Forum:Help system

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I have a desire to produce the help pages I wanted before my newbie mind absorbs the unspoken ‘round here. To that end I have begun a “Help” page. I expect there will be more. —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2020 (EDT)

templates

Next up in my, dump my newbie help needs, are templates. In development here: user:Philoserf/sandbox. As always feel free to comment here and edit there. Warning, I will have questions and then more questions. Particularly here as they are so critical to consistency and can make an editor's life easier or much harder. Since our cargo and dynamic pages tools are a factor here this might get complex. I expect when we are done there may be more than a single page. That’s okay. Let’s not prematurely optimize. We can break away the right sections when the need arises.

—¿philoserf? (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

Template List has a (semi-organized) list of templates with quick explanations and example uses. The template page (or /doc subpage) should have a detailed explanation of what and how about the template. So I'm not sure what you would like here. Tjoneslo (talk) 20:34, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

I found the Template List too dense when I had no context and the existing /doc(s) didn’t always lead to understanding for me. Thus my many questions before today. I will develop a page and all you experienced editors can descide if it is an improvement or addition to what is currently there. I know it gets real hard to see with fresh eyes once you’ve been at it for awhile, thus my interest in adding the docs I wanted before i can’t remember my learning challenges. —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

p.s. See the /doc for Template:Ref let me know what you think. —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

p.p.s. I have spent some time in my sandbox playing with some templates to better understand them. Not just using them in the sandbox but looking at the result of {{subst:abc}} too. —¿philoserf? (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

Done: subpages

Please take a look at and watch the development of user:Philoserf/sandbox. Like any other page I do not own it so contribute as you might desire, article edits, talk page, whatever makes the page eventually useful to our next newbies.

—¿philoserf? (talk) 11:48, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

I do not comprehend the use the subpage types I have discovered. Secrets seems easy enough. It time I will grok the others. I had thought they might be part of a data driven dynamic page but there are too many clearly informational pages for that too be true. I searched for guidance and didn’t really find much. Please take a look at user:Philoserf/sandbox and edit the doc or share knowledge here and I will craft words for the doc. —¿philoserf? (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

Should data, core, and summary have templates like meta, secret, and world list do? —¿philoserf? (talk) 22:29, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

I updated your page descriptions. Short answer is no. Tjoneslo (talk)

Outside of the descriptions I gave in the subpages article there may be additional sub-pages on different articles. These are either experiments in the current process finally settled on and could be deleted, experiments by others who have now been forgotten about them and may be deleted, or are being used to hold older versions of the page or data for the page. I would not attempt to classify them beyond noting these pages exist. If you feel up to it, add a {{delete}} to the pages for consideration. Tjoneslo (talk) 22:49, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

Your edits suggest to me that we need something like wikipedia’s {{historical}}. Heck. We may have one. I haven’t looked yet. While I am at it perhaps we will need an {{outdated}} too. Getting old sucks! And rooks too! Go Traveller! —¿philoserf? (talk) 22:52, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

I have published Subpages and added it to {{policies}}. The content wouldn’t have been useful without the help of Tjoneslo. Thank you sir! —¿philoserf? (talk) 18:55, 18 June 2020 (EDT)

Done: namespaces

Please take a look at and watch the development of user:Philoserf/sandbox. I am starting with namespaces. Like any other page I do not own it so contribute as you might desire, article edits, talk page, whatever makes the page eventually useful to our next newbies.

—¿philoserf? (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2020 (EDT)

This looks great. Thanks for doing this. If you want suggestions about text for these, I can write a few things. Otherwise I'll keep an eye on the page for further updates. Tjoneslo (talk) 21:56, 14 June 2020 (EDT)

I invite all edits. I assume you already know I have adopted Wikipedia’s Be Bold. I’ll edit it if I think we can make it better. —¿philoserf? (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2020 (EDT)