included that way.

Incidentally you will see I have a method for putting edit sections in .js. This appears to only work once the page has been edited in that session - very strange - but when it does it's useful.

I never got peereviewer.js working. The watchlist breaks your watchlist down by user spaces - well actually it's by ":" so it can break some names. For example

17 November 2006

     Wikipedia
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism‎; 18:03 . . Omicronpersei8 (Talk | contribs | block) (Reporting 131.109.123.253 with VandalSniper)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous‎; 18:02 . . Maxamegalon2000 (Talk | contribs | block) (→Science Fair)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages‎; 17:38 . . TimBentley (Talk | contribs | block) (→Database dump report - fixed some, some need admin)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Proposed mergers‎; 17:15 . . DrKiernan (Talk | contribs | block) (→Community-supported/unopposed merger proposals)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/TB2‎; 12:31 . . MER-C (Talk | contribs | block) (→Bot reported - -1 (blocked), empty)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval‎; 11:07 . . MacintoshApple (Talk | contribs | block)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Deletion review‎; 08:10 . . JzG (Talk | contribs | block) (Nov 17)
     Main
         o (diff) (hist) . . m Death‎; 17:59 . . Omicronpersei8 (Talk | contribs | block) (Reverted edits by 195.93.21.6 (talk) to version 88424905 by AntiVandalBot using VS)
         o (diff) (hist) . . m Balrog‎; 17:58 . . Yajaec (Talk | contribs | block) (→Popular culture)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Uranium‎; 17:56 . . 205.174.124.2 (Talk | block) (→External links)

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     The Lord of the Rings
         o (diff) (hist) . . The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (film)‎; 16:52 . . Wiki-newbie (Talk | contribs | block)
     Wikipedia talk
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion‎; 15:46 . . James086 (Talk | contribs | block) (→Martin Randall Travel - poojnted user in the right direction)
         o (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval‎; 14:53 . . Lostintherush (Talk | contribs | block) (Trial results)
     Template
         o (diff) (hist) . . m Template:Rating-10‎; 10:46 . . Huntster (Talk | contribs | block) (oops.)

Rich Farmbrough, 18:09 17 November 2006 (GMT).

By edit sections in .js, do you mean the in-frame editing? Like so:

/////Edit-in-frame. fast and fun! document.write('<script src="' + 'http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:ASM/quickedit.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"></script>'); var qeEnabled = true; // Activate Script? var qeEnableSection0 = true; // Enable QuickEdit link for section 0 (introduction)?

Also, I noticed your capitalization script seems to decapitalize all words after the initial word in a header - this might lead to problems, such as with proper nouns. --Gwern (contribs) 19:56 17 November 2006 (GMT)