User talk:Z1mp0st0rz

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 18:31, 24 April 2024 by Z1mp0st0rz (talk | contribs) (Talk to me here about anything! Have a good day!)
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Ok, so how to "Please sign with..." edits.

There are two templates you can use. {{unsigned}} and {{unsigned ip}}. The most commonly used is the latter, so let's go with that.

Someone hasn't signed, and you think they should have, so you add {{unsigned ip}} to the end for them. It ends up looking (a bit) like:

This example  [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]])  (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

You'll note that this looks... funny. That's because it actually expects/needs the relevent IP as a parameter, which is something you do with the pipe character, "|", and then the next bit. Adding {{unsigned ip|123.456.789.012}} to it. This now looks like:

This example  123.456.789.012 (talk)  (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That's better. But what IP should you add? Well, that's what you have to find out. And gives you one more bit of information that is also useful.

If you're already looking at the 'diff' page, for some reason, then you're already there. For the example I just saw you having difficulty with, though, I went looking for the appropriate diff information, which entailed working my way back through the history. I got to this page, which is the point at which the unsigned change was actually made. See the bit above the 'changed half' that says (with formatting and linefeed removed) "Revision as of 14:45, 26 October 2020 (edit) (undo) 172.69.216.142 (talk) (.) Newer edit →"? That's what's important.

(Check that the diff you're viewing isn't covering more than one change. Once you start using the "Newer edit" and "Older edit" links, you won't be, but if you got there straight from Recent Changes and the "<N> changes" link, then you're not going to be sure if the latest change is the one responsible. Better to go into History, start from there, or otherwise get into single-change comparison. If there aren't that many changes, within the last 24 hours (or default 50 changes) slot of history, you could go "Older edit" once, then go forward again in single steps. If it wasn't an older 'unsigned' than today, in which case you probably want to delve into the Older direction, anyway. Hoping it's not too far back!)

Anyway, there we have the IP, "172.69.216.142", which you can copy into the unsigned-template as its main parameter (If it's not an ip, responsible, but a username, then use the {{unsigned|<username here>}} version.) But you also have the timestamp (server timestamp, which is UTC, i.e. GMT±0). And actually the template lets you add a further parameter. If you write {{unsigned ip|172.69.216.142|14:45, 26 October 2020}}, for example, then you get:

This example  172.69.216.142 (talk) 14:45, 26 October 2020 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

...and that's basically what I consider the gold-plated 'correction'. Not quite solid gold, as a standard timestamp (e.g. the "19:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)" for this particular post) will also say "(UTC)", to make it clear that this is the standard server time (rather than what timezone the editor concerned was working in, wherever in the world they were). But it's probably good enough, and so I don't ever bother to add the UTC-ness to the copypasted timestamp.

You can see my own use of this in this edit-diff of mine. (I also back-adjusted the linefeed you'd managed to add in. All part of the service!) It's a simple edit, when you know how, even if this explanation is lengthy. Maybe hold off on trying it until you fully understand how to do it, though. Or, at least, use the Preview button and check whether what you thought were doing with your own initial edit is going to appear as you wanted it to. Preview is your friend. I'm going to use it here, before I then Save Changes, just to sanity-check what I'm writing just now!

(I believe you actually tried to use the text (please sign your comments with ~~~~), but didn't know how to stop the ~~~~ from being rendered. Well, if you really want to know how, then you can check this edit's source. But you don't actually need to know that, in this case, as the unsigned-templates do that for you. It's something else that's useful to know, but not for the unsignedness thing.)

Anyway, baby-steps. But I can see you're keen and often trying to be helpful. I'd never discourage that kind of attitude. Hence why I'm hoping the above is useful to you/anyone else who passes by. I would suggest not going out to hunt for 'unsigned comments', but only bother if you're hot on the heals of someone being forgetful (or honestly didn't know) or you're editing anyway and happen to be posting straight after a historic comment that you might think could look like it runs into your new comment, thus apparently 'adopts' your own sign-off, etc. Don't make work for yourself, but also you don't want to make future readers have to work out where different 'vintages' of comment are running into each other. A balancing act, indeed! 172.70.86.64 19:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Just tried it and it worked. Thanks.

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