Wikipedia talk:FAQ

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[edit] Purpose

The purpose of this page is to list actual common questions that people ask. The real FAQ (WP:FAQ) is difficult to use (bloated, forked etc), so hopefully this will allow people to find answers better.

The list should be short and answers should be concise.--Commander Keane 19:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC) Steeevs 23:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)Steeevs

[edit] VFAQ editable

I was just curious as to why, as an anonymous user, was able to edit to VFAQ page? 67.58.193.229 08:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess nobody thought of protecting it before so I requested the page to be protected. Thanks. Oh and please don't directly edit the page but use the discussion page. -- _Hdt83 ^Chat 08:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ranked in order?

Are these questions ranked in order of frequency? My guess would be that they are not. If they are in a deliberate order then I won't reorder them, but if they are in no particular order, I'm going to take my best guess and reorder them in approximate frequency. Sbowers3 (talk) 02:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

No they are not ranked currently. Some of the questions are frequent in {{helpme}} requests, and seem strange if you are just used to the Help desk questions. Apart from re-ordering, you could perhaps merge some of the related questions eg:

"How do I change my username?" + "How do I delete my username?" => "How can I change or delete my username?"
"How do I cite Wikipedia?" + "When was Wikipedia last published?" =>"How do I cite Wikipedia, when was an article last published?"

About ten questions seems to be a reasonable goal.--Commander Keane (talk) 08:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think will do some reordering and, as you suggest, some merging. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Over at WT:FAQ I propose a reorganization of the FAQ and VFAQ pages. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move request

This article has been renamed from Wikipedia talk:Very Frequently Asked Questions to Wikipedia talk:FAQ as the result of a move request.

[edit] FAQ reorg

The FAQ have been slightly reorganized. The old FAQ page is now WP:FAQ Index, because it was an index to other FAQ pages. The old VFAQ is now FAQ, because it really had "frequently asked questions" on it. So now users linking to FAQ will see questions, then a nav box to the Index or to other FAQ pages.

The next step will be to enable Google searching of the FAQ by moving the FAQ pages to subpages of this FAQ page. Google can then do a site-specific search of Wikipedia:FAQ/. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User Box

The User Boxes are really hard to understand to make. To me it is really confusing. On one wikipedia, they would make several sample boxes with codes and the users could change the message in the codes. Why won't you guys do that?
Jorbs3210 (talk) 23:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Jorbs3210. Userboxes are not actually part of the Wikipedia project per se--some users made them, and lots of users (myself included) think they're fun, but they're not actually "official." If you haven't tried the userbox page, that's the best resource for them. Hope that helps! Justin Eiler (talk) 01:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] it professional

can any 1 take out information about IT professional —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.176.44.78 (talk) 02:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Which information are you referring to? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How can i remove a discussion tab in a main page

How can i remove a discussion tab in a main page ? any help would greatly appreciated

Thanks Kennienguyen (talk) 19:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Search function "corrects" incorrectly

I tried to search "Harington" -- my husband's family, for whom there are a few articles in Wikipedia (Charles Robert Harington and Harington Baronets), but it keeps getting corrected to "Harrington" and does not get the articles desired. I cannot figure out how to fix this.

Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.31.213 (talk) 15:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which character-set?

What encoding is used for the english Wikipedia? UTF-8? 130.83.73.224 (talk) 19:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] nature's will

willingness is a very strong weapon used by —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brightgoal (talk • contribs) 14:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Search FAQ

I would like to add a FAQ on using the AJAX search suggestions— which page would it fit on? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:FAQ/Readers seems best to me. It already starts with searching. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Which I skipped right by. Thanks. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jungleling (talk) 18:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)TPE & TPR

Dear forks,

Could anyone tell me the difference between TPE and TPR. After viewing the explanation of Wikipedia, it seems that TPR is under group of TPE in rubber. Am I right?

However, what is the property difference between them. Many suppliers also introduce they have plastic to sell such as TPE, TPR,... and so on. If they are exactly same, the supplier will not need to show these 2 names together. If TPE is exactly same as TPR, why the supplier will show 2 names.

Furthermore, could you please let me know what is the cost difference between them

Hope I can get the prompt reply soon.

Thanks.

Jungle

The purpose of this talk page is to discuss the page Wikipedia:FAQ. You can ask your question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science instead. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] questions

if i hav a first caller speaking with me and if i get the second call and if i hold it will the first caller would hear it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.117.157.181 (talk) 17:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This page is for questions about editing the FAQ page. Please consider asking this question at the Miscellaneous reference desk. They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe. Just follow the link and ask away. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Google search link does not work

Both the "Search all FAQs" Google search links on this page do not seem to work for me, eg a search of "forgot my password" does not return any results.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

See my detailed analysis in User:Teratornis/Notes#Wikipedia:FAQ search broke. My working hypothesis is that Google basically ignored the page moves mentioned by Sbowers3 in the #FAQ reorg section above. It seems that Google does not understand Wikipedia's redirects. When we move a page on Wikipedia, and leave the original page as a redirect to the new page, Google's indexer continues to see the original page as containing the page content, and it seems to ignore the new page as a duplicate. Thus Google does not find Wikipedia FAQ subpages when we use {{Google custom}} to restrict the search to the new FAQ subpage hierarchy. Google continues to find these pages at their old names, such as Wikipedia:Business' FAQ. It might be possible to coax Google to index a moved page under its new name by temporarily or permanently deleting the redirects at their old names. I will ask about this on WP:VPT, where there may be some Wikipedians with more knowledge of how Google handles redirects on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 21:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I asked for comments on:

WP:VPT#How Google handles page moves on Wikipedia (permanent link)

Hopefully someone who knows about Google can confirm or deny my working hypothesis that we may have to (temporarily?) delete the old redirects that Google continues to index as the canonical instances of the FAQ subpages. --Teratornis (talk) 00:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can I make templates on the wikipedia original wiki?(en.wikipedia.org)

I was going to supe up my user page and i was gonna us a template but i couldn't find the right one. Can I make one myself here?Digisapien (talk) 22:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied on user talk. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the largest workers camp in the world?

I work in a fast growing industrial city where we manage catering and services for over 110000 workers, I was just wondering whether there are larger industrial zones where you could find such large numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmed Abdelmoneim Hassan (talk • contribs) 10:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the contents of Wikipedia:FAQ. You can ask questions unrelated to Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Reference desk. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] asking a queston for Picasa

Is it possible to have music play automaticly when you have a slide show running on Picasa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.186.48 (talk) 13:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the contents of Wikipedia:FAQ. You can ask questions unrelated to Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Reference desk.--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:49, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who owns Wikipedia?

Resolved.

The answer to "Who owns Wikipedia?" on this page is "See who owns Wikipedia", but that link doesn't work. There is no "Who owns Wikipedia?" question on Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview. Mike R (talk) 16:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I just reverted about two weeks of vandalism/bad edits. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Will wikipedia have chatrooms?

I think it is a good idea for Wikipedia to have chatrooms. But only registered people should go on, if Ip users go on, we'll be able to see their Ips

So what you think? Kagemaru the Ninja of the Shadows (talk) 17:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:IRC channels.--Commander Keane (talk) 00:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Search

The InputBox extension has been updated to allow searches with a prefix. This means we can now replace the current non-functional Google search. Here is a sample to search within the FAQ. Do we want to add this to {{WP help pages (header bar)}} or incorporate it elsewhere?

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it is very useful, perhaps in {{WikipediaFAQ}}? --Commander Keane (talk) 05:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and added it to {{WikipediaFAQ}}, a bit bold perhaps, but I can't believe we have had a broken search for this long.--Commander Keane (talk) 11:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Indian Meal Moth feces???

I am a health and safety rep and an employee has asked me a question concerning the feces the moth leaves behind. The question is......is the feces toxic in any way shape or form to the human body. It is my duty to follow up on these concerns. This may be a silly question or not but I have to find out with some type of documentation. Thank you to anyone that can help me out. Craig —Preceding unsigned comment added by Craigar69 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The best palce for factual questions like this, if they aren't already answered in Wikipedia, is the Wikipedia:Reference desk.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] unprotected text again - and suggestions

Just to note - since you had it protected before - that the page has lost its protection - I assume in the move from VFAQ.
On another note - might I suggest dividing up the questions into sections .. e.g. eitting, logging in, to make it quicker to navigate?
and one further, maybe transcluding the specific FAQs most common questions, something like

[edit] editing FAQ

Main article: Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing

top3 questions

LeeVJ (talk) 03:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] which photoshop product do I need to remove glare from glasses?

I'm trying to remove glare from glasses. Which photoshop product will do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gloomyoldeeyore (talk • contribs) 22:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing Wikipedia:FAQ. You can ask your question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] To what severiness of defiances do Wiki have to notify users local school/authority?

When users vandalise with IP, do administrators have to notify school or authority? Trolling, alot of people don't know when they are trolling. The thing is sometimes we try not to be defiance, just don't know asking questions is trolling. To what behavior level point, do Wiki have to notify a users school/authoritys?--69.226.39.79 (talk) 02:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing the contents of Wikipedia:FAQ. You can ask questions about Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Help desk. Wikipedia does not have to react. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

And didn't that take about as much space as addressing the question? :P To the best of my (obsessive though not complete) knowledge, there's no agreement. I expect it's hard to make editors notify a school, it's not like schools have much input in what their students do. Death threats or other threats against the physical person are an exception, those are taken as serious and reported to the police. --Kiz o r 10:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking

There is a section on unblocking, but I can't find any-thing on blocking. How can editors suggest to admins that some-one be blocked, e.g., 71.240.124.170, who seems to do nothing but vandalism. Kdammers (talk) 09:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview#How do you prevent people from ruining articles? (Defacement or vandalism) has piped links to Wikipedia:Vandalism and Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Click "block log" at top of Special:Contributions/71.240.124.170 to see that the IP address has already been blocked for a year on June 7. However, IP addresses are usually only blocked for recent vandalism. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)