Elemesh, I will coach you here.

Questions (click here to ask)

Note: Ask any Wikipedia-related question!

I had an account on here ages ago called Elemesh (my usual internet alias). I no longer have the password, and the email address used to create it has been closed. Any way I can reclaim it and potentially merge it with this account? Elemael ( talk) 19:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not possible to merge an account with another one, see WP:CHU#General notes for more info. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 00:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

How do I create a custom signature (i.e. what do I edit?) Elemael ( talk) 12:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so this is what you do.

First, go to a page like User:Elemael/Signature. Add the signature you want there, with all of the HTML/Wiki markup tags.

Then, go to my preferences, go to "Signature", tick Raw signature, and add {{subst:User:Elemael/Signature}} to the box. Save the information by clicking "save".

Done!

If you have any more questions, ask me. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 02:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Assignments

Assignment 1: What do you know? (click here to answer)

• Q: How much of Wiki markup do you know? Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 18:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
• A: All widely used html tags (doesn't explicitly count), how to make things bold and italic, how to link using square brackets (single and double) and the use of | inside them, 3/4/5 tildes, using equals signs for headings, don't know how to do bullteted lists in markup, using a colon to indent, redirecting, no wiki tagging. That about sums it up. If I need something else for what I want to do I usually copy and paste an existing copy and then edit. Elemael ( talk) 19:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 2: Templates (click here to reply)

First, create a sandbox. You can do so by clicking on the "Create this page."

Okay, this is the lesson on templates.

Templates have the Template: namespace (we'll talk about namespaces in the next assignment), so to search for a template, you type in Template:TEMPLATENAME into the search box, and replacing TEMPLATENAME with the template name (without the Template:).

To use a template on a specific page, such as archivebox, type in {{ archivebox}} (without the link) to display the template without its code. You do not need to add the Template: namespace before the template name. If, however, you are using certain template (such as warnings - {{ uw-vandalism1}} - and welcomes - {{ Welcome}}), you add a subst: before the template name. This is done like this: {{ subst:Welcome}} (without the links) to display the template with all of its code. This is useful if you wish to change the code of the template a bit, or as I said before, should be used for warnings and welcomes. A template has a documentation page, and that documentation usually says whether or not to subst: the template. If it doesn't say, don't subst: the template. The downside to subst: templates is that a page is left with a lot of code. If possible, use {{TEMPLATENAME}} instead of {{subst:TEMPLATENAME}}.

Templates also sometimes have paramters. For example, the template {{ tb}} requires you to add your username, and optionally, a section header, like so: {{tb|MathCool10|Section Name}}. In this example, "MathCool10" and "Section Name" are parameters. Most templates allow you to use its default form and not require a paramter.

For more information, see Help:Template. Wikipedia:Template messages gives some useful template messages.

Now try adding {{ User Sandbox}} to your sandbox. Then, change it to {{ User Sandbox|Elemael}}. Finally, remove the text and add {{ subst:User Sandbox|Elemael}} and see the difference when using the edit screen!

Reply when you are done. (Remember to sign with ~~~~!) Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 00:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Went well: you can check the history of my sandbox for a summary of the edits =) . Elemael ( talk) 08:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Good. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 19:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 3: Reverting Vandalism (click here to reply)

To revert vandalism, go to a page's history by clicking on "history" next to "edit this page", pressing "undo", and then pressing "save this page" after scrolling down. (See WP:UNDO for more info)

For now, stick with reverting obvious vandalism (such as removing some or all of a page, changing words to "Hi" and "You suck" and stuff like that).

Use the recent changes and/or Twinkle to help revert vandalism. Report to me after you have done a few reversions. I will review them. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 00:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright. Reverting vandalism is better than I thought =) . If you check my contributions, you can see numerous pages I have cleaned and relevant users I have told off. Elemael ( talk) 14:56, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That's great! Now try applying for rollback. Go here and add your request to the "rollback" section. Cheers! Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 19:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

How likely am I to be accpeted with only circa 50 anti vandal efforts under my belt? Btw, what times (GMT) are you awake, because it seems quite rare that we are both online at the same time? Elemael ( talk) 20:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I use PST (Pacific Standard Time) as I'm in the NW of the US. Hope that helps. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 20:34, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

So it is currently quarter to 1? Elemael ( talk) 20:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

(reset) No, it is quarter to 12 the time you posted. GMT-8 hrs. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 22:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Try applying for rollback now. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 05:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Apply for rollback here. Thanks. You probably will succeed, and a failed one doesn't go against you. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 23:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 4: Namespaces (click here to reply)

Namespaces are the things that appear before the page name. For instance, for this page, User: is a namespace.

The most common namespaces are the Main namespace (which doesn't have Main: ; it's just your typical article place), Talk (Talk:) Wikipedia (Wikipedia:, WP:, or Project:), Wikipedia talk (Wikipedia talk:, WT:, or Project talk:), User (User:), User talk (User talk:), Category (Category: or CAT: for some), Category talk (Category talk:), File (Image: or File:), Help (Help:), Template (Template:), Template talk (Template talk:), and MediaWiki (MediaWiki: or mw:). Basically, a namespace has the name of the namespace with a colon after it.

Namespaces can also be used interwiki, which means between Wikis. For instance, if you want to add a link to the French Wikipedia, you add [[:fr:NAMESPACE:PAGENAME]] (notice the : before the fr:, which stands for French) to a page. To go to a page on Meta-Wiki, add [[meta:NAMESPACE:PAGENAME]] to the page.

Now try adding [[meta:What is a troll?]] to your sandbox. Afterwards, try adding [[:fr:Main Page]] and compare it to [[fr:Main Page]] (notice there's no : before the fr:). Reply here when you're done and try to find a difference between the French links. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 05:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The first method adds a link on the page. The second adds it to the bar at the side. Sly though :P . Elemael ( talk) 08:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The second one is used for adding other languages of an article as a sidebar. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 02:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 5: Special Wikimarkup (click here to reply)

So [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia] create Wikipedia, right? Well, you can remove the icon at the end using <span class="plainlinks">[http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]</span> to create Wikipedia. This should only used when using Wikipedia links, such as citing a diff. Otherwise, the external link icon should be kept.

Try doing this to a random link. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 20:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Enigma Group. WARNING! To the causal observer, please note that links to an external website, which your employer/school will hate you visiting. You can't resist the temptation to look now, can you? :P Elemael ( talk) 21:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting link. Hacking? Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 23:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Casual hobby - I find the problems there interesting to solve =) . Elemael ( talk) 08:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 6: User scripts (click here to reply)

User scripts are JS or CSS files. To create one on Wikipedia, go to User:Elemesh/SUBPAGENAME.js or User:Elemesh/SUBPAGENAME.css, respectively, replacing the SUBPAGENAME with the name of the subpage of the user script.

For more information, see WP:US/S.

Now try adding a script from WP:US/S. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 05:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought I didn't have to reply that I have completed this, but evidently you haven't noticed ( I don't blame you). BTW I fixed the reply link in the title - you should have put section=8 instead of section=7. Elemesh ( talk) 08:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh sorry. I didn't see this in the watchlist so I assumed you haven't read it. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 05:13, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 7 (click here to reply)

Sorry for not keeping this updated, but I'm thinking on some more lessons. I'll reply shortly. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 17:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, update.

Some things you need to know:

1. {{FULLPAGENAME}} shows the full name of the page you're on (in this case User:MC10/Adoptee Classroom/User:Elemesh).
2. {{PAGENAME}} shows the name of the page you're on without the namespace (in this case MC10/Adoptee Classroom/User:Elemesh).
3. {{BASEPAGENAME}}}} shows the page that's one subpage lower without the namespace (in this case MC10/Adoptee Classroom).
4. See more on this at mw:Help:Magic words#Page names.

Also, to fix one of my mistakes:

• mw: doesn't lead the same place as MediaWiki: does; mw: goes to a seperate site called mediawiki.org, while MediaWiki: stays within this Wikipedia.

{{fullurl}} is a parser function. You use it as so:

[{{fullurl:PAGENAME HERE|ACTIONS/SPECIFICATIONS HERE}} OTHER TEXT]

Replacing PAGENAME HERE with the name of the page of the link, ACTIONS/SPECIFICATIONS HERE with actions such as edit, purge, etc. and also (optionally) specifying which section (by number).

Example:

[{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit&section=9}} Edit this page] creates Edit this page, which is a link to editing this section. You can always use <span class="plainlinks"></span> around the link.

Please note that parser functions are not templates, even they look like them. This is a key difference.

More info on fullurl at Wikipedia:Please use fullurl and mw:Help:Magic words#URL data.

Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 17:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Additionally:

1. Participate in WP:AFD, WP:CFD, etc. They give you more discussion opportunities.
2. Also participate at RFAs to see other people running for adminship.

Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 17:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Quite a lot to take in! Elemesh ( talk) 16:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I haven't been updating this that well. Sorry. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 01:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Also:

• {{SUBPAGENAME}} gives the subpage name of the page (in this case User:Elemesh)
• {{SUBJECTPAGENAME}} gives the name of the content page (in this case User:MC10/Adoptee Classroom/User:Elemesh)
• {{TALKPAGENAME}} gives the name of the talk page (in this case User talk:MC10/Adoptee Classroom/User:Elemesh)
• {{NAMESPACE}} gives the namespace of the page (in this case User)
• You can always add an extra E at the end of a name for URL-equivalents, as so: {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}

Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 01:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that everything now? Elemesh ( talk) 16:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep. M C 10 |  Sign here! 22:59, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Assignment 8: PNG Formatting (click here to reply)

This lesson will be about using ${\displaystyle }$ to make math formulas as PNG images.

This is mainly covered at Help:Math but I will simplify it a bit.

An example of how this works is as so:

<math>\text {abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ}</math>
<math>\text {abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ}\,</math>

The (I think) function \text forces the text not to be italics, as it would when I type in <math>x</math> (${\displaystyle x}$).

A comparison of the two examples:

• ${\displaystyle {\text{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ}}}$
• ${\displaystyle {\text{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõö÷øùúûüýþÿ}}\,}$

\, (or usually \,\!) forces the text to be in PNG images. When used with \text, special characters do not show up. Use \,\!.

See Help:Math#Functions, symbols, special characters for a bunch of functions, symbols, and special characters you can use. See Help:Math#Alphabets and typefaces for some letters supported. (Note that the examples force PNG by using \,\!.)

Fractions

Fractions are usually created using \frac, with the numerator and denominator in {}: <math> \frac {3}{4}</math> creates ${\displaystyle {\frac {3}{4}}}$.

For smaller fractions, use \tfrac in the same manner.

For nested fractions, use \cfrac: <math>\cfrac{2}{c + \cfrac{2}{d + \cfrac{2}{4}}} = a</math> becomes ${\displaystyle {\cfrac {2}{c+{\cfrac {2}{d+{\cfrac {2}{4}}}}}}=a}$ Note that the entire c + \cfrac{2}{d + \cfrac{2}{4} was the denominator of the first nested fraction, so one entire braces was around it.

For parenthesis around a fraction, use \left and \right as well as ( ). <math>\left ( \frac{1}{2} \right )</math> becomes ${\displaystyle \left({\frac {1}{2}}\right)}$.