Wikipedia:Help desk

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February 18

Porn sites

Are links to porn sites that contain XXX images and sell adult vidoes and require age verification allowed in articles? AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 01:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a serious question btw...I'm coming across many articles that contain links to hardcore porn and trying to remove them ends up with people upset at me. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 01:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Rationales for linking (and not linking) are at WP:EL. The direct answer to your question is "it depends". For specific cases, you might want to ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pornography. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, edits like this [1] is what I'm trying to deal with today. I'm getting a little frustrated. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Many of those are also blogs and personal web-sites that are not generally allowed under policy. Also of related note, Wikipedia is not censored and may contain content that some find offensive or objectionable.

Can you elaborate on what pages that you find content that is offensive in terms of hardcore pornography? In general, if the links are there only to advertise a web-site and do not relate to the article in itself, it can be removed. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 05:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not acceptable. As a 13 year old who often clicks external links I would get into a lot of trouble if my Mum saw my browsing history. It shouldn't cause outrage as Wikipedia is not a gateway to porn and anybody who is stupid enough to think so will not be intelligent enough to protest. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 14:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, because I am in the same position myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RJRocket53 (talk • contribs) 01:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you are looking at a porn article (which you shouldn't be at 13), then you should know that external links will likely be porn related. TJ Spyke 05:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Personal pages

What's the difference between a celebrity that is more known than me, a local legend ? If I wait until someone writes a wikipedia page on me, it might taken 20 years, and it might be wrong. If I write it, it will be accurate. And yes, I can make it unbiased, and only basic enough to be certifiable.
If a moderator decides "I don't know who this person is" and deletes it, is that fair? If I Google myself and get 60 responses, and someone who was already featured in WP has 2000 responses, then does that make them more worthy of not having their page deleted?
If it does get deleted, and I put it up again with some additions or modifications, could that get me blacklisted or banned ?
Thanks DaveDodgy (talk) 03:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

See WP:BIO for our biography guidelines. If you are not notable enough for Wikipedia yet, you can always start your biography on WikiBios, which accepts biographies about any human. (I'm not sure if they restrict it to humans.) Also, we refer to administrators on Wikipedia rather than moderators, although you have the basic idea about how they work. --Teratornis (talk) 03:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

An admin is not supposed to delete an article because they “don’t know who this person is.” Rather they remove it because it because it does not assert the notability of the person, because it does not back up the assertion of notability with references to reliable independent sources, because it is written like a PR piece rather than an encyclopedia article, or because it is plagiarized for a copyrighted source. --—teb728 t c 04:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

They probably aren't supposed to, but some admins do apparently say I wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground. (I guess it's easier to laugh when it's someone else's article getting deleted.) --Teratornis (talk) 04:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

In answer to your question, recreating a deleted article won’t get you blocked, but the article might be deleted sooner if it doesn’t seem to be improved. If you recreate it multiple times, the title would be protected to prevent recreation. —teb728 t c 05:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You're misinterpreting Wikipedia:I wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground to be equivalent to WP:IDONTKNOWIT, which it's not at all. What the page says is that even after reading about the subject in the article, "I wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground;" i.e., the article doesn't assert any significance/importance by citation to reliable sources, and thus meets CSD A7.68.237.221.83 (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, repeatedly recreating a deleted article may get you blocked, but probably only after someone's tried to talk to you about it and you keep doing it without responding to them. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguate on a re-directed article

Case in point:
The Kings Royal (band) needs a disambiguation link on The Kings Royal
The Kings Royal is re-directed to Eldora Speedway
Put disambiguation link on The Kings Royal or on Eldora Speedway?
Duckweb (talk) 06:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I did much shuffling here. I think it's in good shape now. Kings Royal and The Kings Royal (band) redirect to The Kings Royal (and that hatnotes out to the dab and the race), King's Royal and The King's Royal redirect to Eldora Speedway (which hatnotes out to the dab), and the dab is now at King's Royal (disambiguation). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Google image search

Hi. Why doesn't Google seem to index Wikipedia images? These searches should get dozens of results, but don't:

• http://images.google.com/images?q=scooter+site:wikipedia.org
• http://images.google.com/images?q=hat+site:wikipedia.org

Compare with:

• [2]
• [3]

(It's probably in an faq somewhere, but I can't find it.) Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 07:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Comparing the Results info, it appears that Google doesn't support searching websites for images like that

Results 1 – 10 of about 7,110 from wikipedia.org for scooter. (0.22 seconds)

for a normal web search, compared to

Results 1 – 7 of 7 for scooter site:wikipedia.org. (0.01 seconds)

—Mr.Z-man 07:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Any idea how to restrict the results to only images that come from our domain? The majority of those results are unrelated to our domain, or the subject matter. Using their advanced search gives this string, which still doesn't work:

• http://images.google.com/images?as_q=+scooter&as_sitesearch=wikipedia+org

Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 07:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I just did my search using the domain en.wikipedia.org, instead of the more general version. I got largely the same results, however I think I know what the problem is. You're finding images from all over the web because people all over the web are using images that were originally uploaded to Wikipedia. Clicking through all of my results, the images are all from our domain, even if the site using them is unrelated. It just turns out that the text of the site displaying the image is getting a higher hit rate than the original image description page here. Unfortunately, I can't find any way to restrict the images further. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

fairly used metalworking center lathe machine.

i am interested in purchasing a fairly used metalworking lathe machine in the uk, pls give me the companies addresses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.204.224.33 (talk) 08:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 09:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Understanding "ATP"

What is Tennis ATP rankings? What is Tennis ATP race? How does it work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.162.3.145 (talk) 08:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 09:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

See ATP Entry Ranking and ATP Race. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

original registration number

≈§−≥p86.140.104.13 (talk) 10:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)pMY MATE IS THE OWNER OF A 1958 FORD DEXTA TRACTOR BUT HAS NO REG DOCUMENTS OR LOG BOOK, WE KNOW WHO SUPPLIED THE TRACTOR WHEN NEW BUT THEY HAVE NOW CEASED TRADING,HE WOULD LIKE TO GET THE ORIGINAL REGISTRATION NUMBER, WE HAVE BEEN IN TOUCH WITH DVLA AND THEY SAID CONTACT THE MANUFACTURER WHO SHOULD BE ABLE TO PRODUCE IT,I HOPE YOU CAN BE OF ASSISTANCE,I BELIEVE THE TRACTOR WAS MADE IN DAGENHAM SO PERHAPS I NEED TO CONTACT THEM, ANY INFORMATION YOU CAN GIVE ME OR THE PERSON WHO MIGHT BE ABLE TO POINT ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION WOULD BE MOST APPRECIATED,

     MANY THANKS I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR REPLY
                     REGARDS PERCY F W FEAR86.140.104.13 (talk) 10:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Stifle (talk) 11:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I have located a Ford tractors discussion forum which I thought might be of some use to you. By the way, you may not be aware of it but typing in all caps on the internet is, by long standing convention, seen as shouting. Best of luck.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

ABOUT ELCB

I WANT TO KNOW THE WORKING OF ELCB(EARTH LEAKAGE CIRCUIT BREAKER) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandeyanant9999 (talk • contribs) 11:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Check out Residual-current device. Stifle (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you read ELCB which redirects to Earth leakage circuit breaker? Sbowers3 (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Big Brother 9 page STILL unverifiable

I took all the routes given to me regarding the Big Brother 9 page, but once again those in CONTROL of the page, essentially ownership, win and continue to post unverifiable information. I dont care if the information are spoilers anymore, really, but live feeds are NOT verifiable sources and they don't seem to get this. What can I do now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RMThompson (talk • contribs) 13:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, as we've been telling you on the articles talk page (where this discussion belongs), consensus overrules your opinion on the content. Until the consensus changes, this isn't going to help anything. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on an article's talk page doesn't over-ride the underlying principles of Wikipedia, including verifiability! At this point, it looks like RMThompson may have to file a notice with the appropriate noticeboard. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The information added can be easily verified, and the only problem I see is that people sometimes aren't adding reference links at the time of adding the content. - Rjd0060 (talk) 01:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

how to arrange images side by side in a page

I tried arranging three images side by side in a page after the content, I was not successful in doing so i want the procedure for doing so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalivd (talk • contribs) 14:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You might want to use a WP:Gallery tag. Algebraist 15:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Seeing who wrote a particular sentence in an article

I'm familiar with the history and with the diff feature, but I'm looking for something slightly different. There's an article where I am slightly suspicious of a claim and would like to try to figure out who and when put it in to ask them what it's about. Any trick or tool to do this? I know we can slap on fact tags etc, but an informal discussion with whoever put it in would be the best solution here, but I can't wade through oodles of prior versions to zero in on it manually.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinp (talk • contribs) 15:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What I do is an approximation of a Binary search. Let's say there are 1,000 edits. Go back about halfway, to about the 500th edit. Is the sentence there? If so, then go back further to about the 250th edit; if not, then go further forward to about the 750th edit. Each time you divide in half – it's either in the first half or the second half. For an article with 1000 edits, it would take at most 10 tries to narrow down to the specific diff that added that sentence. If you tell us the article, I'll be more specific. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It was on Max Keeping. Your suggestion is a good one, but still somewhat time consuming. I've instead asked on the article talk page. Martinp (talk) 16:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

If you can't find it on WikiBlame let me know the sentence and I will find it for you. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You might have luck with WikiBlame, which searches for given text in revisions of an article. --Teratornis (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Cancelling an account

Hi there. Would you please be able to give me information as to how I may cancel the account Keith1234? Best wishes, and thank you for the good service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keith1234 (talk • contribs) 15:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. You do, however, have the right to vanish, which you can exercise by (1) requesting your user page (found at Special:Mypage) and/or user talk page (found at Special:Mytalk) be deleted, by adding the {{db-userreq}} template to them; (2) requesting to change your username to something that is unconnected with you (possibly a random collection of letters and numbers); (3) never logging in to your account again. If you do this, you are still free to register a new username if you wish to continue editing Wikipedia.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Template Problems

I am trying to figure out why Kent State's template is not showing up at all and why the Rutgers template shows up but without the collapsable "show" on the right... the others for some reason show up correctly.. this problem is beyond my area of expertise. Thank you for your time and help. For the issue at hand see Gary Waters.--Josh (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Problem fixed by User:Soxred93 --Josh (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Help with userpage

[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RJRocket53&action=edit&section=new [[File:Click to Leave A Message.png|300px]]]

I am trying to put that in my userpage, but it links to the image itself, not the new sections of my talk page. Is there a way to disable linking to the image? Thanks, RJRocket53 (talk) 18:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Try this:

{{Click
|image  = Click to Leave A Message.png
|width  = 300 px
|link   = http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:RJRocket53&action=edit&section=new
|desc   = none
}}

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't work, when I click the link, it comes up with a "This page doesn't exist" page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RJRocket53 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems that the {{click}} template only supports internal wikilinks, not the sort of link that's required for editing a page. I thought I could fix this by using the ImageMap extension directly, but it seems to have the same limitation. If this is so, it might not be possible to link it in the way you want. • Anakin ^(talk) 19:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right, damn, thought I had it. I just tried a couple of work arounds without luck. Sorry.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That's OK, I just put a regular link. "Click here to leave a message" —Preceding unsigned comment added by RJRocket53 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay I think I have it now, try this:

   

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't work on my browser. However, a bug with ampersands in external links in imagemaps was fixed recently; when the change goes live (within a few days, hopefully), maybe one of your earlier tries will work. --ais523 20:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit's version works (more or less) if you move the last </div> to be after the image. Algebraist 20:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

For now I'll use

			Click here to leave a message...

RJRocket53 (talk) 01:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

What about this:

___

212.123.186.64 (talk) 10:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Quotation marks around title

I created three redirect pages to the History of Pennsylvania State University, and two of the three redirects ended up with unintended quotation marks around the titles. Any thoughts on how that happened, so I can avoid that mistake in the future, and how I might change the present titles of "Pennsylvania State College" and "Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania"? --Pat (talk) 18:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably, when you searched for those subject lines, you put the quotation marks in the search box (not useful in Wikipedia search). When you found that there was no such article, you created a new article with the quotation marks intact! I've moved these to better places now. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

uncertain how to report abuse

Hi, I apologize for sending this to you if you're the wrong forum...I have reported small instances of content abuse in the past but could not navigate the directions this time. I'm not a member and don't feel up to tagging people as vandals or getting into switching content myself, but would like to pass along that the "George Washington" page has had "Early Life" changed to "Sex Life," with the witticism, "YO YOUR GAY" added at the top. Was hoping somebody might be able to help clean that up. Thanks, and sorry again if I've missed how to handle this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hedgehog3 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I had a look through the history of that page, and couldn't find the specific instance of vandalism you're referring to, although it seems to have been reverted now. I have also purged the page to make sure it has been rebuilt from cache. It should be fixed now, although if you're still seeing the vandalized version, have a look at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache to make sure you're seeing the latest version of the article. Hope this helps. • Anakin ^(talk) 18:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Logging in

Okay, so when I type in www.wikipedia.org, then click English, it takes me to the main page. The top of the page says "Log In / Create Account". But if I type something into the search box, like "WT:RFA" or anything else, that page will load and I will be logged in. Is this a new "feature" or should I change something so that my login credentials will show on the main page? I just can't get it to show that I'm logged in at the main page. If I wanted to edit the page, I couldn't because I'm not "logged in". Useight (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. - Apparently others have been having this problem as well. Useight (talk) 19:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

P.P.S. - I'm using Windows XP Pro and browsing with IE6. Useight (talk) 19:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like the initial Main Page that you see might be being cached in some way, so that even though you're logged in it's not showing it. Next time this happens try the instructions at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache (normally by pressing Ctrl + F5) to reload the page, to see if that shows you logged in. I have heard of some strange login problems lately though. • Anakin ^(talk) 19:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Anakin, yeah as you may have guessed, it's a global problem. We've (many of us) detailed the symptoms and published our work-arounds. Lots of chatter from many of us but as of this time stamp it seems that the folks who can fix it aren't around right now! -- hydnjo talk 20:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Being logged out, Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#Wikipedia keeps logging me out after restarting browser, Wikipedia:Help desk#Logging in, Wikipedia:Help desk#Interesting log in problem, Wikipedia:Help desk#Logging out everytime I close my Browser, Wikipedia:Help desk#Frequent Logouts and more I'm sure. --hydnjo talk 20:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

comment request templates

i need help properly placing the requested comments templates here. At [Talk:Potrero Hills]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boomgaylove (talk • contribs) 20:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yogh

Doubtless this is a very simple question, but I don't have the technical knowhow to deal with it. How do I write the letter yogh when quoting Middle English text? It isn't included in my character map, and if I cut and paste it from Middle English texts elsewhere on the Web I just get a square instead. Is Unicode the answer, and if so how do I use Unicode? Antiquary (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Write the uppercase letters and lowercase letters as {{latinx|Ȝ}} and {{latinx|ȝ}} respectively; this produces Ȝ and ȝ. The {{latinx}} template is a workaround for Internet Explorer's handling of Unicode, and doesn't affect other browsers. (I got the hexadecimal codes required from the article for the letter.) --ais523 21:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

And to answer in more general terms: Unicode is a set of characters extended beyond what most traditional character sets supported. To use it in an article, you can either copy-and-paste the required character from somewhere, or write a hexadecimal (or in some cases named) code between an ampersand and semicolon. In both cases a fix is usually needed for the display to work in Internet Explorer 6 (and maybe 7, I don't know), and the exact template needed depends on which character you used (normally {{unicode}}, although apparently not in this case). (The edit view will appear incorrectly in IE6 if the first method is used, even with a font correction template.) The correct hexidecimal code is ampersand, hash, x, then some hexadecimal (which is normally listed in the article about the character), then a semicolon. Hope that helps! --ais523 21:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

February 19

Can you explain to me how to make bullets on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilija01 (talk • contribs) 03:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

• An asterisk RJRocket53 (talk) 03:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, I found an article about a guy I know, but I am sure he is not notable enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Please see Robert Gardiner. What should I do about this? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.77.247.53 (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

First off, make sure you know what we consider to be notable. For people, we have a specific guideline at WP:BIO, however if he fails those criteria, the more general criteria at WP:N may also apply. If you don't believe he is notable (which does appear to be possible, just at a glance), here are some options:

• Be Bold. If you can improve the article, do so! The main thing it seems to suffer from are a lack of references for verification, however there are also issues with a neutral point of view and possibly some other things as well. If you can edit the article to justify his notability and improve the style errors, there's no need to delete it.
• Mark for cleanup. If you're not comfortable making these changes yourself, you can add cleanup templates to indicate to other editors that the article needs work. Again, if the problems are fixed, there's no need to worry.
• Nominate for deletion. Deletion should really be a last resort, but if there is no chance of meeting our inclusion policies, this is the way to go. The best deletion procedure for this article would probably be Articles for Deletion, where editors discuss the merits and failures of the article in terms of our guidelines and policies to determine its fate. In order to complete the nomination, however, you will need to create an account. You may not be able to finish the nomination procedure until your account is at least four days old, as the nomination requires creating a new page. Alternatively, you can provide a valid reason for deletion here and we'll list the page for you. Please note, however, that there are certain arguments to avoid and you will also need to fully familiarize yourself with our deletion policy beforehand.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you still have any questions. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Query on "Did you know..." section

Dear Sir/Madam,

I just want to quickly understand how Wikipedia chooses these topics for the "Did you know..." sections on the front page. I do not visit Wikipedia as much as I would like, but this is usually a good source of general knowledge. I try to visit Wikipedia daily, and the "Did you know..." section serves as a very good starting point for me.

Thus my first reason for understanding how Wikipedia works on this subject. Does Wikipedia chooses the topics on that section automatically? or does it do so by certain editors or specific contributors? I generally find the site very well run, but recently on a couple of occasions, I find that there were feeds on Singapore that are downright mundane, but highly suspicious of mild propaganda to promote the city.

Today's example is: "did you know..... that during the construction of Centennial Tower in Singapore, the tower rose 20 storeys in just three months?"

I am only recalling from memory, but a few days ago, it was something like: did you know... that after the construction of Circle Line MRT, Singapore will have the highest density of railway per sq mile in Asia... or something similar. I do not remember the actual entry, but I hope you understand my point that this is entirely useless, very vague on information, and highly suspicious of self promotion.

What I wonder and worry about, is whether Wikipedia is being used as a base for some form of soft advertisement, whether there are any checks to guard against this, and what should we do if we start to see a worrying amount of propaganda, non-specific to any city/country?

Is it possible for Wikipedia or users to check if specific people (or IP addresses) are consistently promoting their interests on Wikipedia, or vice versa?

Thanks for your help and insight, Ian —Preceding unsigned comment added by FB002310 (talk • contribs) 06:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi there! I've divided your post into three questions:

1) How does the "Did you know?" feature on the front page work?

• There is a whole system behind submitting, writing, and posting DYK items which can be found at Wikipedia:Did you know.

2)What measures are taken to prevent the misuse of wikipedia? (as an advertisement, propaganda, so on...)

• Wikipedia strives to maintain a Neutral point of view but because anybody can edit, sometimes separate opinions sneak through. We do have a set of rules that hope to deter these practices.

3)Is it possible for wikipedia users to check if specific people (or I{ addresses) are promoting their interests?

• Each page on wikipedia saves every edit that is made to it in the Page history. There, every user or IP that has edited a page can be located. From there (or from the user's User page) the user's contributions can be found. From there editing trends can be discovered. However, it is wikipedia's policy to focus on content not conduct. As such, the articles are usually re-written or modified to remove the material in question.

I hope this helps! Welcome to wikipedia. If you have any other questions, feel free to post here or on my talk page and I (or somebody else) would be happy to help! Cheers! --omtay38 06:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Safari issues?

I'm not sure which obscure help page this question belongs on so I'm coming here with it... For the last week or so, whenever I come here to Wikipedia on either my G4 or my MacBook, the main page will not show me as logged in. Although, if I hit the log in link in the upper right of the page, all the usual links for my userpage, talk page, etc. will show up and everything else shows up as if I'm logged in. I'd think this was a cookie issue if it were just on one system but it's on both. I run Safari on both systems, so is there a new bug with Safari? Dismas|^(talk) 09:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Log_in_.2F_.27remember_me.27_problems and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Logging_in_2 on this page. 212.123.186.64 (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks! I should have searched first... Dismas|^(talk) 09:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I was wondering how I could get rid vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Valtoras (talk • contribs) 11:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This may help you out. STORMTRACKER 94 ^{Go Sox!} 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

How to export the picture file?

I am trying to export my articles on Wikipedia back to my personal wiki. It is easy to export the articles, but I can not export the pictures which are in these articles. Is there any way to export the pictures, including the introduction pages of pictures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhaac (talk • contribs) 12:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This question and the following one suggest you have your own personal wiki running on the MediaWiki software. Evidently you found the Special:Export (works on Wikipedia) and Special:Import (only admins can use it) features which allow you to easily export the text of articles from Wikipedia as XML code and import it on your wiki. Images, unfortunately, do not travel conveniently in XML format. I haven't tried exporting many pictures from Wikipedia yet; the few I have exported, I exported in the obvious but not clever way: right-click an image in Wikipedia, select Save image as... from the Web browser's context menu, then use Special:Upload on my own wiki. That's awkward but tolerable for a few images. If you want to import thousands of images into your wiki, then you will need a more efficient method. I have not looked for such a method but one must exist, because lots of people mirror Wikipedia and they can't be doing it by hand. You could start by reading WP:DUMP. Also, the Wikipedia Help desk is not the most appropriate place to ask questions about administering your own MediaWiki wiki. Instead you should ask at mw:Project:Support desk. Most of the technical information about running your own MediaWiki wiki is on two other wikis, and you can search them with Google by using the following two links from the Template:Google_custom/doc#Examples#examples on the {{Google custom}} template page (you may want to bookmark these search links):

• Search Meta-Wiki with Google
• Search MediaWiki.org with Google

For example, you can search both wikis for "how to export images":

• Search Meta-Wiki with Google for: how to export images
• Search MediaWiki.org with Google for: how to export images

Some of those search results may be relevant to your question. --Teratornis (talk) 17:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

How to set the editing permission of guest?

I am trying to build my personal wiki site, and I got a question. For an administrator, can I prevent the articles from the editing of un-login guests? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhaac (talk • contribs) 12:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Wikipedia:Page protection says that semi-protection can be done for "User pages, but not user talk pages, when requested by the user." So any admin should be able to do this for you. I suggest waiting a few hours to see if any admin responds to your question here, and if not, then listing your user page at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Semi-protection means that users must be logged in with accounts at least 4 days old to be able to edit. Your account is more than 4 days old, so you will still be able to edit. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

People say "wiki site" about different things. Coppertwig assumed your question was about your user page User:Abhaac here at Wikipedia. I guess it is about your own wiki unrelated to Wikipedia but using the same MediaWiki software. See mw:Manual:Preventing access. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Maps

Hello, I was seeking a map of Europe, c.1710, after the War of the Spanish Succession besides the ones provided on that article, and I decided I needed to make it myself. So my question is what program is used to create a lot of the maps on wikipedia that look like the one below?

--24.177.120.98 (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Manually updating signatures after change of username

I am in the process of changing my username. Since I have been active on some talk pages, my (old) signature is scattered all over the place. WP:RENAME states:

• This change will not affect signatures you have already left on talk pages, or other places where you signed your username with ~~~~. Those pages will continue to display your signature (including the link to your old username) unless edited manually.

However, I could not find any guidelines on how acceptable it is to manually update these signatures. I guess it should be no problem for user talk pages (expect old vandal warnings, which are not important) and article talk pages, but what about archived discussions (on all types of talk namespaces)? For the time being, I will be maintaining a link (such as {{Doppelganger}} or {{UserUsur}}) from my old username to my new one, but I might eventually decide to erase it. Any opinions or precedents would be appreciated. CounterFX (talk) 14:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry, just change it on non-archived versions (as many as you can) and nobody will be bothered about the archived ones. Just put a link to your new userpage at the top of your old one so people can get to the right place (or even redirect it). Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 14:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people consider making a lot of minor changes like that disruptive. User:White Cat has done that at least twice now, and he's been reported to WP:ANI both times. I would suggest that you not bother. Corvus cornix_talk 00:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You may do it, especially if the rename was for privacy reasons. However, if you don't really care about it, having your old username as a redirect would suffice. Prodego ^talk 00:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all three for the advice :-) There was an obscurity concern behind it, but only slight. I guess I could restrict myself to just the archives which are likely to be referred to in the future (such as talk pages of contentious articles). CounterFX (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I read the discussion at White Cat's (here and here). In my case, the change is not merely cosmetic, since I might eventually severe the link between my old username and my new one, in which case it would no longer be straightforward for editors reading the archives to contact me. Again, this need only be done on archives which are likely to be revisited at all. CounterFX (talk) 00:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Offensive Edit summaries

Not sure if anything should be done for use of offensive edit summaries [4]) Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 14:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure accounts can be blocked if it happens too much. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 14:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've dropped him a moderately-worded note on his talk page. If he persists, you'll need to file a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Or you can report at WP:AIV. Note that reports are normally not acted upon unless the person has been warned up through a final warning. Accordingly, if it becomes necessary, you can follow up the now second stern warning with a final warning and report if the same conduct continues thereafter. I do not believe there is a dedicated final warning for inappropriate edit summaries ( but see WP:UTM and the templates there in "level 4" for the general format of a final warning ({{Uw-npa4}} is close for this conduct).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

How can I find a question and answer that was posed by a coworker of mine about a month ago?

How can I find a question and answer that was posed by a coworker of mine about a month ago?198.57.13.68 (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

First you can search the help desk archives, which are ordered by date. As you scroll between the pages that are about the right date, you can use your computer's find function (usually accessible by hitting cntrl+f) to search for text that was in the question, the section header, or your friends username or ip address. You can also hit the history button at the top of this page and again use find to search for your friend's post by username or ip name. Finally, you can go to the same history, find a date you think is a few days after your friend's date of posting, then click on the linked date which will show you the help desk as it existing on that date, and just scroll for the question, which should not yet have been archived at that time. A final option: you can use Google to search the help desk.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The Google method is pretty nice as it tolerates misspellings and variations on word stems. Plus we have a nice {{Google help desk}} template to make it super-slick. For example, if your co-worker has an account, and thus a user talk page, and you can think of some distinct search keywords in the question and answer, you could leave a message on your co-worker's talk page with the {{Google help desk}} template, like this:

• Dearest co-worker, check this out: Search Help desk for: some keywords (then type your signature here with --~~~~)

--Teratornis (talk) 08:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Flickr review template?

Is there any equivalent to the Commons {{flickrreview}} template here on en? In particular, I'd like some way to tag an image as correctly licensed, in case a Flickr user later decides to delete the image or change the license on Flickr after it's been uploaded here. —Bkell (talk) 16:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

water pressure and surges

Iam trying to get back to a question i asked on aboutjanuary 14th.2008 and the replies thatwere made.how can i accessthis?robd —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robdoc77 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=prev&oldid=185887863 here is one reply, scroll through the page versions to get the others.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 17:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Online library

how to get connected to online library59.96.203.55 (talk) 17:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)shekar

It seems your question escaped notice because you typed it without a separate heading, so I added one. You did not specify which online library you want to connect to. You can find lots of books or booklike things on Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Google Books, for starters. If that's not what you mean, then see: {{astray}}, as you may be confusing Wikipedia with a library mentioned in one of our articles that we have nothing to do with. --Teratornis (talk) 08:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Single/Double spacing after period

I know it is an issue of personal preference, but would editing articles for the sole purpose of changing them to your preference, be considered disruptive? Astronaut (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It makes no difference to the rendered page whether there is one or two spaces after a period, so it would be pointless to edit a page just to change it. Is somebody doing that? Sometimes a dummy edit can be useful to make an edit summary, and changing number of spaces is one way to make a dummy edit. Or is this about rendered spaces made with &nbsp; or another method? PrimeHunter (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It does seem pretty pointless to me too, but an IP is indeed going round adding an extra space (regular space chars, not nbsp or something else), with no edit summary. I just find it creates an unnecessarilary large difference listing that is distracting when I look for potential vandalism. Astronaut (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

If it's recurring then have you tried politely asking them to stop? Who is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Not yet - I wanted to find out whether it was generally considered disruptive or I was just being a bit picky. If you're interested, I first noticed it in this edit and then a couple of hours later I was looking at this edit and thought that IP address looks like the one from earlier. Astronaut (talk) 01:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Most of the edits I looked at also made real and sensible changes. It didn't look like anything negative was intended and I have posted a friendly note at User talk:24.11.114.86. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Deleting warnings

Is a user allowed to delete their warnings and templates from their talk page, or do they have to keep them for others to see? User 79.215.119.195 just deleted his 2 warnings, and I was wondering if this was allowed.

Thanks very much! -- Blake01 17:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

No. It is considered bad practice to remove vandalism warnings from one's talkpages. It also causes confusion if the vandal carries on causing trouble, and further users and bots give out warnings, thinking the user hasn't been warned before. I'd revert the edits to bring back the warnings, and drop a note on his/her talkpage saying the removal of warnings is frowned upon. Lradrama 17:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - all sorted now! -- Blake01 18:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, no problem. :-) Lradrama 18:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This is accepted practice yes, but I always thought that the removal of a warning may be viewed as the user understanding and acknowledging said warning, basically blanking it in good faith. Afterall, blanking the warnings does not actually remove them from Wikipedia. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:TALK#User talk pages says: Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages, though archiving is preferred. They may also remove some content while archiving some. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. Bovlb (talk) 20:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Don't restore removed comments. Bovlb (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

ISBN links

Hi How do you make the ISBN links? I don't see any code when I go to edit this page.

Also,

Where is the little diamond (?) in the code for posting pictures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.135.111.64 (talk) 17:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:ISBN.

Which diamond? See Help:Images and other uploaded files for how to post pictures. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

How do you get coordinates on your user page, like at the top of Grimsby and other location articles? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 18:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The practical usage of coordinate markup in Wikipedia is described in the style guide for geographical coordinates. For use on maps and other services, parameters may also be required. A complete entry could for example be: {{coord|51|28|40|N|0|0|6|W|type:landmark_scale:2000_region:GB}} See also: Obtaining coordinates. Good luck! ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 18:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah thanks! I used a slightly simpler version but I wouldn't have found it without your help. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 19:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Contacting members of Wikipedia casually

Where do I go to contact members of Wikipedia with unrelated Wikipedia comments? I just want to say a few things regarding similar interests... Do I post it on their discussion board, or would that be frowned upon? - tbone (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You may do such a thing, but bear in mind WP:TALK - you can give general comments, be friendly, give a compliment, but whole conversations are usually frowned upon. Some users make their email addresses available, so that is another route. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Emailing users for details about the latter. Wikipedia users can set their preferences so you can e-mail them, but this does not reveal their e-mail addresses to you. It's possible for two users to correspond by e-mail without actually learning each other's e-mail addresses. Of course users can voluntarily divulge their contact information to anyone they choose. All the usual cautions about contacting strangers over the Internet would apply, of course. --Teratornis (talk) 08:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

I'd like to know where and to whom I can submit a suggestion, which would be a pretty big overhaul of the user talk pages system used by Wikipedia. I have noticed that users always struggle with this when commenting and replying in user talk pages. When someone leaves a comment, do you reply on their talk page or on your own? If you do it on your own, will they see the reply? Have they set your talk page for watching? The result of this is almost always having half a conversation on one page and the other half on another page. Sometimes they even duplicate messages on both talk pages.

My suggestion is to have each comment section in a type of "template" in some Wikipedia Comments database, while only adding tags to all user talk pages of those who have participated (left a comment) in the section. Whenever someone edits the comment, they can do it on their own talk page, and even when it seems thay are editing their talk page, they are actually editing the template, so the changes will appear in all pages who have the tag. This way the full conversation will be visible in all user talk pages, and will never be duplicated. Every comment would have an ID (e.g. 00215468) and its template page has everything including the title, all messages and a list of all users who have commented on the section. When a user chooses to add a section to any user talk page nothing will be apparently different since the interface would remain the same, but they will be creating or editing a "template" without openly realizing it.

An example tag that would be included in user talk pages could be something like this:

{{Comment:00215468|title=Suggestion}}

Everytime the comment is edited, all users listed for the comment will receive the "new message" notice.

This would not apply for article discussion pages since it is better to keep those attached to their articles like they are now.

Where can I submit this suggestion? Thanks! ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 18:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You can send suggestions to Bugzilla, where developers and interested users can review and vote on your suggestion. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of technical changes can also be done at the Village Pump/Technical. Something like this sounds like a good idea. Exactly as phrased, I'm afraid it will be difficult to implement. You may want to check out User_talk:Alphax/Threads for a possible implementation. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages may be in for a complete overhaul with LiquidThreads. I have no idea how this might affect user talk pages specifically. We have a big problem with talk pages in general that it's hard to monitor for replies on talk pages other than one's own user talk page, especially on article talk pages where replies may take days or weeks to appear. The whole talk page mechanism in MediaWiki is kind of an opportunistic hack, albeit a clever and very useful one. That is, the MediaWiki software designers opportunistically added talk pages by basically re-using wiki page technology, rather than using modern threaded discussion technology. LiquidThreads might give us the best of both, although I wouldn't want to be responsible for the probably nightmarish job of upgrading Wikipedia's millions of existing talk pages from the current format. --Teratornis (talk) 08:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Use of company name in a definition

Hello,

I have noticed that some company names appear as "providers" of technical solutions within a defition of a specific technology. I was under the impression that listeing providers (in the promotional sense) was not allowed. Specifically several of my company's competitors are listed as providers and we are not. I'm curious as to your policies about this. 64.119.142.198 (talk) 20:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Our policy on advertisements is at WP:SPAM. If you provide a link to the article in question, we can take a look at the situation. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 20:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's the URL for the article I'm referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_asset_management

Specifically, the providers section.131.239.45.198 (talk) 20:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The section was removed by another user. Looking at the history, you were correct in bringing this up. Thanks! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

That whole article's a mess; but at least now it's a somewhat less spammy mess! --Orange Mike | Talk 21:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Minot, ND page

I have tried to change the nickname of Minot, ND back to the right nickname, but something keeps putting the wrong name in. The wrong name that keeps getting put in, says the queefed city. Why does that wrong nickname keep staying in they?

Please change it back to the right nickname, which is the Magic City. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.234.210.59 (talk) 22:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Somebody vandalized the page. See Wikipedia:Vandalism. Thanks for fixing it. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Six degrees of Wikipedia

Out of interest, has anyone got a working link for the Six Degrees of Wikipedia tool ? (On the article, the link provided [5] does not work, and I haven't managed to find any working one.)

Thanks. -- Xedi (talk) 22:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea, but Wikipedia talk:Six degrees of Wikipedia#Status of tools says that link has been broken for a while. If you don't get an answer here, you might start a new comment at the bottom of that talk page. Also, this is an encyclopedia so no hair is too small to split in our quest for correctness: WP:6DOW is not an article, but only a page. --Teratornis (talk) 08:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

List of solar eclipses

Hi. Yesterday I tried to edit the antiquity section, but I ran out of time and I messed up the table. Can someone fix the table so I can keep adding more another time? Please do not remove any of the information, unless there is a single entry that only has one piece of information and it is not possible to align it into a table. I think I may have added the wrong number of | s or maybe I added an extra | - || - || - . Please help correct this error. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 22:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

In [6] you made a short row for November 24 2037 BCE, and forgot |- to indicate a new row. I fixed it with empty cells and |- in [7]. Can you add more to the short row? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman PORN!!!

When the fifth grade class at our school was doing presentations about the presidents of the U.S. one of the little girls clicked on the link <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman> from google She becane the innocent victim of PORN! and Hate pictures. I've already asked our IT director to block this page. Do we have to block the entire site to prevent other such incidents?! Don't you have any regulatory procedures to prevent things like this.... it's no better than a blog! Anybody can put anything. KKirkl08 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely been fixed, probably almost immediately after the porn and hate pictures were added. The chances are the girl saw the article in the couple of minutes before an editor found out. There are procedures in place to prevent this from happening again. I am currently requesting semi-protection of the page and I apologise most sincerely on behalf of Wikipedia. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 22:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that you can get the active version of the page by clicking "Permanent link" at the left-hand toolbox on an unvandalised version - this is the most recent "stable" version at the time of me writing this post. x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You are correct: in a narrow sense, Wikipedia is "no better than a blog" -- at any given instant. You should not permit a child to use Wikipedia any more (or less) than you should permit a child to use the Internet. Wikipedia is in fact the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." This means that at any given instant, an article may have been edited by a nut-case, a vandal, an extremist, a fundamentalist, a ten-year-old, a conservative, a liberal, a pederast, a priest, or ... anyone. The only thing that distinguishes us from a random blog is that most edits are scrutinized by other editors, so most truly incorrect information is removed very quickly. But we are a purely volunteer operation, so any given article may retain incorrect information for a long time. In addition, many of our more than 2,000,000 articles contain information that many parents would consider inappropriate for children. Conclusion: Do not let children access Wikkpedia any more than you let them access the open Internet. Wikipedia is in general more accurate than other encyclopedias (online or off-line) but the user must understand the way Wikipedia works. I have three daughters. I permit them unrestricted access to the internet, but I discuss the consequences with them. -Arch dude (talk) 03:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Licensing question

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this sort of question, but it didn't seem to fit into any of the Reference Desk categories. If I was to include information from Wikipedia into a research paper/term paper, would I need to cite it? I am wondering because of the license under which it is released, the GNU Free Documentation License, because it implies that the information is free, which leads one to believe that it can be used without credit to those who contribute to it. Flaminglawyer (talk · contribs) 22:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flaminglawyer (talk • contribs)

That isn't how we define free. We still require credit. I would however suggest not using material from a tertiary source such as wikipedia or pretty much any encyclopedia in a term paper.Genisock2 (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want to read the whole license, you'll see that it says you are free to use the content, as long as you abide by the license (as opposed to fully copyrighted material, which you can only use under explicit license from the copyright holder or in small parts under fair use doctrine). See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia to see how to make citations. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You're allowed to use it and it would be best to cite it. In reference to Genisock's comment, I remember reading that encyclopedia Britannica has more errors than Wikipedia so it's actually a pretty reliable source. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 00:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You remember wrong.Genisock2 (talk) 12:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that facts cannot be copyrighted, only the words. License issues don't come into the picture at all if only you want to use Wikipedia as a reference. In other words, rewrite it in your own words. • Anakin ^(talk) 14:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Be careful. Almost all material on Wikipedia is fully protected under copyright law: if you use it without a specific license, then you are in violation of the law and are subject to statutory fines of up to $150,000 USD per violation in the United States, and of equivalent fines under the Berne convention in almost all other countries. Therefore, you should be very careful to use the material only if you have a valid license from the copyright holders for each individual instance of your use of copyrighted material. Wikipedia has more than 6,000,000 contributors, each of whom can claim a copuright interest in some portion of the Wikipedia corpus. Fortunately for you, Wikipedia refuses to accept material unless the copyright holder grants a license that anyone can use the material under a fairly liberal license. That License is the GFDL. If you comply with the GFDL, then you are OK. If you do not comply with the GFDL, then you expose yourself to lawsuits: 6,000,000x$150,000 x the number of copys... that's a fairly large exposure. I recommend that you comply with the GFDL if you intend to use material from Wikipedia. Let's personalize this: I have made almost 10,000 edits to Wikipedia. I personally own the copyright to each of these edits. If you use any of my edits without complying with my license (i.e., the GFDL,) I can sue you. -Arch dude (talk) 03:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Non-talk pages that are automatically signed

There are quite a few pages in that category that are, indeed, talk pages, which the name implies shouldn't be in there. Maybe a category should be started: "Category:Talk pages that are automatically signed" ? F-L-c 23:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Those pages can actually be removed. Unless there's a {{bots}} or {{nobots}} template on the page, SineBot will monitor the page automatically. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

table help

Resolved

Is it possible to make two tables float, one on right, one on left, on the same line? such as on the main page? How? F-L-c 23:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I got it. F-L-c 23:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

February 20

a section I put some info into has been declared vandalism????

I added a chunk of stuff I have about the history of the london to brighton run. It got deleted. Was I putting it in the wrong place. Also I had difficulty adding a figure in the middle of the text. What should I do. Login name sabresix. regards Geoff Cooper —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabresix (talk • contribs) 23:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Am I right in guessing that the text you added to London to Brighton Veteran Car Run is something you copied from a copyrighted source? I suspect it was deleted because the other editor thought it was a copyright violation. —teb728 t c 00:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

- Well it was written by a chap called Eric Parsons but he died a few years ago. It was written for the magazine of Surrey Sporting Motor Club which has disbanded. I am the only person with the text on my computer because I was editor of the magazine and typed it up into a readable form. It contains a lot of interesting facts and I thought it worth airing for the benefit of others as the stuff that was currently on Wiki was very sketchy. There is nothing contentious and it adds some background info. Regards Geoff —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabresix (talk • contribs) 00:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Just because the author died doesn't mean that it isn't still copyrighted (in fact I believe that the typical time scale for copyright is 70 years past the author's death in the UK). You may want to use the article as a source, and paraphrase its content in the Wikipedia article, with a citation (see WP:CITE to see how you can do that). Oh, and as an aside, while it is not uncommon for people to call Wikipedia "Wiki", it's technically incorrect - there are many wikis, and if any of them has claim to the name "Wiki" it's the original WikiWikiWeb. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Euphemisms

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what the Euphemism policy is on Wikipedia. For example, should say in an article that someone "died", or "passed away" (the latter being a euphemism)? Thanks, --Christopher (talk) 00:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia is not censored, so I assume that "died" would be a more appropriate term. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 01:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The relevant guideline (not a policy) is in: WP:AVOID#Sadly, tragically. (I'm rather impressed with how relatively easy it was for me to hunt down that guideline consideringly how vaguely I recalled having read it some months ago. Wikipedia has great internal documents, with so many links just the way one would expect, that even starting from the completely wrong page as I did, I stumbled to the right one in less than half a dozen clicks.) --Teratornis (talk) 07:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

unable to access some articles

i can't seem to open some articles. i get an unidentifiable mime type "application/x-gzip-compressed" error - can you point me toward a fix? this is the link i was trying to access "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman" this has happened to me before. thanks, ken Ekenphillips (talk) 01:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

What browser are you using to access the page? It seems to load fine for me. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 01:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

internet explorer 7 (7.0.5730.13) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ekenphillips (talk • contribs) 01:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

What a strange error. It sounds like a problem in the browser rather than Wikipedia. Perhaps try using the secure server, which gets around some problems. E.g., https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Richard_Feynman. • Anakin ^(talk) 14:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Anakin, that worked, I will check on the browser. ken —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ekenphillips (talk • contribs) 02:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Userpage help

I am trying to add User:PGPirate/Articles to my User:PGPirate/Header page. The problem is for some reason the pictures are not showing up. If this isn't making sense, please feel free to write on my talkpage. PGPirate 02:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think they're there, but covered up by your transcluded "Title". If you delete the title, then you can see them. I hope this helps. (I don't know why your little green symbols are so high up on the page.) --Coppertwig (talk) 03:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Some kind of database corruption?

Where do I report database corruption (or what looks like it)? I made a very small change to the Saddam Hussein article, just changed a wiki-link. But if you compare my latest version with the second-latest version it looks like I made a mess of several paragraphs. (If you compare the latest version with the second-latest version it looks better.) There seems to be something wrong. --RenniePet (talk) 03:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I have seen faulty diffs reported at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) in the past. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 18#Bad diffs? for an example which I just checked and saw was no longer faulty. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've reported it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), as you suggested. --RenniePet (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Userboxes?

How do I put userboxes on my page? RJRocket53 (talk) 04:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Userboxes. Basically you just include the relevant template. Bovlb (talk) 05:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Guideline template

The Guideline template does not have a sort key parameter. I note the subcat guideline template does. Can someone modify the Guideline template to have the sort key parameter? (I don't yet understand wikitext enough to do it myself.) This will help fix odd sorting at Category:Guideline. Thanks! Libcub (talk) 07:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

In the cruel world of Wikipedia, one has to know a fair amount of wikitext markup just to be able to ask questions on the Help desk that other people can understand, and thus answer. You can make questions such as this easier to answer by linking all the pages you mention explicitly or allude to. When I tried to look up the pages you mentioned, I ran into a problem. While we do have the templates: {{Guideline}} and {{Subcat guideline}}, there seems to be no Category:Guideline page (notice that the link is red), and following the red link shows no pages in that category. This suggests you may have been looking at another category page. Please go back to that page, look at the title at the top, and copy and paste it back here so we can see what you are talking about. (Do you mean Category:Wikipedia guidelines?) You might also look at Help:Category#Sort order to see how sort keys work. However, if the category links you refer to are coming from a template, then you are looking at a kind of death zone for new users, as template coding on Wikipedia is extremely arcane. Some template coding problems are so hard that not many Help desk volunteers can solve them. But if you can tell us the page with the problem, we can probably figure out who to ask if we can't fix it ourselves. --Teratornis (talk) 19:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry--I guess I was more tired than I thought. Yes, the category page I meant to reference is Category:Wikipedia guidelines. I did read Help:Category#Sort order, and have successfully changed sort keys on other pages. But it seems that most (all?) of the pages categorized as a Wikipedia guideline do it via one of those templates, not via direct categorization. Another user noticed some odd sorting, which I was looking into to fix. What I was hoping for is that the sort key parameter feature of {{Subcat guideline}} could be ported to {{Guideline}}. Thanks. Libcub (talk) 01:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The newfangled style for documenting templates is to document them on /doc subpages (I guess Wikipedia:Template documentation documents this, but I haven't gotten around to reading that friendly manual page yet), and that's where the category links go too. This makes those links extra-hard for new users to find, in keeping with the death zone nature of template coding. I aimed my expert (cough, I wish) eye at the respective /doc pages to see their category link sections:

• {{Guideline/doc}}

<includeonly>
<!-- ADD CATEGORIES BELOW THIS LINE -->
[[Category:Policy and guidelines header templates|Guideline]]

• {{Subcat guideline/doc}}

 <includeonly>
 <!-- ADD CATEGORIES BELOW THIS LINE -->
[[Category:Policy and guidelines header templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]

More information about {{PAGENAME}} is in Help:Magic words#Page names and related info. The change you want to make looks pretty obvious (I italicized what looks like the culprit). I think you want to replace the Guideline with {{PAGENAME}}. I don't see anything obviously dangerous there, but templates can be tricky things. You may have to purge the Category:Wikipedia guidelines page, and/or purge all the pages that transclude the {{Guideline}} template, to get Wikipedia to re-sort the links on the category page. --Teratornis (talk) 08:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the category that the template itself is in, but the categories that the template assigns to pages it is used on. Libcub (talk) 17:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I guess you need to compare these code snippets in the includeonly tags:

• {{Guideline}}

<includeonly>{{{category|[[Category:Wikipedia guidelines|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}}</includeonly>

• {{Subcat guideline}}

<includeonly>[[Category:Wikipedia {{lc:{{{1}}}}}s|{{{2|{{PAGENAME}}}}}]]</includeonly>

That's some interesting code. It looks like {{Subcat guideline}} allows the calling page to specify a sort key (which appears as that {{{2...}}} stuff). So, maybe at this point I finally understand your question. It looks like the two templates were coded by different people. You might look in the history to see who coded that line in {{Subcat guideline}} and ask him or her if he or she could edit the corresponding line in {{Guideline}}. I'm not going to suggest a change myself because clearly at this point we can see I don't know what I'm talking about. --Teratornis (talk) 23:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this for me. I'll post my request at Template talk: Guideline next. If that doesn't pan out, I'll try finding the person who coded Template:Subcat guideline like you suggest. Libcub (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Autodisplaying templates

Is there a way to auto-display a custom template (like the ones at the bottom of a page)? The template normally autodisplays but if you have more than one template they will auto-hide, and I would like to override this. Gatoclass (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess you refer to collapsible boxes made with a template. In some cases you can add a state parameter. See Template:Navbox#Other. See [8] for an example where a state parameter was put into a template which used {{Navbox}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

FA stars and GA plusses at top of user page

Resolved

I have noticed small Featured Article and Good Article symbols at the top of user pages (like the penguin and love heart on mine), how do people get these? I've tried clicking edit page on pages with them on but I can't find anything that it could be. I have significantly contributed to 2 FAs, 1 GA and 1 DYK. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 11:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

They can be made with {{Click}}. See for example User:BQZip01 or User:Blnguyen/Top. Some users transclude a subpage with this onto their user page. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've done that but how do you get them across the top? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 12:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

See User:Soxred93/icons. Soxred93 | talk bot 13:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've done it with your help. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 14:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I link to an article on Wikipedia, and can I use the WIKIPEDIA logo to do so?

I would like to link to an article on Wikipedia from my website, and I would like to display the plain text WIKIPEDIA logo beside the link - am I legally allowed to do this?

Where can I seek permission for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.151.37 (talk) 12:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You're allowed to link to Wikipedia but the logo's a bit shaky. I'm not sure about its licence, I'll just check. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 12:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, you can't use the logo but maybe with Jimbo's permission you could. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} —Preceding comment was added at 12:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean "Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia" written with a normal font? A logo is a graphical element while the text could be called a slogan. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you're using an article from here, you must include the words "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" somewhere near the title for GFDL compliance. As for the logo, you'll need permission, as mentioned above. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 13:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If you're in the United States, you can almost certainly use the Wikipedia logo under the fair use doctrine. There should be no need to ask permission to use it to make a link to Wikipedia. If you're referring to only the "WIKIPEDIA: The Free Encyclopedia" part (as opposed to the puzzle-piece globe), that probably isn't even copyrightable. I am not a lawyer, though. —Bkell (talk) 13:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

My Mum is and you can copyright any piece of text over a length of 3 words (in the UK) but Wikipedia has not done this to 'Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia'. You MUST use that when linking to Wikipedia but you need permission for the logo. As I said, speak to Jimbo. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 14:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to cite a policy page for an authoritative answer. My superficial glance at the Editor's index finds Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content which talks about some related issues but does not mention using the Wikipedia logo. That page mentions Wikia which has several wikis that re-use Wikipedia content. Presumably whatever method Wikia uses to link to Wikipedia would have a better chance of being correct because Jimmy Wales started Wikia. That doesn't necessarily mean everyone using Wikia is doing it the way Jimmy Wales wants them to, yet (I have no knowledge of how strict the policing is, but I doubt Wikia operates like a police state), but presumably there is more oversight on Wikia than on some Joe Random's Web site. --Teratornis (talk) 19:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The main issue here, it seems, is the logo. According to the copyright tag of Image:Wikipedia-logo-en.png: (emphasis added)

© & ™ All rights reserved, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

This image (or parts of it) is copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is (or includes) one of the official logos or designs used by the Wikimedia foundation or by one of its projects. Notwithstanding any other statements, this image has not been licensed under the GFDL. Use of the Wikimedia logo is subject to the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines and requires permission.

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

For convenience, the visual guidelines are here, however they appear to only apply to the Wikimedia Foundation Logo, the blue-green-red one. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I realize that the logo is not licensed under the GFDL. However, anyone still has the right to use it in limited ways under the fair use doctrine of United States copyright law. I am not saying that anyone can use the logo however they like, of course: if you sought to gain commercial benefit from it, or if you used it in some way that harms the trademark held by the Wikipedia Foundation, then you would be in a legally risky situation. But if you were to use the logo in a noncommercial setting simply to link to Wikipedia, that would almost certainly fall under fair use, whether the Wikimedia Foundation likes it or not. It seems hypocritical that Wikipedia recognizes fair use and uses thousands of companies' logos without one bit of permission while at the same time telling people that they absolutely must get permission to use the Wikipedia logo in a similar manner. —Bkell (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, this should not be construed as legal advice. —Bkell (talk) 01:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia not remembering password

Both my Wikipedia & Commons account names & passwords are the same. A few days ago Wikipedia stopped remembering my password when logging in, but Commons continues to remember it. I have done everything to fix this that I have been advised to do, including ensuring AutoComplete is ticked, but nothing works. Why should Commons login be different to Wikipedia? Can you please assist. Thanks.

Graham Bould —Preceding unsigned comment added by GrahamBould (talk • contribs) 16:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

They're seperate websites hosted on seperated servers with seperate code. As of late, I've been having problems with Wikipedia remembering my login and have needed to enter my password evertime I go on the website. I think it might be a bug, if it persists maybe bring it up at The Village Pump to alert the developers. Mr Senseless (talk) 16:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

This has been brought up many times - it's quite pervasive among Wikipedians, using both Firefox and IE. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 16:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

And it's getting worse! I created a homepage link to go directly to a particular article because that page was remembering my login... as of today it is also having problems. It is spreading throughout the encyclopedia and I hope they fix it soon. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It actually seems like it's not remembering the password but it actually is, even though there's obviously something wrong. When you get in initially you will see the login option at the top right instead of your usual user links and username. When you click on login, the login page is presented where you are to enter the password. Instead of entering the password, look at the top right again and you see you're logged in already without the need of actually entering your password again. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 21:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing username

How do I change the username on my account?

Taniqlive (talk) 18:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi there if you want to change your account to a different name please go to Changing Usernames and follow the procedure hope this helps. Terra ^{Who are you?} 18:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Since your only edit with this account is this question, just stop using this account and create a new one. It would be silly to go thru the process of WP:RENAME when you can just start from scratch. --barneca (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Matthias Hinze

How did Matthias Hinze get back on Wikipedia? I remember creating it, but then it was deleted, ten almost 2 months later, it's on Wikipedia again, but the history still says I created it last December! When I found this out, I felt I had recieved a false message about the article being speedy-deleted. How did the article get back on Wikipedia? I've been wondering about that since I found out it was on Wikipedia again.Kitty53 (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

User:W.marsh removed the "speedy" tag, with an edit summary of "Per DRV", whatever that means; so it never got deleted. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Kitty, there was a deletion review on the third (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 3 at the bottom) that reversed the deletion, and the entire history of the article was restored. GlassCobra 18:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Right. Click history on the page and then "View logs for this page" to get [9] which shows the deletion, and the restoration with a link to Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 3. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding search terms that will lead to a given article

Resolved

I recently created an article entitled Centre for Research on Inner City Health. It is often referred to as CRICH, so how do I make it so that if someone searched "CRICH", then the article page would come up? And once this is possible, are there other search terms I can put in that would bring up the page (such as spelling Centre the American spelling instead)?

Thanks, Jberends (talk) 19:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Make a page called CRICH and on that page, instead of text put #REDIRECT [[Insert text]], putting the article's actual name where it says 'Insert text'. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought about that at all, but when i type in CRICH it directs to the Crich page, which is a small town somewhere in Europe. How do I make the new page?Jberends (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you enter it in capitals? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I did. Jberends (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit this page. Use the search button on the left, instead of clicking go. Then click on the red link at the top of the page. Woody (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It'll say 'redirected from CRICH' at the top. Click the word CRICH and change the redirect. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No it won't. CRICH redirects to Crich because of the mediawiki software as a capitalisation error. Woody (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

yep. figured it out. thanks. Jberends (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget to add disambiguation hatnotes at the top of Crich. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Play character infobox

Resolved

I am looking for an infobox to use in an article about a Shakespearian play character, which infobox should I use? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried to find something for this, came up with zilch. It doesn't appear that the Shakespearian play characters use infoboxes. . .I did find this generic fictional character template (here) which looks like it can be modified. I got to that link from the Category:Fictional character infobox templates page. I don't know if this helps any. R. Baley (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I've made one instead (it didn't come out too well though) at Template:Stephano(Shakespeare). Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 21:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I examined many articles in Category:Shakespearean characters but didn't find any use of infoboxes. Wikipedia:WikiProject Shakespeare#Character article expansion doesn't mention infoboxes. I suggest discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Shakespeare before creating character infoboxes. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

differnce in french and englsih

why is it that when i go on the web to research an artist, in this case patrich saytour, i find him listed in the wikipedia in french, but not in english, and if i type his name in the english version of your site, it says there is nothing on him, when there is, at least in french. i scrolled through 17 pages on google, and i never saw wikipedia in english, which is what i wanted, but the french is the first article. fine, i live in france, but i need this in both. thank you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.44.168.14 (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The different language Wikipedias have different articles on them. Here, we don't seem to have an article on that person, though there is one (as you say) on the French Wikipedia. You could use a tool like Google Translate to translate the article into another language if you need to read it. Hope this helps —αlεx•mullεr 20:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't automatically translated into all of its languages - each article has been written separately, by different people, maybe independently of each other or maybe using a translation of one as a starting point for the other. While the English Wikipedia is the largest, it tends to have a slight bias towards articles on English-language subjects (partially because it's easier for other editors to review the sources, partially because it's what the English-speaking editors want to write about), and also has different guidelines for inclusion compared to other Wikipedias, so of course the articles available will be different. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

We have a {{Google translation}} template which can create a link to an English (of sorts) translation of fr:Patrick Saytour:

• Patrick Saytour translated to English

--Teratornis (talk) 07:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

For more details about translation and Wikipedia, see: WP:EIW#Transl. --Teratornis (talk) 07:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Where did my change go?

I added PT Barnum to the "List of Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists". He was there for a few days, now he is gone. PT Barnum was a Universalist in Bridgeport, CT, at the same time as the Reverend Olympia Brown. He even wrote a bestselling book titled: "Why I am a Universalist". What do I need to do to make certain that he appears as a famous Universalist?

mdwoade:Mdwoade (talk) 20:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

This article from the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) may shed more light on Barnum: http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/ptbarnum.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdwoade (talk • contribs) 20:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like your addition was reverted because you tried to cite a pre-existing source that didn't mention Barnum. If you re-add Barnum and cite the UUA page that you listed above, you should be fine. GlassCobra 21:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

When something ilke that happens, you can find out more by going to the page and clicking "history" at the top. You should be able to find your username where you edited the page, and maybe you can find where someone else edited it to take your change out. Maybe they put an explanation in the edit summary, which appears in the history list. You can also click on "discussion" at the top to get to the talk page, and post a message discussing what you think the article should say. You can discuss things with the other people editing the page and try to come to an agreement about it. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

How to cite Wikipedia itself

I want to cite Wikipedia for a paper I am writing about Elizabeth I. I enjoyed using Wikipedia and thank the founders for creating the site and I also want to thank the creator of the article. I was taught to write the site's title, the adress, the date I visited it, and the date it was created. I have looked, but I cannot find the date it was founded. Help please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.10.213 (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

In the article's history, keep going back in time until you reach the first entry. It's there. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Most teachers today do not accept Wikipedia as a cited source due to its open nature. I would instead suggest that you use the sources used by the Wikipedia article to cite your paper. GlassCobra 20:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You beat me to that answer. I get the "blah blah blah Wikipedia is not reliable blah blah blah" speech in all of my classes. I promptly inform the teacher that it's a great starting point, and that one should use the references in the Wikipedia article rather than the article itself, if the teacher does not allow its use. нмŵוτнτ 21:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

A Wikipedia article has a creation day in the history but that may have little or nothing to do with the current version which can be the result of thousands of edits by many different editors, spread over years. For recommended ways to cite Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia or click "Cite this page" in the toolbox to the left when you are on an article. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't even bother with citing the author as there are likely a myriad editors who have helped build and shape the article you're interested in. Be sure to check with your teacher/professor that Wikipedia is acceptable - most high schools allow encyclopedias and other third party references in general as sources, while colleges discourage their use. However, Wikipedia has gained a certain notoriety in academia. I echo the above recommendations, use the external links in the article or websites/papers in the reference section to get your information. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 21:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's a lot easier than that - each article has a link in the bar on the left side of your screen that reads "Cite this article". That link will provide citations in several different formats, so that you don't have to worry about manually hunting down the information. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question about the date it was founded: 15 January 2001 seems like the most applicable date. See History of Wikipedia. • Anakin ^(talk) 14:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"open access group"

Resolved

This article only had a very small text on it, i've placed the A1 deletion tag on it is this tag the correct one to use for this type. Terra ^{Who are you?} 21:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It's been resolved. Terra ^{Who are you?} 22:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Infobox problems

There are two problems with 761st Tank Battalion (United States) that I can't figure out. First, there are the garbage characters at the beginning of the article. Second, the last line in the box says Transport, but I don't see it when editing. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't seem to see the problems you're describing. It all looks OK to me. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

February 21

JIM BAILEY ENTERTAINER PAGE

IS THERE SOMEONE I CAN PAY TO DO THIS PAGE??????

IM AN AGENT FOR JIM BAILEY AND THIS IS TOUGH

Williamkieffert (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you're Mr. Bailey's agent, we discourage you to edit his page. Please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. GlassCobra 00:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

(editconflict) You can try going to Wikipedia:Reward board, note however that it might be deleted if it fails to meet certain criteria.--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 00:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the article and left a note on this editor's talk page. GlassCobra 02:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a way to pay people to edit articles; see: Wikipedia:Bounty board and Wikipedia:Reward board. --Teratornis (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Just note that even if you offer it on the reward board, your best-case scenario is "article is brought up to Wikipedia standards but remains open for editing", not "article is written the way you want it to be, and kept that way". Even a million dollars from Microsoft won't prevent its article having a Criticism section. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Statistics

Hello. Is there a way to track the number of visitors or page views to a particular article?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ntia78 (talk • contribs) 00:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's built in feature to count how many times a page has been visited has long been turned off for performance reasons. However, this third party site purports to count Wikipedia page hits. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for cleanup assistance

Please delete the entry "BallenIsles Country Club". I was trying to use it to redirect the incorrectly typed "Ballen Isles" to something correctly spelled.

If you could also retitle "Ballen Isles" to BallenIsles", life would be perfect.

Thanks in advance and sorry to be a pest.

Ed McMenamy BallenIsles Communications Committee <removed email address> —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edmcmenamy (talk • contribs) 02:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you have made a cut and paste move from BallenIsles Country Club to Ballen Isles. This is bad because Ballen Isles has lost the page history at BallenIsles Country Club. See Help:Moving a page. I will look at fixing it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is now at BallenIsles. You have a conflict of interest so you are strongly discouraged from editing the article. It looks like some of your edits have problems with our policies like Wikipedia:Neutral point of view but I don't have time to examine it further. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

E-mail authentification won't work for 20 months!

I'm also registered on German language Wikipedia, on Wikimedia Commons, and now on the Austro-Bavarian Wikipedia site, too (bar.wikipedia.org). On each of these three sites,

getting an authentification message to verify my e-mail address, thus activate the personal message link in the left column on my user page to enable others contacting me without providing the address - just like you strongly recommend -

worked perfectly at first try.

Only here, so-to-speak on the foundation's mother site, it does not. All my profile entries are the very same, and all the settings, too - but from here, never a single authentification message reached my mailbox, though I tried between 10 and 20 times during the past 20 months.

My e-mail provider told me they block off messages with non-matching sender and answering addresses - as the only possible explanation. I have absolutely no idea, feeling left alone between two admin areas - yours and that of www.reflex.at - both shaking their shoulders and ensuring me it can't be their fault (implicitly indicating it must me mine!). Thus, I'm forced to

• either accept I may answer notes or questions only after months (no wise recommendations, please - I've always been forgetful: that's precisely what reminder services and automated e-mail-forwarding settings are made for ... if only they work like destined),
• or, much against your recommendation (and my own intention), have my e-mail address on my user page - not visible at first sight, but rather easy to view in the status line or to right-click-copy.

So, when will this bug finally be terminated? joeditt (talk) 02:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That sounds very frustrating, but it's hard to say exactly what the problem is. Could you not ask your e-mail provider to stop blocking messages, if that might be the problem? Or perhaps try another e-mail address – since they are so freely available from Gmail, HotMail, many other places, etc.? It would not be as convenient but it would be better than nothing. (You can never have too many email accounts.) • Anakin ^(talk) 14:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Completely blank page

This page comes up completely blank, yet it is listed as a 'What links here' for the Rovio page. How can I fix this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Swiss_municipalities/List_of_title_variations —Preceding unsigned comment added by Milw (talk • contribs) 03:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Woah! Your right! I think it's a glitch.--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 03:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That is a very impressive glitch. The page history seems to be still available:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Swiss_municipalities/List_of_title_variations&action=history

You might try reverting to the last revision that isn't blank, if there are some. You might also contact the last editor and ask what he or she did. I can't recall seeing this type of problem before, but maybe Google will: Search Help desk for: completely blank page. --Teratornis (talk) 07:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be the "killer diff":

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Swiss_municipalities&diff=192088133&oldid=188825400

The last editor removed the {{inactive}} template. I'm not sure how that could make a page become completely blank. This is weird. Maybe someone can figure it out. --Teratornis (talk) 07:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

That’s the main page, not the broken subpage. The broken subpage is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Swiss_municipalities/List_of_title_variations&action=edit . Maybe the problem is the length 318 KB. —teb728 t c 08:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops. I had too many browser tabs open and hit the wrong one for my second reply. I originally browsed to the history of the parent page so I could edit the URL to get the history of the invisible page. I got the right link on my first reply but I got on the wrong page when I looked at the diff. I suppose I could slow down and check my answers ... when pigs fly. Anyway, if the problem is that the page is just too long, that might be straightforward to fix by breaking it into another level of smaller subpages (like Wikipedia:Wikipedia Swiss municipalities/List of title variations/page1, etc.) and transcluding them back onto the page that is now too long. I've made some very large pages that way on another wiki. WP:SIZE#Very long articles says pages over 400KB may render incorrectly or not at all. I guess the problems can start a little earlier than that. --Teratornis (talk) 08:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually someone had already created subpages. I replaced the page with links to the subpages. —teb728 t c 09:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

create account

It will not let me crete an account. Can you please help me!

Bessie <email removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.116.125.88 (talk) 03:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Request an account. GlassCobra 06:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Citing References

I have a reference. Who is a living person, THE person who is the authority, but how do I get the uncited reference tags off? I can't find any clear info. It is very muddled to find....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupo_Oasis#References

Thank you.

See WP:RS, WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, Wikipedia:Notability, and Wikipedia:Notability (music). You probably could not see how to edit the {{unreferenced}} template because it is in the lead section; see Help:Section#Section editing for details. If this seems confusing, it is. Wikipedia is very complicated, as are the other nine of the world's top 10 sites. Wikipedia is just the only one that lets everyone see the ghastly underlying complexity. Anyway, back to Grupo Oasis. Basically a living person is not an authority according to Wikipedia's rules. Instead we need reliable, published sources. That is, we need to have some reputable newspaper or magazine articles, or books, that give the facts about Grupo Oasis. If there are none, and you are connected with the band, you could call some reporters and get your band some press coverage. --Teratornis (talk) 07:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Text

I would like to use more complex techniques in editing and I'm trying to find a full description of what is possible with the wiki markup language. I can't find a general tutorial or menu that shows all functions available and how to use them. Retarius | Talk 05:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope you get some good answers. As a recent editor, this has been a real bugbear for me too! Pee Tern (talk) 05:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:How to edit a page, or Help:Contents/Editing Wikipedia a subpage of the main help menu. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want more advanced details, see: Help:Parserfunctions, Help:Magic words, Help:Template, Help:HTML in wikitext, and Help:Category. Basically read the entire MediaWiki Handbook, which has four large sections: for readers, for editors (this section tells the most about wikitext markup, naturally), for moderators, and for administrators. Also melt your brain on the Editor's index, which gives a pretty full description of what is possible on Wikipedia. A solid introduction to Wikipedia editing could easily fill up a year of college-level work. And that would be a fun course to teach. But on Wikipedia, everything you see is built by and for people who self-educate. I suggest that you take some notes on a user sub-page with links to the manuals you are reading. Also see the {{Google custom}} template, which has a table of examples which link to a list of places I have found handy for answering questions that come up in the course of Wikipedia editing (I wrote the table of examples, so I put in the links I use routinely when looking up answers to questions on the Help desk). --Teratornis (talk) 07:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all - especially Teratornis - that's just what I was looking for! Retarius | Talk 05:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Category intersection

If separate categories share some common articles/pages, is there a "Wiki function" which will produce a list/category, probably virtual, of the common articles/pages? How does the "ask" stuff work. Or is there nothing enabled in Wikipedia yet? Pee Tern (talk) 05:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This question appears semi-frequently on the Help desk: Search Help desk for: category intersection. Go to WP:EIW#Cat and scroll down a few lines to the "Intersection of two categories" subheading, which mentions CatScan and some related links. --Teratornis (talk) 07:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Same reference but one is rejected and the other accepted?

This in regards to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_P%C3%A9rez_%28judge%29

I noticed today that whoever entered this information listed only one source - the official website which I wrote for Ms. Perez. We attempted to enter data from that very source awhile back and it was rejected.

By the way, why isn't this help desk form asking for my email? How will you know how to reach me with a response? This is very confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.227.136.101 ([[User talk:69.227.136.101|talk]]) 05:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written by its users. Apparently, one editor thought that her website was not a good reference at one point, but now a different editor thinks it is. For your second question, we will not reach you with a response. You must return here to read my response and anyone else's. Were you a user, you could be e-mailed, but that is moot at this point. --Evan ¤ Seeds 06:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

We can reply under your post (like this) or on your IP addresses talk page (I'll leave a note for you to see). The latter will produce an orange bar on your page that will state that you have New Messages, similar to your e-mail inbox.

As for the article, I'll take a quick peek at it. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Articles are edited by many people, such as yourself, who all have different opinions about what the article should say. If you go to the article and click "history" at the top you can see the list of edits by various people, and what they wrote in their edit summaries, which should explain the edits. If you go to the article and click "discussion" at the top, you get to the talk page for that article, which is here, and which you can use to discuss things like this with the other people editing the page, and try to reach consensus on what the article will say. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources and WP:SPS, self-published sources are not good ones, since we have no way of verifying any of the content. • Anakin ^(talk) 15:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

page editable!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenchu:_Wrath_of_Heaven

the link given is from a page that can be edited by an user who isnt even logged in.

regards,

CN

PS: you should make a helpdesk with email support rather then this.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.87.62.155 (talk) 09:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Most pages on Wikipedia (“The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”) can be edited by users who are not logged in. That is the ideal situation.

On websites that have email help, the help desk is run by employees. This help desk is run by volunteers. I am not about to reply from my personal email. —teb728 t c 10:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

One reason to run the help desk this way is so that many people can read the answers to the questions. Also, sometimes more than one person answers the same question, so they need to see what's already been said so they don't repeat themselves. That wouldn't work if it were by email, (with volunteers such as ourselves), since it wouldn't make sense to email a bunch of answers to someone just on the off-chance that they might spend a few minutes answering questions that day. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Most pages on Wikipedia can be edited by people who aren't logged in. I don't agree with it, but that's the way the Foundation thinks it should be. See Wikipedia:Introduction for more info. • Anakin ^(talk) 15:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Needing an Admin

Just somewhat frustrated, needing an Admin. for the Dixie Chicks band page, as the political stuff has run the band page far too long. The suggestion to split it has been there for months. Really would be good to have an Admin. take a peek. Thanks. --leahtwosaints (talk) 12:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've just spent the statutory 90-seconds looking at the page and I can't see what you think the problem is, or how you think an admin could help. Can I suggest you put a statement of the problem at the bottom of the talk page, then list at WP:RFC? Would that help? AndyJones (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Remember, you can be bold and trim some of that stuff yourself. Because the information is lengthy, I'd suggest just placing a message on the talk page of the article stating your position. If done the other way around, other editors will view it as a hatchet job and most likely revert you. This can lead to frustrating results. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Image Justification

I am trying to embed a image in the centre of the page? Not sure about the code for this. Dunphy.d (talk) 13:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dunphy.d (talk • contribs) 13:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I found it |centre|.

thanksDunphy.d (talk) 14:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Access to Lucene Index

Hi, I'm doing some research which involves searching Wikipedia and would like to be able to use the Lucene indexes. Are they (or could they be) available as part of the Wikimedia downloads? Obvious I could download all the articles and create my own index but it would be much easy (for me) if I could bypass that stage, especially as I imagine you must generate the indexes systematically. I am guessing the indexes will be several 10s of Gigabytes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neilireson (talk • contribs) 14:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think only page content is available for download. Wikipedia:Database download doesn't mention the search indexes, and they're not listed in any of the dumps at http://download.wikimedia.org/. It sounds like you may have to generate the Lucene indexes manually I'm afraid. • Anakin ^(talk) 15:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Our article on Lucene lists these links: Lucene Wikipedia indexer — introductory article with Java code for search on Wikipedia data. The wikipedia download link no longer works though I'm afraid, so manual it might have to be. Woody (talk) 15:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I know about both these source and there limitations. What I am hoping is that I could find someone from the Wikipedia/media world who might be amenable to making the indexes available, do you know of any more appropriate place I might post the question to direct it at the people responsible for the downloads. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neilireson (talk • contribs) 15:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

translation

Hello. I want to translate some articles from english wikipedia to czech wikipedia. What I must do to to keep the copyright? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cosmologist (talk • contribs) 16:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I have done some work with GFDL, but not extensive. Somebody more experienced may have more specific information. Any material on Wikipedia can be used or modified in any way as long as authorship is properly credited. There are specific steps set out at Wikipedia:Copyright. As I interpret them, you should be okay as long as the new material is licensed under GFDL and you provide a direct link back to the article at its new source. You can take a look at Zumstein catalog as an example of how that's been specifically handled when translating from other language wikipedias to English. On the base, the translator included in his edit summary the note "translated from German article". On the talk page, there is a specific template: Talk:Zumstein catalog. This links back to the source. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Dynamic Column widths in tables

I neatened List of bus routes in London, which has several tables. In particular I reduced some entries from two rows to one by abbreviating the bus operator's name if too long for one row. I piped the full name and its shortened form so that rolling over gave the full name and the link to the company's WP article was kept. For example [[Arriva Southern Counties]] became [[Arriva Southern Counties|Arriva S. Counties]].
I previewed often and saw all went well ... until the last "Arriva S. Counties" where using the piped expression made the whole column become narrower and even the previously tidy "Arriva S. Counties"s spilled on to two rows.
What is happening and what's the fix?
Some of the tables have different numbers of and widths of columns (and the data in them is liable to be edited) so an automatic(ish) fix rather than specifying actual column widths seems preferable.--SilasW (talk) 16:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You can use the {{!}} template, which is a pipe without ruining the table. Now, the table thinks that Arriva Southern Counties and Arriva S. Counties are on two different columns. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} ^{that one guy who buried stuff} 16:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You can forcibly prevent a title from breaking to two lines by using the   symbol – a non-breaking space – in place of the spaces in the piped name. Note that the concept of 'too long for one row' is a bit arbitrary, as people will view Wikipedia at a wide range of resolutions and window sizes using a number of different browsers and browser settings; formatting that looks 'correct' to you will often appear very different on another person's computer.

Though I appreciate the effort, perhaps it would be best not to abbreviate the operators' names. Some people may find the stubstition of Arriva Sh's & E'x for Arriva Shires & Essex a bit cryptic, while looking at those tables on my monitor I see several centimeters of whitespace before the edge of the page. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalized Minot, ND Page

I have tried to change the Minot, ND page to the right nickname, but the wrong nickname keeps coming back. How can I clean up the vandalized page to Minot, ND permanently? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.111.230.142 (talk) 17:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism is common but easy to fix. See Wikipedia:Vandalism and Help:Reverting. You can request protection of the page if it gets a lot of vandalism, but this is far from enough to get protection. The nickname has not been changed for a week since [10]. It's not possible to protect only a small part of a page such as the nickname. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Login Problem

I've just started having a log in problem with Wikipedia. Wikipedia remembers me when I log in the first couple of times, but after I close firefox a few times, the site forgets who I am. So I then go to the log in page from Wikipedia's main page. Once at the login page, the site then remembers who I am and I'm now logged on. Its not really a big deal at all, its just annoying since I don't know why the site can't remember me from the start and not when I get to the log in page. Under my preferences I have remember my log in check off and I accept cookies from Wikipeida. I think the problem is caused by Outpost, the firewall I'm using, since the problem disappears if I close outpost. I'll appreciate any help anyone has. Noneforall (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:VPT#Comments_summary: lots of other people are reporting this problem as well. Some people have reported that bypassing your cache when viewing the main page can help, but for some other people it didn't work. Clicking on any of the links on the Main Page to go to a different page seems to work as well. I haven't seen any reports that anyone knows what exactly is going on yet, though. --ais523 19:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Creating a new entry that already uses that name

I would like to set up a page for the author and journalist Robin Wright, but when I attempt to do this [search] I am directed to the page for Robin Wright Penn. What do I need to do to create this page--a distinct entry not related to Robin Wright Penn Clintonjay (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC).

You can create a page at Robin Wright (author). For more information, see WP:DIS. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hersfold meant WP:DISAM, or just WP:D. Either two letters too much or too little. All these shortcuts can be tricky. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry, I can never get that shortcut right. I saw the blue link and assumed it was going the right place. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Still Vandalized on Minot, ND page

I would like the vandalized page on the Minot, ND page to be cleaned up and then have the page be protected. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.234.211.236 (talk) 19:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism you can remove yourself by editing the page - for more information on how to do this, see Help:Editing, WP:REVERT, and WP:VAND. I can't see that there is any vandalism currently visible on the page. Requests for page protection should go to WP:RPP, however they will only be granted in cases of excessive vandalism. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Code vs. symbols

I have come across an editor who does little else but change symbols to codes: "–" to "& ndash;"; "≠" to "& ne;" (spacing has been added to the code so it doesn't parse; why don't nowiki tags work for this which I used at first?; consider that an add on to this question) etcetera. Is there some reason behind this? What is it? Can you point me to some style-guideline-policy-talk page which discusses this? Thank you very much!--71.247.16.31 (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it's just that user's preference. Either that or they're trying to get their edit count up. They shouldn't do it for no reason. As for the nowiki tags, I have no idea, it doesn't work for me either. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 21:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Certain characters don't display properly in all fonts or in all browsers, and by converting to the HTML equivalent, those shortcomings can be avoided. There's no policy that recommends this be done, however in order to make sure articles are completely legible some editors or bots will "Unicodify" articles as you saw. AutoWikiBrowser will often do this to articles by default. Help:Special characters provides a little more information on this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ermm, so there's no real need most of the time. Somehow I can't believe that any browser doesn't know how to display an en-dash.--71.247.16.31 (talk) 22:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Question regarding OTRS permissions for image use

I've received permission to freely use an image for Wikipedia's purposes, similar to other works. I noticed when publishers or copyright holders give permission, the OTRS system has been used, i.e. like here. However I have no idea how the process works. Can someone fill me in? David Fuchs ^(talk) 20:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not accept permission for use in Wikipedia only; such permission is as good as no permission at all. Wikipedia accepts only licenses which allow reuse and modification by anyone. See WP:COPYREQ. —teb728 t c 21:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have the appropriate permission (a license that allows both commercial and non-commercial distribution) and a commons account, I have a "how to" guide here: User:R._Baley/Free_photo_essay. R. Baley (talk) 22:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Shortcuts

Are the Wikipedia Shortcuts assembled on one page anywhere? Thanks. Voiceperson (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of shortcuts has a lot, but almost certainly not all. Another helpful link is WP:EIW, which is the semi-official index of all the Wikipedia guides and so forth. Back in the day, you would have been able to search Special:Prefixindex for pages starting with WP:, but that won't work now. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Readers of this page may also be interested in "keyboard" shortcuts: Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts. —Noah 22:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Michael Lucas (porn star)

There are numerous and protracted BLP violations at this article. Editor David Shankbone has inserted unsourced material and original research into the lead paragraph. He has also substituted material into the existing text, e.g., escort for prostitute and escorting for prostitution, despite the source referenced not supporting his changes. These changes he made seemingly at the behest of the subject of the article, Michael Lucas, who posted a statement on the article's talkpage. Other violations include the use by Editor WJBscribe of a photo of a purported birth certificate, written in a foreign language and foreign alphabet, posted on the talkpage, as proof of Lucas' birthname, and the use by Editor Hux of the same photo as proof of Lucas' birth (only he confuses the photo as being one of a passport, when it's actually the same photo WJBscribe used).

This and related matters have been brought to AN/I, BLP, and COIN and each time they have either been ignored, shot down, or the thread outright deleted, all by the same small group of editors and a few others.

Concurrently, an anon editor or editors has/have posted attacks and vicious comments on the article's talkpage, the various editors' talkpages, and other article talkpages, such that editors have intervened and protected those pages and this article page, precluding any editing by non-registered or new editors.

In summary, Michael Lucas is editing his own bio by proxy, through David Shankbone and others, and is supported by a small group of editors who prevent anyone from intervening to restore accurate and sourced content to the article.

What can be done about this?--71.127.229.113 (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess you could open a long, involved ANI thread about this, and abide by the consensus that forms there. Oh, wait... --barneca (talk) 23:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh that's so funny my sides are hurting from laughter! There's more than that one issue listed above; can you give help on the other issues? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.229.113 (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Not if they are extensively covered on the talk page or at ANI. You are seeking a user who is not at all familiar with the page for a second opinion whose opinion aligns with yours. Accusing David and others of sockpuppeting and of other actions (which I removed per BLP), without sources, is just begging for this to be placed as more evidence of ill-will at ANI. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 23:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Opinions from editors outside of the group described above (who work in concert and cover for each other) would be helpful, yes.--72.76.3.220 (talk) 00:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

February 22

Add an uploaded photo

I have uploaded sccessfully the photo of Laszlo Garai but I am not able to add it to the text "Laszlo Garai". Please, help me--Szalagloria (talk) 00:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

   {{ | Prof. Laszlo Garai in his office = | = |2002 August = |University of Szeged, Faculty of Economics, the office of the head of department of economic psychology | Gloria Szala = }}--Szalagloria (talk) 03:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Where did you upload it to? Special:Contributions/Szalagloria does not include any image. —teb728 t c 01:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess you refer to hu:Kép:Laszlo Garai Hungarian scholar of theoretical, social and economic psychology.jpg in the Hungarian Wikipedia. You cannot display that in the English Wikipedia. You must either upload it to the English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons (if the license allows it). PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

How to create subcategory

I want to create a subcategory for education in Suffolk County in Category:Education in New York by county so that I can start cataloging Suffolk schools. How do I do this. Thanks!Noneforall (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Create the page at Category:Suffolk County schools (or whatever - make sure to stick to the naming convention set by other subcategories) and include [[Category:Education in New York]] on that page. That puts your new category into the bigger Education in New York category. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Help:Category. You can create Category:Education in Suffolk County, New York and write [[Category:Education in New York by county]] in it. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Identifying piece of classical music (Michael Nyman, perhaps?)

Hello! I'm trying to identify a piece of piano music from an episode of Frasier. It may be a piece by Michael Nyman of "The Piano" fame, but I'd love it if any of you could have a listen and suggest anything. The short clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-bHg6kYnLA Thanks! 172.200.4.127 (talk) 03:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good question for the Humanities Reference Desk (this page is primarily for questions on the mechanics of using Wikipeida). Good luck, —Noah 05:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you :) 172.200.4.127 (talk) 16:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.143.122.3 (talk)

You could make your question more precise by looking up the exact title of the episode of Frasier. If you don't get an answer on the Reference desk, then you might try asking some users who contributed to the corresponding episode article (if that particular episode article is not a red link). You can see who contributed to an article by checking its history. The coverage of Frasier on Wikipedia suggests we have a number of enthusiasts among our users, and probably they represent quite a resource for trivia about the show. Also see Talk:Frasier for links to some WikiProjects relating to the show, where you can probably find more users who share your interests. --Teratornis (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

other editors ganging up

I am new to wiki and have been having a lot of problems with editors on a page I created. (Bitless Bridle). Now they are saying mean things on my talk page and have even deleted things off my talk page without my knowledge. They have openly discussed the fact that they have ganged up on me on their own talk pages... when I quoted what they said on my talk page, they deleted it. Now they are threatening to have the other page I wrote deleted (Riding Halter). I can't ask for help on my own talk page anymore. I am afraid to look at it now actually. Is there any way to prevent people from deleting stuff off my talk page without telling me?? this has been a horrible experience for this newbie, I can tell you that. Thanks for any advice... although if you put it on my talk page, they'll just delete it again. Maybe you could email me instead? ((email address removed)) Thanks for any advice. This is really upsetting! —Preceding unsigned comment added by AeronM (talk • contribs) 03:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC) AeronM (talk) 03:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look (also, I removed your email address as it is not a good idea to post it directly on Wikipedia, instead you should use the "email this user" feature in your Preferences). —Noah 04:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, so I spent about 15 minutes just going through the history of your talk page. I haven't reviewed any article edits yet. From that review a number of things come to mind (these are just my opinions):

• You are taking things too personally
• You are not listening to the warnings from experienced editors
• You have bumped into (read: broken) a number of Wikipedia guidelines. This is not hard to do when you are new, however, rather than back-off a little you have pushed forward and created waves.

I am sure that other folks have been less than polite to you on their own talk pages, but that is not justification for the stance you have taken. Also, it is absolutely OK for people to edit your talk page in the manner that you described as "hi-jacking". Lastly, please take my kind recommendation to just take a little break then come back a few days later and review the WP:PILLARS page. You may also contact me via email if you wish to discuss this off-wiki (there is an email link on my user page. Cheers, —Noah 05:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I also took a look. I think your reaction is absolutely reasonable, but unfortunately negative for yourself and the project, so I suggest contributing on more general topics first. You worked hard on the topic, both in your own life, and then on the articles here. The articles has been mercilessly edited, and even proposed for deletion. This is extremely hard to accept about something you care deeply about. Unfortunately, this is one of the pillars of wikipedia: everyone can edit the articles.

This is why I suggest that you first contribute to topics about which you do not have such strong feelings. Join WP:WikiProject Equine, WP:WikiProject Visual arts, or WP:WikiProject Virginia, and look at all the articles that need help! You can make huge improvements to the encyclopedia in areas in which you have subject knowledge, but where you do not have any deep personal investment. JackSchmidt (talk) 05:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, JackSchmidt's response is superior to my own. Please focus on his rather than mine. Thanks, —Noah 05:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

If you get tired of edit warring, you can always answer questions on the Help desk, and read about other people's troubles. Answering questions on the Help desk and reading other users' answers is a great way to learn what Wikipedia is about, as well as to learn about the kinds of mistakes many people tend to make here. Wikipedia is different than anything which existed before, so it doesn't work exactly the way most people expect. It's best to start with small edits to existing articles, and read another friendly manual page every day (there are hundreds). Wikipedia has a number of policies and guidelines that differ than what most people assume when they first arrive here. Creating brand-new articles can be very hard for new users; that's actually just about the least likely approach to succeed, but unfortunately, the desire to create a new article is often a new user's motive to start editing. (We have a bit of a human factors problem here, that the design of Wikipedia consistently encourages a percentage of new users to start right off in the way most likely to fail.) Your contributions show that your very first edits were to create a new article. Also, your user page contains some promotional language, suggesting that your personal style of communication that has served you well in your long career is at odds with the style of communication Wikipedia has adopted for building an encyclopedia. My early experience on Wikipedia was jarring in many ways too, but this old horse managed to learn a few new tricks. --Teratornis (talk) 07:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

reporting images

How do I report an image that is clearly stated by the person who uploaded it to be pornography? How do I get it on the delete list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by John121206 (talk • contribs) 04:39, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Please not that Wikipedia is not censored, and as long as an image (pornographic or otherwise) does not violate any of our existing policies we do not delete it. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 04:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

And using prod definitely does not work. First of all, these images can only be deleted on Commons, because they are not located directly on en.wikipedia.org Secondly, it might be a better idea to get them on the "bad image" list, so that they are only on a few "approved" pages. Thirdly, if you want to remove the image from articles, then discuss with other editors and perhaps they too think that would be a good idea. The chances that you will actually get the images deleted on Commons seem slim, because they appear to adhere to all of their policies though. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Jeffery Ingram - fugue amnesia

Hello, I am Penny Ingram, Jeff's wife. I edited the information because it was not true that Jeff suffered "severe head trama" or that he could not talk when found.

Sincerely, Jeff and Penny Ingram —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.217.25.209 (talk) 06:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Penny. It may seem odd, but in your attempt to help out by making edits to the Jeffrey Ingram article you actually did something contrary to Wikipedia's guidelines. The problem is that we have use verifiable sources and we may not use original research when creating or editing articles. While this may seem cumbersome -- especially when you are writing about things that happened to you or someone you know -- it is important as it holds everyone to the same high standard and it provides people who haven't had your experience with a reference source to verify the facts. In the case of this edit you replaced "massive head injuries" with "amnesia" but that was at odds with the news article used as a reference for the article. If you know of other reliable sources that can back up that edit please add them to the article or the article's discussion page. In the mean time, it would probably be best to avoid changes that are at odds with the reference sources. Thanks, —Noah 07:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

overlapping sections

Sometimes the next headline may overlap onto a preceding section's image or table. How does we avoid this from happening? See: Orang Asli, section "Demography". kawaputra^torque 08:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This page might help: Wikipedia:How_to_fix_bunched-up_edit_links. —Noah 08:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, thats also useful. User:Silver Edge fixed the problem using {{clear}}. Thanks. kawaputra^torque 09:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Userbox help

On my userbox subpage i'm trying to get the {{Userboxtop}} to go left & right in the same position i've tried {{Userboxtopleft}} but nothing happens but instead the entire page turns dark, what's the correct procedure for this. Terra ^{What do you want?} 10:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Try this: {{Userboxtop|align=left}} --Coppertwig (talk) 13:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I was coming here to tell you I fixed it, and found Coppertwig's (correct) advice. In any case it's done.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, both of the userbox were aligned to the left, one of them i've changed to right in the same position. Thank you for helping. Terra ^{What do you want?} 15:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

How many references

If you are familiar with citing sources I might ask a dumb question I'm sure you know how to answer. Say I'm working on Elaine Benes and Hong Kong Legend and the top site might say "You need to cite website references on that page". How many website references do you need on one page? Like 50, 100 ref to make it like a webpage with websites tied to that page. If you're going to start on a new article and you know so much about one thing, how many cite references do you need? It shouldn't be difficult to answer but I'm just curious. Lastly what is the maximum limit into putting all those cites into one page? It will be mad to find all those websites. I'm a slow learner and not the type that needs to understand difficult words just to figure out what the answer means. Anyway, I'm sure you'll understand. Johnnyauau2000 (talk) 12:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no magic number of references. You just need to provide enough references to reliable sources so that everything said in the article is verifiable by someone who doesn't have any specialized knowledge about the topic. It's great if you know a lot about a topic, but when someone else comes along later and reads what you've written, they should be able to check the facts in the article against other sources to see for themselves that it's accurate. —Bkell (talk) 13:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not a sockpuppet, am I?

Dear HelpDesk,

I registered today with the username "CalicoJackRackam" and after clicking on my new (or so I thought) username, I am told "This user is a sockpuppet of User:Shuppiluliuma."

What the heck is this?? If I then click on that Shuppilu...-thing I learn that it is a banned user.

I have no idea what this means, but I doesn't look right to me. Could it be that this "Shuppi..."-bloke had my "new" username registered before me (before he was banned)? If so, could you please unlink my account from his?

Thanks for your help!

Kind regards CalicoJackRackam (talk) 12:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears that you can remove it. Rarelibra created that page in Feb 2007 - your account, however, was created a year later, at 06:51 this morning UTC. It looks like that user was on a string of userpage vandalism at the time. You may want to ask Rarelibra what's up, if they can remember why they did it. Xenon⁵⁴ 12:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

After further research, the user with the long name had a sock named CalicoJackRackham (talk · contribs · count). (Notice the added "h".) Rarelibra tagged the wrong userpage (or perhaps both as a precaution). Xenon⁵⁴ 12:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Page in the wrong language

Hi,

I've noticed a page in the English Wikipedia written in what I this is Spanish (though it could be Portuguese...): San Hosé Pinula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jos%C3%A9_Pinula)

I don't know what I can do about this, or who else to make aware of it.

Thanks,

81.109.159.93 (talk) 14:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right! Tell an admin about this and he/she may help you. Visit me at Ftbhrygvn (Talk|Contribs|Log|Userboxes) 15:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't require an admin (but I happen to be one). Google translate says it's Spanish: [11]. It looks like it was written here (replacing a one-line English stub) and not copied from elsewhere. See Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. I will deal with it. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Libelous comments remaining on articles

I haven't been editing much recently and noticed that a libelous statement had remained on one of my (biographical) watchlisted articles for 3 weeks. I would have thought that other people would have removed it, but for whatever reason, this hasn't happened. It was made by what appears to be a dynamic IP, who I believe has done so before. AIV and page protection are not appropriate (non current, single recent issue). This is damaging to Wikipedia and, on a personal basis, depressing to see. Are there any procedures in place to deal with this ? Thanks -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 16:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Which article? Did you bring this up at the BLP Noticeboard? Seicer (t | c) 16:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Lokahi and Lokahi Foundation user name

Having previously set up these two accounts neither of my passwords are working. As I did not register with an email address I am not able to reuqest a password reminder. Is it possbible to delete these two accounts and for me to then recreate with a new password?83.244.172.34 (talk) 16:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Lokahi Foundation is a problematic username per Wikipedia:Username policy#Company/group names because it's the name of a real organization and has deleted edits to Lokahi Foundation. User:Lokahi has no edits and you could try requesting usurpation of the name if it's important to you. Accounts cannot be deleted. It's easiest for you and us to just create a new account with another name. Please see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Business' FAQ if you plan to make more edits about the Lokahi Foundation. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Expanding Tutorial

No help, citation, or example can be found on expanding an article. Does expanding lead to a link, new page, etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elbornavatar (talk • contribs) 19:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

External Link Deletion

Over the past year my link to PoconoCommuter.com which is a non-profit corporation website that sells no products and supplies a rich resource of information about the Pocono region continues to be removed. This is in ThePoconos section.

If I'm doing something wrong please let me know what, otherwise can you determine who is removing my link? I am of the belief it is being done with malicious intent.

Also there is now a link there for Pocono Vacations which appears to be a commercial website.

Thanks,

Wayne —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waynemeyers (talk • contribs) 19:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

G. edward Griffin

Please do not delete Ed Griffin from Wikipedia. I have read many of his books and find him to be a great author. It is ok to have a different point of view. Thank-you H. Deluca