User talk:Latias1290

Hi! Wanted to ask me a question? You came to the right place.
When you want to post something, please post new stuff at the bottom of the page. You can use the Add topic button for that.
When you post something, remember to put ~~~~ at the end of the post. Or, if you have a custom setup, like I do, you can use ~~~. But usually you want to use the quad tidle, not the tri one.
Latias1290 (talk)

Double redirects

I know there are a lot of double redirects on this wiki, but they're supposed to work (a couple don't for some reason, but most of them work fine). Basically, keeping HFS pointing to cv:HFS saves us trouble when we create the DF2014 namespace and set "cv" to point to it instead. (This is a better explanation, although outdated.)

However, I agree that we shouldn't need so many double redirects. I'm currently working on a way to make Mediawiki automatically jump to the cv: page without needing to create a redirect, so hopefully that'll solve this problem.

Also, thanks for your various fixes/corrections around the wiki :) --Lethosor (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

You may be interested in the discussion here. --Lethosor (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Re: Using templates with special characters in parameters

It is possible to use pipes (|) and equals signs, although it's tricky. Things like this usually work just fine, since Mediawiki parses the inner template before the outer one:

{{template1|{{template2|param}}}}

e.g. {{key|{{char|50}}}} gives 2

Using things like tables is trickier, and usually requires the use of a separate template, {{!}}, which produces a pipe character. (There is also {{!-}}, which produces |-). Using these keeps Mediawiki from interpreting the pipe as a separator, which lets you use it in a parameter.

Also, if you use equals signs in a parameter, like this:

{{template|1 + 1 = 2}}

You need to either use {{=}} instead of the equals sign or specify the parameter ({{{1}}}) explicitly, i.e.:

{{template|1=1 + 1 = 2}}

(The reason the first one doesn't work is because Mediawiki interprets the content before the = sign as the parameter name, passing the template a parameter named "1 + 1" with "2" as the value. The second option forces it to use "1" as the parameter name and "1 + 1 = 2" as the value. This page has more information about this, if you're interested.)

It's messy (and harder to read), but it does work. My personal recommendation in this situation to avoid having to escape a lot of pipes is to create two templates – one for a header, and one for a footer. (Usually just a header is necessary, since a footer is often just a </div> that doesn't really need a separate template).

—Lethosor (talk) 20:37, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Infinite vs unlimited finite

The distinction is a rather pedantic mathematical one. While there are indeed infinitely many different numbers of mechanisms you can embed in a lever, all of those numbers are themselves finite, so it's not correct to say (as the article did) "they can be used to stack an infinite number of mechanisms". According to my sources, this distinction is a common cause of confusion among first-year University maths students. --bjh21 (talk) 20:50, 8 February 2014 (UTC)