Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2017/April

Putting a Photo in a Post
Hello, I am doing a Wikibook project at my university. I was wondering what is the easiest possible way of adding photos into post? I have tried following the guide in 'help' section but it did not work. Any suggestions how to do it?

Frkelly (discuss • contribs) 00:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Please upload your photos on Commons first. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 00:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Let me try to be a bit more helpful
 * The general answer is the photo must be locatable by wikimedia software. Many examples of HOW TO embed pictures can be seen on any lengthy history article in the Wikipedias. Open one or two for edit and see what's happening 'under the hood'.

The tokenized examples following should give you the basics. Good luck! Hope to heck your Wikibook project is on a universities computer system and not the wikimedia foundations servers! // Fra nkB 00:46, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) The image must be present and locatable by the system software, so be loaded into a wikimedia file namespace, here and on the commons, those have the NAMESPACE prefix 'FILE:', the semicolon setting off the namespace.
 * 2) The image should be a free image, such as those found on the Wikimedia Commons. See the posts (2-3) above for how to search for such. If, on the other hand, you own the image (took it), the wizard linked above will guide you into adding it to the commons. Using the template '{cc-by-sa-3.0}' for the permissions simplifies things, and you ought locate several categories for the picture. place, social circumstances, events, era, can all be used to classify such photos, and there are likely categories set up that cover the image subject matter. As many of these as you can match up should be entered when prompted. (This can be AND SHOULD BE prepared in advance using a cut and paste of a list of categories from a text file, as can a description text paragraph for the image(s) being uploaded.) A location Coordinate is useful, and you'll need to have the origination date. Many camera's will have these set in the meta-data, so use  on the file to see properties to see these. (The date entered at the prompt ought match the meta-data, not the computer file date.)
 * 3) Matching the exact file name is important. Its a computer, so GIGO rulez apply: Garbage-IN, gets Garbage-OUT!
 * 4) The general embedded image format is:
 * 5) 'alt=' is for blind readers, so a simple description of the photo. -- Totally optional and hardly seen. One useful trick is to define the alt=with an wikilink to the file, no parameters. This allows a user to 'one-click' on the thumbs image and get a full screen blown-up view. The syntax for that trick is:
 * 6) position - defaults right, so right margin position can be skipped, otherwise either the keyword 'center' or 'left' or 'right'
 * 7) size defaults to assuming pixels, so '450px' would set width scaling for 450px in the relative page. Like text in a browser, this is also scaled by the viewers zoom-settings on a page. Alternative syntax allows width and height: , but I may not be remembering it exactly, and gets a bit tricky, iirc. Play with it in a sandbox.
 * 8) Assuming you want a picture created by yourself, it needs uploaded:
 * 9) open a folder to your pictures sources and display in details mode so you can see the filenames. (Keep this open.  opens an explorer window)
 * 10) In your browser, edit the target page with with your image specification as noted above. Give it an appropriate caption. (Your text explanation about the photo when you upload it, ought be more complete as the photo by itself does not have the text context your page is giving the image.) When you preview, the image will appear as a redlink box if the link is attempting to work. Save at any time.
 * 11) In another browser window or tab, open the Commons upload wizard. Follow the directions to where it asks where the image is...
 * 12)  and  to get to your image containing folder. Double-click the filename to 'edit' as if renaming it. Type, then , then  to copy the exact filename+EXTENSION into the cut buffer. (Escape will close the false edit)
 * 13) Click on your address window to see the actual pathspec for your file. This will likely be on drive C:, and (a bit operating system 'generation' dependent) be of the form C:\users\yourID\where-is-data\pictures-directory-path where there are a number of folders separated by '\' path-delimiters.
 * 14) return to the upload wizard with ALT-TAB, use the button to navigate to that folder.
 * 15) Paste in the cut buffer in the filename window. Click the upload button, and follow the wizard's prompts. You will need:
 * 16) A description
 * 17) date
 * 18) categories classifying the photo subject
 * 19) licensing you wish to apply, this can range from release into the Public Domain to GNU licences or the Creative Commons Share licenses. In these later two cases, others may use your photo, but may need to contact you under some uses. The CC licenses (e.g. cc-by-sa-3.0) generally mean they can use but must attribute you as source. The GNU, so-called 'copy-left' license is similar. If you don't care, give it a public domain tag: PD-self &rarr; (Commons page)
 * 20) Once your picture is accepted by the wizard, each image upoaded will present two data windows below the titles:
 * 21) To link to it in HTML, copy this URL:
 * 22) To use the file in a wiki, copy this text into a page:
 * 23) Those can be clicked on to select, with a  +  and transferred to a text page, editor, wiki or whatever. If you click and copy the wikimarkup version, that can be pasted directly in a wikimedia wiki project, and will manifest. You'll note the 'Caption' is the text you gave describing the image. (Again I'll emphasize that should be more complete and through on the image file page, as it does not have the article supporting it. Careful classification to categories is also appreciated, not least by others who may find your images useful.)
 * 24) Assuming you began as described above by a redlink image, opening the page for edit, then previewing it should force the cache to update, and if the servers are doing their usual speedy job, the photo will be available almost immediately &mdash; or at least as fast as you might be able to check.  I've never had one fail to appear with a re-edit step, save for a couple where I misspelled some part in one place or the other. (Hence my compensatory practice now used to cut and paste names as suggested. Alas, even that has suffered the occasional humbling moment--more than one file one my harddrives and after uploading have a typo in their names!  Alas, since File namespace pages can't be renamed, the whole world thinks I don't know how to spell! Harumph!)

Why can I not use Twinkle?
I have all Twinkle options enabled in Preferences, but for whatever reason cannot find a tab anywhere that says twinkle. What am I doing wrong? PokestarFan (discuss • contribs) 20:41, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * As indicated into Special:Preferences, this javascript is out of order for several month now. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 11:33, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Page footers
Hello,

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon currently ends with these lines.

&#123;&#123;subjects|operating systems&#125;&#125; &#123;&#123;alphabetical|O&#125;&#125; &#123;&#123;status|0%&#125;&#125; &#91;&#91;Category:Oberon]]

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Categories states, "A common practice is to place &#123;&#123;BookCat&#125;&#125; ... directly at the bottom of every page in a book."

Therefore &#123;&#123;Oberon&#125;&#125; should be added to the front page so that it ends with these lines. Correct?

&#123;&#123;subjects|operating systems&#125;&#125; &#123;&#123;alphabetical|O&#125;&#125; &#123;&#123;status|0%&#125;&#125; &#91;&#91;Category:Oberon]] &#123;&#123;Oberon&#125;&#125;

Every other page in the book should end with these two lines?

&#91;&#91;Category:Oberon]] &#123;&#123;Oberon&#125;&#125;

For a novice the general explanations of categories and templates is not adequate. There should be a recommended initial practice or example.

Thanks,   ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 21:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)


 * We'll have to see what we can do to improve the explanations. The bottom of the main page should call subjects, alphabetical, and status.  The bottom of each other page of the book should call BookCat.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:48, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Pi,  ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 13:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Name of the wiki language.
Hello again,

Is there a name for the language of the pages we edit to create the pages normally seen? It is similar to HTML. &#60;pre&#62; invokes unprocessed format as in HTML. But the syntax for tables is different from HTML. If no name exists, I'd think wikish or wikiish. Thanks, PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 05:32, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Within Wikibooks (as well as in other Wikimedia projects) it is often called "Wikitext" (cf. the Editing Wikitext book). Outside of Wikimedia projects it is usually called "MediaWiki markup", in reference to the MediaWiki software which powers these wikis. (Calling it just "Wikitext" in an outside context would be confusing, given all the other wiki systems with their own languages that exist.) --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 06:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Please see also the page . JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 07:55, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Duplode and Jack for the thorough explanations, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

How would I transclude a page in main namespace onto a different page?
Self-explanatory. 19:55, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * . JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 20:28, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

The last week of the 1st cycle of Wikimedia strategy conversation
Hi, I'm Szymon, a MetaWiki Strategy Coordinator. 3 weeks ago, we invited you to join a broad discussion about Wikimedia's future role in the world. The discussion is divided into 3 cycles, and the first one ends on April, 15. So far, Wikimedians have been discussing mainly about technological improvements, multilingual support, friendly environment, cooperation with other organizations and networks.
 * If you'd like to get detailed information about the discussed topics, have a look at → that page.
 * If you'd like to join the discussions, please comment → on the talk page of that page or on Meta-Wiki.
 * If you have any questions that weren't answered there, feel free to ask me.

I'm pinging a few recently active admins. I hope you'll help me with passing along the news, maybe even join the discussion. .

Looking forward to your input. Thank you in advance! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Read-only mode for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April and 3 May
Read this message in another language •

The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data center in Dallas. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to conduct a planned test. This test will show whether they can reliably switch from one data center to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data center on Wednesday, 19 April 2017. On Wednesday, 3 May 2017, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for approximately 20 to 30 minutes on Wednesday, 19 April and Wednesday, 3 May. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Thursday 20 April and Thursday 4 May).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it.  If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal.  Then you should be able to save your edit.  But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * There will be code freezes for the weeks of 17 April 2017 and 1 May 2017. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community. / User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 17:33, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Maryland funding free/open textbooks
See: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/04/16/233236/maryland-awards-21-grants-to-prepare-open-source-textbooks —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:33, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Creation of Template:Wikilink Misuse
I have seen several cases of people misusing wikilinks, so I created a warning template to remind them. 21:50, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, it looks like a softer variant of Spam. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 07:52, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a wikilink varient. A first-step warning, then comes Spam. 01:33, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

number bases

 * I am not sure if this is the correct place or project to post this request, but I was wondering if anyone could generate a table listing numbers (say 1000) in different bases (e.g. base 10, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64) on one of the Wikimedia projects? I couldn't find anything like that (just a table of numbers in different bases) on any of the Wikimedia projects.  Not sure either if that is something that would be best uploaded to Wikipedia, Wikiversity, or Wikibooks.  Even on Google, tables showing decimal, binary, octal, and hexadecimal are easy enough to find, but base 32 and 64 are not.  As a Wikibook, people can then add additional arbitrary number bases as well (e.g. each page can be one chart of decimal to base n, to avoid making too large of a table).  This is something that is unfortunately outside of my technical skills to create myself, and can probably be done very quickly by someone with some programming skills to generate the number table(s) automatically.  This hyperlink here is at least one good example of what I am looking for, but with additional number bases (e.g. base 32 and 64).  Nicole Sharp (discuss • contribs) 02:50, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It doesn't strike me as a crowdsourcing thing; nor, in itself, a textbook thing. Adding additional bases doesn't involve any meaningful addition of content.  I could imagine it being some sort of appendix to... something, though I can't quite imagine what it would be an appendix to.  I can't really picture what it would be useful for.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:32, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This is purely for reference of course, similar to the Unicode Wikibooks, which are simply tables of Unicode characters. A book listing say the numbers zero through 1000 in binary might seem frivolous or unnecessary at first, but it can be a valuable resource for lay users who may need a visual table of such numbers, for any of a variety of reasons.  I would suggest perhaps a 63-page book, each with the numbers zero through 1000, showing the numbers in decimal and their base-n equivalents (up to base 64), and probably a special page showing the numbers as a table with just the power-of-two bases, i.e. decimal, binary, base four, base 8, base 16, base 32, and base 64.  If this is outside the scope of Wikibooks, then it can always be created on Wikiversity instead as an educational resource.  My problem is that I do not know how to generate the thousands of numbers other than typing them in one by one on a keyboard.  I am sure this can be done much more easily with a computer program.  Nicole Sharp (discuss • contribs) 20:43, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I did think of the Unicode tables, but they're an extreme case, pushing the envelope, and even so they're much more substantive than the table you're describing. Unicode is a humanly created standard, whereas you're talking about something even more purely mechanical than a multiplication table.  And a multiplication table would already be rather below the threshold of nontrivial content.  I don't think even a traditional table of logarithms would qualify (though in a pre-computer age they would have). Perhaps such tables could be a useful illustration &mdash; maybe a single figure in some sort of book, but then one would need to whole book for it to be a single figure in.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I think a table like this would be very useful for some mathematics or computer science courses as an appendix and a few illustrative examples in the text. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:45, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I am thinking of moving this post to Wikiversity to be created as an general educational resource instead of a Wikibook. I believe the numbers can be generated on Wolfram Mathematica, but I am not sure yet about Maxima (the free open-source version of Mathematica).  JavaScript can also generate the number lists but not above base 32 or so.  There is also the question of how to portray numbers above base 62, when the Roman alphabet runs out. There are a number of different representations in use for base 64.  Nicole Sharp (discuss • contribs) 14:22, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I was finally able to create a table up to base 32 at Wikiversity: " ." Feel free to add any additional bases if possible there.  Nicole Sharp (discuss • contribs) 06:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)