This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Tip of the day. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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WikiGnomes are welcome here. Please proofread our tips!

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This is the tip of the day project

To display the tip of the day on your user page, read this Tip of the day tip.

To browse the tip collection, see the complete list of tips.

This project is responsible for developing and maintaining the tip of the day templates which are displayed throughout Wikipedia, and the collection of tips that are displayed by those templates.

If you see a bad or outdated tip please fix it! Be bold!

Project procedures

Here is how this works:

Those who would like to participate in this project should place the {{totd-tomorrow}} on their user page, which is a template that displays tomorrow's tip of the day (for monitoring purposes) as well as this project's task list (announcement box).
Submit new entries on this page, below. Please sign your entry, so we can notify you when your tip has been scheduled!
Please help prepare the new entries below by proofreading and editing the tips for factual accuracy, clarity, readability, and proper formatting.
The goal of this project is to provide tips and advice for making Wikipedia easier to use, and to help users participate in Wikipedia more effectively.
Toward this end, we collect useful wikitips wherever we can find them. Do you know an expert on some aspect of Wikipedia's operations? Please ask them to record their favorite techniques on this page (below).
On the adjacent project page is a list of links to subpages, titled by date. Each subpage has a tip stored in it. The entries with a double-hyphen (--) are old tips (the same ones that were displayed last year). They need to be updated, or replaced with new tips.
This project has several templates that automatically display the contents of the subpage with the current date. (Templates are pages that get displayed on other pages, duplicated like boilerplate.) The tip of the day is displayed on Help:Contents and Wikipedia:Community Portal.
When you believe an entry is polished and ready, move it up to the ready to post section, for somebody else to post to the subpages.
Move entries from the ready to post section (that you actually agree are ready to post) to the tip schedule. To do this, you may replace any tip on the schedule that has a double-hyphen between the date and the tip's title. When you do, change the double-hyphen to a single hyphen.
If you feel an entry in Ready to post is not ready, move it back down to New entries. Do not post to subpages the entries that you placed in the Ready to post section (unless you are a veteran of this project and have a feel for what makes a good tip). This ensures that each entry is given final approval by at least two editors.
Entries that are not worthy of this project get moved down to not suitable. Generally, this means that the subject matter doesn't fit here, or the tip is complete nonsense. Include a little message as to why, and your sig.
If you see an entry under "not suitable" that you agree is not worthy of this project (due to inappropriate subject matter), then delete it from this page. But please do not delete entries that you placed there. This again ensures that at least 2 editors are involved in the decision.
Keep an eye on the tip schedule. Proofread tips in the queue before they become today's tip! On the schedule, tips with a double-hyphen haven't been proofread since they appeared the previous year. If you think a tip should run again this year, proofread it to make sure it is still accurate, and then change the double-hyphen to a single-hyphen.

Longtime veterans of this project sometimes add tips directly to the tip schedule. Don't get alarmed, they (RichardF, and The Transhumanist) know what they are doing.

Note: Once scheduled, a tip will display automatically year after year. So it is important to update each tip before it displays again, or replace them with new tips if they have become obsolete! See the project page for the whole year's schedule of tips.

User boxes

User boxes for Wikipedian tipsters.

Required formatting

Formatting required for entries: see the Wikipedia:Tip of the day/February 21 entry for the format. In order to allow users with table-formatted user pages to display the tip of the day template without it messing up their page, please do not include headings in the tips. Instead, we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way with <center><big>'''Tip title'''</big></center>. Each entry should also include a link for users to be able to read more about the topic, if such a link exists. And of course don't forget the tip itself, which should take just a paragraph, or two at the most. (These are tips, not treatises). The best tips are one sentence long.

Some good places to find ideas for tips

And one last tip for you tipsters:Have fun! The Transhumanist 04:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ready to post - individual tips

Peacock words

Try not to use words like greatest and best unless it has been statistically proven. Use (Singer X is considered by many as the best singer) instead of (Singer X is the best singer)

Use your userpage

Use your User page to do stuff you can't normally do on Wikipedia. Try out techniques, have userboxes, try out your template skills, and make a user page worthy of Wikipedia!

Editing

If you are stumped on what to edit next, try using User:SuggestBot. They, however, need to know what you've edited previously. For other ideas on what you can contribute, check out Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia.

"Am I logged in?" Don't be confused.

Do you sometimes make edits, without realising that you weren't logged in? There is an easy way to avoid this. Log in, go to preferences, and choose a different skin. Or change the quickbar so it is on a different part of the page. That way, it's obvious straight away whether you are logged in or not. E.g. you may wish to use the Cologne Blue skin.

If another Wikipedian uses the same computer and likes the same skin, one of you could place the quickbar on the right hand side so that it's obvious who is logged in.

Read more: Wikipedia:Customisation#Skins

Omniwiki!

With this trick you can look up any Wikipedia article directly from any web page by merely highlighting the word you want to know more about and clicking a button! Use the javascript below as a link on your browser toolbar. Make sure you get it all on one line, a simple Copy/Paste will probably only get the first line:

javascript:q = %22%22 + (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() : document.getSelection ? document.getSelection() : document.selection.createRange().text); if (!q) q = prompt(%22Enter a Wikipedia topic:%22, %22%22); /* if (q!=null) { location=%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22 + escape(q).replace(/ /g, %22+%22);} void 0; */ if (q!=null) { WindowObjectReference = window.open(%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22 + escape(q).replace(/ /g, %22+%22), %22DescriptiveWindowName%22, %22resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes,status=yes%22); } void 0;

Now, when you highlight any word on a webpage and click this link, a new window will open up with the Wikipedia article for that word! You can also change the URL and have the link take you to Wiktionary definitions, or even perform a Google search on the term (put in "http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=") So there it is, have fun with it!

You Got Your Sig Together?

At some point after you open an account with Wikipedia you'll probably want to "fancify" your signature, make it more "unique". And Wiki allows for a lot of creativity on your part. Read about that at Customizing your signature.

Here's a tip! You might decide to put a space in your sig, perhaps between your Username link and your Talk-page link. Unless you want your sig to "break in two" at the end of a line, don't just hit the space-bar key, use one of Wiki's "non-breaking space" options. It's real easy, and that way all of your sig will completely wrap around to the next line. Now that's keeping your sig together!

Read more about it here: Non-breaking_space
and also here: Wikipedia:Line_break_handling

To the administrator: The perfect form?

This Tip Is Lineboggling!

There might be times when you want to use lines as separators on your pages. Wikipedia gives you the Wiki four-hyphen code, like this: ---- and you can also use the HTML <hr> tag. Watch this...

---- renders as a line all the way across...

<hr> gives the same line...

<hr width=50%> renders...

<hr width=30%> yields...

and so on.

The Userbox Generator

Many users adore userboxes. And many enjoy creating userboxes. Still others enjoy humorous userboxes. And quite a few enjoy creating humorous userboxes. Have you any problems making jokes? Then use the Wiki Userbox Generator!

Cyde's generator allows you to create userboxes within a limited number of themes. However, many of the images used in the userboxes created may be deleted or moved. Therefore, you must first check whether the picture exists before copying the code onto your userpage!

Happy userbox-creating!

New entries

Please add new (fresh) tips to the top of this section (the old tips which are being recycled are at the end).

Think forward

While editing, ask yourself "how will this edit make the article grow?". For example, a section titled like "Criticism of this topic" will fill with criticism only, and a section titled like "Trivia of this topic" will fill with trivia rather than specific and organized information. In contrast, usage of inline citations will result in continuing usage of inline citations by future contributors. Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:37, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's a tool that can help when you're using AWB. To help find a category for an article, I choose key main words which are closely connected to the subject. For example, if the article was about a hospital in Poland, I would input into the tool "hospital Poland" (without quotes) and it will then search through categories and list some to choose from. In the example above, Category:Poland and Category:Hospital would be the categories I'd pick. It works really well! Here's the link: Common Sense Tool Good Luck Mlpearc MESSAGE 00:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

If you are wondering why this question mark is here, PLEASE click on the caption ! — **PLEASE CLICK HERE**.

Mlpearc MESSAGE 18:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

General discussion

Archives

Posted tip by Harsh 2580

I posted the following tip, by Harsh 2580 to the June 23 slot. Here it is (with revisions):

A better wiki editor: wikEd

Whether you are a new or advanced user, you can edit pages with ease by installing wikEd.

To install, simply select wikEd on the Gadgets panel of your Preferences:

Preferences → Gadgets → Editing → wikEd: a full-featured integrated text editor for Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome (documentation)

wikEd provides many abilities, including a multifunctional search-and-replace feature for regular expressions (regex).

wikEd works in the following web browsers: Firefox, Pale Moon, SeaMonkey, Safari, WebKit, Google Chrome, and Opera (version 15 and higher). Currently, wikEd is not compatible with Internet Explorer or versions of Opera below 15.

Prior tip – Tips library – Next tip

User:Cacycle/wikEd

It is also included in the tip lists displayed on January 26, March 1, July 26, and September 1.

The tip replaced the spellchecking tip, which had become obsolete. (Spellchecking is now built-in to most browsers).

Thank you Harsh. The Transhumanist 21:45, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

2013 revision underway

The main {{totd}} template is displayed at the bottom of the Community portal. Previously, it was integrated into the column formatting of that page, and not nearly as eye-catching. The tip's template formatting complements the new page design.

It's a nice fresh look.

To match this freshness, all stale tips need to be refreshed (revised/updated).

Revising the set entails proofreading every tip to make sure they are relevant and their details accurate and up-to-date. That's 365 tips!

This does not mean they all have to be done at once (but the sooner the better). But each tip slot must be checked and updated before it appears on the Community portal.

So far, I'm up to January 26, and am in the middle of proofreading the tips listed on that list tip.

Feel free to jump in, anywhere in the set. All help is welcome. If you have any questions, please post them below, and we'll work on any problems encountered as a team. Thank you, and have fun! The Transhumanist 19:14, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I've been trying to revise tips (including replace obsolete tips) 5 days in advance of their autodisplaying on the Community Portal. But I'm having trouble keeping up the pace. I've slipped behind the display date at least twice. I could sure use some help! I've been converting each tip from the 2008 version to the yearless version (over the redirect), and proofreading/updating the content of each. The Transhumanist 23:41, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Another way to help

To keep track of tips' accuracy and relevancy, the following 2 templates come in handy. Place either or both of them on your user page or user talk page, so you can keep an eye on tips before the next time their day comes up.

{{totd-tomorrow}} - this shows tomorrow's tip, and is used for proofreading tips before they go live. If you would like to help monitor tips for accuracy before the rest of the Wikipedia community reads them, please put this on your user page or talk page. Thank you.
{{totd-random}} - this is the tip of the moment template, which automatically displays a different tip every time you enter a page it is on (to a maximum of one time per minute). If it doesn't update, try clearing your browser cache.

Enjoy, The Transhumanist 19:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Scheduled a tip...

The following tip was submitted by User:OlEnglish and will appear March 2nd:

Visualizing redirects

There is a way to make redirects stand out from a long list of links by visualizing them. This quick and easy solution was found by Kim van der Linde using customized CSS:

Go to "My preferences", click on the tab "Appearance", and click the "Custom CSS" link behind the skin you use. It opens a page, and you can add there the following code (just copy and paste it):

.mw-redirect {
color: #006633;
}
.mw-redirect:visited {
color: #009900;
}
.mw-redirect:hover {
color: #990000;
}
.mw-redirect:active {
color: #990000;
}

Change the color codes if you want. Save the page, and reload (bypass your cache) to force the new CSS to be included. All redirects will now show up as green links!

Wikipedia_talk:Tip_of_the_day/May_5 causing error

I explain in detail here:

Wikipedia talk:Tip of the day/May 5

Upon finding...

"If you see a bad or outdated tip please fix it! Be bold!"

...on this (TotD) project page I went ahead and altered it.

I did so in a manner which preserved the refs by adding {{Reflist}} to the TotD. However, if there are existing refs on a page which displays a template like {{totd}} then I suspect that the list could grow unwieldy.

I'm not sure how widely and in how many contexts the TotD templates are used so I leave it up to someone else to decide whether or not to just go ahead and remove the refs (and reflist) completely.

It would likely produce a cleaner look to do so but I'm allowing consideration for the possibility of a still relevant rationale for having them.

--Kevjonesin (talk) 04:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Noticed that my attempt to shrink the displayed ref text was inconsistent. So I went ahead and removed 'em. IMHO, more trouble than they're worth in this context. --Kevjonesin (talk) 04:45, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. The Transhumanist 01:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Hadger, for How to add hidden editor notes in an article

Dear Hadger,

The tip you wrote has been revised and scheduled to display on May 17.

Thank you! The Transhumanist 01:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)