How Wikipedia Works/updates
From phoebewiki
Contents |
Errata
Part II
Chapter 9
Column breaks
p. 280: There's a typo at the end of the page. The three types of column templates are {{col-begin}}, {{col-break}} and {{col-end}}.
Updates
Wikipedia is constantly changing. Here are some of the things that have changed since we published How Wikipedia Works in August 2008:
Part I
Chapter 2
- The book mentions that "The first major coverage in the mainstream media was in the New York Times on September 20, 2001", but doesn't refer any further data. The article was "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You", by Peter Meyers (as can be seen in the Wikipedia article "History of Wikipedia")
Chapter 3
The toolbox
- p. 79: When viewing a user page, the "E-mail this user" link only displays when you are logged in.
- When viewing a user page, there is now an additional link entitled "Logs", which shows the actions performed bby that user (file uploads, page moves, user blocks, etc).
p. 94-95: Sound files
- There are no longer any sound files at the article on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There are however some at List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
- The system for playing sound files has changed, and to play one inside a browser window, click the "Play sound" button. After that button has been pressed, there is a "more" button that provides further options like which media player to use.
Chapter 4
Page histories
- The number of bytes in parentheses on a history page shows the length of the revision in bytes, not how many bytes have been changed in the revision.
- External tools are now linked from the history that analyse the history of a particular page. They are grouped under the heading "External tools".
Article ratings
- There is now an article rating between B class and start class, C class.
Part II
Chapter 5
134-136: edit window and inserting special characters
- p. 134-136: When you edit a page, non-Latin character sets and special characters now appear in a drop-down menu list. Select which character set (such as "Symbols" or "Cyrillic") you wish to use, then select the character you wish to insert in the page. The character will appear next to where you have placed your cursor in the edit window.
Undoing edits
- The "undo" link in page histories and diffs works for all editors, whether or not they are logged in.
Rollback
- Non-administrators can now rollback edits on the English Wikipedia, if they have the rollback right.
Semi-protection
- Semi-protection now also stops registered users with less than ten edits from editing a page.
Chapter 6
Avoid self-references
- The page at Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is now at the title Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid.
Chapter 7
200: League of copyeditors
- p. 200: WikiProject League of Copyeditors has been marked historical, due to longlasting backlogs and lack of participation; but it has been replaced by [WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors]. The categories of articles needing to be copyedited still exist at Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit.
Checking the deletion log
- The deletion log is now automatically displayed when viewing a page that has been deleted and no longer exists.
Chapter 9
Uploading Your Own Images
- The upload form at the Commons has changed; Figure 9-1 and the step by step procedure starting on page 265 are no longer current.
Part III
Chapter 12
Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)
- The assistance section of the village pump no longer exists and has been merged with the help desk.
Chapter 13
Policy development
- Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines has been history merged, so all available edits to the page are in one place. Additionally, the page rules to consider (from the Nostalgia Wikipedia) was important for policy and guideline development.
Blocking users from posting to their user talk pages
- It is now (as of 6 October 2008) possible to block users from posting to their user talk page.
Part IV
Chapter 15
Single-user login
- As this book was going to press, single-user login was implemented across all of the Wikimedia projects. You no longer need to create a separate login for each new Wikimedia project or language edition of Wikipedia that you want to work on. New accounts that are created on Wikipedia (since September 2008) can be used to sign into any Wikimedia project.
- If you created an account before September 2008 and wish to use it on other Wikimedia projects as well, you will need to enable your global account. Click on "my preferences". Under the "user profile" tab, click the "manage your global account" link. This tool will search for other wikis where accounts with the same account name exist. Accounts that share a common password and email address will be merged into a global account.
Comments
Part II
Chapter 4
p. 105: Anatomy of an article
- "Article history" states "no content is ever actually removed from Wikipedia". This needs some STRONG nuancing: articles are deleted all the time for notability or vandalism-related reasons, and a number of reason may lead to the elimination or even oversighting of a specific revision. ("no properly encyclopedic content" might be more accurate)
- Author reply: Hi! thanks for this comment, which is perfectly true. (That line is a direct quote from 10 things you may not know about Wikipedia, a great essay started by Erik Moller which has shown up in the page header from time to time). Yes, of course: content is deleted from Wikipedia all the time when it doesn't meet the site's guidelines, as we explain extensively in Chapter 7. But we were trying to convey the simple point that in the course of normal editing -- when someone goes and changes a page -- none of those revisions will ever go away, in the regular course of things. -- Phoebe 15:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)