Template:Random new/doc
{{Random new/doc}} is a randomisation template which comes from a point in the development of wikipedia:template:random number before it depended on {{#time:U}}. To you, the user, it should still function much like {{random}}, so those instructions are included below.
Remember, however, that the instructions below are written for {{random}} and therefore you will have to substitute {{random}} with {{random old school}}. Also, there are currently, as of 21:12, October 22, 2013 (UTC), bugs with {{random}} that prevent it from randomising properly. Therefore, you may not see the example below change on page load.
This example, however, should randomly display a number between one and 52 for you:
{{random}} generates a random number, at least to the extent that non-mathematicians will be happy with the term "random", through simple markup. The number can be from 1 to whatever number you choose, up to 1000.
Syntax is straightforward:
{{random|1000}} = 289
This number will change every time the page loads.
Though this simple aspect is enough to power any number of functions — such as determining which random, numbered subpage to call on a page, the template does have additional sophistication, detailed at template:random on Wikipedia.
Example of calling forth a page
If you type the following, you will get a different quote of the week on every page load:
{{qotw/{{#expr:{{random|52}} + 1}}}}Test it out by reloading this page several times. What you get below will be different on almost every page, though with a sample size of only 52, you're bound to get some repeats. The reason is because there are 53 pages in the following format:
{{qotw/n}}However, there is no {{tlx|qotw/0}}. Thus by adding 1 to the randomly selected number between 0 and 52, we ensure the choice will be between the numbers 1 and 53.
- Anneke Wills: [ Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Frazer Hines and I ] did the last of the historical stories, so it's been a long time — except of course now the new ones and David Tennant and popping back to Madame de Pompadour and so forth. So for me it was lovely to hear they'd written [Resistance] in this last war. I always liked the historicals best, you see.
- Lisa Bowerman: . . . I knew this story would probably work because . . . there was an adaptation of a Lance Parkin novel called Just War which was set on Guernsey during the Second World War occupation. And it actually is a very, very powerful era to deal with because it's about the rights and wrongs of war . . . [H]ow people responded to Just War I think will be the same as this, because it's a real tangible, understandable threat, as opposed some sort of a surreal threat of a Cyberman or whatever.
- John Sackville: Yes, I think that's what I wasn't saying earlier.
