Community Central talk:Community portal


 * Please use this page to ask for help from the community for any issues or questions you have about your Wikicity.

(new questions at the bottom please)

Changing attribution for an edit
How can I attribute an IP's edits to a certain username?
 * Here is something I have done in the past. --JWSchmidt 16:48, 9 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Copying-pasting from Wikimedia
Hello. I have copyed-pasted an article from Wikipedia to wikicities and then changed it slightly (I may do further changes in the future). I have added at the bottom ==source== with a link to the original site and a link to the history. Is it ok ? An example, is at http://mexique.wikicities.com/index.php/Presse#Source --youssef 04:06, 29 déc 2004 (PST)


 * In a strict interpretation of the GFDL, it isn't perfect, but it's better than a lot of sites do. I think the date of the last revision at the time it was copied over would be useful. Angela 15:01, 10 Jan 2005 (PST)

The same question again. Can template like used on http://gifted.wikicities.com/wiki/Gifted do the job? --Master Psychologist 10:07, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Something like Starwars:Template:Wikipedia would be better, since that mentions the GFDL and links to both the article and the page history. Angela (talk) 00:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I've only today noticed Angela's reply just above. I checked out the Starwars one. The "link to page history" sentence is: "The list of authors can be seen in the page history." It works where I have just substituted it for the non-linking sentence in genealogy: EXCEPT that it seems to have problems with some pages: the one I have seen a problem in so far links to a WP redirect. Robin Patterson 00:38, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

I think this discussion is important enough to be on a separate page (cross-linked from several places) or at least on the Wikipedia page. Robin Patterson 00:38, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Community portal
Should this page have a list of the WikiCities (with links to them and descriptions? Or is it more of a "social" page like the entrance to a building?  Or???  I'm just trying to get a sense of the intent before I make any changes. --CocoaZen 16:28, 8 Dec 2004 (PST)


 * For now, I've redirected it to List of Wikicities. Perhaps when there is more to discuss, it could be something else. Angela 20:15, 9 Dec 2004 (PST)


 * I think this could be made a more useful page now that the main page is more aimed at new visitors than at the existing community. Angela 20:21, 15 Feb 2005 (GMT)

Banning IPs
How do you ban wiki vandals? I'm referring to this page, which got locked as the result of vandalism: http://peace.wikicities.com/wiki/Shamanism

--Zeese 15:10, 8 April 2005 (PST)


 * If you log in as an administrator and use the "Special pages" link in the toolbox to go to Special:Specialpages, you should have a link (near the bottom of the page) to this page: Special:Blockip . JWSchmidt 20:44, 8 Apr 2005 (EDT)


 * There is also a [block] link next to each user on Recent Changes. Angela 19:44, 9 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Setting up a wiki logo
I'm probably just doing something wrong, but I cannot get the logo to display correctly at Religion. The logo's image description page is at. I've got the feeling that it's just too big, but I can't seem to be able to resize it. Does anyone have any helpful hints on this? --Gareth Hughes 11:30, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * The image that had been uploaded to be the logo had a strange screen resolution; the horizontal and vertical resolutions were not equal. I changed it to 72 dpi. JWSchmidt 16:09, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I was getting quite frustrated with it: I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what! Thanks for sorting that out. --Gareth Hughes 17:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

A new strange problem when setting logo
When uploading the logo image "Wiki.png", no matter what image I upload (even if it is the available logo of some wiki) it will become t the default logo. How strange! Is there anybody know what's wrong with this? Thanks! - upssdr  talk 23:33, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * The file image:wiki.png is the guild logo. That's the way it is supposed to be.  If you want to upload an image, but not have it be the logo, change the file name before you upload.  Or did I misunderstand your question?

I'm afraid my question has been misunderstood. My problem is about changing the logo, but not uploading a simple image. The situation: I delete Wiki.png, and I upload a new image (another one for logo) named "Wiki.png". Then I come to the Imagelist to check up it. Finally I find the image I just upload become to the default logo. How can I deal with this? Extremely strange. - upssdr  talk
 * Thanks to all of you. I've known what's wrong. - upssdr  talk 10:11, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * The image on zh.anime seems to be working normally. Angela (talk) 20:20, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks like the issue was solved, but for archival purposes I just wanted to mention that there appeared to be caching issues when I uploaded PokerWiki's alternate Wiki.png, so that it took about a day for the new image to come up consistently. Sounds like possibly the same issue that "fixed itself". -- PhilipR 17:55, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How to add contents in special page ?
- upssdr  talk 09:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Special: namespace pages are not normally editable, but their content can be changed by anyone with administrator access. To do so, you need to edit the associated MediaWiki: namespace page. On the Wikicity you want to do this, copy and paste a section of text from the special page. Then go to Special:Allmessages on the Wikicity and use your browser's search function to look for that text. Once you find it, copy and paste the "current" content in the box beside the link, and then create that MediaWiki: page with your modified version of that content by clicking the red link. 19:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I mean to add, but not change. - upssdr  talk 04:50, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Do you mean Writing a new special page? Angela (talk)

Images from Commons
I noticed that Wikimedia Commons seems to be set up in the Interwiki table, which is very nice. However, I can't seem to get images to "just work" like they're supposed to do in Wikipedia.

The specific image I want is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG

I've tried:

with result:
 * commons:Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG

with result:
 * [[Image:commons:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG]]

with result:
 * [[Image:commons:Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG]]

with result: commons:Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG
 * commons:Image:WelcomeToVegasNite.JPG

Is there any way to do this, or am I stuck downloading and uploading? (The pic says it's in the public domain on Commons).

Thanks,

PhilipR 13:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think that exists a way to display the images from commons:. The interwiki is set to just link to the free repository of Wikimedia, but not displaying the images. Commons and Wikicities are on different servers and I'm not sure there is a way to merge the images tables in the databases. So you have to download the images from commons: and upload them to your wikicity. --DCLXVI 14:36, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks! That's what I was afraid of, but I wanted to get a more informed opinion. - PhilipR


 * I ran into this too. I think it may be on the list of requested enhancements???  --CocoaZen 22:26, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not possible yet. There's no guarantee it will be in future, but it's possible. Until then, you should re-upload the images to your wiki. Angela (talk)

"cont." behind a letter
Hi, I have a Problem, you may look yourself: |http://hexen.wikicities.com/wiki/Kategorie:Lexikon The Letter H is 2x there. Behind the last H ist "cont." Whats wrong, Why is'nt it under the other H? Sorry, for my bad english ;-) --Hexekati 17:55, 9 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * "Cont." is short for "continued". Because of the formatting, the H spans two columns, so it is continued in the 2nd column. Angela (talk) 18:43, 9 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I think write it new ;-). Maybe it looks better.--Hexekati 19:12, 9 Jul 2005 (UTC)

How can I add new contents
I'm tired to search a suggestion for adding new page on thqn.wikicities.com

anyone can suggest me how to do?

RobinTh 14:38, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe you need this page? --DCLXVI 14:50, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your guide, DCLXVI, You mean that I have to get back to it every time I have to create new page, right? Don't Wikicities have no any teplate from itself? RobinTh 14:55, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * No, I mean that this is a help page, where you can learn how to start a new page. Then, when you read it, you can experiment in your wiki. When you see how simple is this action, you'll find that this page is no longer for you :). --DCLXVI 15:02, 30 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * If the problem is only how to start a page when there's no "dead" link for it, try here (particularly my suggestion at the end of that section): http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Community_portal#Creating_articles


 * Robin Patterson 23:10, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

How can I use Wiki template?
I would like people feel easy to write their own article but there are no template like the one I'm using to write this question.

How can I use or make it available on Thailand Queer Network?


 * See our Genealogy one at http://genealogy.wikicities.com/wiki/Genealogy:People_Template and use or adapt some of our introductory wording followed by your own models. Robin Patterson 23:06, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

>Thanks a lot *Robin* I'm following your suggestion ^-^ RobinTh 12:50, 3 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia copying
If we follow the GFDL, is there a limit to copying from Wikipedia? Maurreen 23:05, 13 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * You can copy as much GFDL content to another GFDL site as you like. That's why there are whole mirrors of Wikipedia all over the place. You do need to acknowledge the source though. Angela (talk)

Community portal name?
Is there a Community portal name? I would sugesst "WikiCity Hall". Reddi 17:47, 18 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Pirateopedia?
What's with the PirateopediA Wiki graphic that's taken over the wikis? --Lowland Boxman 21:21, 19 Sep 2005 (EDT)
 * It's International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Almafeta 21:55, 19 Sep 2005 (EDT)

User:69.50.165.186
This user has created a page called "Chem" with just the word "Hello" on two wikicities that I have visited. Are other wikicities being vandalised in the same way? Eddie 19:10, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this person has struck a number of other wiki's including Investments, SF, Judaism, etc. The good part is that the individual has not bothered to link these pages to anything, so that the casual visitor will probably never see it. If I had only seen it once, I would just write it off as being the work of a newbie trying to figure stuff out. That could still be the case, but if so, why so many times? --Kirk 20:26, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

It seems that I wrote too soon. I've just come back from the Cascade Wiki where the idiot really has gone to town. I can't do much about the newly created pages, but I have repaired the Main Page which had been totally replaced by one saying hello. This guy needs a global block. --Kirk 20:39, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

I know of a half dozen other wikicities that got the "chem" treatment. What is "the Cascade Wiki"? --JWSchmidt 21:25, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

This IP did a significant amount of vandalism on the Calgary wiki. It seems that every page was updated to only have the content "Hello" and every red link was created with this same content. Even with Admin rights, it took me about 30 minutes to undo it. There really should be an easy way to undo everything that a specific user has done. If there is such a thing and I missed it, please let me know. -- JamesTeterenko 21:45, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Ho hum. (you'll need to view the cache of the first page) 21:57, 26 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Chem strikes again. 18:28, 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * 69.50.165.186 again... ouch. He should have been blocked on the server side already, but the block somehow got removed when the server rebooted. He's created 330 more "chem" pages. Insane. Jason's going to try to delete them automatically this time. Angela (talk) 21:34, 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Article search logo and navigation box
I'm sysop at N and I slightly improved the logo over the Go-Search box (where Wikicities with the big W is on this page). I uploaded it overwriting the old file (both new and old image are named Search_logo.png) but the logo isn't displayed in the left. How can I change that?

Over this logo is a box named "navigation". How can I alter this box? (It seems like it is possible because someone deleted the mailing list link and set up a sandbox link instead.)

-- Lord of Destiny 17:15, 25 Oct 2005 (UTC)

"The Free Encyclopedia"
Several wikicities say "The Free Encyclopedia" right under their titlebars. Misleading if not inaccurate; and far from ideal. Robin Patterson 03:28, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)

help with a personal wiki
I am serverely attached to the Mediawiki platform, and have all my files in this format. I have a personal wiki for college notes I'd like to allow classmates to view and edit. I can acces it through my localhost but haven't had any success at allowing access outside my own pc. My options seem thus:
 * find a free wiki site using mediawiki for personal wikis
 * configure my wiki to allow remote access from my hard drive
 * conform to the crappy format of some other wiki style.

any help would be great, especially if I could have a way of rapid communication, such as e-mail or instant messages. thanks. -anon


 * Try dynu.com. You can create a domain, and it links to your home server through their servers.  Chadlupkes 19:59, 22 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Username?
I created an account yesterday, & signed a post succsessfully; today, the signature isn't coming up. --trekphiler

Cookies
I tried logging in, and your system refused me, saying I had cookies disabled. I checked; they're blocked 3d party. I use software to wash them periodically, so I don't cache every site I visit. Is this the problem? --trekphiler, 23/11/05

Customizing one Wiki's looks
How does one customize the CSS of a Wiki? I looked it up in the Help, but I have only found a page about user-specific customization, while I'd like a wiki-wide.--Silencer 16:35, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * You can add custom site-wide CSS for the monobook skin at MediaWiki:Monobook.css on your wiki -- if you're a sysop. Styling not specific to the monobook skin, such as new content classes, can go at MediaWiki:Common.css, so they'll appear regardless of skin. 16:53, 27 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Namespaces
We're starting a new project over at the L5R Wiki and was wondering if we could get a new namespace set up under the heading "Meta:" Is this possible, and if so, how can we do it?

Thanks! -- 19:47, 4 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Help with NoInclude
I have not yet started my WikiCity, but I have been working on some sample pages and such at the scratchpad site. I made a template--sort of an information box to apear on the right--that gets filled in by passed-in values, but there is content I want to include in the template file that I do not want to show up in pages. I tried using tags, but they show up in the text. Here is the template and here is the sample page using it. Can anyone help me get this working? Thanks a lot. -- Chris 23:28, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * All Wikicities are currently running MediaWiki 1.4, which does not support noinclude. Sorry :( 01:43, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * So the only solution is to include only content in the template that should be seen? How do you add the template to a category, then, without adding all of the pages that use that template to the same category? -- Chris 08:19, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * You could categorise the template's talk page or use a normal namespace page to list templates, but preventing transclusion of template categories is currently impossible, I'm afraid. 22:15, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Dittoboy
Can someone tell me what the status on Dittoboy is? He's had to be reverted twice on WikiAnswers now. Eight times yesterday, and another five times today. --Kirk 21:33, 14 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * See here. User142 13:12, 15 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia XHTML compliance issues
Uncyclopedia is currently not XHTML-compliant because of incorrect HTML code for images in the left navigation. Here's the list of errors:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Funcyclopedia.org

These are common and trivial mistakes, and I'm sure they can be fixed. - Sikon [ Talk ] 11:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This is fixed. -- Tim Starling 11:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia template design
I am planning to set up a spoof of Wikipedia called 'Wykepedia' - is it allowed to have the Wikipedia template and CheckUser facilities etc?? Note: the wikipedia logo needs to be edited to 'Wykepedia'. --TrishaW 16:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Parodies don't need permission. Shii 03:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Number of Articles
How do I see how many articles are there in a particular Wikicity?


 * The Special:Statistics page (on whatever Wikicity) should give you the information you require. Example, for the central Wikicitiy it says There are 4,829 total pages in the database. This includes "talk" pages, pages about Wikicities, minimal "stub" pages, redirects, and others that probably don't qualify as content pages. Excluding those, there are 604 pages that are probably legitimate content pages.. The "604" number is calculated (IIRC) by checking if a mainspace article has a comma or a link (depends on the PHP settings). You can also use the variable in a page for an inline updated number on each load, eg: . Splarka 00:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you!

Video on the wiki?
Someone on my wiki wants to upload RealVideo to wikicities. What's the policy on that? Tech concerns? bandwidth concerns? or just copyright?

Thanks, Steve and Jock of petdiabetes wiki

Poetry Wikcities needs new admin
The poetry admin really seems to have failed, but I've started creating a structure for it. I personally have no interest in the project's success or failure, but I've told someone who proposed Wikimedia have a poetry project about the "city". Until they or someone else makes it active, and becomes an admin, one of the Builders needs to change the Createarticle function to say "Add a poem". Thx! -- user:zanimum


 * Changed. Mindspillage 16:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thx again! --  user:zanimum

Surreal Main-page vandal
Someone has now made the same edit, 6 times, to our main page. It consists of making the fonts smaller, and removing the last half of the page text, which messes up the tables. It looks like an editing error, but they keep repeating it. After the first 4 times, they were warned, the 5th time they were blocked, and now they have come in from a different IP address and done it again.

No I'm not trying to ask how to protect the main page -- they could just vandalize some other page instead. I'm wondering if anyone else on the other wikicities has seen someone similar, and if so maybe they could be banned cities-wide. The IP's they've used so far:
 * 209.123.8.145
 * 67.15.179.13

Is this a known person? Or alien? (Who would sort-of vandalize a page to make it look kinda crappy, add no message, refuse to communicate, and keep coming back? Is this an alien trying to communicate slightly out-of-band?) --Steve


 * I wonder whether they are trying to make the main page look right for their setup. If they are on a particularly low resolution/screen size, it would make sense to want the writing smaller and the page shorter.  That doesn't explain the lack of communication, but it may be that they are particularly confused by the format (I've seen such confusion before).  But that said, you have done the right thing to block and protect.  Hopefully you can remove the protection in a week or so.  I've not heard of this on other cities, but maybe people will see this and report any similar problems.  Until then, I think it's just a case of monitoring the situation. -- sannse (talk) 11:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC) (woops! posted with my test account there, fixed sig)


 * Yeah, that's a cool explanation I hadn't considered: Some semi-tech person, from say, China, comes across our page and finds it useful, but can't read it all on his mobile phone browser.  He sees the "edit" button and decides to fix it so he can read it better.  He throws away half the page, changes the font sizes on the other half, and now he's happy.  And he doesn't see the "You have new messages" flag at the top of the screen because he confuses it with his phone's SMS notification.  There, mystery solved.    The fact that he's made the edit exactly the same 6 times now may be because he has his favorite version cached on his phone's browser, and edits the page again to his own version every time he returns.  Slightly less unlikely than aliens, so you win, Sannse.

How to make new acounts appear in recent changes?
Is it possible to set the special recent changes page to display each new created account? Thanks. --Dada 11:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * We don't have User Creation Logs at the moment on Wikicities, so the changes can't be shown in Recent Changes. It's something that I think would be very useful for us all, and I will talk to Jason to find out if it can be added or not.  I'm not sure how easy it is to add for a set of interlinked wikis like Wikicities, but hopefully it's possible -- sannse (talk) 11:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

problem with user
I was looking at the dofus wikicity and I edited something, it was completely deleted, no explanation. I ask why, this guy just disses me completely and tell me maby I would'nt like wiki anyway...? what's the deal? I use wiki constantly. I wanna help. Since when does wiki belong to a single user? (his name is Dashiva). I wanted to discuss it on the wikicity page but there's nobody to talk to. The guy's everywhere, nobody does anything without his ok. So what's the deal? must I like this guy so I can use wiki or is anybody gonna explain to him that this is not his personal website? (unsigned by anon, 13:52, 2 March 2006)


 * It seems they have a guideline there that ethereal weapons shouldn't have their own pages. I can understand that you are unhappy with your work disappearing, but communities do have to make guidelines for what is and isn't allowed on their wikis.  It's not a matter of ownership, but about community decisions on how the City should look and act.  I hope you'll try again, and maybe talk more to some of the other community members to find out what the local guidelines are.  As Dashiva said, you're welcome to keep editing, I hope you will -- sannse (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Nickelodeon Wiki
(Duplicate, reply on Community portal page -- sannse (talk) 10:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC))

Education
There are four off-topic pages in need of deleting. They are:


 * April Rainbolt's wiki Practice
 * Elliott's webpage
 * Coggin's webpage
 * Knight's webpage

-- Kirk  00:34, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Kirk. The sysop over at Education, Christopher Mahan, can do this for you.  He is still active (he was last in a few days ago).  It is worth suggesting that he make more sysops for the City to make sure that someone is around when needed. -- sannse (talk) 09:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Final Fantasy Wiki
The Final Fantasy Wiki needs help. Their one and only admin. hasn't posted since March 2005 and they need one. Jedi6 09:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Jedi6, Thanks for letting us know. We'll sort this out as soon as possible.  In the mean time, if there is anything that needs doing urgently, please let me or Mindspillage know and we can help. -- sannse (talk) 12:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Statistics
Hi all! Our recently created wiki Anegkyklopaideia appears to have 16.742 registered users which is far from being realistic. Is this normal (due to the fact that the wiki is very new and statistics are not updated or something) or does it represent the total number of wikicities users? In that case it still seems a bit weird cause wikicities have almost 13000 users. Also, even though some IP's were recently banned, the do not appear in our Special:Ipblocklist. Thanks. --Dada 14:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The 16 thousand is for users across all the cities. There is another one the counts only active users that have edited your specific wiki while logged in.-- Kirk  19:50, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Since your ID works cross-wikicity, any user, registered on any Wikicity shows up in the All Users list. I think the page you are looking for is Special:Activeusers.  On this Central Wikicity even this list is huge, but it's generally rather short for a new Wikicity.  Check out the Special:Specialpages.  They can be quite useful.  Best wishes with the new Wikicity!  --RJ 20:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, thank you but then how come different wikis appear to have a different number of users? --Dada 21:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Humm, they do seem to vary widely, I'll see if Jason can explain how it works.


 * I looked at the Ipblocklist and the block log, but I can't read to see if the blocks in the log have expired. There don't seem to be any IP blocks in the log though, were the definitely blocked on that wiki? -- sannse (talk) 12:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you Sannse. I should have also checked the Special:Log and look for IP blocks. However the Special:Ipblocklist is mysteriously empty and some blocks are still active. --Dada 14:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
 * On second thought everything is OK, since no IP was blocked, just users with an account... --Dada 15:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Humm.. well strangely enough, the IP Block list shows all active blocks (or should). If you look at the Central list you'll see user names there as well.  It might be worth trying to set the blocks again, to see if they appear -- sannse (talk) 20:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)