Wikipedia:Help desk

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February 26

How does someone ask for an unblock?

I don't even know if this question will go through.

How does someone ask for an unblock? Will they even consider it or just be nasty to me? The checkuser cleared me. 216.185.29.69 (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

There are no current blocks on your IP. You are good to go. Dr.K. (talk) 00:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If you are having problems editing a page, it was probably a protected article. ---CWY2190^TC 00:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Although I would consider getting an account if I were you, because your IP is shared and looks like it is used for vandalism. Soxred93 | talk bot 00:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I am blocked. Somehow, I can edit from here but my account is blocked. 216.185.29.69 (talk) 00:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Which account is it? —teb728 t c 00:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Type this in your talk page

{{unblock|Reason}}

Staffwaterboy© 17:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Appealing a block. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Subpage List?

I remember that a page existed that listed every subpage for a given page. Can someone give me a link? Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 01:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep! Special:Prefixindex is what you want. • Anakin ^(talk) 01:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

At what point is an article deemed "Wikified"?

Hi

I pretty much tried to add internal links (as requested) at this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Fedler

It is riddled with internal links, several of which don't exist.

At what point does common sense prevail and you will allow the article to be approved as "Wikified"?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.124.156 (talk) 02:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say that was probably just a little overboard. If your aim was to get rid of the notification up the top of the article, it doesn't happen automatically when you wikify the article - you have to remove the {{wikify}} up the top, which you are allowed to do once you believe that you have solved the problem. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 03:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the tag but as said, you could also have done it yourself. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks both of you, I thought I had removed it as well. No matter. I am a bit of a newbie, thanks again for the help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.124.156 (talk) 03:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Just some added info. Typically an article is considered "wikified" once certain guidelines are followed/met - per WP:LEAD, wikilinking relevant terms/dates, following WP:MOS. Also, see WP:ARTICLE and WP:YFA. But as the others have already pointed out, simply remove the template at the top if you feel you've met the "requirements". Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Trivia template broken?

Could someone check out the trivia template, there seems to be something wrong with it, as it no longer adds the pages to Category:Articles with trivia sections. NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 03:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It's working as intended as far as I can tell. The monthly subcategories like Category:Articles with trivia sections from February 2008 transclude {{MonthlyCleanupCat}} which has added the new magic word __HIDDENCAT__ in this edit. It means the category is no longer displayed on the article, but the article is still listed on the category page. See Help:Magic words#Other. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Guitar Compatibility Chart Deletion?

Can someone explain why the chart of guitar controller compatibility was removed? Guitar controller compatibility "Spartaz (Talk | contribs) deleted "Guitar controller compatibility" ‎ (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Guitar controller compatibility)" I can personally attest to it being a huge help in my quest for information about rhythm video games, and I disagree with it's deletion. 666Fox (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Guitar controller compatibility for more information. If you think the deletion should be reviewed, see WP:DRV for more information on that process. However, make sure you read the page and understand why, exactly, the article was deleted. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 03:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Guitar controller compatibility. Most people wanted to keep it but Articles for deletion is not a vote and the closing administrator thought the delete arguments fitted our policies and guidelines better. See also Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Image editing

At Image:Bubonic plague map 2.png, I believe "Marsailles" should be spelled "Marseilles". The image history shows 2 editors have worked on the image, but both have left Wikipedia. Is there a practical way to fix it, short of redrawing the map? Art LaPella (talk) 04:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll see if I can fix it so that it looks passable; I'm afraid it probably isn't possible for you to fix it, unless you've got some advanced graphics editors. I'll tell you how that goes on your talk page soon. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 04:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Art LaPella (talk) 04:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Dashes

Are they being used properly in references #27 and #43 of this article? Thanks, –thedemonhog talk • edits 05:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong; probably a browser bug? Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 05:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I was actually referring to the manual of style. –thedemonhog talk • edits 05:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Glitch in the Matrix

why does 25th precede 24th in this contribution list? --Seans Potato Business 06:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hah, that's some bug! I would file a bugzilla report now. Soxred93 | talk bot 07:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, hold off on the bug. Look at the years. The edits on the 25th were made in 2007, the 24th in 2008. Soxred93 | talk bot 07:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Another opinion requested

I would appreciate a disinterested opinion on the appropriateness of a few small edits that I've made. (If this is the wrong place to ask, then please direct me elsewhere.) In particular, I'd like to know if I might have violated 3RR, or if I would be doing so if I persisted with more such edits, in case my latest edit is reverted. I'd also like to know if I'm off base with the reasons that I gave in the talk page & my edit summaries. If I'm all wet, I'll just move on. If the other editors involved are in error, I'd like to know how to bring that to someone's attention if they persist.

To review my edits, I would suggest reading them in the following sequence: First, read my comments in Talk:Citrix_Systems#External_links, and then read the following of my edits to Citrix Systems:

1. 22:30, 1 February 2008 revert counter-productive EL changes (see talk)
2. 09:56, 6 February 2008 restore previous link; pls state reasons for edits & justify second link to citrix.com, per WP:EL#Points_to_remember; see talk
3. 07:50, 23 February 2008 restore previous link. Note to User 76.108.135.51: Repeatedly replacing another link with one that you prefer may be in opposition to NPOV, as well as the issues previously noted.
4. 05:55, 26 February 2008 see talk and my previous comments re deleting this link

I have no vested interest in Citrix Systems, its products, that article, or that subject, nor do I have any interest in an edit war for its own sake. If I've found something worth improving in the article, great; if it's better for me to ignore it, that's OK, too. I read some of the article originally for some info on the subject. That's when I noticed a bad EL, which led to my 1 February 2008 edits on the article & talk pages; the other edits followed from that when my changes were reversed w/o comment.

Thanks, Rich Janis (talk) 07:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I will take a look over the links and edits and reply on the talk page there. • Anakin ^(talk) 20:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Theft

Hi! Someone has uploaded an image on Commons with the wrong attribution. The image is actually mine. The user who did it is [1], and the image is [2]. I've originally uploaded it to another site under a free license. Can't remember where, but I'll find it in 24hrs. The problem isn't the license, but the attribution. I can prove I'm the author because I always upload images (including WP) at a lower resolution than the original, and I have the original - the uploaded image is 1024x768, the original 1600x1200 (if an admin would like to check, I'll e-mail it). I also have other photos from the same location because I've done them... from the window of my home.

This is plain theft and because I'm angry I think it's best for me not to speak with the uploader. Thank you. adriatikus | talk 11:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the Wikipedia help desk, and your problem relates to an image somewhere else, i.e. on Commons. You would be better off taking the matter to the Commons help desk instead. Bencherlite^Talk 11:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that I've added {{disputed}} to the Commons image due to a helpme request by the same user; {{db-copyvio}} would be appropriate if the source of the image (either the emailed high-resolution version, or the original source on the Internet) is found. --ais523 11:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The copyright violation has now been deleted. • Anakin ^(talk) 20:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If Adriatikus uploaded the image to another site under a free license, the other user had the right to upload the image to Commons, didn't they? Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It depends on how "free" the license was. Regardless, improper sourcing still makes it a copyvio. -- Kesh (talk) 23:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

More precisely, improper attribution. We only require sourcing so that we can verify attribution. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Expand the article of an iconous actor in Tamil Nadu

Dear Editor,

Article title: "Joseph Vijay" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 12:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Why have you limited the content of this article to a single paragraph? is there no other news about him? Does it need stupid lines such as "his mother tongue is Tamil"? And why cant you put more things about his childhood life and how he struggled in his childhood days? He is not a born-actor and born-rich. Taking Ajith's article you have put up heaps of things about him with lots of headings. Do Wikipedia thinks Vijay is in someway cheaper than that Ajith? IN NO WAY!

This is not a fan blog after all. Only a global encyclopaedia aspired by all, I believe.

After all, he is an iconous actor in TN next only to Superstar Rajni. If you dont bother, we will be giving content about Vijay with lots of headings which you can search, break your heads for accuracy and approve it.

Thanks WikipediaFan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.145.125.100 (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). AndyJones (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

download data dumps

I am a research student working on visualization of online social networks. Totally new to wikipedia. Trying to familiarise myself with datadumps, downloading datasets into databases and the same stuff

Am wondering why the following links do not work;

http://en.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data-dumps http://download.wikimedia.org/tools/

Tried it several times to download a sample datasets. But it always failed. There should be something wrong with the above mentioned URLs.

Waiting for your help and response

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.40.95.206 (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you mean http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps . the other one seems to work. Freestyle 14:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Did you see the url http://en.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data-dumps somewhere? That would have to be corrected. Freestyle's correction and the other 3 url's work for me. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The following are also faulty.

1. Dumps from any Wikimedia Foundation project: http://download.wikimedia.org/
2. English Wikipedia dumps in SQL and XML: http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/

Really confused. I have no idea why cant load these urls.

Any comments are highly appreciated

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.40.95.206 (talk) 14:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Those urls are working fine. What type of error message are you getting? Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 14:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you are a research student you may wish to see: Wikipedia:Wikipedia in academic studies, Wikipedia:Researching Wikipedia, Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia, and WP:EIW#Querie. --Teratornis (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Opinion on Lead Paragraph

I'm not sure whether this question is meant to be under Wikipedia or Miscellaneous but...I'd like advice on the lead paragraph for McFly (band). I know it's meant to be 3-4 paragraphs, but I'm having trouble in deciding what the content to be. Is it good at the moment? (We're trying to get GA Status) What else should be added? -- Stacey _{talk to me} 16:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Asking here works fine. Your lead section looks pretty good. The lead section is supposed to be a brief summary of the rest of the article, which appears to be what you've done. Wikipedia:Lead section has more information on what should be included. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signatures page problem

The page puts the cart before the horse: it assumes you already have a signature and then tells us how to use a signature, what to include in a signature, and when to use a signature. But! It should start with HOW TO CREATE A SIGNATURE; if you don't have one, you can't use the page. Or at least a link at the beginning of the page to the how to create a signature page. If it's already there, I can't find it. How does one CREATE/edit a signature? McGoo 17:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Try this page Wikipedia:Signatures (or maybe that is the page you are talking about). You have a default signature which can be seen when you sign with ~~~~ . Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 17:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing_your_signature has that information. We have the page laid out in that order as the priority of all guidelines is to show editors how to make edits that are constructive to the project, that is building an encyclopedia. Discussing changes and signing those discussions is constructive to that project - making a signature is less so. Please try to include a link to your user or user talk page in your signature, as this is one of the requirements of a signature. Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

helpme question

I would like to use Wikipedia information in my book. If I just credit Wikipedia with the text quote, is that enough? Does Wikipedia want to see the information I use before I publish? Thank you. Joan Hibbs (talk) 18:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC) Joan Hibbs

So long as you cite the source of the information, using the "Cite this page" link in the toolbox, you can use the information freely. See the text of the licence under which Wikipedia content is licenced for more information. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 18:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

"magic words"

I am having problems with the "magic word" {{DISPLAYTITLE}}. I went to the WP:Magic words and read the text on the DISPLAYTITLE, it says the syntax is

{{DISPLAYTITLE:xxx}}

where xxx is the intended title. So I used, on my userpage:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:flaminglawyer}}

for variety from the {{lowercase}} template, but it still came up with the title being User:Flaminglawyer. What is the proper syntax? flaming-lawyerc 19:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It works for me, try clearing your cache. Soxred93 | talk bot 19:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I replied above in #Question about... well, continuation of topic 2-above this one. My edit [3] worked but you reverted it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Google Earth and coordinates

I have just loaded up Google Earth and find it facinating. I recently wrote an article on Blue Ridge Music Center. I can find the coordinates there (36|08.58|64N and 81|41.32|35 W) and would like to drop these exact coordinates into an appropriate template. Which template and how how to I go about that without typing in these numbers myself - can they just be copied in somehow? Would this then show up in the upper right hand corner as I have seen in other articles. For those that have Google Earth installed, then would these coordinates work automatically by clicking on the hotlink. Also I understand there is "Wikipedia for Google Earth" where apparently then this article would show up on Google Earth if someone looked it up or was "flying by" the area of the location. Is it a good idea to have these coordinates available in the article then? Where is the best place it should be located (e.g. "External Links")? Could someone help me on this one example (Blue Ridge Music Center), then I will be able to take it from there on other new articles. Thanks.--Doug ^talk 20:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

{{coord|LAT HERE|LON HERE}} should do it. Thanks, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^{Help and assistance} 20:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I tried, however I still don't get it.

1. I can find the coordinates for Blue Ridge Music Center on Google Earth, however how do I copy those numbers in the lower right corner marked ""Pointer" into a template.
2. That template doesn't seem to give the coordinates in the upper right hand corner of the article.
3. For those that have Google Earth installed, then would these coordinates work automatically by clicking on the hotlink.
4. Is it a good idea to have these coordinates available in the article then?
5. Where is the best place it should be located (e.g. "External Links")?
6. most important (please) Could someone help me on this one example (Blue Ridge Music Center)?

Thanks! --Doug ^talk 21:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and added it. The formatting for those {{coord}} templates is not straightforward. —Noah 22:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug ^talk 22:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Calendar with or without year

The page January 1 and 365 other pages display a calendar. The calendar header shows the year 2008, but if you click on a date, it links to, for example January 5 not to January 5, 2008. Is it desired that a year is displayed in the header?

See also Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/December current version (without year and without weekdays) and previous version (with year and weekdays). HandigeHarry (talk) 21:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Since this is not the place for this type of discussion, I recommend that the topic be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Days of the year. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 21:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles cited elsewhere - what responsibility ?

Where a Wikipedia article is tagged as having been cited elsewhere, for example with {{onlinesource}}, what responsibilities are there on editors to maintain the substance of the article at the time of citation, even though the article needs major major work ? Is there some form of formal versioning to which the citation can be referred as well ? See for example Death threat. Pee Tern (talk) 21:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Those are some good questions. I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia that helps. Neither did anything jump right out at me from the Editor's index (although my search was hardly exhaustive). The entries on Template talk:Onlinesource suggest there are more questions about this template than answers. If someone wants to cite a specific revision of a Wikipedia article, they can use a Permalink. See: Help:Page history#Linking to a specific version of a page. --Teratornis (talk) 22:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If I get time I will have a look at some cleverer templates - actually one with parameters!

While this question will now go to the relevant template discussion page, just to kick it off, what are people's thoughts on having "reverse references" appearing in {{reflist}}, that is references, in standard format, references TO the wiki article? My thinking is that if we can put the inward citations on the article page they will be more obvious to editors and give the article "obvious non wiki standing"? Also, what is involved in getting the server primitives for a {{citlist}} developed. There does not seem to be any parameters or class attributes documented to allow /reflist to filter into more than one reference list? Pee Tern (talk) 11:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

How do I participate in discussion?

I don't see how to participate in discussion of an article. The "how to" section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#How_to_use_article_talk_pages does not explain how to. Instead, it repeats good manners advice. If someone could include a step by step instruction that would be helpful. It might also be helpful to say that THIS form is submitted by clicking "Save page". (Since there's no submit button I assume that's correct?) Aefields (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Adrian Fields

To participate in a discussion, simply click on the "edit this page" button at the top of the talk page, and write your comments either underneath the last comment (bottom of the page), or under the comment itself if you're replying to something specific. Usually, you can add a * (bullet point) beforehand to demarcate the start of a new comment. Don't forget to sign afterwards with four tildes (~~~~). Hope this helps. Mr Senseless (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You got it correct. :) Wikipedia doesn't have special forum software for discussions. Instead, article talk pages are just like other pages technically, but you edit them in a different way. If you click the little "+" tab at the top of a discussion page, you can add a new section. If you want to add to an existing section, click the [edit] link beside that section and post at the bottom of it. I see you've already figured the four tildes bit out; it adds your user name and the current UTC date and time. Post it with the Save page button as usual. You'll get used to it fairly quickly. Wikipedia:Talk page has better information about using them than Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, so you may want to look at that too. • Anakin ^(talk) 21:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Censoring Wikipedia

This is in reply to you accusing me of censoring Wikipedia. I would just like to explain that I was not censoring, but correcting, because that subject matter is in debate (it even says so further down in the article) but that statement implies that there is no debate, but a definate answer. Therefore the article was contradicting itself in favour of a bias answer, which supports potential hateful content that can be dangerous when used to support hatespeech towards minorities. It is also irresponsible to claim it as a fact seeing as it is targeting a group of people who are already subject to abuse and restricted human rights -all of which use the same theology to justify such actions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.45.158.119 (talk) 22:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The people who read and contribute to the Help Page -- "you" in the paragraph above -- are not the single editor who left the comment on your talk page. I would kindly suggest you bring the issue up (in the same civil manner you have already employed) with that editor. Cheers, —Noah 23:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

My edits are not appearing on the Wikipedia page

While I have thoroughly searched all the references and FAQs, I have not found an answer to my question: Today I contributed a major edit to the article on ICONOGRAPHY, following Wikipedia rules and style manual. The information added was used with permission; no copyright infringement was involved. The addition specifically addressed iconography in the Eastern tradition and added a wealth of information missing from the original article. Now that information, i.e., my edit/addition, is not appearing. Why? And how may I correct that? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mymim3 (talk • contribs) 23:02, 26 February 2008

Your contributions were reverted by Johnbod (talk · contribs) with the justification "Not wified, includes spamlink etc & would belong on icon and other pages rather than here. likely copyvio also". [4] Without commenting on the merits or otherwise of his reversion, your best course of action is to ask him exactly why he reverted the information and how you can address his concerns, using his talk page. Rockpocket 23:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Your edit was reverted by Johnbod, an experienced editor in this field, in this edit. His view was that your addition to the article contained no wikilinks (which help improve the encyclopaedia by connecting relevant articles to add detail and explanation), was suspected of being a copyright violation, did not necessarily fit on this article (as opposed to others) and included an unnecessary/inappropriate external link (possible spam). I suggest you think again whether what you want to add is necessary and appropriate, and perhaps then discuss possible changes to the article at Talk:Iconography so that other editors can add their views on how best to improve the article. Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 23:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

That's right - the material is however still preserved in the article history. If the material is used "with permission" - ie is copyright, but permission has been granted - that permission has to be documented, by procedures I am not an expert in. Very similar material already exists at Icon and Russian icons; it would not be appropriate just to add the whole text there either, but some of it could certainly be worked in. But you need to sort out the copyright permission too - you said you were quoting your expert, and I expect she asserts copyright on her website material or wherever it came from. Hope this helps. Johnbod (talk) 01:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

magic word

The "magic word" {{DISPLAYTITLE}}: why does the title have to have a namespace in it? i.e. User:Flaminglawyer:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:flaminglawyer}}

produces title "User:Flaminglawyer" (the default). But:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:User:flaminglawyer}}

produces the title "User:flaminglawyer", which works (notice that all I did was add the namespace). Why is this? Is there any way to get around this? flaming-lawyer-c 23:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

You can always use the following:

{{User:One/Title|(insert title here)}} - Milk's Favorite Cookie 00:29, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[5] says:

Fix up DISPLAYTITLE and enable per default:

• Clean up the mess in ParserOutput
• Reject (ignore) custom titles which don't normalise to the same as the current page -- THIS IS IMPORTANT OTHERWISE LINKING GOES TO POT (and not the good kind of pot)

[WARNING: Touches parser version. Old caches will be expired. You might wish to undo this and add some temporarily backwards-compatibility for a few days.]

I don't know more about DISPLAYTITLE than this. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

February 27

Inserting an image from Wikipedia Commons

I just uploaded an image into Wikipedia Commons and wish to insert it into an article. I thought I understood how to do this, but when I try to edit the article and hit Preview, the photo doesn't show. Just the words, Image:blah-blah-etc., show. Is it possible I need to wait four days? I just joined Wikipedia Commons to upload the photo. This is not the case with Wikipedia, because I have been a member for a couple of months. If anyone has any ideas it would ease my frustration! Thank you. Voiceperson (talk) 01:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Check the formatting of other commons images in articles. No need to wait, AFAIK. Johnbod (talk) 02:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Usually you can insert the image immediately. No need to wait for days. Just copy the image name from commons, eg: Image:Nice Photo.PNG and put it in the article like this [[Image:Nice Photo.PNG|right|thumb|A nice photo.]]. Just an example. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 02:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Just write [[Image:Ryan Allen.JPG‎]] to display the image like I did here.

By the way, the name is Wikimedia Commons. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

See more about displaying images at Help:Images and other uploaded files. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

How do I edit?

How do I edit Mike Huckabee? 70.234.154.58 (talk) 02:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Create an account since Mike Huckabee is a semi-protected article, wait for 4 days and then you will be able to edit.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 03:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The IP also posted at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page#Can't edit an article and has seen the replies there. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Long articles

What do you do if you feel an article is too long.Chessmaster3 (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Click "edit page" and add {{toolong}} to the top of the article, fill in an edit summary, and then save the page.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 03:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Article size. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Fish Cuts eg; En Tresse, Delice

I am currently in a Level 3 Chef course and have been asked to find culinary uses for fish cuts such as En Tresse, Pave, Gougons can you please direct me to a good site/page to do so thankyou219.89.235.180 (talk) 04:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the Humanities section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia images used by media

Is there any template we can use to indicate that a photo has been used by the media? Something similar to that used in Wikipedia, whereby an article was quoted by the media: {{Press}}. I found this photo taken by wikimedian User:Johnleemk used in the article: here. There are also many other pictures used by media from commons. I know this question should be for Commons, so a similar question was posted at Commons:Help desk, but there was not much response. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 05:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

All images in Commons are free, so they may be reused in the media, provided that licensing conditions like attribution are complied with. —teb728 t c 08:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes i know that. I just thought that there should be some kind of an indicatoin that an image has been used by a media organisation, like some sort of trophy/medal or acknowledgement. Like {{Press}}. Or is it not practical? ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 08:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

You would have to ask at Commons, unfortunately. They use different templates than we do, and while I'm sure they do have something similar, I'm not sure if it would be {{Press}} or something else. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 13:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

By the way, does anyone know when {{onlinesource}} should be used versus {{press}} ? Pee Tern (talk) 00:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Commons dont have any template on this. I think it is being suggested that a template be created. So far i found only something like this: Commons:Image_talk:Absinthe-glass.jpg. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 04:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I would guess the former is used when a wikipedia article is mentioned/cited outside the body of work by a media (eg: bibiography), while the latter is when wikipedia article is mentioned in the body of work (ie greater focus, eg. for comparison or critical analysis purpose). But i may be wrong. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 04:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Withdrawal of picture permission

Hello. Mainly I was wondering what the situation is when someone withdraws permission for a picture they had previously uploaded to Wikipedia, as has happened with Image:smarties2008.jpg which User:RAYBAN no longer wishes to be available for use. Is there somewhere it can be listed for deletion? Or does this not happen? (And if anybody wants to have a look over at Smarties (Nestle) and offer some advice or calm words to any of us, I would welcome it. It's calmer now, but it doesn't feel like an optimal solution.) Skittle (talk) 11:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, by releasing the image into the public domain they no longer have that sort of control over it -- it's legally free to anyone to use for any purpose, with or without permission. Practically speaking, the continued good will of contributors is a valuable asset; is there sufficient reason to ignore the author's wishes, regardless of whether we're obligated to do so? The image doesn't seem worth fighting over. – Luna Santin (talk) 12:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it doesn't, and there isn't really any goodwill to spare in this case :( Just wondering if there was something that was normally done, some procedure I could direct RAYBAN to, to avoid anyone accidentally using the image elsewhere and incurring wrath. Skittle (talk) 13:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

If he wants it deleted, he could pop {{db-author}} on the image description page, to file a speedy deletion request. – Luna Santin (talk) 23:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

From a strictly legal point of view, it may not be possible to release anything into the public domain. Also, since these licenses are not contracts, it may be that they cannot impose obligations on the licensor; in other words, as much as we may like these licenses to be irrevocable, it's possible that we can't force the licensor to irrevocably license his work unless we pay him for it. I am not a lawyer, though. —Bkell (talk) 14:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Economics

How business environment influences business managemnet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.199.205.25 (talk) 12:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the Humanities section of Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in answering knowledge questions there; this help desk is only for questions about using Wikipedia. For your convenience, here is the link to post a question there: click here. I hope this helps. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

load data dumps in a database

I a newcomer. Experimenting wikipedia community as a huge social network. Intending to get the data dumps and load them into a MySQL database.

Am wondering if someone can guid me through the simplest way.

As far as I understand the dumps are really huge. I download one but it is saved with an unknown format. I cant see its content. And have no idea how to create a database out of that data.

In the first step can any one help me on dowloading a dump (revision history pages) and see its contents. I just want to find out how different versions of an article is saved in a dump. Is it exactly the same as shown on the history page?

Highly appreciate any help

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.5.67.245 (talk) 13:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I've never done it, but I can give you a few pointers. Wikipedia:Database download explains it briefly and meta:Data dumps explains it in lots more detail. The first thing is that the the files you downloaded are either .sql or .xml files, compressed with either .bz2 or .7z. You'll need a program like 7-Zip to uncompress them. I'm not familiar with the rest of it but I hope those links can help a bit. • Anakin ^(talk) 14:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Change mouseover text of a link

Is there any way of changing the text that appears when you hover over a link in Wikipedia, like when using the title tag in html links? Freestyle 15:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I found it out myself :) a link.. this seems to work in IE7 and Firefox. Freestyle 15:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

You might also want to check out the {{H:title}} template documented here. —Noah 00:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That doesn't seem to work with links right now though. I suggested some code to be added so this template can be used for links too. Freestyle 10:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

removing warning box

Hi, I had a warning box put on my page at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Connection

saying that I hadn't cited enough sources or given enough references to be considered a noteworthy page. I believe that I've fixed that problem by now and would wonder if someone could please give me some feedback about this and what the isssue was in the first place, and remove the box, please.

Thank you,

--Beakymouse (talk) 15:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Will address on your talk page. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Text dump merger

Wikipedia's merging instructions do not provide the specific steps required for a "text dump merger," merely indicating that such a thing is possible. Could you pleas eidrect me to a listing of the steps involved in making that type of merger? Thanks! J.W. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoanWells (talk • contribs) 16:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• A text dump is taking all the info from one page and putting it on another. Go to the edit screen of the first page. Select all text, copy, go to the other page, click edit and paste it at the end of that page. It is a crude method almost never used. Most people pick and choose the parts to merge. If you would like help, share the names of the two articles and someone will assist you further. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 16:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

Hi, we keep trying to create a page for our company, TSE Sports & Entertainment. We don’t want to advertise it and we keep referring to other companies' entries such as IBM to see how everything should be worded on our page, but it keeps getting speedily deleted. Can you please help us out so that we can make a proper page? Our account of gotse was also blocked from making any more edits because of how many times we tried to change it to make it proper. Thank you 66.11.200.227 (talk) 17:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, if you have a close connection with the company, you might have WP:COI. Conflict of interest is frowned upon here, and will usually end up getting deleted. If you want an article, you should find someone else who isn't affiliated much with the company to write it. Soxred93 | talk bot 17:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:COI aside, take a look at WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V and make sure you comply with these policies. It's best to have somebody else write the article for you in order to achieve the neutral tone wikipedia strives for in an article. You could do it yourself, but be mindful of that. Also, make sure you have reliable sources before you hit the save button. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 17:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Please also read Wikipedia:FAQ/Business. Thank you Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 17:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

When an admin deletes an article, he or she states the reason(s) for deletion. See WP:WWMPD for instructions on how to locate and understand these reasons. --Teratornis (talk) 19:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The first time the article was deleted, it was because the article did not establish the notability of the company. The first page you should refer to is Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Conflict of interest alone is not such a problem and not a grounds for deletion since the article can be verified and edited once the basic content is in place, but if it doesn't meet the basic notability requirements you'll find it hard to supply reliable sources to verify the article. • Anakin ^(talk) 19:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually Anakin101, that's not true. The first time it was deleted it was for blatant advertising. The most recent time was for non-notability. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 20:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Original poster: If you want, I'd be happy to help you try to bring your article up to Wikipedia standards, if it's possible. I'd suggest that you go to the talkpage of the most recent deleting administrator (check here: [6]), and a) ask to be unblocked, and b) ask for the most recent version of your article to be 'userfied', moved to your userspace so you and others can work on it. When you've done so, drop a note on my talkpage and I'll go take a look. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 20:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Uploading text in Office format

I apologize but I've been looking for the answer to this for an hour and can't find it. I want to upload a file written in Microsoft Office, text only, to create a new entry (my bio as a published author). I can't figure out how to put that in another format, though I see that you have an Office translator. I can scan it into tif but you only accept jpg. Help! Thank you, linjentoo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linjentoo (talk • contribs) 19:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

New articles by new users on Wikipedia have a very high probability of being deleted, because Wikipedia has a large set of policies and guidelines that tend to be extremely unintuitive for most people. Autobiographical articles in particular represent a minefield of problems. See WP:BIO and WP:COI. Before attempting to create a new article on Wikipedia, first you should learn to edit by helping to improve our existing articles. Wikipedia is free, but it is not a free lunch. The satisfaction you can derive from participating here is directly proportional to the effort you make to learn how this complex place works. For a scary overview of our complexity, see: WP:EIW. In the meantime, you might try WikiBios which accepts biographies about anyone. --Teratornis (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

You can't upload a Word document as is; it would only be a file in the file database, and not a proper article in the encyclopedia. You will need to copy and paste the text to an article, and format it using wiki mark-up (see Wikipedia:Cheatsheet for the most common mark-up).

However, first you need to make sure that the text is encyclopedic and suitable for Wikipedia. Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines which all articles should comport with. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite to reliable sources which verify their content.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people and note that the conflict of interest guideline actually recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Help:Starting a new page. You might also look at Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format an article before creation. Hope these links help. • Anakin ^(talk) 19:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

As you state this is a bio about yourself, I strongly suggest you do not post it. It is a conflict of interest to write articles about yourself, especially autobiographies. -- Kesh (talk) 23:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

How do I create a "contents" box?

How do I create a "contents" box? I'm writing an article, have created sections and subsections, but cannot bring up a contents box. Help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Normsch (talk • contribs) 19:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi there,

It should come up automatically, could you provide a link to the article in question? --The Helpful One ^(Review) 19:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It comes up automatically only if you have more than 3 headings. If you have three or less, you can force one by typing __TOC__ in the edit window (that's two underlines before and after). --barneca (talk) 19:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing a title

Hello,

I need to change the title of an entry to properly reflect the name of a law firm. The law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath does not have a comma in its name, but its entry in Wikipedia is "Drinker, Biddle & Reath". I know how to edit the content of the piece, but not the title. Could you please remove the comma from the title so it reads "Drinker Biddle & Reath"?

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stfuzz (talk • contribs) 22:28, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done When your account is four days old (autoconfirmed in wiki-lingo), you can click the "Move" tab at the top of the page to move said page. Xenon⁵⁴ 22:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Template question

Is there a way to grab the name of the last contributor to a page? For example, if I were creating a StatusBot template and wanted to list the name of the bot that last edited my status page, is there a way to do that without manually editing the template? Xenon⁵⁴ 23:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, the only running StatusBot right now is User:EBot IV, which, unsurprisingly, has broken down like all the rest. Assuming you actually intend to use this for something else, however, I'd say no. The only functioning variables of this sort are listed at Help:Magic words and Help:Variable. Sorry. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Billboard 200 boxes

Hello, I am adding boxes on the pages of music albums that were number-one albums on the Billboard 200 at one time that show when that album was at the number-one spot. I am unsure whether these boxes should be at the bottom of the page or in sections about the album's sales and chart information, and I have not been able to find an answer to this question in the style manual. An example of a page with the box below sales and chart information would be 1 (album), and a page with the box at the bottom of the page would be Stadium Arcadium. Thank you.--Classicrockfan42 (talk) 23:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that sounds like a complex question. You might check the talk pages for those articles: Talk:Stadium Arcadium and Talk:1 (album) to see their Wikiprojects. It seems they have Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums in common. Often WikiProjects will work out their own detailed style recommendations, which should be in the Manual of style but haven't always gotten there yet. --Teratornis (talk) 00:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

A third way that I have seen, and my preference, is to have the "number-one album" or "number-one single" boxes and boxes like them just above any artist template(s) that may be on the page. --Wolfer68 (talk) 09:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

February 28

Wikipedia color scheme

Is there a way to changing wikipedias base color from white to black and text from black to white to use less electricity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.89.178.5 (talk) 00:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You will need to create an account to do so, however once you are logged in, you can edit Special:Mypage/monobook.css to fit your desired appearance. Cascading Style Sheets can give you some help with how to do this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe both Mac and Windows have a screen inversion feature in case you are interested in doing it in general and not just in your browser. —Noah 00:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I also believe that there is a new feature in the preferences that gives you a new color scheme. Go to your preferences, click on the "Gadget" tab, and check the option that says, "Sets the monobook skin to a black background with green text. Does not require Javascript; CSS only." Press save. If you can't figure it out, see Help:Preferences. Good luck! Soxred93 | talk bot 02:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this was discussed on the Village pump (technical), and someone commented that the actual saving is minimal, or possibly non-existant depending on your monitor. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 02:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

If you are using a CRT, there is a small savings. If you are using an LCD, there is no savings. An LCD is in general more energy efficient than a CRT in any event. The most important thing you can do is to activate all of the power-saving features of your computer, and if you find this to be too complicated, then turn the computer off when you are not using it. -Arch dude (talk) 03:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Create Contents

How do you create the CONTENTS section so it links to the rest of the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rwulbecker (talk • contribs) 02:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

when you create 3 headings like "== Heading here == that for example, a contents page on the article is automatically created.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 02:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

If you have fewer than 3 headings marked off with double equals signs, you can still get a table of contents by typing "__TOC__" (two underscores on each side; you don't need the quotation marks.).

See Help:Section. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Counter oddity

You can see here that I started Yasmin Brunet on February 15th. However, here it looks like the page has page views that precede its creation. What's up?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 03:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know, unless the script is counting searches for "Yasmin Brunet" where people actually clicked the redlink, but I can't believe it would be that many hits. You should probably ask Henrik; as it's his script, he should be able to figure it out. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Seems that people were viewing the nonexistent page. Can't be anything else, because an error that serious would be glaring... Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 03:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

No, actually it was a bug. I recently started adding statistics for all projects (not just en), and the counter displayed the stats for all pages across the projects with the same title (pt:Yasmin_Brunet is the other existing one, in case you're curious). It's fixed now. henrik•talk 15:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How do you underline text?

When editing an article, it is pretty clear how I can italicize or bold text (with the proper use of the apostrophe symbol). I can't seem to find how I underline text? Any ideas? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

I'm afraid that for that one, the only way to do it is using HTML. You use <u>TEXT HERE</u>.--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 03:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

That bit of help can be found at Help:Wikitext. —Noah 03:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Any idea why that command is not included in the "palette" line on the Edit Box? I mean, they have such obscure stuff as subscript and superscript and striking out text and square root/math ... I would think that underlining text is a much more common need than some of these other silly conventions? (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

Underlining is associated with links on the web and some skins underline all links so I think underlining would confuse and should not be used without very good reason. It can be suggested to add underlining to MediaWiki:Edittools at MediaWiki talk:Edittools but it may be opposed. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. That makes sense. I never thought of that. I assumed there was some good reason why such a commonly used feature would be excluded from the palette. I just didn't know what that reason was. Thanks to all for your input above. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

TABs

Is there any way in Wikipedia to format text in such a way as "TAB" works on a keyboard -- without using a whole bunch of non-breaking space ( & n b s p ; ) symbols? For example, if I want this text:

Name of United States President: Abraham Lincoln
Years in Office: 1903 to 2003

to appear like this:

Name of United States President: Abraham Lincoln
Years in Office:                           1903 to 2003

How can I get the text "1903 to 2003" to begin / line-up directly underneath the text "Abraham Lincoln"? That is the type of thing that I would use a TAB command on a keyboard or in Microsoft Word. In Wikipedia, I would normally type a whole bunch of & n b s p ; commands ... like 20 or so. Even then, it doesn't quite "line up" correctly. And you have to do trial-and-error a million times to see exactly how many & n b s p ; commands comes close to working. Is there a better way? A way that simulates a TAB command? Thanks a lot. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

Usually, for such tables, we use, well, tables. I don't know of a practical tab option aside from the method you already know. Sorry I can't be of more assistance. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 03:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. But who said anything about Tables? If I was typing an entire section on Abraham Lincoln, and I wanted the intro to look as above, I would just want that text --- not a table. It would look silly to have something like below:

Name	Abraham Lincoln
Years in Office	1903 to 2003

Lincoln was a great president. Blah Blah Blah. He was born in 1900 and he died in 2000. He started the Civil War and he ended the Civil War. Etc. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

(Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

You can make a table with no borders:

Name of United States President:	Abraham Lincoln
Years in Office:	1903 to 200

Note that the method with   depends on the font the reader views it with, and the line length can also cause bad formatting in narrow windows. Tables are the standard way to format web pages in columns when it must be readable by a browser without using a fixed width font. It's not specific to Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The table with no borders might be a decent option. This question may sound ignorant or naive, but ... is there no other way to do something as simple (and as common) as a "tab"? It just seems hard to believe that one has to use this back-door complicated method (create a table, make sure it has no borders) ... to do something that would seemingly be very common and very simple (like a TAB). Am I missing something here? Please let me know. This is confounding me. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

I believe the history behind this goes waaay back to the first HTML specs which prohibit control characters like tabs. Since wiki markup codes are a direct descendant of HTML (or maybe it is better to say "because wiki markup gets converted to HTML") the restrictions of HTML get carried forward. It's actually covered on Tab key amusingly enough, where it is pointed out that you can do <pre>&#09(semicolon)</pre> which is really not much better than four non-breaking spaces. —Noah 05:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Makes some degree of sense in a perverse sort of way, I guess. Thank you. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC))

I was just thinking "why isn't there a wiki template that does multiple spaces", and of course, there is! See Template:Space. Cheers, —Noah 06:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Notices posted at head of article

If any editors can please search the article, Ryan Allen, and read both the notices posted at the head of the article and responses on the talk page, I would appreciate it. I have written this article at the expense of time and effort in assembling facts and studying Wikipedia tutorials, guidelines, and posting questions on the Help Desk; and it is disheartening to read the notices. Anyone who can respond to my statements on the Talk Page could be helping me very much. It would be a blow to see my effort be wiped out. Is there hope for it to be saved? Thank you. Voiceperson (talk) 04:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I responded on the discussion page for the Ryan Allen article. —Noah 06:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Template replacement wikiquette ?

I have almost finished writing a new template to replace a number of very similar but all slightly different templates for a certain type of organisation. What is the protocol to announce / to get people to use the new better (IMHO!) standard template ? Should the templates to be replaced be tagged in some way ? Pee Tern (talk) 05:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Your first port of call would probably be at the relevant WikiProject(s), since they're the ones that would presumably (a) care, and (b) handle style-related issues like which templates to use on those pages. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Already there in the project's talk page and no bites yet. Somewhere I read about "depricated templates" but I cannot find it again. Is this something formal ? Pee Tern (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

See Category:Deprecated templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:06, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

shunt device

i know shunt is a device helps to pass current. but, i cant get a clear idea by this.. is there any relation present between shunt and resistor?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sendreams100 (talk • contribs) 07:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You probably should ask that over at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science as this page is for questions on using Wikipedia. Good luck, —Noah 07:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

See also Shunt (electrical). PrimeHunter (talk) 14:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How to create a free Bible viewer application for Java mobile phones( like the Gobible)

Good morning Sir, My Names are Amechi Otutu and my e-mail is <email removed>. Am a christian and i want to find out how i can create a free Bible viewer application for Java mobile phones Just like the Gobible, into Some other African translation so that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus christ can be Preached to all nation of the earth. Please i will be glad if i can get this information or be directed to where i can get it. Thank you God Bless you. Bro Amechi Otutu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.174 (talk) 08:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6.8 million articles and thought we were affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is for asking questions related to using or contributing to Wikipedia itself. Thus, we have no special knowledge about the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the upper right side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. —teb728 t c 08:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Windsor chairs in U.S.A

84.253.237.121 (talk) 09:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)R09:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)84.253.237.121 (talk)

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} 11:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Odd vandalism?

It would appear that a named user has vandalised Help:Redirect. I have reverted it. I am relatively new but it would seem to be a strange one off for a registered user ? Perhaps an admin needs to look to see if someone is poly user naming. (I do realise that Help:Redirect is not a master.) Pee Tern (talk) 09:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Registering accounts for the purpose of placing spam on Wikipedia (which is what this is) is unfortunately all too common. Revert on sight and warn user is the correct response. Report to WP:AIVif they will not stop. SpinningSpark 13:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Moving a page to an existing page??

I have already read the help page for that. It says that ADMINISTRATORS can do that. I just don't know if this is the proper place to ask an administrator to do the job. The page I want to move is Policies, activities and history of the Philippines in the Spratly Islands. I want to remove the second "the" article such that it becomes "Policies, activities and history of the Philippines in Spratly Islands". Somebody moved the page lately for what I deem as inappropriate title (maybe the user who moved it must request the move first). I tried moving the page again but I haven't noticed that I inserted the second "the" article. I can't move it to the original title because it is already a redirect, as the case of all former titles. Can somebody help me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Estarapapax (talk • contribs) 10:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd recommend gaining some consensus on the articles talk page. Then an admin can delete the re-direct and move the title. You can report these kind of issues to Requested Moves Pedro :  Chat  13:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Reporting IP Socks

Not sure if I should report this to AIV or not: 124.181.64.190 admits to being a sockpuppet of User:Jc iindyysgvxc. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 11:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

That's not a sockpuppet, it's someone asking for their talk page to be unblocked so they can appeal. WP:SOCK is quite clear "A sock puppet is an alternative account used deceptively. In particular, using two usernames to vote more than once in a poll or to circumvent Wikipedia policies is prohibited." An IP used only to appeal a ban, and making no secret of who it is, is not a sockpuppet. So no, not to be reported. Skittle (talk) 14:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Nochex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nochex.com

the Account types information is all incorrect and causing damage to our brand

can i please submit new content?

Matt Waterman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.36.212.109 (talk) 12:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at WP:FAQ/Business and WP:COI, and then your next step should be to post at the article's talk page: Talk:Nochex. Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 13:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

can you please review our site www.nochex.com and update the info —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.36.212.109 (talk) 13:33, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

My recommendation to you, is once you've read the above links, post the changes that you feel are necessary to the talk page, so the community can consider them. As of right now, I don't know what you feel is incorrect in the article, so there isn't much I can do without some careful reading and research: and it seems like you're in a position to circumvent this work. Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 13:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

viagra spam is being sent out from German "lists.wikimedia.org"

th28feb8@ 9:42a I received this spam message. It is for viagra. Someone is spamming the german wiki list. Below is the email with header info. I removed my email for privacy. ~a wiki user 70.108.100.102 (talk) 14:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed the text of the spam mail. It can be seen here. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi primehunter. Y did u rmv the text of the spam? Isnt the header info needed so wiki can trace it? Where did u move it 2? Thx. 70.108.100.102 (talk) 15:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but it's in the page history now; all pages are recorded. So the link that PrimeHunter has given shows what the text was, and so it can be removed from this page to prevent it taking up space. (To answer the precise question, it's in the page history ('history') tab at the top, and the link in PrimeHunter's comment is another way to access it.) --ais523 15:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh ok. Thx! =) 70.108.100.102 (talk) 15:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

PrimeHunter's diff-link was one diff too new, I think. I believe this is the correct diff to show the spam. —Noah 16:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. My link went directly to the section with the spam (if your browser works with anchors), so the text could also be seen there, but I should have used the preceding diff anyway. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Does anybody know how to tell if the two IP addresses listed as the sender of the message – 10.50.32.243 and 91.198.174.5 – belong to Wikimedia? • Anakin ^(talk) 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Using maps and photos

I am a new comer to Wikipedia, Can I use maps and photos as well as information form documents without modifying them for my project as long as I give credits wherever possible to the owner of the photos and maps? Thanks lee 15:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Kelee2 (talk) --Kelee2 (talk) 15:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)--Kelee2 (talk) 15:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.png

If you click on an image, you'll get copyright information about reusing it. The common licenses used on Wikipedia are 'public domain' (you can do anything), various Creative Commons licences (which will have links explaining what restrictions there are; generally speaking, that you must credit them to their author and that you mustn't change the license), and the GNU Free Documentation License (which in addition to credit and no change of license, requires that you keep track of the document's history, enclose a full copy of the license with the image, and that you make a machine-readable version available if you make many non-machine-readable copies). If you need full details of what the licenses do, though, I recommend reading their text, which will be linked from the license information obtainable by clicking on the image. --ais523 15:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

frustrated new user

I'm a new user who just wrote my first article and I'm very frustrated.

I've read all the help articles and RAQ pages and, frankly, it seems like lots of gobbledy-gook to me. For people who have been using your template for long time, this may make sense, but for a new person, it's incredibly confusing.

I wrote my first article, "William Attwood." It says that the article is unclassified and asks to classify it. I clicked on the appropriate link and rather than a redirect that gives a set of classifications, it redirects to a help page that talks about classifcation but gives no clear way to classify the article. Maybe it would be helpful to have a "wikipedia for dummies" area that simplified things, e.g. "click here to do this, then click here," etc.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to upload a simple photo. I clicked on the photo icon in the edit mode, but it doesn't give me an upload option.

I'm a very educated person who would like to contribute to this project, but my knowledge is not about web design and I'm not very computer savvy. Perhaps a more user-friendly interface would be helpful for people like me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathanattwood (talk • contribs) 16:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have added some categories in [7]. See more at Help:Category. Wikipedia has a huge number of categories and listing all of them in one place would not be practical. See Help:Images and other uploaded files. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

An image can be used on many pages so uploading an image and displaying it on a page are independent events. You looked in the page edit options which only shows how to display the image on that page. All pages have an "Upload file" link in the toolbox to the left. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Very few new users could possibly absorb all the instructions in one reading necessary to create a new article and give it a minimally complete set of features - this amount of know-how vastly exceeds any human's short term memory. A better approach is for a new user to work the necessary know-how into long term memory at a comfortable pace by editing existing articles before attempting to create an entirely new article. However, nothing in Wikipedia's user interface discourages new users from getting the idea to leap straight to one of our most difficult editing tasks: creating a new article from scratch that is good enough not to get deleted. We have seen time and again that for a substantial fraction of new users, the first incentive to try editing on Wikipedia is to create a new article. The articles for creation wizard should help, but creating new articles is unavoidably complex because there are almost infinitely many subjects a new user could write about, leading to an endless number of special cases requiring experienced judgment. There is also the problem that as the number of articles on Wikipedia increases (we're up to 6,841,012 now), the remaining number of suitable article topics decreases, making it ever more likely that new users will try to write about something forbidden by WP:NOT. It would be nice if we had some gentle way to warn users who (a) have low edit counts and (b) attempt to create a new article that they are likely to have a better experience by accumulating more edits on existing articles before trying to create a new article. --Teratornis (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia can be frustrating, but on another note, congratulations on your first article - it's lovely! Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 18:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

egress windows

Can a builder call a basement unhabitalbe space just to avoid putting egress window in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.214.25.176 (talk) 16:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

"Please be aware that we cannot, under any circumstance, provide medical, legal, or any other sort of advice that is normally regulated by governmental authorities." --Orange Mike | Talk 17:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This is also the absolute wrong place to be asking such a question, even though it treads on the legal advise line - Try the reference desk, but be wary of your phrasing. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 18:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

ca.

I was just wondering if i could use c. or ca. for numbers as well as for dates. see wp:mos numbers & dates.Ardeshire Babakan (talk) 17:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

PS:sorry if I should have asked this elsewhere

Depends on the context, I suppose, but generally if it is not a date you should use "about" instead of "c." or "ca." -- jwillbur 21:42, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How do you make a list of articles started?

I'd like to make a list of all the articles I've started. What's the easiest way to do this? The Transhumanist    18:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Check your contributions. If you used the edit summary box correctly, the pages you created would have something along the lines of 'created page' as the edit summary. If you haven't it will be a lot harder, you might have to resort to memory. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 18:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:COUNT gives this tool. (it only counts creations in mainspace) Algebraist 18:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Can I use this?

I have a webpage about rock music in America which I made, but I want a experienced wikipedia admin to see if it is alright for Wikipedia.

• removed

Thanks alot! --WereNoStrangersToLove (talk) 19:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Link removed and user warned. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 19:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Shame on you, Gtstricky, for your bitey response. This was the newbie’s first post, and he was asking if it was OK. Your {{uw-vandalism4im}} warning on his user talk page was uncalled for. And it doesn’t even explain what was wrong with his his link to Youtube. —teb728 t c 20:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a Rick Roll. I should have put that here. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 21:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is quite fair to Gtstricky. This has been the third time in the last couple weeks that someone has Rick Rolled the Help Desk using a user name that is a reference to the song. —Noah 21:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

new article help

Resolved

Hi. I just created a stub on a SCOTUS case and I unfortunately forgot to capitalize some stuff in the title. My account isn't four days old yet, so I can't edit the title myself. I was wondering if someone could do it for me. The stub title is "Haynes v. united states" TIA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dammit, all the good user names are taken! (talk • contribs) 20:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Done, Orangemike got to it before I could. jwillbur 21:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Article name

There is an article with my name already but I want to write about something totally different with that same name. How do I add an article with the same name of a previous written article when they are on different subjects? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebrinkman (talk • contribs)

Name it like Topic (parent topic) instead of Topic. Have a look at Torchwood and Torchwood (series 1). _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} ^{aka john lennon} 21:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

For the full explanation on how to differentiate between two things with the same name, see Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 21:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Finding Heather Hall

Heather Hall who lived at <location removed> - in December 1997 is my half sister's sister -

For personal reasons my half sister - previously known as Penny Guthrie was forced to change her identy and we lost contact.

The only way to locate my half sister was through Heather Hall - are you able to help or offer any advice.

Many thanks for your help

Regards

Ivor Guthrie

Tel: <telephone number removed> (UK) Mob: <telephone number removed> (UK) e-mail - <email removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.38.121.254 (talk) 21:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of removing your email address and telephone number as we are unable to provide answers by email or 'phone and these are highly visible across the internet. Harland1 (^t/_c) 21:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This question would be more appropriate for one of the reference desks.-- Diniz (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It still wouldn't be very appropriate though. The Wikipedia reference desk deals with knowledge questions and stuff, not locating people. Perhaps search the web for a lost friends contacting service of some kind. • Anakin ^(talk) 14:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hangon tag

Resolved

Are you allowed to delete {{hangon}} tags from articles, specifically Math Homework Help: $1/Question? George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 21:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

In my experience of patrolling new articles, blantantly unencyclopedic pages will be quickly deleted regardless of whether the hangon tag is used. The template itself says that "Note that this request is not binding, and the page may still be deleted if the page unquestionably meets the speedy deletion criteria, or if the promised explanation is not provided very soon".-- Diniz (talk) 21:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Diniz is correct - my opinion is that it's mostly discourteous to remove hangon tags - best to just leave them be. It's always a good idea to WP:AGF. Besides, if the article obviously meets the criteria for speedy deletion, an admin will take care of it. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 21:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 22:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Generally, you can leave a message on the editor's Talk page explaining that just putting a hangon tag doesn't do any good, and they need to explain on the article's Talk page how it meets notability requirements. Corvus cornix_talk 23:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Formula One/Newsletter/200802

I'm currently tidying up a WikiProject Formula One newsletter, but experiencing a couple of problems in the process. Another user created the newsletter initially, so I'm not too sure of the formatting which has been used.

1. Is it possible to make the newsletter collapsible? I've tried some codes that I have used for other templates in the past, but none of them have worked. The help page on Wikipedia mostly seems to be about tables, not templates.
2. The cell on the bottom right is slightly too wide, and I can't see how to fix this.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!-- Diniz (talk) 21:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Here we go:

1. Your newsletter is a table. You should be able to add class="collapsible collapsed" to the top of the newsletter, after the {|. You will also have to designate the first row as a header by converting the vertical pipe ( | ) to an exclamation point. So, your code should start like this:

{| class="collapsible collapsed"
|-
! colspan="2" valign="middle" ... | rest of header ...

1. I don't see any problems with width on my screen. If something is messing up with yours, you can try adding a width="50%" or parameter, adjusting the percentage to whatever you need to. I've already added a 100% parameter to the top, which should guarantee that the whole thing fits on your screen regardless of what screen resolution you're using.

If you still need help, let us know! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! The newsletter (which I can't believe I didn't realise it was a table!) is now collapsible. I still can't get the width to work: the 100% parameter had no effect, and when I gave the specific bottom-right sector the same parameter, it fixed the width problem but removed the background colour and section border. Since the offending section only extends about half a centimetre off the screen and isn't noticeable for you, then it's probably better for me to leave it alone. Thanks again.-- Diniz (talk) 22:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

That's really... strange. I think what you may have done was try to put the width parameter inside the style parameter. "width" should be separate, like this:

valign="top" rowspan=2 style="border: 1px gray solid; padding: 1em; background: #ffffb1;" width="75%"

I've tested this out (without saving anything, as I'm not sure if you still want to try this) and it appears to work fine. Just don't set it much higher than 75%, as it'll force the cells on the left side to get really scrunched to make room. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but it still doesn't work for me. The left edge of the cell moves as one would expect when I change the width parameter, but the right edge stays tantalisingly out of reach!-- Diniz (talk) 23:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'm looking at it in Internet Explorer and getting the same problem you seem to be having. The worst part is, I can't figure out for the life of me why it's doing it, or how to fix it. The most apparent reason for why is that Internet Explorer simply sucks, but that doesn't help at all, nor is this the place to go ranting on about inadequate browsers, however much I would love to do so. I'll keep messing with it and see if I come up with anything. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's fixed, but I had to mess up the format a bit to do it. For some reason, the border refused to show unless the cell had a fixed size. Because different people use different screen resolution sizes, however, having one cell at a fixed size while everything else is proportional could make bad things happen. So, what I ended up doing was this: The whole table is 800 pixels wide. The offending cell is now stuck at 550 pixels, with everything else metered out accordingly. The reason I chose 800 is because the lowest resolution any same person would have is 1024x800 pixels, and some rather unscientific testing (involving me setting my own resolution to that and seeing what happened) showed me that that's the biggest number that will fit when you take into account the tool bar to the left and the scroll bar on the right (I actually had to guess at the scroll bar, as mine decided to go on holiday without telling me - thank goodness for the invention of the scroll wheel).

Long story short, it's fixed, I don't know why it was broken in the first place, but it's fixed, and I now leave it to you to decide whether you like it that narrow or would rather live with the wonky border. If the latter, just revert my last three edits. Either way, I now hate IE even more than I did before, and so recommend Mozilla Firefox to you. Good night. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

File:Newsletter screenshot.jpg

Thanks for all of your help. Unfortunately, the problem is still persisting with the reduced width (see image). If it's a problem with IE, then I suppose there's nothing we can do. At least the newsletter is now collapsible.-- Diniz (talk) 11:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Article

How do I create an article???? Gorillazx1 (talk) 22:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The pages at Help:Starting a new page and Wikipedia:Your first article should have most of the information you need. Before you begin, please carefully read through our policies and guidelines on notability, citing reliable sources for verification, neutrality, and formatting and article layout, where many new users commonly make mistakes. You may also want to consider checking out what Wikipedia is not, the deletion policy and criteria for speedy deletion so you know specifically what to avoid when writing your article. I hope this helps. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Signature in templates

The signature I am currently using is not properly displaying in templates, often showing only "talk" with a link to the talk page with four tildes. The following is my .sig: <small>[[User:Seicer|<font color="#CC0000">seicer</font>]] | [[User_talk:Seicer|<font color="#669900">talk</font>]] | [[Special:Contributions/Seicer|<font color="#669900">contribs</font>]]</small> I am not for sure why it is not displaying in templates such as {{resolved|1=}} Any .sig help much appreciated! seicer | talk | contribs 22:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is caused by the use of pipes in your signature. I used to have a pipe in mine, and experienced a similar problem. When the template encounters another pipe, it thinks you're trying to define a new parameter, even though it's actually part of your signature. This could also cause an issue with tables due to how wikimarkup works. Replacing the pipes in your signature with & #x007C; (minus the space) should correct the display problem, like so:

Resolved

 – seicer | talk | contribs

Hopefully that works. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) seicer | talk | contribs 22:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Another thing that might help: when using a template, instead of just saying {{quote}My name is ~~~~}}, you can insert "1=", for {{quote|1=My name is ~~~~}}. "1=" means you're defining the first parameter for the template; by default, if you don't name the parameter, whatever appears after the first pipe is the first parameter. However, explicitly saying "1=" will save you if your text includes equals signs. Maybe it helps if there are pipes, too – I'm not sure. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Tables and hiding/showing

I don't know if this is the right place, but I'll ask here. I'm trying to create a table which would look like this. The top one being when it is hidden and the middle one being expanded. And plus that, i want many many rows of the same things being together like the bottom one, but being able to expand them separately... Haven't found a way to do this yet. Any idea's of templates, table classes or codes to make it happened?

2006 CPL Winter Championship
2006 Dec 16 - 20	Dallas	fnatic	Meet Your Makers	Pentagram

2006 CPL Winter Championship
2006 Dec 16 - 20	Dallas	fnatic	Meet Your Makers	Pentagram
		Archi	elemeNt	kuben
		cArn	juven9le	Loord
		dsn	prb	LUq
		f0rest	REAL	Neo
		Tentpole	Xione	TaZ

2006 CPL World Season Nordic
2006 Nov 30 - Dec 3	Jönköping	Ninjas in Pyjamas	H2k-Gaming	69°N-28°E
2006 CPL Winter Championship
2006 Dec 16 - 20	Dallas	fnatic	Meet Your Makers	Pentagram
2007 CPL Winter Championship
2007 Dec 19 - 22	Dallas	X3O	Mug N Mouse	PhrenetiK

Chandlertalk 22:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Not in a single table, that I am aware of, however you can cheat your way around it by using multiple tables. Set the class to include "collapsible collapsed", add margin:0px; to the style code, and fix the width to a specific pixel width. For example:

2006 CPL World Season Nordic
2006 Nov 30 - Dec 3	Jönköping	Ninjas in Pyjamas	H2k-Gaming	69°N-28°E

2006 CPL Winter Championship
2006 Dec 16 - 20	Dallas	fnatic	Meet Your Makers	Pentagram

2007 CPL Winter Championship
2007 Dec 19 - 22	Dallas	X3O	Mug N Mouse	PhrenetiK

Hopefully that's the kind of effect you were looking for? I know the code is a bit ugly, but unfortunately that's the only way I know of to do it. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. - You'll also notice that this is going to require a bit of extra work making sure the columns line up neatly - again, defining specific widths - and you'll have to make a new table for every additional collapsible section. You can add additional data to each collapsible section, however without making the code even uglier, it will be expanded along with everything else. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Though no way to have two rows showing while "hidden"? Chandlertalk 23:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You can stick another table in between that has the style="margin:..." stuff, but not the collapsable parts. There's no way to include those visible rows in the collapsible table without them also collapsing, so again, we just cheat our way around it. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Commercial article

The following article appears to be spam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Plus

I tried to report it as suggested but I couldn't understand how to "tag" an article as spam. Sorry.

Sollertia51 (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

{{db-spam}} for blatant adverts (but recently created ones). Use {{advert}} to tag an article as advertising so it can be removed. You can also go to WP:AFD or WP:PROD the article to delete it. Xenon⁵⁴ 22:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the article creator was User:PrecisionPlus; and when that editor was blocked indefinitely, the torch was picked up by User:PPlus! --Orange Mike | Talk 00:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

February 29

Wikipedia:Images

Is Wikipedia:Images a wikipedia policy page which should be followed like NPOV or it is an advisory page? Farmanesh (talk) 02:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It's an editing guideline, and I'm about to tag it as such. Our actual policies are listed here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, so if it is not policy then no need to exactly follow it and it is subject to users understanding of the matter? Is there somewhere which says how binding an editing guideline is?Farmanesh (talk) 02:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

As the tag says, all guidelines should be treated with common sense, and in the occasional situation where common sense tells you to do something else, you can be bold and ignore them. Is there a particular situation in which you feel this guideline should be ignored? Most of it seems fairly sensible to me. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive; you may ignore it, of course, providing that you give good reasons. :) You might see also Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. --PeaceNT (talk) 12:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Not a question, but can't figure were else to alert Wikipedia

Resolved

The article on George Gershwin has been vandalized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.252.179 (talk) 02:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed now. Dr.K. (talk) 02:46, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

In the future, you can revert vandalism yourself - click that link to see how. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, be BOLD! If you see something wrong, don't be afraid to fix it! Mr Senseless (talk) 03:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Processing Data Dumops into MySQl

Hi,

Could anyone guid me through steps which I should follow to load one of the data dumps into a database. I know It is a common task which is applied in lots of research papres. I tried to do it but it seems a bit complicated and now I think it might involve sw which I am not aware of.

I downloaded one of the dumps and extracted the zip file. The result is a notepad file. When ever I try to open the file it says that the file is too large for notepad use anothe editor.

Any comments and helps are highly appreciated —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nazks (talk • contribs) 13:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• See WP:DUMP there is a section there that helps with importing the data. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Javascript

I don't know if it is better to ask this here or the reference desk. So I chose here. Please tell me of I have made a bad decision.

I want to ask if it is by all means possible to use javascript in Wikipedia? Visit me at Ftbhrygvn (Talk|Contribs|Log|Userboxes) 14:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

• Sure... see WP:User scripts. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

But if you meant, "Is it possible to use it in pages?", then no. You can use scripts to enhance or change how you use Wikipedia (e.g., Twinkle), but only administrators can make JavaScript changes that would be applied to everybody else. Just to clarify it. • Anakin ^(talk) 17:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

multiple wiktionary links in one box

I have been having trouble interwikilinking on the article screaming to various words in wiktionary. How do you do it properly? Help?Cholga^talK! 16:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

For that, you’ll need to use a different template, {{Wiktionarypar}}, which accepts multiple parameters. —Travis^talk 16:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Verification

I work with a band whose page has a notification that it needs verification (VAYDEN). We are mid-press campaign and i dont want the page to get deleted before I have more to add to it that would verify it.

If it is in danger of deletion, can you please email me at [email blanked for privacy] If you want to verify that they are a real, signed band, you can check out our page www.bigmachinemedia.com in the clients section.

Thank you, Jamie Roberts —Preceding unsigned comment added by JaneSane (talk • contribs) 16:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I assume that you are referring to Vayden. I read the article and it does not appear to meet Wikipedia’s notability guidelines for bands and will probably be deleted because of that. I will also point out our conflict of interest guideline as you clearly have some relationship with the band. Thanks —Travis^talk 16:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

See wikiindex:Category:Music for other wikis which have more lenient requirements for articles than Wikipedia does. You can probably find another wiki specializing in music where you can develop your article. If and when you get your article into encyclopedic shape, you can try again on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 18:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

rocket jet planes

Dear sir,

Have you all thought of using rockets along with your jets to go deep into space and go to other planets! You could take off with the jets snd then when reaching the outer atmosphere you turn on the rockets and go to other planets! Just imagine going to mars for a lunar landing and moving into a space colonie hotel. Or landing an Europa the ocean moon of Jupiter. or passing the rings of Saturn on the way to Titan the moon with more atmosphere than earth! Just think of the view ther of other planets, moons ans rings of Jupiter and Saturn, think about it !!!!

Sincerely Thomas M. Lively

<personal info removed for privacy>

please respond! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikelively (talk • contribs) 17:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over two million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If that is not fruitful, we have a reference desk, divided into various subjects areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. • Anakin ^(talk) 17:37, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

See Human spaceflight and Single-stage-to-orbit for some information relating to your question. Also see Peak oil and Hirsch report for a problem that seems very likely to retard any serious expansion of manned space exploration for the next several decades. Space travel with any technology we are likely to have during that time uses enormous amounts of liquid fuels, which could create difficulty when the supply of liquid fuels begins falling chronically and increasingly short of demand for terrestrial applications (especially transportation, petrochemicals, and industrial agriculture) which are extremely important and dangerously dependent on a single finite resource. --Teratornis (talk) 18:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Biblical Apocrypha

As a Catholic, I find the opening paragraph of this section offensive in that it states:

"The Biblical apocrypha (from the Greek word απόκρυφος meaning hidden) are texts which are often printed as part of the Bible despite their perceived status of being outside of the biblical canon."

The article later goes on to clarify that not all churches perceive this to be the case, but I would suggest this revision:

The Biblical apocrypha (from the Greek word απόκρυφος meaning hidden) are texts which are often printed as part of the Bible despite their perceived status by some Christian faiths as being outside of the biblical canon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peeb2 (talk • contribs) 19:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I would like to direct you to the article’s talk page where you will find some interesting discussions about the topic. If you feel that the article text should be revised, you should discuss it there to determine if there is a consensus for change. —Travis^talk 19:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Capital E

Resolved

Sorry, I'm a Brit, so I need a snap answer to:

Do you say "...shipped in from the East-coast..." or "...shipped in from the east-coast..." (or something else, e.g. no hyphen) AndyJones (talk) 20:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably “East Coast.” See East Coast. Cheers —Travis^talk 20:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for several replies. AndyJones (talk) 20:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia Material

can i use info that can be published from this site. and do we have to include acknowledgment of where the info came from??

please advise —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.141.218.192 (talk) 21:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, and you are free to copy and distribute the information here, provided that you keep to the terms of the GFDL. For more information, see WP:Copyrights. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia —Travis^talk 12:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Guy Talk, Girl Talk by Sal Marino

"Guy Talk, Girl Talk" by Sal Marino is an amusingly filthy look at sexual yearnings, unfulfilled love, brushes with fame and accounts of the not so ordinary oddities of life. Sal Marino is a connoisseur of fun! Known as the founder of "The Funism Art Movement", Marino's unique vision of the world is punctuated by a wry and sometimes cryptic observarion of everyday life. Marino's stories are the mechanism by which the reader is drawn to the reflective surface of his subject matter, yielding to laughs, snorts, giggles and more. We all can see a bit of ourselves in these vignettes, whether it is from the point of view of the protagonist or the many diverse personalities (some recognizable) who are represented therein. The author allows a glimpse through the window of his experience and subsequently our own, suggesting that we each have reflective, sometimes dark and perhapps equally amusing stories to tell. "Guy Talk, Girl Talk" is a hillarious journey through some of the not so average experiences of a not so average New Yorker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Salmarino (talk • contribs) 21:55, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a question? If you are trying to submit an article, please see Help:Starting a new page. Please note that your article as posted here is not presented from a neutral point of view or encyclopedic tone, and may be deleted if posted as it is here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:14, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention, judging by the username it may be a case of WP:COI. Dr.K. (talk) 22:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Revealing names of underage suspect

Is it against WP policy to state the name of a suspected murderer when the suspect is still legally a minor? There seems to be a disagreement on the E.O. Green School shooting article. Thank you. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 21:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored, and as news sources appear to have released his name and picture (according to the talk page), I'd say that the information should be included in the article. Just make sure to provide a reliable reference, as per the terms of WP:BLP. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

If you've got a source. The relevant policy is WP:BLP. Prodego ^talk 22:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I've copied this discussion to the talk page, as the discussion there appears to be ongoing. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. The reason I had come here was to get an opinion from people that haven't been involved in editing the article and talk page. I guess I'll wait to see the results of the consensus. Thanks Hersfold & Prodego. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 22:21, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Arguements of why the "suspect" name should be included

• The murderer of Larry King should NOT be withheld from this article, regardless of the fact that he was a minor. His name and picture have already been publicly released via many news sources, including CNN, and the police department. If this were a small incident, and had little to no media attention, then the protection of his name could be argued. But the fact is, it was not and because the mass media attention already being shined on this event, and the many witnesses claiming he was the shooter, the murderer does not rightfully deserve to be protected by WP:BLP. And people who are removing the killers name from this article are only removing it do to a bias twist of the WP:BLP. Publicly released information is not protected by WP:BLP. The two students who committed the Columbine High School massacre, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, have no right to have their name protected from being on the Columbine High School massacre article, and neither does the murderer of Larry King. It is understandable that the killers picture should not be displayed until he is charged for his crime, but his name has no right to be protected by WP:BLP.

• Taken from [WP:BLP - Privacy of names]:

"Caution should be applied...When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated". The killers name has been widely disseminated, and as such, his name is not protected by the WP:BLP clause.

• Under California Proposition 21 his is recognized as an adult. So the minor argument is illegitement.

• The "suspect" should be referred to as a "suspect" in the article because that is currently what the state of California recognizes him as. And do to this, his status as a suspect in the case is fact.

--Cooljuno411 (talk) 23:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, why is this here?--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 23:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The correct place for the discussion can be found here. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 14:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

March 1

Most popular articles

How can I find a list of the most commonly visited articles? Something recent would be most helpful. 216.49.181.128 (talk) 00:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure a method exists right now. There use to be Wikipedia:WIKICHARTS but the tool does not exist right now. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 00:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Some old versions are archived at [8]. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

URLs being removed

I am having troubles with a user who removed dozens of urls from a credible media outlet and online information. These urls were real content.

Wikipedia client: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ckatz

Wikipedia admin not following rules: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gator1985 (talk • contribs) 00:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if someone could please tell me what I can do besides complain to this user about what he did. Nothing is be used as spam. I'd appreciate any advice on how I could report this person.

Chris —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gator1985 (talk • contribs) 00:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, please read through the posts I've left on both your talk page and my talk page; you should also read through the external links guidelines and the history of this URL at User talk:SportsInt. --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, the steps available to resolve your dispute are described here Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 01:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism

I'm just curious. Are you allowed to plagiarize from another wikipedia article? Spencer^T♦C 02:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. If you mean copy text from one Wikipedia article to another, then I suppose so. It's all under the same license, so it shouldn't matter. Just make sure to link the original article in your edit summary so that the histories don't get fudged up. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

No, you're not allowed to plagiarize. You can copy, using the GFDL license, but you must attribute the material to the original Wikipedian contributors. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Archived Disupute template

I remember seeing a template for archiving a dispute. I was wanting to compile a list of templates I use (or will use) for my own reference, and can't seem to find this one. Any help? Thanks! Deflagro ^C/_T 03:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You could use Template:Closed. I can't seem to find anything more relevant, unfortunately. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Woops. I think I titled that wrong. I meant it to consensus. Sorry. It basically said the "verdict is this: and this is closed. If you want to restart it, make a new topic." Somethin like that. Thanks for the quick reply! Deflagro ^C/_T 03:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the same template should work. You're welcome. :-) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

uses for hard drives

I have an Imac with a hard drive installed. I know the GB's in the hard drive cannot be used to give my OS more processing capability, but I would like to know what i can use the 40GB for! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.206.115.184 (talk) 03:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The help desk is for questions on how to use Wikipedia. For general knowledge questions, such as yours, please use the reference desk. Soxred93 | talk bot 03:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC) Soxred93 | talk bot 03:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

GB stands for Gigabyte, which is a unit of computer memory. That is how much room you have to store documents, pictures, programs, and the like. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

PRINTING

How do I print a Wikipedia page, so that the blue type SHOWS UP?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.107.18.187 (talk) 06:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

technical support

hello,i need total information of technical support questions and answers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.247.125.23 (talk) 07:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you need help using Wikipedia, you're in the right place. If there's a technical issue that you need help with such as a bug with the MediaWiki software, you can try asking at the tech village pump. If you need technical support for something else, I recommend you contact the company that produced the product you need help with, as we're not them. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 08:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge decision

After placing a merge tag in an article, when can I merge it? I mean how many days should I wait? In AfD it is generally 5-6 days. Is there any formal guideline on this case? I’ve put merge tag here. --Avinesh Jose  T  07:25, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You should wait until there has been a reasonable time for discussion to take place. You may want to open a discussion yourself - if after a while (maybe a little longer than a week, since amboxes tend to get ignored) there aren't any responses, you can go ahead and finish the merge. There's more information about this at Wikipedia:MERGE#Proposing_a_merger. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 08:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Avinesh Jose  T  08:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

name meaning

I have heard the term "Dun Luce" but I can't find its meaning. I believe it is either Greek or Latin. Can you help me?--Coriebrooks (talk) 08:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You want the Wikipedia:Reference desk. This is for questions about using Wikipeida. <eleland/talkedits> 08:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Resizing

How do I resize a barnstar? I'm trying to move the barnstars from the talk page to my user page and the last barnstar is too large to fit in my current layout. Thanks. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I put a smaller version on your talk page. I guessed and played around with some parameters such as font size etc. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, that was nice of you. I'm going to see if I can reduce the length some more because it still interacts with my userboxes. Merci. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 14:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

creating a page

hello i have been trying to create a page called Jules Petroz and unfortunatly i created it twice. i then tryed to delete one page and now both pages are on speedy deletion. what should i do.

thank you for your help