The mission of this user is to improve the encyclopedia and have fun doing it. On-wiki and off-Wiki, this user is a self-taught jack of all trades, master of none.
He has no focus on Wikipedia and shies away from no topic or article, although with 6,915,796 (purge page to refresh numbers) articles on the English Wikipedia he has not even scratched the surface of the topics out there. His favorite Wikitask is helping others, for helping is the fastest way to learn. He has a thirst for knowledge and soaks things up like a sponge when immersed in them. He learns by doing, not by talking about it. If you need help, ping him and he will put his shoulder to the wheel with you.
On-wiki he is currently active in many projects with the highlights being Tip of the day, The Wikipedia Library, and Today's articles for improvement (TAFI)—which comes out weekly and is only one article. LOL. He was a double alpha tester for The Wikipedia Adventure, an early adopter of Visual Editor, and uses Flow on his talk page on meta. He was one of the first question-answerers at The Teahouse but never got invited to be or signed up as an official Teahouse host. However, the rest of the answerers pretty well have it covered and no Teahouse question goes unanswered. He has never read any documentation end-to-end on Wikipedia as it is too much to internalize. He reads snippets on a need-to-know basis. He abhors Wikilawyering. If he sees abuse on Wikipedia he will deal with it. He spends almost no time on Wikipedia noticeboards, preferring to deal with things personally. He avoids conflict but can take the heat. He has learned the most by helping and listening to female editors (or self-described females). Only a small handful have been prickly to engage with.
He has also benefited from engagements with editors with disabilities, LGBTQA editors, and COI editors. Scroll up and down this page for more of the fine points on this user's other on-Wiki involvements; you can stitch together facts displayed in the plethora of userboxes this user has posted.
Do you have a list of possible choices for a template parameter? Use the #switchparser function to define the choices. Then simply enter the choice's numeric value into the template for the applicable parameter, e.g., 1="Sunday" 2="Monday" 3="Tuesday" ... Default choices also can be listed. For simplicity with lists, use a switch statement instead of a "nested if-then-else" conditional statement to control flow.
Frustrated by the comments, edits, and reverts of another user? Remember, behind that sig line is another human being, just like you! And just like you, that person wants to see his or her ideas come to life on Wikipedia.
If you feel yourself getting angry, hurt, or frustrated, explain yourself in a reasonable way and politely ask that others involved in the conversation do the same. But do not expect everyone to agree with you. Differences of background and opinion are part of what makes Wikipedia so great!
Have you ever needed to post an important message to all editors about an article, on the article itself, but thought it would stick out like a sore thumb and ruin the article if you did? Are you reverting many edits on an article because editors just aren't seeing the important message or special instructions on the talk page?
The solution is that you can insert hidden text in the article! That way, only the people editing the page will see your message! Here is how to insert a hidden comment:
First, begin the comment by typing <!--
Once you have done that, type what you need the editors to read
Then, end the comment by typing -->
Once you have completed those 3 easy steps, you won't be reverting as many mistakes!
For example, the following hidden comment has been used in the Meaning of life article, in the Popular views section:
<!--Please do not add 42 in this section. It is covered under the section titled "Popular culture treatments". Thank you.-->
Some more examples of pages that have hidden messages include:
These DYKs were featured in the primo spot on the main page along with an image:
A fact from the article Persoonia terminalis, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Hors d'oeuvre, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Clara Henry, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Planned Parenthood, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Caitlyn Jenner, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
These DYKs were featured on the main page but without an image:
A fact from the article Carina Jaarnek, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Margareta Hallin, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Jozef Raskin, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Michael Laucke, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
A fact from the article Jacky Lafon, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
These DYKs were pulled from the queue for being focused unduly on negative aspects of living persons:
A fact from the article Jonas Åkerlund, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page.
→ link (pull[ed] Jonas Åkerlund (politician) per "Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals should be avoided.")
* {{subst:uw-vandalism1|PageName}}~~~~ (unintentional vandalism/test)
* {{subst:uw-delete1|PageName}}~~~~ (unintentional removal of content)
* {{subst:uw-vandalism2|PageName}}~~~~ (suitable for intentional nonsense or disruption)
* {{subst:uw-delete2|PageName}}~~~~ (variant for removal of content)
* {{subst:uw-vandalism3|PageName}}~~~~ ("please stop" for use after level 2 warning)
* {{subst:uw-delete3|PageName}}~~~~ (please stop removing content)
* {{subst:uw-vandalism4|PageName}}~~~~ (last warning for vandalism)
* {{subst:uw-delete4|PageName}}~~~~ (last warning for removing content)
* {{subst:uw-vandalism4im|PageName}}~~~~ (only warning; for severe or grotesque vandalism only)
* {{subst:uw-delete4im|PageName}}~~~~ (only warning; for many blankings in a short period of time)
This is a Wikipediauser page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WikiWikiWayne.
Thanks for your help with corsica account stub - appreciated - it links to so much else, its bit like a coriscan condundrum - clans, clandestine constitutional progressivism 100s of years before its time, and the usual suspects - thanks... sats 08:13, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
You are hereby awarded the Barnstar of Awesome for your amazing work alpha-testing The Wikipedia Adventure. Over 180 bugs were identified and 143 of them have been fixed already! (The rest are catalogued as known bugs).
You. Are. Awesome. Check out your name in the game credits here: WP:TWA/About.
Thank you again :) --User:Ocaasi 17:34, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
You are hereby awarded the Second Secret Truly Special Barnstar of Awesome for your invaluable second attempt at testing The Wikipedia Adventure. Do you even know how helpful you are? You are Extremely helpful. You've helped make the project complete, and for that, I thank you.
Thanks for all your help, especially the ProveIt! function, much appreciated!
Thank you very much, Cityside189. I really appreciate the kind words. How are you getting along? Are you going to craft the other 31 Petunia articles? Petunia integrifolia is very beautiful. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 16:23, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Lots of "meatspace" stuff going on so I'm finding a bit less time in WP space... funny thing how users come and go, probably will be sporadic for a while... thanks for all your nice back and forth... --Cityside189 (let's talk! - contribs) 22:04, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
I will give you this one last chance to retain a clean block log and avoid the "wall of shame" at arbitration sanctions. Please consider this a final warning: your deadnaming of Caitlin Jenner is inappropriate and if you do it again, anywhere, I will block you and this will be logged as an arbitration sanctions enforcement per the notice above. Guy (Help!) 10:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
This was a false positive; this user appears to be acting entirely in good faith. Guy (Help!) 09:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Guy, we need to discuss this. I never received a "first chance". I take WP:1RR very seriously.
However, we need to be able to say "then Bruce" or "formerly Bruce" when to not say it would be a confusing contradiction.
I have no intention of maliciously "deadnaming" Caitlyn. In fact, using "what links here" I was able to live name wikilink Caitlyn to her Caitlyn Jenner named article from dozens of other articles. I support Caitlyn, her new name, and gender.
All the Caitlyn Jenner pages are "deadnamed" (but only in context) and all the Bruce Jenner pages are live named and live-wikilinked (even if out of context). Caitlyn's article is "deadnamed" at least three times (in context), including in the lead.
My 2 reverts on Brandon & Leah were done in good-faith following the consensus of the other 15+ Caitlyn Jenner related pages, their related Talk pages, and in consensus with ongoing Village Pump thread conclusions per Drmies (as I understand them).
Check out all the Caitlyn Jenner and Bruce Jenner pages and you will find they are all live and dead named, but only minimally in context.
This is a moving target and hopefully a new MOSIDENTITY policy gels from the current consensus.
Drmies did close that discussion but is not very interested in applying its outcome, stick in hand. They have moved on to the next reality show, and don't even know what "deadnaming" means. (Please don't explain: I had to learn to other day that we live in a world where people can be "negging". One new word per year is enough.) Drmies (talk) 19:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Drmies, today is my first experience with the term deadnaming or of being accused of doing it maliciously, so on the fly I have to try and put it in perspective but I cannot until I hear back from admin Guy. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
If this had been someone with a history of blocks, I would have applied the hammer. It isn't: you were, however, pushing the name Bruce into articles - you need to be aware that this "deadnaming" is deeply offensive to many TG people and is very often (as in: usually) a marker for religiously motivated bigotry. I accept that this is not the case with you, but you see the sanctions warning above? That is relevant. So now you know: edit warring a trans person's prior name into articles is bad, and it is something normally done by the kind of people we show the door to. As I say, I accept this was innocent in your case, so happy editing, I am sure it won't happen again. Guy (Help!) 22:34, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Guy, I did not push Caitlyn's former name in to the Brandon & Leah article. It had already been there for some time by consensus (but only as an aside).
I used to toe the hard line and exclude her dead name 100% but I was rebuked and reschooled by the consensus to include her dead name in context with maximum brevity, and was also schooled by the Drmies VPP RfC conclusion regarding deadname timelines. Checkingfax (talk) 22:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Yup, messy. Your heart is in the right place, for sure. Sorry to have caused additional angst: the first article was a case for the live name, the second, is much more difficult. I think the answer is: check the talk page case by case, and give any edit war a wide berth. Thank you for being decent about this. I think the main problem is that Jenner competed in the Olympics, in which pretty much everything is gender-segregated, so the live name raises a "WTF?". Compare and contrast Wendy Carlos, for whom there are vanishingly few mentions of the dead name anywhere, and no confusion appears to have resulted at all. The key is always respect towards the subject. As far as I can see, you show that - I have struck the warning as an obvious false positive. Guy (Help!) 09:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Feel free to contradict me, but discretionary sanctions do not appear to authorize penalties for deviating from Manual of Style recommendations. Deviations of style can certainly be part of a pattern of disruptive conduct, but it is the violation of conduct policy rather than the Manual of Style against which enforcement is authorized. Rhoark (talk) 21:06, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
With great appreciation for your tireless help and fantastic time-saving tips, your generous sharing of Wikipedia implementation methods and, well, just the right advice offered with such civility at just the right time, it would seem. You have saved me so much time; time which I put to good use in making a better article/contribution, to be sure. Un gros Merci! Natalie from Paris Natalie.Desautels (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Natalie. You have filled my barn with stars over the past half a year. Thank you. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 16:20, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
With much appreciation for your meticulous editing, encouragement (I still remember the "Yee haw!") and great tips. You have been immensely helpful! Thank you for helping to make Wikipedia better. Natalie.Desautels (talk) 06:36, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear Natalie. Wow. Two in a row. How can I be so blessed? Thank you. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 16:23, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for cleaning up the bare url's. Your help is much appreciated.
PhillySportsGuru25 (talk) 02:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome. I made some other edits too. I hope you find them to be satisfactory and helpful to your end of getting a Good-Article status. Checkingfax (talk) 02:39, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi and thanks for the berries. The last time I was doing this kind of thing, it would take hours to dig through journals, hand write the references, take them back and type them, and then you would find a missing comma or period, have to go back! It's so easy with the computer, the hard part is finding ones that Wikipedian's will accept... (there's a lot of poor quality ones out there). Anyway thanks for the encouragement... See you around the 'pedia.... --Cityside189 (talk) 01:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Cityside189, I remember the pre-Internet days of going to the library and poring through that green book that had lists of topics and the periodicals they were mentioned in and then having to go find the periodicals. Usually the library would only have a couple of choices in stock. Now with Google, fast typing, and knowing how to construct a Google search we could all be a "phone a friend" on Who Wants to be a Millionaire! I learn something new every day from the Internet and I especially benefit from the knowledge pool of Wikipedia. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 02:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Ow! the green book!! ;)--Cityside189 (talk) 03:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your help with the Walking Horse Hotel. I filled in some of the blank parameters in the restaurant infobox, and will probably do more tomorrow. Thanks! White Arabian mare (Neigh) 02:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Kudos for developing this sorely-needed template; ...will also save time and frustration with those annoying automatic carriage returns when inserting – "en dash". Good work!
Hey fax-checker, it was great to meet you at that open-access panel last night! See you around, and if you're in San Francisco and you'd like to have coffee or something feel free to hit me up. II | (t - c) 05:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
ImperfectlyInformed, It was great meeting the Royal y'all too. You call the time and place and I'll be there! My calendar is very flexible. PS: I do better in quiet places. I have a hard time focusing when it's as noisy as John Collin's bar was last night. LOL. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:56, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Without your contributions, we would be month's behind. You anticipated so many needs. Un gros Merci! (Thank you) Natalie.Desautels (talk) 06:16, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Looking good Natalie.Desautels. Thank you for the gorgeous barnstar. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:42, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
...always a pleasure. best wishes, Natalie --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
is hereby awarded to Checkingfax, for submitting the very useful tip on Breaking the 500 edit viewing barrier in "View History". Congratulations, and keep up the good work. The Transhumanist 21:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
I can only say this: If you wrote more of the instructions on Documentation:... , Help:... and Wikipedia:... pages, there would be less confusion here. w.carter-Talk 12:10, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
W.carter, Thank you for the Tea and the kind words. I have started putting my shoulder to the wheel in the Wikipedia Tip of the day department and I am learning a lot. I have flitted about the Teahouse since its inception. See you around. PS: We have about 20 duplicate tips out of 366 so if you have any tips to share bring them to the Talk page over there for publication. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 19:16, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Did you know ... that back in 1885, Wikipedia editors wrote Good Articles with axes, hammers and chisels?
Thank you for your contributions to this encyclopedia using 21st century technology. I hope you don't get any unnecessary blisters.
Checkingfax, Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. BabbaQ (talk) 13:03, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Happy New Year to you, Checkingfax! I hope 2016 will be a great year for you. I want to thank you so much for your generous, kind and gracious help in answering my questions and helping me solve editing problems. I really appreciate it. You make Wikipedia a great place in which to volunteer. Thank you.
Hi Corinne. I still enjoy looking at this picture. I love fireworks. I hope you have a great year too, and that you keep enjoying your efforts on Wikipedia. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:55, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you! Pink fireworks are kind of unusual, I think. Happy St.Patrick's Day! Here are some green fireworks that I found on the article on the color green. Green fireworks I couldn't believe there was a whole article on the color green. There are a lot of nice images in that article. I hope you find a... four-leaf clover and the good luck that goes with it. ;) – Corinne (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Rosiestep. I enjoyed the CCA edit-a-thon very much. Hit me up any time. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:38, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi. Glad you enjoyed it. Head on over to our virtual editathon if you'd like to continue with the fun. :) --Rosiestep (talk) 01:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
It was great editing with you! Hi Checkingfax, So glad you could participate in CCA's second Art+Feminism edit-a-thon this past weekend! Your Wikipedia expertise and especially the massive amount of follow-up work you've done, improving: articles, edits and the meetup page, after the event, has been so helpful! Thank you!
Thanks Natalie.Desautels. That is very thoughtful. You know I helped Casliber get Persoonia terminalis promoted to Good Article status and he pushed it through the process in 45-minutes. The guy is amazing. It took me 30 days to get Planned Parenthood there. Now, in the meantime with a wee bit of help from me, Casliber has gotten P. t. up to Featured Article status. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:34, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Congratulations once again; that is a great accomplishment, to be sure. very best wishes, Natalie --Natalie.Desautels (talk) 15:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Congratulations on being promoted to Veteran Editor IV!
(It seems we both reached this achievement just a few hours apart! )
You and I have not collaborated before, although I have very much admired the wonderful support you have extended to our mutual friend Natalie during the past year or so. I therefore wanted to celebrate your many excellent contributions and add that we are all very lucky to have you as a member of our community of editors. Thank you for everything you do in support of our encyclopedia.
With kindest regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 10:11, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much Pdebee. I really appreciate it. And, the same back at you. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:29, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
...Another to add to your more than well-deserved collection, this time for your coordination of the wonderful and immensely interesting Alexander Street Press, WP:ASP
Thank you for everything you do in support of our encyclopedia and your great spirit of kindness and generosity in doing so. Very best wishes, (avec admiration, toujours) Natalie Natalie.Desautels (talk) 14:12, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you once again for Help:Citation Style 1 displaying an amazing array of reference citation templates. I have tucked this interesting list away in my toolbox and intend to put these templates to good use. Although we mostly see newspapers, books and web citations, it's wonderful to now have more precise source reference templates at my fingertips. I totally concur with User:Corinne. You have definitely been the single most helpful editor since I started here. Indeed, you make Wikipedia a fun and pleasant environment in which to contribute. very best wishes, Natalie Natalie.Desautels (talk) 17:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Natalie.Desautels. I never turn down a fresh baked moist cookie (I do not care for the dry varieties). FYI these are the CS1 style approved citation templates. There are three or four more that are not CS1. CS1 has some guidelines that the other few do not fulfill. Thank you for the cookie. Nom nom. Cheers! PS: You, Corinne, and a core group of others make Wikipedia a fun place to edit. Y'all want the best for the encyclopedia and do not get mired in drahmuh or ego trips. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Checkingfax. Do I detect a southern drawl there? I knew what an ego trip was, but clicked on the link just to see what was there. Why is the plural a red link? – Corinne (talk) 00:12, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Maybe ego trips is bad Engrish? Click on my link now. And, click on History. I am native San Francisco Bay Area and a lifetime resident (other than 4 months in Seattle tending to mom), but I have an Iowa drawl. Cheers! PS: Check out scale leaf, scale leaves, and the revision history of both. If ego trips should be deleted, let me know. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
UPDATE for Corinne. Definitions on Wiktionary are stronger if they have a Citation. There is a Citation tab for that. Two or three separate cited uses of the word is usually enough. Click on the Citation tab for scale leaf to see what I came up with there. Adding words to Wiktionary can be hard. There is a lengthy list of add requests. That is just the English request list. There are 4.5 million English words up already. I added hind quarters (as a form of hindquarters) the other day, but I want to cite its use before I forget. Hind quarters was on the request list. Most adds do not have cites, as far as I have observed. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:50, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
You're active on Wiktionary, too? ;) I looked. How is looking at scale leaf/scale leaves supposed to help me understand the red link at ego trips? Maybe it's a red link because hardly anybody says "ego trips". It's usually used in the singular. Rothorpe is also very active on Wiktionary. How do you go about finding sources for usages of a word? – Corinne (talk) 01:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Sorry for the brevity. I was combining thoughts in my answer.
I have about 100+ edits on Wiktionary with most being on the request page to clean it up. It was an unmaintained mess when I first viewed it so I got out the broom. It was simple, tedious work. I am not finished with it yet. It gets boring.
I wanted you to look at the scale leaf entry edit history to see how my entry looked when I created it and how it evolved with input from other editors. I still need to find a good image of a single leaf, up close (see the talk page). Casliber, a plant buff, promised to try to take one. The active editors on Wiktionary are very fussy about the formatting of an entry and they slaughtered my first go at scale leaf. I used the entry from leaf as a guide, incorporating useful elements from it. The anagrams were interesting
I wanted you to click on the link for ego trips again to see what pops up now, and to click on the History tab for its entry.
For scale leaf, I put it in double quote marks and did a Google search. Bing seems to discard double quote marks but Google honors them and does a more specific search for the intended phrase. I think I had to click on the "Books" link on Google to find actual uses of scale leaf. Bing probably has an Advanced search that honors phrase searching vs word searching.
As to why I chose to define scale leaf? It was used on the Persoonia terminalis article that I was contributing to and I thought it would be nifty to link its definition with a blue link instead of a redlink. Plus we are encouraged to use sister project links and interlanguage links in articles, but that is rarely done as far as I can tell.
I have over 1000 edits on WikiData. Those are tedious, but I do them. Mostly to offload official URLs so they can be linked back to infoboxes and the External links section of articles that I work on. I made my first vandalism report at WikiData the other day. The first admin said it was not vandalism but a 2nd one observed that a WikiData editor had changed the record name for "birth name" to "so and so, a Mexican government official is a donkey" (it was done in Spanish). It messed up the birth name record's name so when I tried to insert a birth name into a master record the birth name record could not be found by me. I was easily able to change the record name back (very easy on WikiDate). I did not know how to report the vandalism since Twinkle does not work over there so I went to the vandalism noticeboard instead. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Wow! You've been doing a lot of work. Thanks for the explanations. I remembered something I wanted to ask you about regarding the scale leaf entry. I was looking back at the edits, and I was curious about this edit. I wondered if the additional indentation (made with one colon) was necessary. Is that standard format for Wiktionary? The example sentence seemed indented more than was necessary. Also, you said you were looking for a close-up image of a scale leaf. I wonder if any of the images in Thuja occidentalis or Chamaecyparis lawsoniana would help. – Corinne (talk) 02:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I do not have a big push on WikiData but I did play the WikiData Game a few times to push my edit count up to 500 when I was very near that personal milestone. The WikiData Game is not a lot of fun but it helps the project and is very easy to understand. Check it out. I was surprised the tasks in scripts that I could not read like Urdu or Kanji were still solvable for me by looking at the Wikipedia page associated with the Wikidata item. If it is a map, then it is a place. If the infobox has the image of a person then it is a person. One component of the WikiData game IIRC is to assign gender to items. That one is not always easy because so many names are gender neutral. IIRC, one game is to assign person, place, or thing to an item. The game and the database were both I believe designed by longtime Wikipedian and Wikimedian Magnus Manske[1].
As for the indent, :# made an indented number, whereas #: just created a hanging indent for the numbered item above it. If you look at the diff for each one you can scroll down the page of the diff and see the rendered page for each diff as you view the diff.
I will look at those leaves, but might have to defer to Casliber on them. Cheers! PS: I botched the indent here so I thought I would tell you an indent trick about {{outdent}} AKA {{od}}: I you count the number of colons you are outdenting under then your outdent will perfectly align with the topic you are outdenting from. Check the code here to see how I modified your outdent template by adding a pipe and the numeral 5. I became aware of it through a stern scolding like not doing it that way is doing it wrong. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:30, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Thanks to your poking I finally found the right page. It is called Cataphyll which is the scientific name for scale leaf. The page was created some time ago as evidenced by clicking on page information but the scale leaf redirect to it was only created on January 29 of this year. Thank you so much. The page is a hot mess but lots of info and images. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
First, Happy Easter! I'm not clear on why you added the "5" to the "od" template. Why wouldn't the od template just bring the margin out to the farthest left it can go? Isn't that where you would normally want the indentation to be? I don't understand why you have to count the colons and add the number to the template. Count which colons? the number used in the previous comment? – Corinne (talk) 19:16, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Oh, and what's that word "Bantor" in the heading for this section? Don't you mean "Banter"? – Corinne (talk) 19:17, 27 March 2016 (UTC) Also, what is "IIRC"? – Corinne (talk) 19:18, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Happy Easter to you too! True Value Hardware is closed today, but Ace Hardware is open. I am fixing the front door here as it will not secure properly. I ordered some parts online from Ace last night and they are ready for pickup in the store today. Door tune-ups can be very technical, and this is a double door which compounds the complexity of getting everything lined up and secure.
Adding a numeral to the od or outdent template refines its use. Click on the blue outdent link in my previous comment to read up on the additional parameters for outdent and for its alias od.
Yes, you count the number of colons in the comment you are replying to; the comment directly above the outdent or od template.
Using a bare od or outdent template template does most of the work. It does the important part as you say by bringing the margin out to the farthest left it can go, but by adding a pipe and a numeral you can also get the right side of the outdent marker to precisely align with the leftmost part of the comment you are replying to.
Bantor was a typo, and thanks to you I have now fixed it. Interestingly Firefox does not have a clue about replacing bantor with banter—suggests: Barton, Cantor, and Bangor. I am now collecting a list of words that Firefox does false positives on and on words that Firefox does not have proper suggestions for. Can you help me by jotting down ones that you come across? Are you back on Firefox? Or was it Chrome that is your preference?
IIRC is chatspeak/shorthand for If I Recall Correctly. There used to be a helpful site called acronym.com but it is gone, AFAIK. The grammarians on Wikipedia will tell you that IRRC is an initialism, not an acronym. I found that out when categorizing redirect pages I create or come across. Jeepers: Firefox thinks initialism is a misspelling and suggests minimalism plus a couple of worthless options. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 19:59, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Before you used the word just now, I had never seen that word, "initialism". Perhaps "initialization"? What's wrong with that old-fashioned word, "abbreviation"? What's the difference between an "initialism" (if that is a word) and an acronym? Regarding Chrome or Firefox, I use only Chrome. I had to switch to Firefox temporarily about two months ago, and found I much prefer the type font and appearance of text in the edit window on Chrome to those in Firefox. The only thing I wish Chrome had was the ability to select the zoom percentage. It has only 100%, 110%, 125%, 150%, and 175% (and corresponding percentages below 100). I'd like to be able to select 120% or 140%, for example. – Corinne (talk) 20:39, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Yes, initialism is a word, as is acronym (and abbreviation). The purist say that an initialism is an abbreviation that cannot be spoken easily whereas an acronym is one that can be spoken. By their reasoning:
Initialism: UTC, NAACP, FBI, US DHS, BRD, MPH, BTU, RN, USSR, YMCA (although I knew a foreign visitor who asked a friend to pick him up at the "Yimca Hotel"—when asked for the spelling he replied "y m c a"), YWCA, and so on
Acronym: NASCAR, POTUS, DOS, LASER, NATO, FEDEX, WYSIWYG, JPEG (pronounced J Peg), NASA, UNICEF, and so on
Abbreviation: Dr (for doctor or drive), Blvd, abbr, Sept, Xmas, dept, lb, kg, oz, and so on
Also, I believe the purist say an initialism has to be a near exact reference to the first letter of each word in the expanded version, whereas in an acronym portions of an expansion can be stitched together to make it speakable (like FEDEX).
I switched to Firefox because I needed to be able to copy and paste columns of text and Chrome will not do that. I am also finding out Firefox has more helpful bells and whistles whereas Chrome tries to be as sleek and minimalist as possible. Oh, two more percs for Firefox is that when an edit session fails to save you can go back to the edit and do the save again whereas with Chrome your edit is totally lost. The 2nd perc of Firefox is you can turn your computer off if things hang up and when you restart Firefox it will recover all the browser tabs you had open when your computer was turned off. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
With my thanks for your generous, gracious, kind help. You have been the single most helpful editor since I started editing on Wikipedia. I appreciate all your patient help, excellent suggestions, useful information, and answers to my many questions, all given with consistently good humor and patience. You make Wikipedia a fun and pleasant place in which to be a volunteer. – Corinne (talk) 17:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Corinne. I really appreciate this. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:22, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
For your work and cooperation with other users in the DYK nomination for Planned Parenthood. Cheers! Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 20:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Ashorocetus. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the thought. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:25, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
I noticed that you had a lot of userboxes on your userpage, and I couldn't resist giving you this award! How do you get those userboxes on your userpage? I tried to copy a 'this user is from earth' userbox from their page to my page, but it didn't work. Are the userboxes coprighted? Elsa Enchanted (talk) 17:53, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Extended content
Hello, Elsa Enchanted. Everything on Wikipedia is copyrighted by the person who created it, even the words you just wrote to me are owned by you, but you have pre-licensed their reuse, as long as you are attributed.
To copy a userbox, the easiest way is to go into the edit-source mode on the page and copy the userbox template you want, including the four curly braces. Copy it to your clipboard.
Then, paste it onto your user page (from edit-source mode), and save the change.
Here is one to play with: {{User:The Raven's Apprentice/Userboxes/User UBXlove}}
There are many unlisted userboxes. If you see one, grab the template if you like it. You may have to modify if it contains numbers like an edit count, etc.
Thank you for the userbox title. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:53, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you so much for the info! Elsa Enchanted (talk) 13:04, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
You are indeed very kind and helpful, especially to newbies. This was indeed a great reply. Truly well-deserved! Sainsf<^>Feel at home 17:38, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Sainsf. I am overwhelmed and deeply grateful for this. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:15, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
:::Checkingfax, I sent a few very well deserved barnstars around for all those who contributed in achieving GA status for Michael Laucke but now it's your turn and I am, contrary to my chatty nature, a bit at a loss in front of all, and I do mean ALL, you have done to help, guide, teach, encourage, and more, much more. ...and always in such a timely manner. I really think I would have been lost without your help. I probably would have made my way after a couple of years of wading through the rules and policies which you made short work of, not an easy achievement by any means! A good amount of my 'cheery nature' here comes from the helping atmosphere you provided. (Don't mean to embarrass you but I am one of those outgoing French people, after all. ) Sincerest gratitude and warmest regards Natalie.Desautels (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
I am humbled, Natalie.Desautels. You did all the heavy lifting. I was just the nom. Thank you for this acknowledgement. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:54, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for – this is a long list, even your presence in itself makes everything "all cheers!" All the WikiLove you literally rain over others, your superb help at articles, such as Michael Laucke, writing such a superlative autobiography (and being a "sponge" ) – for all your achievements here, you are an awesome Wikipedian!
…for your in-depth explanation of date conventions and guidelines at BullR's Talk page. Consumed, and very satiating. Cheers. Le Prof 50.129.227.141 (talk) 04:44, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
In a posting some time back at Bull Rangifer's page, I raised a query regarding an edit conflict, a small part of which had to do with date styles. (I say a small part, because the real issue was the insistence of another editor to intrude while I had an under construction tag posted, and to make reverting, nit-picky changes before I finished my editing session.) In any case, in looking back at that interaction, I was again impressed by the time and thoughtfulness you brought to the matter, and wanted to say thank you for the time it took for you to do so. If you can do such positive work on any regular basis, you—like Bull—are of a singular variety of editor here, that I can only applaud. Cheers, Le Prof. 73.211.138.148 (talk) 04:00, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Wishing good health and happiness as we start the new year! --Rosiestep (talk) 19:11, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi, Rosiestep and Rosie. This is very sweet and I really appreciate receiving it. Hey, welcome back to California. I want to give you a heads-up that Bay Area WikiSalon is hosting a Wikipedia Day 16 on Sunday, January 15 starting at 2 p.m. in the Chip Deubner Lounge on the 5th floor of the WMF offices on New Montgomery ST in SF. Hope you can come! Got any ideas to make it fun and educational?
Here's to a bright New Year and a fond farewell to the old; here's to the things that are yet to come, and to the memories that we hold. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi Checkingfax - I hope you had a very merry holiday season. May your new year be happy and prosperous! ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs 04:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi, SuperHamster. A thousand thanks for this greeting. You are a great person and a megaPedian, and I humbled to receive this celebratory salutation from you! I have learned much from you. Carry on! سال نو مبارک Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi, DreamLiner and Cat Man. Thank you so much for this. See you on the Moon! 新年快樂 | 新年快乐 | 新年快樂 | 恭禧發財 | 恭禧发财 | Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
"Here's hoping that the worst end of your trail is behind you That Dad Time be your friend from here to the end And sickness nor sorrow don't find you." —C.M. Russell, Christmas greeting 1926. Montanabw(talk) 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Montanabw. This is very special. Thank you very much. I am so glad to know you! May all of your Christmas dreams come true for you and yours. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Hello WikiWikiWayne: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve the encyclopedia for Wikipedia's readers, and have a happy and enjoyable New Year! Cheers, ~~~~
I second that! Dicklyon (talk) 07:42, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Funcrunch and Dicklyon. I really appreciate your acknowledgement of my efforts and I truly appreciate your support of Bay Area WikiSalon and your participation/input/effort. See you onwiki and in meatspace. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 18:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!
please help translate this message into your local language via meta
The 2016 Cure Award
In 2016 you were one of the top ~200 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs.
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