Wikibooks:Reading room/Assistance

Welcome to the Assistance reading room where Wikibookians help each other solve problems encountered while contributing to books or otherwise taking part in the Wikibooks community.

Unsigned posts

Can't the template {{unsigned}} be made as default (if the exact date is not provided), to add a time stamp "before <time>" (time being the actual time of the insertion of the template and link it to the page edit history (if possible showing the edits before that date) ? Or some other useful variation of this... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 10:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Does {{unsigned3}} do what you want? --darklama 23:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It adds the time of the addition of the template as a default, an improvement. But it would benefit by the clear statement that it was "before <time>" (and then there wouldn't be any reason to object making it the default behavior for {{unsigned}}). There still is no link to the local page edit history for inquiring minds to easily verify the exact time by themselves (especially if it could be made to show the edits before that time, using the offset= ?), that would be a useful to get it all in the same place. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Just because I was thinking about it I will post here some comments on the templates...

Why the use of the word "comment", some posts are not comments (in fact most unsigned posts are initiators of threads). The world "post" would be more generic and to the point (and take less space). Post = A message posted in an electronic forum.

I also do not see any use for the {{unsignedIP}} (and variation) because it is prone to hide valid information, since anonymous users can create user pages. It is not at all intuitive as it alters the normal behavior of the signature parts. It seems a good target for a RfD (Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:UnsignedIP and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:UnsignedIP2)... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Timestamp now links to the offset in history, and preceded by "before" when the default is used. I wonder whether the offset in history depends on a user's timezone though, because if so that would make the link unreliable.

I agree there is no need for unsignedIP and unsignedIP2. I think unsigned3 can also replace unsigned and unsigned2, because the order of arguments is interchangeable.

"add comment" was the link/tab name used to add a new section or to "initiate a new thread" at one time. Maybe that is why the word "comment" is used.

--darklama 00:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I never spent any cycles understanding how time is worked on Wikimedia until now (UTC is good for me). But just for synchronization and general information of others reading this.

The opportunity for confusion is the click generated page by the provided link to the edit history.

All the talk pages use UTC (universal time zone, the system default) the preferences "Date and time" setting only affects the dynamically generated active logs, this includes a page edit history, and so a different timezone can indeed be an issue, since the offset will use the clicking user's preferences, the biggest possible difference is 23 hours, one could maybe shift the link to show the previous activity of time+23, if there is no easier way to check if the user timezone or force the link to generate a UTC version of it (in not already possible, this could be an improvement to the Wikimedia software in general). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 01:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I will let you know right now that I would oppose the removal of the unsigned IP templates. IP users ordinarily will not be creating user pages and the standard links in recent changes and on a page's history will not link to the IP user's page. So in the same vein an unsigned template should not either. And of course you won't see any uses of them because they are substituted. Conversely, I find unsigned3 to be unnecessary. I want to know the time a comment was actually added, not the time someone noted a comment was missing a signature. – Adrignola discuss 13:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)