User:Download/Adopt/TravisAF

The following content is preserved as an archive of the question page of a user adopted by download. Please do not modify it.

Hey there; feel free to ask any questions you might have below.

Chinatown Wars

(How do I make a line break here?)

So I think the 'Developments' section under Chinatown Wars should be edited/removed. It's written very poorly, there's no sources and it just reads very bad. First of all, I'm not 100% sure if I'm even right about all that. And I have no idea how to properly word my justification Wikipedia-style for such an edit. What do you think? Also, how exactly would I make a link directly to the Developments section?

Thanks.

Firstly, you can make a new section by adding this: == Section Title Here ==. To link directly to the Developments section, simply use the internal link Chinatown Wars#Developments. If you feel the section is written poorly and there's no sources, feel free to remove it. Be sure to include an informative edit summary, so your removal is not taken as vandalism. . -download | sign! 01:43, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I see all these other edits where they use "WP:OP" or "WP:KJ" or etc., etc., etc. Those wouldn't apply? Also, what's a good way to to go about lookin' for vandalized edits to revert? I see you and others with 8k+ edits and all, but for me I feel like I've stumbled upon a rare and hidden treasure whenever I find an article that's been vandalized. How do you find them so quickly? I've heard about downloading programs to help, but I won't be able to install any programs on my work PC.TravisAF (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Somebody deleted that Chinatown Wars section already... Blah. TravisAF (talk) 01:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Those are simply shorthand notations for links such as WP:Manual of Style. As for vandalism reverting, I use Huggle; it's the best anti-vandal tool out there. You don't need to install anything, as it's an .exe program. -download | sign! 02:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It won't let me download Huggle, the page is blocked. Any other way(s) I could get Huggle or just find vandalisms more easily? TravisAF (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

An in-browser script would be Lupin's Anti-vandal tool. Follow the directions and you should be fine. Of course, it's not as fast as Huggle and less convenient. -download | sign! 02:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

::::: Here's the link: Current version (0.9.0). Hope it works! MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 05:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

It won't work because you don't have rollback. MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 05:20, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend requesting rollback priviliges. -download | sign! 03:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Who is this MathCool guy? TravisAF (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

MathCool10 is one of my friends. He might help out answering your questions when I'm not online. -download | sign! 18:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Deep

Which of your 9,000+ edits to a Wikipedia article are you most proud of? TravisAF (talk) 11:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not very sure, as most a vandalism reverts. I'd like to say that I made many significant contributions to articles such as Igor Panarin and Odle Middle School. -download | sign! 22:50, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism Reverts

I've seen that you've added Lupin's Anti-vandal tool to your monobook.js and enabled Huggle! Keep it up! -download | sign! 00:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't use Huggle, though. TravisAF (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Understood; I think you'll be fine with Lupin's tool. However, you can't get as many vandalism reverts and also can't automatically report vandals to WP:AIV. -download | sign! 02:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Lupin's is just about pointless for me. I'll spend 10+ mins. trying to find a vandalized article and go to try and fix it. And then, before I can even click "edit this page" someone else will have already reverted the article 30 seconds ago. TravisAF (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well if you had rollback priviliges, you could easily revert the vandalism by clicking [rollback]... -download | sign! 02:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding this: . After reverting the vandalism, I would recommend warning the user with a template such as {{uw-vand1}}. -download | sign! 00:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Should I really, as a noob and all, go around warning people like I'm someone in authority? TravisAF (talk) 05:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you should. Remember to be bold! User warnings can be used by anyone on any user as long as they are used properly. Remember to substitute it though. -download | sign! 21:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Quick question

In my watchlist page, a typical entry looks like this....

(diff) (hist) . . User:Download/Adopt/TravisAF‎; 13:04 . . (-14) . . Download (talk | contribs) (→Vandalism Reverts)

What does the (-14) mean? It always seems to be a different number/color.

Edit: Now it says (+255)

Hi! The number represents the number of bytes you have added to or removed from the page. Generally, one byte equals one character. If someone has added or removed a large amount of data (say, 1000 bytes or more), then the number will be in bold. If you're patrolling Recent Changes and come across an edit that removes a huge amount of data from an article, you may be dealing with vandalism. But remember to check before reverting! Cheers! ~SunDragon34 (talk) 10:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

SunDragon is completely right. BTW, I've added the links/colors that you usually see. Cheers! MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 20:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

'nother Question

So I searched for a certain article. The resutls came to a disambiguation page. I found the link I was looking for, but it directed me to an article with the same title but not right page at all. How would I go about fixing this?

If you find the correct article that the disambiguation page should link to, you could always edit the disabiguation page so that the link is correctly linked. Could you give specifics? -download | sign! 18:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. I figured it out. TravisAF (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding stuff

So I went to an elementary school named after Clara Barton. I saw on the actual person's page that that school was not listed under 'locations named after Clara Barton.' I added my school in, but I was wondering if I did it properly. Should I have some kind of source? Because I only added it to her article based on my own experience/research. Sorry if this is a confusing question. TravisAF (talk) 03:13, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

You don't need a source for everything you add. Just follow the pattern and you should do fine. -download | sign! 03:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Somethin

So I tried to add a photo of mine to an article. I got so lost and confused I'm still cleaning up the remains of my exploded skull. Isn't there some kind of FAQ or Help Guide to Wikipedia? It seems like Wikipedia is such a massive and complicated website, there MUST be some thorough kind of help-guide to help the noobers. Somethin' simple like a step-by-step full walkthrough of how to do something as simple as adding a personal photo to an article. Anything?

Also, how can I tell if I have rollback? An admin told me he'd get around it, but I have no idea how I can be sure if he did it or not. TravisAF (talk) 03:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If you need help on images, you could check out WP:Images. In the future, if you need help, feel free to ask me about any subject. You can also check out the helpdesk, or place {{helpme}} on your user talk page.

To see if you have rollback, you can check the user list. From there, I can see that you do have rollback. You could also find out by going into the revision history of an article; you will see a link that says "rollback". Hope that helps! -download | sign! 05:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Warning templates

Hey there! You've been doing very well recently. Regarding this vandalism reversion: ... you're doing very well with your rollback priviliges. However, remember to give the user a warning, such as {{uw-vand1}} or {{uw-test1}}. (Remember to substitute these templates!) This really helps put an end to vandalism. -download | sign! 04:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How exactly do I add apply that warning to someone? TravisAF (talk) 09:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Simply go to the user's talk page, click "new section", and add a section title called "Warning". Then add {{subst:uw-vand1}} or another warning template to the content. -download | sign! 17:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Did I do that right?

So I had a good run of rollbacked stuff using Lupin's. I tried warning someone, I just want to make sure I did the whole thing correctly. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:59.92.37.214 TravisAF (talk) 02:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely; it's completely correct. However, you could do it much more easily; there are buttons in Lupin's tool, [uw-test] and [uw-vand]. These automatically add the warnings to the talk page of the vandalizing user. -download | sign! 02:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Does that warning have any effect though? I figure they don't have an account, just an IP address, so it's unlikely they'd ever even see that warning, right? 03:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TravisAF (talk • contribs)

Actually, if a user is editing from an IP, the "new messages" bar also shows. As a standard, if you revert any vandalism, you should warn the user to inform them that their edits have been reverted, and it also triggers a reporting to WP:AIV after the 4 warnings have been given. -download | sign! 03:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you think?

So at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Last_Remnant&action=history this dude has been screwing with the page everytime I try to fix. What would you do? TravisAF (talk) 03:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as he's vandalized the article 4 times according to his contributions, I'd report him to WP:AIV after he receives two more warnings. In addition, I would recommend you use {{uw-vand2}} after a {{uw-vand1}} has been given to the user. Keep it up! -download | sign! 03:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Damn...

Go check out the history of my user page. All that happened about 5 minutes into my using Huggle. Does it usually get that crazy? TravisAF (talk) 04:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Huggle

So I just got done spending some time with Huggle. Do you think you could let me know how I'm doing? If they're responsible edits or if I'm trying to do too much? I'd appreciate it. TravisAF (talk) 05:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Responding to someone

If someone leaves me a message on my talk page, how exactly do I respond? If I simply add in my response to the page, will they know? Or should I go post my response on their talk page? TravisAF (talk) 05:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Most experienced editors reply on the talk page in which the first comment was posted. Simply reply as I did, adding one or more colons in front of the comment. If you reply to another user's comments on your talk page, you should add the template {{talkback}} to their talk page. For example, add {{subst:talkback|TravisAF|Section title here}} on the user's talk page in a new section. -download | sign! 00:59, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

No, don't subst: the template, but do it as so: {{talkback|TravisAF|Section title here}}. MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 20:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops! I got misinformed by the template talk page. >:( -download | sign! 20:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Huggle

Nice to see you using Huggle! If you aren't using the keyboard shortcuts yet, they are a great help to me. "Q" is to revert and warn, "R" is to only revert, and the space bar is to skip the page. -download | sign! 18:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Just an update: You seem to be making very few errors with Huggle, which is great. Keep it up! -download | sign! 22:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

What are some common mistakes or errors that new Huggler users often make? What should I look out for and try to avoid? Any advice is appreciated. TravisAF (talk) 03:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, new Hugglers sometimes make a lot of false positives. I would recommend at first reverting only what is clear vandalism, but you can go into reverting minor statistics changing with a warning of "factual errors". This usually brings more false positives, but is worth it in the end. That's about it. Huggle is a very cool program to use. -download | sign! 03:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops!

Sorry about it! When you use the {{talkback}} template, don't substitute it as you did on my talk page. I've read the documentation and it should be transcluded, so simply add it to the talkpage without a subst:. -download | sign! 03:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. How do I 'transclude' it and what exactly is the subst:? You're talking in that expert Wikipedish that is still a lil' foreign to me. TravisAF (talk) 03:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is: Instead of adding {{subst:talkback}} to a page, add {{talkback}}. I made a mistake when I first told you; sorry. -download | sign! 03:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just curious about the words ou're using. You mention terms like subst and transclude but I don't really understand what they mean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TravisAF (talk • contribs) 04:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Transcluding and substituting are basically the two ways of including a template message on another page. Transcluding, {{cleanup}}, would leave the code as {{cleanup}} after saving the page. However, if you substituted the template, the {{subst:cleanup}} you added to the page would be replaced by whatever the template had in it.

For example, this is subsitituted:

...and this is transcluded:

Different templates should be transcluded and substituted. For example, the {{cleanup}} template should be transcluded when used in articles, and the {{uw-vand1}} template should be substituted.

You can see the difference by clicking edit. -download | sign! 22:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

STEAL'd

I stole a bunch of those userboxes from your user page. I dunno if that's unethical, but just in case, I thought I'd let you know. TravisAF (talk) 04:22, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Everything you edit on Wikipedia is released under the GFDL, so it isn't unethical unless you copy a user's entire design. I didn't even make those userboxes anyways.  :) -download | sign! 22:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Personal Information

I just saw the userbox stating "This user is an atheist" on your userpage. Although I am one as well, I would recommend that you put such things minimally on your userpage. It could cause other Wikipedians to be biased against you; for example, some users will oppose an RfA just because they are against atheists. Best, -download | sign! 03:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

You've provided me with oodles of great advice and I appreciate that, but I couldn't care less about what others might think. I'd make the userbox fill my entire page if I could. TravisAF (talk) 04:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Just curious, have administrators actually used that as a reason for opposing an RfA? TravisAF (talk) 04:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Usually not admins, but some users do that. -download | sign! 02:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Pix

Is it possible to completely delete/remove pictures that I uploaded to Wikipedia intending to post in an article, but then changed my mind? There's a few pics just chilling somewhere in the nether regions of Wikipedia. TravisAF (talk) 03:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course. If you're the only substantial contribution to the page/image, feel free to tag it with {{db-g7}}. (For more information, see WP:CSD.) However, it's obviously not going to be deleted if it's a highly used image like File:Choco chip cookie.png. -download | sign! 04:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has such oddball methods for some actions. Why not just a 'delete' button on the pic's page? TravisAF (talk) 04:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

That's the point of administrators. They need to decide if your request was made in good faith before deleting it; Wikipedia would go crazy even if users could only delete the things they wrote. -download | sign! 02:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser

Why does it seem like it's such a big deal to use AWB? I see it's recommended to have at least 500+ edits. What is so special about it? I figure Huggle is a pretty serious program to use, but I was able to get it as an utter neophyte. TravisAF (talk) 04:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not that much of a big deal. Huggle and AWB are both automated and could cause damage, but it mainly depends on the developer and consensus. -download | sign! 02:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Estimation

I was wondering, how much time would you guess you spend per day on Wikipedia reverting vandalism? I can't quite wrap my head around 15,000+ edits. TravisAF (talk) 06:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not that much; maybe half an hour or so. Now I rarely revert vandalism; I fix typos using AutoWikiBrowser instead. -download | sign! 01:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Accomplishment?

Got my first barn star. I'm pumped. TravisAF (talk) 01:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course! You should really be proud of barnstars. I would have awarded you one had I not been your adopter.  :) Anyways, I would recommend creating an awards page: User:TravisAF/Awards to store all your barnstars. Congrats! -download | sign! 02:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

wtf

So I'm trying to allow editcontributions for my s/n. I'm talking about on my contributions page, when you click "Edit Count" it'll bring up a whole 'nother page. I try seeing the graphs section, but it says I gotta create an editcounter sub page and add "yes" to some criteria. I did exactly (I think) everything it asked, but it still ain't working. Any ideas? TravisAF (talk) 10:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I would use a different edit counter. I personally use WikiChecker, which can be found here: -download | sign! 17:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Blocked TravisAF (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

That problem happened to me also. If you try reloading the page, it should work. Otherwise, I have no idea; it's probably a server issue. -download | sign! 03:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Graduation?

Alright, it's been over 1 month in our adoption. I've looked over your contribs, and I think you're sufficiently learned about Wikipedia. Therefore, if you don't have any more questions, you're free to graduate! Of course, if you still have questions in the future, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Best, -download | sign! 16:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks again for everything. TravisAF (talk) 05:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

You were a great adoptee! Good luck, and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask! -download | sign! 18:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)