About My Vandalism Patrols

I do my best to fight vandalism. Unfortunately, many users don't like providing edit summaries. This is most unfortunate. Such edits slow me down. If a summary is available, I typically move on. (The exception is when the Automatic Edit Summary feature of MediaWiki is activated. 90% of the time it is needed, the edit was done by a vandal. You can tell it was active when you see a summary that looks like "←Blanked page".)

If you don't provide an edit summary, I usually end up assuming the worst. That forces me to load the diff for the edit. While I do use User:Lupin's popup tool, it still takes quite a while to load the diff.

Steps You Can Take to Avoid Being Thought of as a Vandal

1. Provide an edit summary for every edit. (See above section.)
2. Create your user page and the associated talk page (which you could leave blank). Your user page is at Special:Mypage. You can also get there by clicking your user name at the top of any page. To get to your talk page, either click "My Talk" at the top of any page or go to your user page and click the "Discussion" tab at the top. You could use your user page as a resume of sorts. Just no ads and no fair use images.
3. Join the fight against vandalism and spam for yourself.
4. Log in so we have a chance of recognizing your user name. Remember to pick a name that doesn't imply you are a vandal or another type of problem user.

Barn stars

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For gracing me with some of your time in an attempt (that because of you was accomplished) to save my userpage Daniel()Folsom T|C|U 07:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This user has been awarded a barnstar for their contributions to WikiProject Userboxes.

Tools I Use When Working With Wikis

By Lupin

• Popups -- Preview pages without loading them. Also helps fight vandalism. One-click reverts.
• Filter Recent Changes Anti-Vandal tool -- Uses RSS and smart filters to detect probable spam.

By George Money

• Auto-Welcome -- Welcome new users with one click. Supports different messages for IP and logged in users.
• Auto-Archive -- Quickly archive your talk page.
• User:GeorgeMoney/UserScripts/newmessages -- This is a better way of learning about new messages on your talk page

By Cacycle

• wikEd -- Wiki editing with syntax highlighting and many features left out of the standard wiki editor.

Other

• User:Where/easy db -- Mark pages for speedy deletion with just a couple of clicks.
• Duplicate tabs at the bottom of pages -- Ever been at the bottom of a very long talk page and want to start a new conversation? The best way to do that is to use the + tab. But that is only at the top of the page -- or is it? This script duplicates all the standard tabs (and some custom tabs) at the bottom of the page.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Edit Top -- Allows you to edit the header of a page — without loading the source for the entire page.

Places I have been

Legend

^‡: Marks places that I have lived in, not just visited.
^†: Marks places that I traveled through, but never found reasons to stop.
^§: Marks the place I was born in
^ɸ: Marks places that I traveled through, and did stop in, but not overnight.

Countries other than the United States of America

I was born in the US, but I have been to these nations:

• ^‡§ — United States of America (I visited other nations, but have yet to live in any)
• — Canada (Year unknown as I was too young to remember)
• ^ɸ — Mexico (Twice: 1977, 1982)

Provinces and States

Canadian Provinces

• — Ontario (At least I think it was this province. It was either during a trip to Michigan or Minnesota that I went to Canada. Unfortunately, I have to rely on my parents tell me that I went at all. Since both trips in question where when I was too young to remember, I have to believe it was Ontario.)

US States

Each state is part of the US.

• ^‡§ — Illinois (The state where I was born and grew up.)

• — Arkansas (When through there on the way to Texas in 1983)

• — California (twice: 1977, 2002)

• — Georgia (twice: on the way to from Florida and on the way back -- 1987, 1988)

• — Colorado (stopped there on a flight to L.A. in 1977)

• — Florida (twice: 1987, 1988)

• — Idaho (2000, while moving to Oregon)

• — Indiana (been here too many times to count)

• — Iowa (been here too many times to count)

• — Kentucky (five times: On the way home from Texas in 1982; On the way to and from Florida in 1987 and 1988. When to Kentucky for a church youth mission trip in 1984 and 1987.)

• — Michigan (been here too many times to count)

• — Minnesota (year unknown as I was too young to know that)

• — Mississippi (On the way back from Texas in 1983)

• — Missouri (been here too many times to count)

• — Nebraska (On the way to Oregon in 2000)

• — New York (1999)

• — Ohio (Went to there in 1984; Went through there on the way to and from Kentucky in 1984; Went through there on the way to and from New York and Vermont in 1999.)

• ^‡ — Oregon (Flew there in 2000 to interview for a job; Drove out there later that year to begin working there; Stayed until early 2005)

• ^† — Pennsylvania (went through there on the way to and from New York and Vermont)

• — Tennessee (Went through there on the way back from Texas in 1983; Went through there on the way to and from Florida in 1987 and 1988)

• — Texas (1983)

• ^ɸ — Utah (On the way to Oregon in 2000)

• — Vermont (1999)

• — Washington (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005; All trips from Oregon)

Some of My Favorite Foods

Please don't assume this is it. I am only listing the stuff I really want to promote

Sweets

"M & M Munch"

This is so ridiculously easy to make, you will wonder why you never tried it before. Note that some items required are not M&M branded. The name stands for "Mix and Match Munch".

1. Obtain 1 lb or larger bags of each of the following:
   • Regular M&M's -- Or any of the following:
     • Dark Regular M&M's
     • Hershey’s Kissables
     • Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Kissables
     • Your favorite store brand alternative to regular or dark M&M's
   • Peanut M&M's or your favorite store brand alternative
   • Peanut Butter M&M's (not the mini size).
   • Almond M&M's
   • Reese's Pieces
   • Reese's Pieces with Peanuts
   • Mint M&M (Christmas mix only, unless desired)
2. Pour each into a large bowl. Be sure to use a really big bowl or it will overflow.
3. Carefully mix the contents together. Even if you are careful, you will break some pieces. You may wish to make those disappear for appearance purposes.

Now grab a handful and munch away. Don't bother attempting to pick out individual items. Just grab a bunch and munch.

Chinese Chews

This is a recipe that my Mom picked up somewhere. Nothing Chinese about them that I know of. I am unable to find the recipe at the moment, but you only need the ingredients below. Just mix and bake in a cake pan. What I don't know are the baking time or temperature or the amount of graham crakers. Note that Mom doesn't measure the chocolate chips. She just dumps the chips in until it is almost impossible to stir.

Ingredients

Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips -- no specific amount

Graham Crackers -- amount unknown as of 1-17-2007

Sweetened Condensed Milk -- 3 14 fl oz cans

My sig

I am providing this section to demonstrate how to create your own signature.

The Raw Code

<!--[[User:Where/sigContract]];Will-->[[User:Will Pittenger|Will]] <small>([[User talk:Will Pittenger|Talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Will Pittenger|contribs]])</small><!--ESC:Will Pittenger-->

This code only works with raw signatures turned on. That prevents the server from adding code to your sig. The Comments are present so a script I use, User:Where/sigcontract.js, can make the sig code more compact when I edit.

What it looks like in posts

Will (Talk - contribs) 08:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Tips on working with templates

Transcluding existing templates

• Most templates are in the template namespace. When you expand a template, the (()) add "template:" to the name for you. There are exceptions to this process. If you provide a namespace, it, rather than "template:", will be used as requested. Because of this problem, even some advanced users confuse ((WP:UTM)) with ((:WP:UTM)). Note the second version starts the name with a colon. This tells the server to use the page from the main namespace.
• Parameter names are case sensitive. I commonly forget that I need to capitalize (or not) the first character. Test the template with the preview feature before saving.
• Some templates are grouped into subpages. While the parent page's name is case-sensitive except for the first character, the entire subpage name is case sensitive. ((parent/child)) and ((Parent/child)) are the same template, but ((parent/Child)) is completely unrelated.

Creating your own templates

Please note that this is an advanced topic. Writing a template is close to 5 times as hard as simply using a template that is out there. The difficulty of the template you are wanting will vary depending how complex it turns out to be. Normally, I will not respond to template requests on my talk page. However, there might be exceptions. I have created user boxes by request. I might also be willing to help with a template causing you problems. However, it would be better for you to visit the technical portion of the village pump. You can request your custom user box at Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Ideas.

• Use <includeonly> and <noinclude> religiously.
  • One of them should be used around all categories. Otherwise, both your template and every page that transcludes it will be part of the category.
  • Use <noinclude> around your instructions and other documentation. Some templates put the documentation into only the source (meaning you have to edit the template to see the documentation) or in the talk page. Both are mistakes. Users of your template won't see them.
  • If your template provides only part of the syntax of a table, like ((User:Will Pittenger/templates/Template List Row)), don't put anything outside the <includeonly>/<noinclude> tags. You will just confuse those that visit the template's page.
• If your template takes parameters, provide a list of those. I have tools for that (themselves templates) at ((User:Will Pittenger/templates/Param List Start)), ((User:Will Pittenger/templates/Param List Row)), and ((User:Will Pittenger/templates/Param List End)). I created them for my use, but they are for yours as well.
• Provide samples of what your template can do in the documentation. This is really important if it takes parameters or the results look nothing like what you see.
• Documentation always goes under the template definition. Use sections for the documentation. That will let you edit the template itself without editing the entire page.
• Try to keep your parameter names consistent.
• When you want to test if a parameter was passed, use #if: rather than #ifeq:. #ifeq: will cause your parameter to ignore all non-matching values. For instance, ((WPBiography)) takes a parameter called (({living))}. However, (({living))} will only be recognized if you set it to "yes". Passing "Yes" or "True" will cause the parameter to be ignored.
• If your page adds one or more categories to the page including the template, accept a parameter called (({No Categories))} and use that to disable the categories. This allows you to list (and sample) the template on pages that you don't want to appear in the categories. Furthermore, I have templates for listing other templates that will pass "No Categories=True" to every template they list. If you use my templates to list yours, that parameter will be handy.
• Unless the template is older or very common, I generally just use the template's own page as the sandbox. However, there are times in which you need a real sandbox. In some cases, I could not tell what was happening unless I subst'ed the template for real. So I went to WP:SAND and used that sandbox. I figured it out and fixed the problem.

Some reference pages I use a lot

• Meta:Help:Magic words -- Magic words can tell your template everything from the name of the page that is including them to the date. Given an internal page name, you can create external links -- with the actions for History or Edit.
• Meta:ParserFunctions -- Parser functions let you use conditions. You can test parameters -- or magic words.

Map of My User Space

Legend for the Above Map