Talk: FAQ

What is this page?

This page can serve the function of the standard Talk: pages on wikipedia, since wikia's comment system is inconvenient for extended discussions, particularly on long pages like FAQ.

This page can be edited like any other page, but it serves more as a forum than as content. There are a couple things you can do to make discussions easier to follow on this page:

• Replies can be indented manually to show conversational threading, by using ":", "::", etc, at the beginning of a line.
• You can type "~~~~" at the end of a comment, and it will be automatically replaced with a "signature". It looks like this by default: Monguin61 21:22, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

The following empty sections are suggestions for a way to organize the page, they may be removed or changed in the future.

Why use this page instead of comments?

• It's easier to read - comments are stuck at the bottom of a very long page, they take up an unnecessarily large amount of vertical space, and they're threaded only one level deep.
• It's easier to maintain - the page editing system is more robust than the comment editing system, and content on this page can be modified and deleted freely by users and administrators alike, unlike comments.
• It keeps the discussion separate from the content - this is useful mostly since the main FAQ page is so long.

General issues and discussions

How can I become an administrator of this page? I'd like to see if there is a way to prevent the auto-collapse of the contents, and delete the one page on "Text extraction from complex background image". ImageAnalyst (talk) 13:28, September 17, 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone else have the problem that when they get to the FAQ page that after about 4 or 5 seconds, the contents section automatically collapses? I'd like for that not to happen. I'd like it to remain expanded. ImageAnalyst 19:41, January 18, 2011 (UTC)

I don't have that problem, but it seems like the site tries to remember your show/hide selection. Have you tried toggling that and reloading? I'm not sure how that works. Monguin61 20:43, January 21, 2011 (UTC)

I still have this problem with both Firefox and Internet Explorer through several versions. I don't know what browser Monguin61 is using - I'd like to know. I know others have mentioned the annoying collapse of the contents as well. I wish there were a fix for that. It's very annoying. ImageAnalyst (talk) 14:37, August 2, 2012 (UTC)

Inappropriate posts from "Wiki Contributors". Please see the section that I just removed from Miscellaneous. Sean de 21:33, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

An unfortunate reality of the internet. The only solution (on Wikia, at least), is for moderators to pay attention and undo such edits as quickly as possible. Thanks for the help. Monguin61 21:41, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

Too bad we can use something like: words(ismember(words,badwords)) = []; to automatically filter. ;)

Sean de 14:44, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

Who is "me" and "we" ?

There are references in the answers to "me", such as ... if you have other ideas, then send them to me . Users will not know who "me" or "we" is, so we should avoid using those, except perhaps in sections identified as being contributed by a specific person. In cases where a specific person wishes to be the "me", then the person should be identified (e.g., a link to their user page). In cases where the "me" is a relic of the old FAQ and no longer relevant, we as maintainers need to decide what to do.

Likewise, it is tempting to use the royal "we" in replies, such as "We do not recommend this". Likewise, I tend to use "we" to refer to my workplace, whom I need to avoid identifying (for political reasons). Wikipedia demands neutral viewpoint; I am not sure we need to go that far, but it would probably be better if we came up with a general policy about how we handle "we".

I think references to "me" can probably be rewritten to avoid it entirely, and "we" can either be rewritten, or possibly replaced with "Mathworks" when appropriate, eg, "The Mathworks does not recommend use of FUNCTION in this way".

By the way, there are a couple things we can do to make discussions easier to follow on this page. Replies can be indented manually by using ":", "::", etc, at the beginning of a line. Also, you can type "~~~~" at the end of a comment, and it will be automatically replaced with a "signature". It looks like this by default: Monguin61 21:20, December 8, 2010 (UTC

Section-specific discussions

Section 3: basics

Why can code formatted lines be indented via the toolbar tool in the editor, and show up as indented in edit mode, but after it is saved and the final version is displayed, they are no longer indented?

If I understand your question correctly - I believe the reason is that content within code tags is forced to display according to a preset style (that is, a set of CSS properties, including whatever controls indentation). I don't believe it is possible to modify this style on wikia, but I am not certain of this. 70.116.1.27 05:46, December 2, 2010 (UTC)

Why is the paragraph spacing in section 3.11 so inconsistent? Some paragraphs are separated by no line and others have a half or full blank line between them.

It is much easier to understand how the page source controls the formatting when editing in "code" mode instead of "wysiwyg" mode. I don't know what the official terms are for these modes, but "code" mode shows you the raw, plaintext source code, including wiki markup like "== blah ==" for section headings, "*" for list items, etc. "wysiwyg" mode is supposedly easier to use, but it lends itself to problems, like the inconsistencies seen in section 3.11. It is the default editor mode, which is unfortunate. The mode can be changed by clicking the "source" button at the top right of any edit box. Each individual user can also change their personal default mode on their settings page.

This page explains most of the basic wiki markup syntax, and line breaks in particular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup#Line_breaks . The basic problem in section 3.11 is that someone was inconsistent in their use of ascii line breaks vs html line breaks. I don't think I can effectively paraphrase the subtleties of the use cases here. Basically you can expect consistent plaintext source code to translate to a consistent display on the page - but if you use the wysiwyg editor, it's hard to say what will happen. Monguin61 04:41, November 28, 2010 (UTC)

But I do all editing completely with the built-in editor for the page. At the bottom there is a link to toggle between "Code view" and "Visual view," but they look the same and neither shows the hidden source code characters (except that Visual view shows an extra edit box for some reason). ImageAnalyst

I don't understand what that link at the bottom does. If you press the button at the top right, then the editor will show the otherwise hidden wiki markup source. The "code" editor is the one that is built-in to mediawiki, it is available by default on any normal installation of the software, so I have experience with it from other wikis. I have no experience with the wysiwyg mode (which is proprietary and unique to wikia, as far as I know), and I don't know where to go for information about how to use it. If you need to use wysiwyg mode for some reason, then the best suggestion I have is to use that for the bulk of your editing, and switch to source mode when you can't force the editor to do what you want. I will try to find a better answer to your question, but I have a feeling that that is the best solution available. Monguin61 23:30, November 28, 2010 (UTC)

Proposed sections

A section on common image processing questions. Since it's the most common toolbox used, and we get the same questions over and over, it deserves its own section. ImageAnalyst (talk) 14:39, August 2, 2012 (UTC)