Wikipedia talk:FAQ Index

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See Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia FAQ for older discussion and questions and answers that need to be polished up.

[edit] Major-ish renaming scheme, good idea?

It would be handy for using search engines if the page naming scheme for the FAQs used subpages, eg calling Wikipedia:Technical_FAQ something like Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical instead. Then we could use a page specific search more easily, eg searching for site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ How do I report a bug? at Google would actually work. Are there any downsides/problems with the renaming scheme?--Commander Keane 02:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, wish I'd seen it so I could support it when people may have been paying attention.
Equazcion •✗/C • 14:36, 12/21/2007
I think it is a great idea. I see no downside. We could have a link to a site-specific search in Google. I plan to do this after reorganizing the FAQ to have VFAQ at the top, and then have the current FAQ as FAQ/Index. See #Requested move. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How about a FAQ page for each Wikipedia Page ?

It's be nice to have a place where folks could ASK questions about a SPECIFIC Wikipedia ENTRY/Page/Topic and have folks in the Wikipedia community answer it - there in the FAQ section for the specific topic.

No doubt, some of these questions might make their way onto the main entry page for the topic, and others might be good for discussion ABOUT what should be added to or deleted from the page, but others are just Frequently (or infrequently) asked questions on the topic, and would be nice to be addressed. No doubt, some folks might also want to browse the FAQ page after reading the main entry page for a given topic, but it'd be nice to give folks that alternative ...

Any thoughts on this ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.229.208.33 (talk • contribs).

It sounds like an interesting idea, I quite like it. I'm not sure if it is in keeping with being an encyclopaedia though (our main goal). Anyhow, the place to bring up ideas like this is Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), you may garner more responses there.--Commander Keane 06:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Fixya as tech support resource

Dear all, Fixya is a notable community based site providing solutions to troubleshooting and tech support problems. I believe that the information found there is unique and highly relevant for owners of electronic appliances. Due to original user based content, most of the questions asked in Fixya can not be found anywhere else on the web. Since the edits I placed were deleted I was told to approach the community in order to understand how I may make Fixya's content available in Wikipedia. Your comments are highly appreciated. Yaniv.bl 08:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Please note that the first name of Fixya's CEO is Yaniv. AlistairMcMillan 14:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
It's a different Yaniv. Give me enough credit to change my first name if I wanted to remain anonymous...Yaniv.bl 21:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this is likely go anywhere; can you understand why observers might be skeptical? --Aarktica 21:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Skeptical about what? My identity? If so, I have no way of really proving anything except the fact that my initials (bl) are not those of the CEO. Is there a place where I can fax my ID? I will do that... I really can't think of anything else (it's so difficult to prove you don't have a sister). But let's put this aside.
My aim is to add relevant content to Wikipedia, which I think I can, using Fixya's content. I would like to know how I may do so in a compliant way. Notice that other related sites have posted their links all over wikipedia and have not taken the open discussion road as I have. Under no circumstances will I spam wikipedia, but I believe I deserve a fair chance to use information I have to improve it. What is so wrong with that?
Thanks againYaniv.bl 05:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
You may get more help with this query at the Help desk. As I understand it you want to add links to Fixya.com in the external links section of relevant articles. I suppose the general feeling about this is, if you have a possible conflict of interest (eg you are in the Fixya community) it is best to avoid adding the external links - let the links be made by others organically. If Fixya.com has good links, no doubt they will find their way into Wikipedia.--Commander Keane 06:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Message Indicator

How do I get rid of a New Message Indicator? 67.188.172.165 16:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

In the short term, click on it to read the new message. To prevent irrelevant new messages, you're best off creating an account. Petros471 17:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rambot

In the reader's FAQ, it has a question specifically refering to Rambot. Is that still relevant, 5 years and 1,600,000 or so articles later? Maybe a more general question and answer would do better. Atropos 17:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

No longer the case that one gets those articles so often with Special:Random. Please remove or update the question, and any others you see that are outdated. --Aude (talk) 17:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page should be protected

Shouldn't this really important page be edit protected? I was looking for some info and found it was blanked for the past 2 hours. All these lost newbies... --DoSiDo 04:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what events/conditions lead to the rise in populism?

—hi im a 15 year old girl who is desperate to figure out the answer to this question please help me anyone ?(4.249.111.196 (talk) 17:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC))

This isn't really the place to ask a question like that. You should post this at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. They'll be much more likely to help you with this. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:50, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)
Or try the article on populism: populism. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:53, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAQ reorg

Anyone who spends much time at WP:Help desk or other help pages, knows that users frequently ask questions that are answered in the various FAQ pages. Either they aren't bothering to read the FAQ or they are giving up before they find their question and answer. If it is the former - if they aren't even looking at the FAQ - we can't do anything about that here on the FAQ pages.

If the problem is that people are going to the FAQ, not quickly finding their question and giving up, then I think we can do better by slightly rearranging two of the FAQ pages. The main WP:FAQ page doesn't actually have any questions on it; it is an index to other pages that have questions. The WP:VFAQ page has questions and answers. I propose to rearrange these two pages so that the top FAQ page has the most frequently asked questions, then directs people to the FAQ index page if they don't find their question on the top page.

What I propose to do is Move the current FAQ page to "FAQ index", then Move VFAQ to FAQ. Then there will be some tweaking of the wording due to the new page names and structure. It's fairly straightforward and should not mess up any pages that link to the FAQ.

I'll wait a few days for feedback, then if there are no objections I'll go ahead and make the changes. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intravenous solutions

How long can intarvenous solutions hang? I was taught any solution was good for 24 hours with the exceptions of some critical care drips. Our policy agrees. The new director of nursing told me she thought it was 72 hours and maybe up to 96 hours. That does not make any sense to me,and she had no data to back it up.Any info with back up data would be appreciated Thank you.Sweetnurse91 (talk) 13:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Try asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in factual questions. This page is for discussing how to improve the FAQ page. Sbowers3 (talk) 14:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

As mentioned above (in FAQ reorg) the current FAQ does not actually contain any "frequently asked questions". It is an index to other articles that contain FAQs. I propose to move the current FAQ to "FAQ Index", then move the current WP:VFAQ to FAQ.

When users come to the (reorganized) FAQ they will immediately see frequently asked questions. If their question is not there, they can go to the Index to locate other FAQ articles.

Existing links to FAQ will continue to work: They will go to a page that has FAQs on it. Existing links to VFAQ will still work via a redirect to the new FAQ (i.e. what was the VFAQ). The {{WikipediaFAQ}} which appears at the top of all FAQ pages will be modified to have links to FAQ and Index instead of to FAQ and VFAQ.

Everything will still work okay but there is a good chance that users will find their question on the first page they see and won't give up and ask their question at the Help desk.

To summarize:

I don't think this is controversial but the page is Move protected.

Sbowers3 (talk) 00:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Also per your comments at Wikipedia talk:FAQ#FAQ reorg. (I'll help out if I get time later, but, don't forget to check the most common incoming redirects and templates for double-redirects; fix them before the bots come along and confuse everything ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 00:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it's now in good shape. I've moved the topic FAQs to be subpages. I've relinked from WP:FAQ Index to the moved names. All the places that linked to FAQ will be okay - they'll just see something more useful than they used to see. The places that linked to VFAQ will now redirect to FAQ and I'll change some/most of them. I haven't checked to see how many places linked directly to subtopic pages, but I changed the header template to link directly instead of to redirects. We just have to wait a while for Google to reindex, then the Search FAQ will work. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)