User talk:Firestar233

but nobody came

User and User Talk pages for IPs

There really is no point to creating these for IP users (such as myself, yes), as they are not a practical/viable a means to contact a specific anonymous contributor, nor a useful 'home-page' for them to use.

Now, '42' is maybe a bit keen to tidy up, and found that you seem to be active (or at least responded to a notification about the change to your Watched page, yes?), so rightfuly that should be reversed (the merits of tagging to delete other named users will depend upon the users themselves, there are occasional spam-only (or failed spam-only!) contributors that were given User-space pages by well-meaning others, who neither know nor care). But setting IP-specific pages to delete is entirely justified. If there are any significant contributions to these, they could probably be copied somewhere else first (pages of the most significant named contributor?), yet I generally doubt that'll be a realistic consideration, overall. 172.70.163.111 12:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

If the pages were blank, then I might agree. I'm mostly undecided on deleting the IP addresses' user and talk pages, but registered users probably shouldn't have their pages be deleted even if they are blank. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 21:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Some people, upon getting "page creation privileges" have tended to go around and "un-redtext" people's user-space pages (or even just make them for random users they've seen sign up that day - not realising that a vast majority of the new users are typically just attempts at auto-spamming that get stalled).

It's all a lot easier if the user concerned (the who gains the pages) hasn't made any actual editing, or whose only edits are discredited. Even if you delete them and it wasn't a totally abandoned (and never-used) account, just hadn't got around to doing anything for several years, it can be recreated as soon as the puzzled owner finds out. (Some users, recently coming into "page creation capability" have tended to try to de-RedText random contributors to article Talk pagesl; or even give recent new users their userspace-pages, despite most of those clearly being abortively created only for spamming purposes.)

I think there's a degree of consideration to take when there is some content. But what use does the content of a page such as this have? That'd be a decision I'd happily leave to the administrator who eventually decideds to look at the "please delete this page" tag. They can look at the contributors, what they contribute, decided whether to: a) actually delete it (and, if there's reason to, they can always 'undelete' it, but meanwhile it cleans up the openly visible site), or b) remove the tag themselves.

I don't think it's your job to remove "please delete" tagging from pages that you randomly find like that. If you know the user concerned, maybe. If you are the user yourself, especially. But all you're doing is leaving it in a state where someone can be equally certain that they should be tagged-to-delete (with exactly the same reasoning) and re-apply it. Mass-hot(un)catting doesn't make me think that you've even looked at the users (contributors, if any, whoever created the page in the first place, but also the 'owner', if they've ever been involved).

No, maybe it wasn't right '42' to mark your particular page, but... look at the actual history of pages like User:Danken. Created (probably) in error, marked for deletion when that was realised... Then you reverse that for what reason? (Not for the sake of the content.) Good intentions, yes, vs. an equal well-intent. And, personally, I'd side with (some of!) the things you untagged being more tag-worthy than not. Leaving it up to the admin(s) to work out as and when they get around to it. 162.158.74.118 22:41, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Whaaaaaaaaa

Omg you know warriors and undertale!? -- Definitely Bill Cipher (talk) 15:04, 7 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Sandbox

Hey, what are you cooking up in your sandbox? The wikitext/code on your user page looks pretty interesting. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 21:45, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm also wondering about this! --FaviFake (talk) 15:17, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I was trying to fight with wikitext to allow me to calculate the precise contribution score. Plainly using the contribution score extension's functions in an expression returned an error saying there was a delete character in the input, which i think was because the cscore functions evaluated after the expression and had the delete character as the default string. I tried offloading it to a template, which was my sandbox, but that didn't work so I just gave up and just updated it manually on my user page guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 20:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Interested to know

What was the rationale behind switching wiki-italics with HTML-italics. I presume some context in which it was embedded, but it's not obvious where, and I'm genuinely curious. (Noting that i(talic)-tags are officially a style-only tag, with the equivalent em(phasis)-tags are now prefered where it's a semantic purpose, though identical under most circumstances and probably not worth changing.) 172.70.160.216 13:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

For some reason the wikitext italics didn't italicize the second page(if it was given), but the html italics italicized the second page link. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 06:53, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

...additionally, I have for a while been pondering adding (optional) [[Category:Comics sharing name|<category sorting key>]] to the {{distinguish}} template. Invoke by {{distinguish|9654: Similar Names|Similar Name 8765}}, on top the (hypothetical) "8765:Similar Name" page and {{distinguish|8765: Similar Name|Similar Name 9654}} on its counterpart, auto-populating Category:Comics sharing name without having to seperately remember to add. (When it's a number-vs-title coincidence, "|2 Petit Trees" vs "|2 #2614", perhaps.

I've yet to work out what might happen to the category if this was done for (e.g.) 2411: 1/10,000th Scale World, 2412: 1/100,000th Scale World and 2417: 1/1,000th Scale World, if adding a {{distinguish}} for both 'others' on all three (one could retain the current 'manual' category of [[Category:Comics sharing name|1/10]] and stick to the current only-the-target parameters at the top).

Thoughts? 172.71.178.78 14:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Not the intended recipient but love the idea! --FaviFake (talk) 17:36, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

i made it add the category when the common parameter is given (even if empty, where it doesn't add the sorting key). guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 23:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

can you elaborate on "if you have something to add, add it to the main explanation"?

That was my first edit. You didnt delete it, but commented it out. I thought I had seen alternate explanations in other articles. Are you just asking me to remove the "===Alternative Explanation===" header?

172.69.23.94 14:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC) (Note:I have no idea why its asking for 4 tildes)

There generally aren't "alternative explanation" sections in the other pages (If there are, i don't remember seeing any under a new section). From what I've seen, different takes are typically worked into the main section instead of a separate section at the bad i.e. just before where the table is now. I just commented it out because i was tired and didn't feel like incorporating it myself (i'm pretty bad at it), and deleting it would just require future editors to look at the history to see what was removed. It was essentially just me putting the workload on other people.

Though, looking back at it now, it seems like what you wrote kind of missed the point of the comic, as it is pretty clearly referring to the website wirecutter instead of the wirecutter tool.

the ~~~~ is what inserts your signature in the talk pages, so that the comments will be attributed to you. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 06:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Fixing the {{notice}} and {{notice2}} templates

Hey Firestar233! Since you seem to like templates, I wanted to let you know that the {{notice}} and {{notice2}} templates (and thus also the {{incomplete}} and {{incomplete transcript}} templates, which use {{notice}}) sometimes break when a link is used. I'm not sure what causes them to break (for example, here it breaks, but here it works, even though the latter has more links), but I thought you might be interested in this. --FaviFake (talk) 09:22, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

It's not an error with those templates, or at least not one that can be solved by those templates.

The presence of the "=" character n the link URLs gets interpreted by the template-parser as making a variable that is called <everything in that paramater to the left of the (first) equals sign> contain paramater data that is <everything to the right of it>. And, in doing so, it no longer recognises that 'N'th parameter as <parameter N> and containing <the whole lot>, but leaves it blank and thus (as is errorchecked by the template) cause for the complaint.

In short, if you try to use an equals-character, it'll disrupt things from your expectations.

The answer, though, is probably quite simple. Replace any (and all!) instances of "=" with {{=}}, that means that it doesn't trip up the backend wikimedia handling/whatever it is.

So, instead of...

• "...|something like foo=bar|..." looking like a {{{something like foo}}} uselessly containing "bar"...

We have...

• "...|something like foo{{=}}bar|..." properly giving an appropriate '<N>'th parameter {{{<N>}}} containing "something like foo=bar"...

I also really personally dislike the kind of URLs that have 'highlight text' additions. If you could have used the link without any of the ":~:text=" part, and onward, you'd have been Ok. And I wouldn't have been wondering if you were yet another one of those cases where the person posting the URL doesn't even bother to check that they're using the least complicated and perhaps non-browser-specific version of a URL. ;) 162.158.33.215 20:16, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

That does seem to be the issue, with unescaped equal signs. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 04:41, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! This makes sense.

And I wouldn't have been wondering if you were yet another one of those cases where the person posting the URL doesn't even bother to check that they're using the least complicated and perhaps non-browser-specific version of a URL. ;)

Well, the reason I went out of my way to select the text, right click, and click "Copy link to highlight" is because without it, the user would be directed to the full page of 10-20 comics instead of the specific comic in question. If you notice, I've done this for every "original caption" and "original title" link for the early comics, like 1, 3, 10, etc.

I'm not sure if it's compatible with all browsers, but even if it's not and doesn't worsen the UX of a non–compatible browser–user, then i believe we should keep using these "longer links". --FaviFake (talk) 16:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Identity Theft

Wasn't me who added that tag, but I've a feeling that it was a reference to the potential (corporate?) identity theft that the theft of TinyURL would allow. (Yeah, a marginal reference, at best, but just to give you my casual thoughts on the matter. Certainly I'm not going to unrevert it back.) 172.68.205.92 20:55, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

(Added to that, that Phones category in Rapid Test Results probably references the "Good Cell Signal". Again, I would say too tenuous to matter.) 172.68.205.92 21:10, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Grammar?

Maybe it's a transatlantic thing, but not sure the original in this link was even wrong. A corgi being "a specific breed of dog" is right (in fact, it being "a specific breed of a dog" would be wrong). Anyway, "a Euler diagram" is ok-ish. Except that it probably should be "an Euler diagram" (pronounced more like "oiler" than "yuler", depending on personal adherence/conversance to how the original name was used by its famed user). An issue that is avoided entirely by suggesting what kind of diagram it is, without the indefinite article at all. ;) Didn't want to change it, because maybe it is a grammatical necessity for you/your dialect of English, but thought I'd say what I thought about it. 172.68.186.133 22:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

You were right that i should have put "an" instead of "a" (I keep mispronouncing Euler internally, and i just took a quick look and didn't check again because I didn't have a lot of time), but if it were plural ("Euler diagrams"), then the article wouldn't be needed in the American English that I learned (i.e. "a subset of Euler diagrams'"), but since it was singular, it is needed (i.e. "a specific example of an Euler diagram"). In this case, it would have made more sense for me to correct it to make "Euler diagram" plural, as it is referring to the category, not a specific diagram, unlike the phrase immediately preceding the parenthetical. I corrected the mistake with another mistake, even in my dialect. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 03:33, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

		The Template Barnstar
		Thank you for all of your work on creating templates, especially on the What If? Index project! 42.book.addictTalk to me! 02:24, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Cleaning up {{comic discussion}}

Hey, thanks for the help with the {{comic}} doc. I know you're a template wizard so I'm asking you directly. I have two questions:

• To avoid Main Page being added to the categories of the LATESTCOMIC, would it be possible to add a <noinclude> tag at the very end of {{comic discussion}}, so that the categories aren't transcluded? Would that be technically possible?

• Also, could you check out the code of the template? There's a sandbox at {{comic discussion/assist}}, but I can't understand the last part. It seems redundant and outdated.

We could submit the new version to Kynde once it's ready. (There's also a bug: if the first line is a header, it's not rendered correctly when trncluded; it looks like ==This==. But it's not a huge deal.) --FaviFake (talk) 11:29, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

To answer those questions:

1. Putting a noinclude tag at the end of the comic discussion template and a closing tag at the end of the comic page shouldn't work. When a page is transcluded, the source of the page is placed in exactly how it is in the editor (except for parts in noinclude tags). If you tried putting a noinclude tag within the discussion template at the end, when the main page evaluates the latest comic transclusion, the main page would insert the source of the comic page, with the end of the page being inserted as a template call to be evaluated later, followed by the categories, and then a </noinclude>. By this point, the categories are already on the main page, so the noinclude at the end of the comic discussion couldn't have any effect because it has already been included.
   Placing the opening noinclude tag for the categories on the comic page itself would work, but it would have to be done manually be a human each time because a bot creates the new pages and we can't modify the bot to insert an opening and closing pair automatically without contacting the creator. Also, doing what the comic template does for its automatic categories where it checks if the name of the page (which would be the page it is transcluded to) is the main page, and does't add categories if it is the main page.
2. the last part of the discussion templates actually looks like it is miswritten. In all of the TALKPAGENAME calls in the ifeq function calls, {{TALKPAGENAME}} should have been replaced with {{:{{TALKPAGENAME}}}} so that it checks the body of the talk page against the default texts/empty conditions instead of the name of the page, which is invariant. It probably would be cleaner with a #switch instead of nested #ifeq's.

I'll look at the template again tomorrow as it is very late for me right now. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 08:57, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks so much! We could very easily contact the creator on GitHub, I did just a few days ago. Also, the default text in talk pages was changed so the template would need to be rewritten. Would it make sense to create a script to add noinclude tags to all older comics? Or just ask the owner of the bot to add it to future comics? We don't transclude comics that often i don't think.

If you tried putting a noinclude tag within the discussion template at the end, when the main page evaluates the latest comic transclusion, the main page would insert the source of the comic page, with the end of the page being inserted as a template call to be evaluated later, followed by the categories, and then a </noinclude>. By this point, the categories are already on the main page, so the noinclude at the end of the comic discussion couldn't have any effect because it has already been included.

Does this still apply if the main page doesn't include the comic discussion template, as it seems it's doing now. I think {{comic discussion}} hides itself whaen on the main page, but not sure. --FaviFake (talk) 16:31, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

What the discussion template does is almost all of it is enclosed in an if statement that will only display the content if the page is not the main page. The template is still included on the main page, but the template doesn't insert anything (except for the div element that brings the discussion to bottom of any columns above and the span element that allows the discussion to be linked to as #Discussion). The "View comic discussion" link on the main page is written in the main page explicitly. Anything that would be added after the </div>}} would appear on the main page, but before the discussion link.

Contacting the creator would likely be the best option as it would add noinclude tags or whatever is decided upon to the new comics. It shouldn't be necessary to change previous comics, because they probably won't be included on the main page ever again; however, it might be good to do it anyways for the sake of standardization and future-proofing against if that changes later. I think that it might be best to create a template that will not add the categories if it is in the main page, because it probably would appear minimally in the editor and might make newer editors less confused if they try to add the latest comic to a category. Likely it would wrap the parameter it gets in an if block that checks the page it is on, like with the comic discussion template. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 20:04, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I looked, and {{Category handler}} will not put the categories on the main page by default (it is in it's blacklist) when used like

{{Category handler|
<!--Add categories here-->
[[Category:A]]
[[Category:B]]
}}

It should work properly with multiple categories on different lines. All that would be needed would having the template placed at the bottom of the page with the comment. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 00:13, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I fixed the issue with Template:tl:comic discussion not recognizing a section header if it is on the first line. The issue was that the =='s technically didn't start a line when it was transcluded because it placed it directly after the div tag that created the box, so it didn't interpret it as a header. The fix was to add a line break between the tag and the comment immediately after the tag so the =='s would be placed at the beginning of a line. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 03:06, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

"i still suck at remembering which slash closes tags in html"

For most things, the slash is the forward-slash. Whether in an "either/or" wordplay or for (non-Microsoft) directory-separations, and that includes tagging. For end-tag and close-tag, mnemonically, you can imagine it as a "|" being in the process of laying down, having halted. Or in the direction of italics to emphasise the end of the tag.

Exceptions are... well, we don't really use the "\" backslash at all in anything that's standard English typography... the whole C:\Windows\System thing and (within C-family and C-inspired programming platforms) character-escapes and character-class matches like "\n" (newline) and "\d" (matches any numeric digit). If you do either of those, you probably get used to it

Beyond that, you're talking of ASCII-art (when it's obvious what you want to use them for, like two hedgehogs talking: \\\>° °</// ) and other more specialised purposes. Which makes it strange that my on-screen Android keyboard has "\" easily accessible from the long-press of the "W" key (as with many more useful punctuations and non-alphanumeric characters) but I have to switch to the punctuation-layout to find "/" (which is pretty much the only type of oblique slash I normally need to access with it, whether for markup or URLs or prose).

Anyway, just FYI. Basically if it isn't a backslash, which it rarely is, it'll be a (forward-)slash. And I note you only had it wrong the once. ;) 172.71.134.202 15:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)