Template talk:PD Help Page

Help Contents link

The Help Contents link at the top of Template:PD Help Page is a navigational aid to help people who arrive at a specific "Help:" page find their way top level Help - Help Contents. Some people looking for help will be new to the site and not know their way around it yet and will need such navigational aid, especially in the Help namespace because the Help namespace currently has the confusing label "Help" configured as the article tab label. Newcomers see that "Help" tab label and think it goes to top level site Help but it does not. It goes to just the specific Help page they happen to be at already (or to be under if they are in its Talk, History, or Edit area). --Rogerhc 11:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a kludge and I am not happy with it. Maybe <- to Help Top would be better. Best would be to not have this navigational confusion built into the "Help:" namespace's article tab label in the firstplace. Ideas? --Rogerhc 11:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Eh, people who arrived at mediawiki.org and then already went to any specific help page, presumably do know about the edit button and the others ... they know that clicking "history" doesn't bring them to a text about the history of whatever, that clicking "article" doesn't bring them to the one and only article (whatever that could be), and also that clicking "help" doesn't bring them to the one and only help.

This template has one major aim, that is to inform about the license status of all pages in the help namespace. You can't explain on every page how this site is structured and how it may work globally. It doesn't make sense to reiterate many parallel links to support desk/forum/manual on every page (people won't read it if it's too long and has too many links). So please don't fill up such templates, that are displayed very prominently at the top of nearly all pages of a specific namespace, with needless information. Thanks --:Bdk: 12:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

'Public Domain Help Pages' link

Where it says "this page is one of the Public Domain Help Pages", is that the link you are discussing above? Currently that link seems wrong. Someone's pointed it to Project:Help instead of Project:PD Help (the page which explains public domain help!) -- Harry Wood 17:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Good spot. That probably came about from when rogerhc was moving everything around in a somewhat haphazard manner. Fixed now. --HappyDog 17:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

'C' Image problem

Funny mediawiki bug. Maybe related SVG resizing. This little icon is currently not displaying properly () I guess it must be an intermittent problem. Presumably the resized SVG image gets stored as rastarized image file in the cache. It's supposed to be at this URL http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/PD-icon.svg/20px-PD-icon.svg.png At the current time, it isn't there. If I ask for a newly resized image one pixel wider. () it works. So I guess it thinks it has something cached, when it hasn't -- Harry Wood 11:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Both are fine for me. --HappyDog 16:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually it looked fine again a couple of hours later. It's an intermittent bug... unless I'm going crazy. Ah well. Forget it.

But while I'm grumbling about graphics... Image talk:PD-banner.png

-- Harry Wood 12:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh and it's gone again. You see that? Nothing at this URL (but it'll probably fix itself a bit later on) -- Harry Wood 11:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

There we go. It's fixed again now. Hmmm intermittent bug. -- Harry Wood 11:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Exclude in print

This template is useless in PDF export.

Please put in Exclude in print Category.

39.209.212.71 09:48, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Format

I don't understand the current syntax of Template:PD Help Page. How many call it via {{TNT}} and how many don't? Anyway, I'm marking it for translation because some subpages are not following the same format and are transcluded unstyled. Also, I'll streamline the text (cf. translatewiki:MediaWiki:Wikidata-shortcopyrightwarning/en) and I'd like to make it less obstrusive, for instance floating on the right side so that it lets the lead section begin. --Nemo 10:02, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

It's been a while since I worked on this template, but if I remember correctly, I set it up so that it wouldn't be necessary to use TNT. I don't like TNT because it requires to edit every single page transcluding the template, whereas if the template itself includes the Template translation logic, the right translation appears automatically on all pages with a single edit. I thought I had cleaned up all the subpages (and fixed their direct transclusions with a bot); what are those that aren't working properly? guillom 09:49, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Your not on your own wiki anymore

Now that help pages are linked from all over mediawiki installs, maybe this should clarify you're not on your own wiki anymore? Or something?

For example, pretend you're a new user:

• You go to Special:Upload on your wiki
• You see the help icon on upper-right corner
• You click through to Help:Managing_files
• You see the link at the bottom to special pages, and read "Gallery of new files - If you just uploaded one, you will see it here. "
• So you click on the link, and are very confused that your image isn't there. You don't fully understand your not on your wiki anymore.

Bawolff (talk) 21:1e9, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

editsemiprotected permission required for translation!

Hallo,

I translated the core message using the "Translation" facility. However the translation of a certain message, i.e. Template:PD Help Page/core/6/ar was not saved because it required an extra permission which I do not have.

Any help?

Thank.

--Ahmad Gharbeia أحمد غربية (talk) 09:17, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Edit and Translate links

I don't understand why they should be there. Few templates have a translation link, and only sysops can edit the template. Removing these links would make its visual cleaner. Eduardogobi (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Editprotected

{{editprotected}}

Please remove the edit link as the page is fully protected. Ups and Downs (↕) 19:17, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Or at least use the {{Int }} template for the link text instead of {{int:}} so that it isn’t English when the rest of the template is translated just because the user interface language happens to be English. The same applies to the translate link (whose presence isn’t challenged, by the way). —Tacsipacsi (talk) 13:27, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@Awesome Aasim and Tacsipacsi: Could you post this to Project:Current issues instead? It appears transclusions of {{Editprotected }} aren't being monitored. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 22:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the edit link, and changed {{int:translate-taction-translate}} to {{int|translate-taction-translate}}. Does it look okay? —Sam Wilson 02:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Convert to use TemplateStyles

{{Edit Protected }}

Please apply Special:Diff/4694879 in order to use TemplateStyles . — ExE Boss (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Done * Pppery * _{it has begun} 01:17, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pppery: Please also copy the TemplateStyles banner and TemplateData description from the sandbox documentation subpage. You may also consider updating the tvar syntax. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Done * Pppery * _{it has begun} 22:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Why the template uses interface language instead of page langauge?

My interface language is "zh-cn", however, the template (like most other pages) does not have a "zh-cn" translation, but "zh" instead. In the "zh" translation of help pages, the notice is still displayed in Englih. I checked the source code, which seems to use {{int:lang}}. I think it should respect the page language, instead of my interface language (which can be affected by uslang). If that is sure to be used, the situation of languages with variants should be considered. SolidBlock (talk) 14:34, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Remove translate link?

This template is translated into a very large number of languages already, and from my experience doing recent changes patrol its translations are frequently subject to vandalism and test edits. The link is probably attracting more vandals and testers than constructive translators, so should be removed as having served its purpose. The page had to be fully-protected, and the edit link removed, based on the same principle. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 02:38, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Done * Pppery * _{it has begun} 04:55, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Removing the link caused a lot of whitespace. Maybe the style for .icon-cell could be changed to have padding: 0 1em, i.e. no vertical padding? —Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Done * Pppery * _{it has begun} 14:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

30 August 2025

Please merge edit in Template:PD Help Page/sandbox as well as Template:PD Help Page/sandbox/styles.css.

The changes at ARIA attributes, hiding the icons from the assistive technology, and also hiding the right icon if the display is a phone or tablet. Waddie96 (talk) 20:56, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Don't forget to change templatestyles .css link to no longer be in sandbox Waddie96 (talk) 05:56, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Add attributes to the table tag

{{Editprotected }} Please,

• add role="presentation" to the table tag for screen readers (e.g. look how it's routinely done on English Wikipedia);
• add class noprint to the table tag with as the content of the box is irrelevant for printing.

To sum up, replace <table class="template-pd-help-page"> with <table class="template-pd-help-page noprint" role="presentation">

Thanks. JWBTH (talk) 04:17, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

I don’t think adding noprint is a good idea – as far as I see, this template is the only indication of the PD status in print. Even if its original purpose is different, I think it’s helpful in print to indicate the copyright status.

Adding the role attribute is, on the other hand, definitely a good idea, unless/until the template gets migrated to <div>s. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:09, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

OK. (Hopefully if it ever migrates to a div, some other distinctive features will be present so that the templates like this can be filtered out in certain kinds of output, in my case a popup tool.) JWBTH (talk) 15:11, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

I have reduced the page protection to semi-protected. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 14:45, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Add __NOEDITSECTION__ to translatable pages

{{Edit request }}

I suggest adding the following line right before the TemplateStyles tag in order to work around T292352 whereby Extension:Translate or something else keeps appending a newline when you edit a section in a translatable page.

{{#if:{{TRANSLATABLEPAGE}}|__NOEDITSECTION__}}

Tactica (talk) 16:55, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I agree with the principle here - this feels like it's throwing the baby (all section edits) out with the bathwater (removing newlines). * Pppery * _{it has begun} 16:57, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

In any event I think it's time we consider reducing the protection level of this page to semi-protected now that we've removed the edit link which was attracting most of the vandals. @Trizek (WMF): What do you think? * Pppery * _{it has begun} 16:59, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't like adding workarounds myself but I don't speak PHP or JS so my options to spare editors the hassle of permanently having to cleanup are quite limited. Maybe at some point someone will take notice and actually try and fix the bug in the first place? :-) Tactica (talk) 18:20, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the solution matches the expected outcome. Which impact(s) these new lines additions has when you want to read or edit a page? Considering the end users, removing sections could make some upcoming edits more painful. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 12:43, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

This proposal doesn't provide a solution but a workaround for a bug, and the "expected outcome" is for translatable pages where this template is used (which ideally should span the entire Help: namespace) to require opening the whole page instead of letting editors load and modify a single section, in order to avoid the bug. If by "expected outcome" you mean what I said about someone fixing the bug, that was said in jest.

Without this workaround, whenever someone edits a translatable page following the "Edit" link next to a section heading, a newline is appended when they publish their changes. You can then see this visually in translatable pages when there's an abnormal amount of empty space right above a section, prompting editors to remove it manually later on. I tend to do that following a previous edit from someone else quickly before Shirayuki marks the page for translation to save him some work, or as part of an edit entailing more significant changes, but I see other editors modifying pages for the sole purpose of removing the unintended newlines, adding unnecessary work for translation admins.

I would consider the proposed change problematic if this were enwiki, but for a site mostly devoted to developers I don't see what's the big deal. Still, of course if you don't agree I will refrain from modifying this template even if you decide to lower the protection level. Tactica (talk) 13:52, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF): My question to you was whether you were OK with reducing the protection level of this template. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 22:52, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Ha, gotcha. TL;DR: I have no particular opinion. I note that the template is used at ~1,300 pages. Changing the protection to lower the number of the admins requests, but as this number is very low, should we? Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 08:44, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps because as the one admin who seems to be handling all of these requests, I'm getting tired of being the decisionmaker here and I would rather this discussion and the requests above go through the normal processes for template editing rather than me having to make a decision. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 15:08, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I have reduced the page protection to semi-protected. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 14:45, 15 April 2026 (UTC)