Help talk:Special page
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Just curious...
Does anyone know what the purpose of Special:BlankPage is? It doesn't seem to have any obvious use. Terraxos (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- ROTFL!!! WOW!!! I didn't know such a special page even existed. Anyway... you might want to check MediaWiki for details, though I doubt that there is any documentation or help about that special page. --Lightsup55 ( T | C ) 13:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- Another "just wondering" question: Why does this page get so much spam? Other talk pages don't seem to, and I can't see any obvious explanation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Help:DPL red link
The page shows a red link here: Categories
Special:Categories : shows the number of members, see also Help:DPL.
I suggest it could be fixed or removed. -DePiep (talk) 09:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Special:UnwatchedPages
I see Special:UnwatchedPages isn't listed here.. too bad it's only for admins, I'd find it very useful. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 22:31, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
- But so would vandals... --Kotniski (talk) 10:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
- And now that i'm an admin it seems it's no longer available! doh! -- Ϫ 22:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Special: BookSources
Could anyone point me to a discussion regarding the creation of Special: BookSources? I am interest in finding out about the rationale behind it, who edits it and whether it could be adapted so that it could be used with other publication catalogue numbering systems? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
List empty for over a week?
No Wanted categories. Has someone been very busy or is something not working correctly? — [Unsigned comment added by Traveler100 (talk • contribs) 30 December 2009.]
Question about the Move log
Hi, I'm a Toolserver user, and would like to compile some reports based on page moves (specifically create a list of who's been doing a lot of page moves in the last day, week, etc). Now, I'm pretty certain there's no way to do this from what's available at Toolserver, but I thought I'd ask for suggestions all the same. Thanks, --JaGatalk 21:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
How to get a count?
I know you can display a count of how many pages are assigned to any category using "PAGESINCAT". Is there any way to display the number of pages that come up on a Special page - on another page? Say, for example, I wanted to display the # of pages that have double redirects. Is there a way to do that? I hope that made sense... Jerilderie (talk) 23:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Special:RecentChangesLinked: more than 500?
Is it possible to get more than 500 changes through Special:RecentChangesLinked? Since it lists each edit separately (rather than the most recent for any given article, like a watchlist), Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Recent_changes, set to 500, usually shows only half a day's changes.
This is a big project with lots of active articles. Is there any way to get a more comprehensive list of changes, or do we need to get people organized in shifts round the clock to cover this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Interlanguage and InterWikimedia Links for Special Pages
I was wondering why there aren't any Interlanguage links to WPs in different languages or InterWikimedia links to Wikimedia sister projects for Special Pages? Lots of them exist in the same way there and it would make things easier to move between languages and sister projects if there were direct links.--Berny68 (talk) 08:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
List of books a user has created is: (1) Hard to find - but, with diligence, can be found - which is fine
(2) Confusing - not so fine - seems to have random formatting. Suggestion: "Bullet-point" each book and/or put each book as a single entry in a verticle list. (Perhaps with
- ...
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Blumrosen (talk • contribs) 16:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Special page for non-existent WP pages
The landing page for non-existent articles looks something like this:
- Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for A page linked from the internet in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
- Start the A page linked from the internet article, using the Article Wizard if you wish, or add a request for it.
- Search for "A page linked from the internet" in existing articles.
- Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.
Is this part of MediaWiki? If not I want to see it changed to something like:
- Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.
- Search for A page linked from the internet in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
- Search for "A page linked from the internet" in existing articles.
- Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.
- Start the A page linked from the internet article, using the Article Wizard if you wish, or add a request for it.
- If you are a website administrator your incoming link to Wikipedia will require updating
This makes it easier for readers who are by far the largest users of Wikipedia. "Please" is not needed as well. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
- This message is generated by Template:No article text, so I guess this proposal belongs at the template talk page. -- John of Reading (talk) 22:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
- Ah. Thanks for that. I will knock on their door. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Special page statistik don't work
Hello what's to do, if the special page statistics didn't work or don't displaying the current article count on a wiki? I have this problem and can't find the source of this error?! Abani79 (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
- Can you elaborate further? I don't think we have enough information to help you. • Jesse V.(talk) 22:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Suggest it's time to reconfigure Special:SpecialPages
Since many of the maintenance reports are kept for purely historical purposes, maybe we should consider changing the page. It wouldn't be a big deal, but that SpecialPages occurs in the sidebar toolbox, even when not logged in. Any links which are one click away from every page view should work, IMHO. I see nobody's just banging down the doors on this issue, but it seems a minor problem past due for repair. BusterD (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Special:Nearby
Where's the right place in this list to add Special:Nearby? Also, Special:Nearby used to have photos from each article - why were they removed? Showing which articles are lacking photos might encourage people to go down the road and take a picture. GoingBatty (talk) 02:44, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
Adding Special pages to the list of Restricted special pages
How can I go about adding specific special pages to the list of special pages that are restricted without the use of an extension? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiGremlin Dave (talk • contribs) 22:08, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
TOC
Hi, this is mainly for the Admins to have a look at as up plebeians can not amend these, can we add a "toc|8" to the top of some of the special pages, in 80% of cases it will be of no use, long pages, double re-directs and the like, however, for the other 20% it may help to add some navigation and therefore assist in editors locate their favourite topic or prefix etc.
cheers
The Original Filfi (talk) 00:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- @The Original Filfi: Special: pages don't really exist as such, so aren't editable - even by admins. The vast majority are built on-the-fly - they are created when a user visits them and persist for as long as it takes to serve the page. A few are constructed from template-style pages, which are editable (and sometimes by non-admins) - the best example of this is Wikipedia:Book sources, used to create Special:BookSources when an ISBN is entered into a page - e.g. ISBN 0123456789.
- If you can say which special page(s) you have in mind, it might be possible to find out if that is constructed on similar lines; if so, it may well be editable in a similar manner. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- To extend this as I am not sure if you meant this when you mentioned template-style pages above. There are MediaWiki messages that are incorporated into the Special Pages. For example, MediaWiki:Newpages-summary is incoporated first when Special:NewPages is being generated. This allows, for some Special Pages, admins to adjust what is displayed. QuiteUnusual (talk) 19:16, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi Redrose64, I was looking at the special pages like Dormant article, lonely pages, dead-end pages and the like. If the bots are not updating these live, I wonder if we can set up new categories, of course adding the template "dormant" to a page would take it out of the next dormant bot run, so a bit of a conflict there. If we could somehow actually run the bots for these pages more regularly it would help potential fixers target the pages needing work, updating links etc. The TOC idea was for editors looking for prefixed articles needing work that fit within their own ambit.Kind regards.The Original Filfi (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
- Dormant pages and Dead-end pages are no longer updated. Even if they were, adding a TOC would be ineffective since they do not have sections; but they do have "previous 50"/"next 50"/etc. links like a page history, contribs list or watchlist. I don't know what you mean by "lonely pages". --Redrose64 (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
What are the Special page arguments?
I wish to know how the Special:ListFiles offset argument works, but the Help page doesn't seem very helpful in that regard. Offset seems to use a yyyymmddhhmmss date, but the hours I input doesn't match the ones I get in the list. I tried searching for ListFiles in Mediawiki:Special page extensions, but it's not there. It feels like this is an index page for people who already know how the system works. Why not list all the possible arguments, or link into the code of the special pages? ~ Nelg (talk) 00:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
- The software converts the displayed times to your local time zone, as configured on the "Appearance" tab at Special:Preferences. The offset API argument is likely to be UTC. I can't find the documentation for this parameter either. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
- It's in UTC, and files uploaded earlier than that time are listed in reverse order of upload. For example, these are the files uploaded before 06:00 UTC today. Append
&dir=prev
to show files uploaded after that time: e.g. these are the files uploaded after 06:00 UTC today. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
- It's in UTC, and files uploaded earlier than that time are listed in reverse order of upload. For example, these are the files uploaded before 06:00 UTC today. Append
Autoconfirmed
Please indicate special pages that are only visible to confirmed/autoconfirmed users and those only available to registered users. Nerd in Texas (talk) 16:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
How to add arguments to a wikilink?
Here is shown:
- [[Special:PrefixIndex/HMS]] → Special:PrefixIndex/HMS -- OK.
How do I add arguments to express a special page to do like
Special:ComparePages ... HMS ... United States Navy
? (No marines were hurt in creating this silly example) -DePiep (talk) 16:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
- @DePiep: Not all special pages work that way. Special:ComparePages also does not work by taking parameters after slash. Either you use a full url like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ComparePages?page1=HMS&page2=United+States+Navy or use {{Compare pages}} template. --Glaisher (talk) 17:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks. Could this somehow be added to the Help page? I recall that twice a year I encounter this question, too low to remember the peculiarities. -DePiep (talk) 17:26, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Special:Diff
I just noticed [[Special:Diff/ ...]]
at Help:Wiki markup. Could this be documented here, please? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
- Per m:Tech/News/2014/06:
- You can now link to diffs using
[[Special:Diff/12345]]
and similar links. Wikimedia code review. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:22, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
- You can now link to diffs using
Special:Getting started
A user noted at the Help desk that this page links to the non-existent Special:Getting started. Should the link be removed? —teb728 t c 02:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
- @TEB728: Yes, I think so. There was one other red link, Special:Disambiguations, which I have also removed. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Please update
The list of uncategorized categories was last update on November 27, 2014. Could there be regular, weekly updates? I am visiting many categories listed and they have already been categorized. Unnecessary listings tend to discourage editors from checking in and working on these pages as the information is so out-of-date. Liz Read! Talk! 13:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2016
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On the shortcuts zone, add WP:SPECIAL. NasssaNser (talk) 11:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2017
![]() | It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected help page at Help:Special page. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)
This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y".
The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |
Dhiraj prasad sah (talk) 11:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)