Wikipedia:Help desk

Welcome—ask questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia! (Am I in the right place?)

• For other types of questions, use the search box, see the reference desk or Help:Contents. If you have comments about a specific article, use that article's talk page.
• Do not provide your email address or any other contact information. Answers will be provided on this page only.
• If your question is about a Wikipedia article, draft article, or other page on Wikipedia, tell us what it is!
• Check back on this page to see if your question has been answered.
• For real-time help, use our IRC help channel, #wikipedia-en-help.
• New editors may prefer the Teahouse, a help area for beginners (but please don't ask in both places).

Ask a question

February 4

BLP Question

Because of the ongoing BLP work, I have learned that there are multiple Jennifer Armstrongs. The current Jennifer Armstrong page is unreferenced and the person is of questionable notability. I am confident I could start a page and prove notability, with citations, for a different Jennifer Armstrong. What should be my proper course here? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I would not delete a hole article to to make your ...Y not to this Jennifer Armstrongs (musician), Jennifer Armstrongs (journalist), Jennifer Armstrongs (geneticist)...etc...probable best this way regardless of the "Jennifer Armstrongs" current article...Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Which makes sense and was what I thought, but got held up about what to do with the current page. Should it be made into a disambiguation page? And if yes should the current page be moved wholesale to Jennifer Armstrong (storyteller)? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

O i see the question...first i would see If you can find refs for her..and then move page to Jennifer Armstrong (folk musician) or whatever...only if she is notable enough ....BUT YES...Jennifer Armstrongs should be a disambiguation page....You need help with all that???Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There isn't much I could find through a quick Google Search (News/Scholar/Book/Web) - a few mentions in newspapers, but generally of the "Jennifer Armstrong will be appearing at..." types. Her official website has a bio, which I suspect the current article is based on (see here) but I can't find much in the way of reliable sites. I would suggest that this one is moved to Jennifer Armstrong (musician), with Jennifer Armstrong being used as the disamb page, as per the above suggestion. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 00:42, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I've done a slightly more thorough search and can't find any proof of notability. Buzz suggests moving only if she's notable. As I don't think she is, does it make sense to do that move? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done..I have gone ahead and made the move..should be done regardless...If you like nominate Jennifer Armstrong (musician) for deletions.... Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I have tagged it for A7 speedy deletion. – ukexpat (talk) 01:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Blimey, what's happening here? We have Jennifer Armstrong as a disambiguation page pointing to only one article, Jennifer Armstrong (musician), which, after a recent revert, is now about the children's author.... – ukexpat (talk) 02:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I have requested a page move to sort this out, see Wikipedia:Requested moves#Current requests. – ukexpat (talk) 21:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

how to post an article from user page

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I am new and trying to post an article from the user page draft window/Article Wizard thing. The directions said once I was finished writing, there would be a way to move the story onto Wikipedia, but there isn't--only options for further editing. How do I move the draft to Wikipedia? It's not even clear to me how to send THIS question--just hit the "save page" button? That did not move my article draft to Wikipedia.Santa27 (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

First search to see if it already there search here...then if NO!! click on the red link you see with your title and past what you want from your user page or wherever to the blank page!!...Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

dear Buzzzsherman, thanks for answering my question about not being able to post my article. you suggested clicking the red print, but there is no red print anywhere on the page. i even went out of user draft mode and from article wizard tried to post directly to the site. there was no way. i "saved page," checked wikipedia but it wasn't there. and no red print, red link, nothing read anywhere. i've spent all day on this. the article is formatted, referenced, externally linked, all that--but i can't get it on the site! so frustrating! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Santa27 (talk • contribs) 00:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

ok pls show me the article you want to post! like this [[user name/IP]]....lets see what you got and i will help from there!!..Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

sorry, i'm brand new, i forgot to sign my second help request. i'm only going to post one article, but i can't--there is no way to get it onto wikipedia. no "live" button, no red link you alluded to... nothing. I tried article wizard, both user draft and live versions. i saved the page, but nothing happened. no red print anywhere on the page.Santa27 (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

What is the title you would like????Buzzzsherman (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The red link Buzzzsherman referred to is the red link that appears in the message if there is no article by that title on Wikipedia. For example, if you search for "Pillowtree", a message appears saying "You may create the page "Pillowtree", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered." Indeed, Pillowtree does not exist on Wikipedia, and if such a tree existed someone could click on that red link and create the article.

If you cannot locate the red link, type two brackets around the name of the article you want to create. For example, if you wanted to create Pillowtree, you would type [[Pillowtree]]. Alternatively, tell us the name of the article you want to create and we can provide a direct link to the place you can create it. However, I strongly recommend you create new articles as a userspace draft first. By creating a draft, you create a place you can develop an article without risking deletion. When it is ready to be made public, you can simply move it to article space. Liquidluck✽talk 01:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

i tried to respond to you last post but now this thing won't post; keeps requiring me to type in the fuzzy password because it senses an external link--i keep trying, but it won't post to the page. maybe this one will. i don't know how to show you the article i want to post; it's a person who is mentioned in other wiki posts but doesn't have an entry on his own. title of the post is Bill DwyreSanta27 (talk) 01:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

--> Ok start here--> Bill Dwyre........Buzzzsherman (talk) 01:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice you had already created the userspace draft! Looks like a good start; thanks for creating it! Liquidluck✽talk 01:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

it's probably not appropriate to use this space to thank you, but THANK YOU all. the article is posted. please check my work under Bill Dwyre. i will figure out tomorrow how to view your comments, and how to add a photo. my brain needs to recapture some synapses first. you all are wonderful.Santa27 (talk) 01:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Np we are here to help !!!...Buzzzsherman (talk) 01:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Problem with a Wikipedia Veteran Editor IV

Wikipedia Veteran Editor IV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jclemens is obviously deleting pages that have been around for years and are used by many. The page I'm referring to here is "Henrik Flyman". H.F. has been an official person since the early 90's. I'm preparing an interview together with my producer and have just found out that the Wikipedia information has been deleted by this Jclemens. Can someone please set things right. Wikipedia is a jungle for us 'outsiders'. I need to access the page tonight. Hopefully someone can restore it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.223.9 (talk) 03:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Please take this to WP:ANI. – ukexpat (talk) 03:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Specifically, this thread seems to be closely related. Be aware if you comment there 95.209, it's a very contentious issue just now, so tempers may be short. Franamax (talk) 03:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There's some sort of 'thing' going on with regards to unsourced biographies of living people. There's an extremely long discussion going on here. If these articles don't have reliable sources, then you should try to find some. If an article is deleted, it can be restored later if you can find sources for it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Jclemens was working in accordance to Wikipedia's policies. A user expressed concern that Flyman was not notable enough for an article, proposed it be deleted, and when no one objected, Jclemens deleted the article.

It is unlikely that a new article will be created for Flyman by tonight, but you may be able to find information in the ZooL articles, Evil Masquerade article, or in one of the other articles discussing Flyman.

Remeber that Wikipedia does not gurantee the accuracy of any of its articles. A copy exists in the Google cache, and it is completely unreferenced. There's no way to verify the information, and you may be caught in an embarrasing situation. Liquidluck✽talk 04:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

{EC}Actually, I just did some quick searches to find reliable sources about Henrik Flyman but could not find any. I doubt if this article can be rescued. But there's hope! There are other online encyclopia's where this material may be appropriate. Wikademia comes to mind, but no one really uses it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipopuli and Wikibios. – ukexpat (talk) 04:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! But you know, this makes me wonder. Are we doing a good job in explaining to editors that their content can be saved by trying other Wikis? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Why is that our job? Aren't we supposed to be helping editors to edit this wiki? I know what you're saying though, when it comes to deleted (or under threat of deletion) articles, it would be nice to have a page of non-WMF wikis to point to. Does such a page exist? Franamax (talk) 05:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I often point people in this situation to Wikipedia:Alternative outlets. I've found it works very well to reduce the panic of an editor who thinks "There is no place for this content on Wikipedia" means "There is no place for this content on the internet at all". Gonzonoir (talk) 08:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a note, since no one seems to have mentioned it to the OP, "Wikipedia Veteran Editor IV" is a made up title, it carries no significance. If I want to call myself a "Super Ultimate Editor 39" that would hold just as much weight. Prodego ^talk 05:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

And another, general note, I've asked at Quest's talk page about a project directory of wikis which accept content that won't fit here. Comments welcome (assuming thay don't bug Quest). Franamax (talk) 06:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

How should I handle a second WP:COPYVIO?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

An editor restored text that I removed as a WP:COPYVIO a week ago. I added a second uw-copyright template to the editor's talk page, but should I have done something else? There doesn't seem to be a succession of sterner WP:COPYVIO warnings as there are for vandalism. Yappy2bhere (talk) 04:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well if it's definitely a copyvio, you warn them a second time and leave an extra note that they're likely to get blocked. Third time, I'd suggest WP:ANI or ask me or User:Moonriddengirl (but she's pretty busy already) amd an extremely strong warning or block will result. You also have the option of adding a {{copyvio}} template too, again non-admin removal would be taken pretty seriously. Do be sure the material violates the WP:COPYRIGHT policy though. Franamax (talk) 04:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It's clearly a WP:COPYVIO. The text was copied verbatim from an August 2006 source, and I left links to the source and the WP edit both on the user's Talk page and the article's Talk page in case the editor had a better explanation for the duplication. I'll leave a note as you suggest. Thanks Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can confirm the copyvio and I've left them a strong warning. If they do it again, go to any of the locales I mentioned above and it will be dealt with. Franamax (talk) 05:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for helping. Now I am wiser. Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

search

Hi there should be search box on every wikipage so that it would be east to navigate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.164.101.89 (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There is, in the left side menu on your screen. If you see the grey globe on the top-left, it is in the same column; do you see the search bar with the buttons "Go" and "Search" underneath? Liquidluck✽talk 04:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If you mean for searching in the page, most (?all) web browsers provide a way of doing that. --ColinFine (talk) 23:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

how to save the entry i am interested in under my account name

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Dear Madam/Sir,

Your website are very useful for me. but i did not find the function that i save the entry that i search out on your websit.

May you add this function or tell me where i can find it?

Best wishes and wish the vikepedia the best

li ZhaoliLi zhaoli (talk) 07:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean so you can find it again, like "bookmarking" it? Click the "Watch" tab and it will be stored in a list so you can get back to it more easily. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You can add links on your user page, like I did on my page. Click your name where it's a red link, and add links by putting the page title inside square brackets, like so: [[page title]]. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:49, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

good, thank you.Li zhaoli (talk) 09:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Addition of a name to DFC and bar medal list

I would like to add my grandfathers name to the list of recipients of the DFC and bar medal. I'm thoroughly confused as to who I have to talk to to do this. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.44.85.145 (talk) 10:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If you grandfather does not have an article on Wikipedia, then he would not be able to be added to the list. Was your grandfather notable for anything beyond receiving the DFC and bar? Obviously, you will think he's notable - but by "notable" I mean according to the criteria we use on Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Notability, Wikipedia:Notability (people) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide#Notability). -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirect

Resolved

Am I allowed to create a redirect for an article that has been AFD'd ? To redirect a persons name to an event? If so how do I do it? Off2riorob (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You can certainly create a redirect. If the article it is redirected to is deleted following the AfD discussion, the redirect will also be deleted. To do it, you just use #REDIRECT [[article-name]]. If you want it to link to a specific section, use #REDIRECT [[article-name#section-name]]. Please note that nothing else is needed on the page. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Steve, I was nervous to recreate a page that had been deleted but a redirect is ok, I have done it now. Off2riorob (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Where to ask for help

Where do I ask for help or comments on a discussion page? I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I would like some help here, from someone who knows how to use the Phonetic Alphabet. 82.173.52.101 (talk) 10:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The phonetic alphabet issue is solved. But I still don't know where to ask these kind of questions. 82.173.52.101 (talk) 11:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

For future reference, the talk page is the correct place to ask for help. Please remember that all the editors on Wikipedia are volunteers, and that sometimes you may have to wait for a few days before you get a response! In this particular case, you could also have asked here (as it's for help about an article) or on the Research Desk. Also, as you found out, Wiktionary sometimes has IPA for words, and Wikipedia's IPA_chart_for_English is also useful for this purpose (assuming that you know how the word is pronounced, of course!) -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't sure if this was the right place. And thank you for the link to the research desk as well. I'm afraid my pronunciation isn't good enough to use those IPA charts myself. I didn't know how to pronounce kale myself, per example. 82.173.52.101 (talk) 23:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reverse Glass Painters

My Wife and I have just acquired a reverse glass painting which we believe was probably painted between 1770 and 1830, possibly in Italy or elsewhere on the European Continent. It is entitled "The Shepherd and Sheperdess" and carries a signature on the bottom left hand corner which we cannot read on account of age damage. The initial for the Christian Name could be "B" or "E" and the surname is probably either "Fraiet-pina" or Praiet-pina". The dashes represent another letter or letters which we cannot read, even with the aid of a magnifying glass. It has "Simon fecit" written in the bottom right hand corner of the picture, almost under the edge of the frame.

Could you help us identify the artist and give us some more specific information as to when the picture really was painted? If I need to open an account and pay for the provision of this information, per haps you could advise as to how I do that what the cost would be. I will await hearing further from you

Yours sincerely

Robert Paice —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.208.85 (talk) 11:32, 4 February 2010 (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. To respond to your question about cost, Wikipedia itself never charges for its accounts, but may not have the information you require. Gonzonoir (talk) 12:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I was going to refer you to the Reference Desk as well. A quick look online finds only two paintings with this title (although obviously lots of other artists may have done a paitning with such a title): Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878) did an etching in 1874 called "Le Berger et la Bergère (The Shepherd and the Shepherdess)" (a picture of it is here); the other possibility I found was Leon Louis Riesener (1808 - 1878) who painted oil on canvas 'The Shepherd and the Shepherdess' in 1839 (see here and here) - and neither of these appear to be the artwork to which you refer. The "fecit" part usually shows the artist (fecit is latin for made it), so it is possible that Simon is the original artist, or copied the work of another artist (incidently, I cannot decipher either of the names you mentioned as the artist, so I can't help there). Again, your best bet would be the Reference Desk. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of Box at top of article

I have the box with the notice "This article should be divided into sections by topic, to make it more accessible. Please help by adding section headings in accordance with Wikipedia's style guidelines. (October 2009)"

How do I remove it from the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laksa123 (talk • contribs) 13:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If you edit the article you will see {{Sections|date=October 2009}} just below the markup for the infobox. Just remove this, as the article is now in section. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing Template at Top of An Article

Concerning the article "Jaime Martinez Tolentino": This article was created by someone else. I am the Puerto Rican Author being written about. I have reviewed the article and it is fine. How do I get Wikipedia to remove the template saying that this article needs to be reviewed? I have already reviewd it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaimema (talk • contribs) 14:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Because of your conflict of interest (see WP:COI it should be reviewed by an independent editor. It still has no third party sources to verify it, no references, and no inline citations. It has no internal links to other articles. It has no evidence of notability (except possibly the list of awards, depending on which of those is notable), and the list of publications is far too long. It reads more like an autobiography than a Wikipedia article. It needs a lot of work, at the moment it looks too much like an autobiography. Dougweller (talk) 15:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I am taking a look at it now, at least as far as formatting and tone are concerned. It will still need references. – ukexpat (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The article is now at AFD here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jaime Martínez Tolentino, where FWIW I have !voted keep. – ukexpat (talk) 18:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Obama's Wiki

Why is there no controversy section? Even Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have them. This man is swamped in controversy. To add to that, why is there no mention of the failure to close Guantanamo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.45.208.254 (talk) 14:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Please first read Presidency of Barack Obama which, for instance, discusses the Guantanamo issue, and then come back here. I think you've read the wrong article. Dougweller (talk) 15:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably because Wikipedia has a liberal bias. I once made a suggestion to that article's talk page and was immediately attacked by the editors there. We'll get a fair and neutral article on Obama one day, but probably not for another one or two hundred years when we're all dead and people don't care as much. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

As Stephen Colbert reports, facts have a well-known liberal bias too. In the meantime, for those who prefer a more nuanced view toward facts, or should I say fair and balanced, there's always Conservapedia. To the original poster, read the Guantanamo Bay detention camp article, which documents the ongoing decline in the number of inmates held. The Barack Obama article is not a one-stop shop for all the subjects that are in some way influenced by the President. Just imagine how long the article would have to be. Wikiopedia has 6,910,174 articles; you cannot get an accurate picture of Wikipedia by reading just one of them. Limbaugh and Palin have far less influence, so the articles about them might have space to touch on more of what they do. --Teratornis (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Media personalities Limbaugh and Palin (also a former politician) may have Controversy sections, but Presidents Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan and Carter don't. If Wikipedia is biased, I don't think this is the proof. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

For starters (I am under the impression there are others) WP:STRUCTURE and the template of interest Template:Criticism section. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are also not highly assessed articles that both failed Good Article criteria. Emulating them is more than likely not a good thing.Cptnono (talk) 09:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Bot help

Hello. How could I write a bot to copy content from Wikispecies like I did with Melaleuca penicula, to generate expandable stubs? Thanks. Cheers!☮ —Ecw.Technoid.Dweeb | contributions | talk | If you reply somewhere other than my talk, please talkback me. 15:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Would this be possible/within policy? Cheers!☮ —Ecw.Technoid.Dweeb | contributions | talk | If you reply somewhere other than my talk, please talkback me. 15:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Bot? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest heading over to WP:Bot requests and submitting your request there. It probably wouldn't be too difficult for someone to help you. TNXMan 17:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

get my page reviewed and published

I moved my page to the main page 3 days and it says it is an unriewed article - how do i get it reviewed and published? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miriamclegg (talk • contribs) 15:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Pages do not need to be reviewed before being published. It will be reviewed when someone at Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment decides to assess it (I am pretty sure of this, but no guarantees. ;-)). If I'm wrong, anyone please correct me. I hope this is helpful. Cheers!☮ —Ecw.Technoid.Dweeb | contributions | talk | If you reply somewhere other than my talk, please talkback me. 15:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Any editor who is not the creator can review it, make amendments/corrections and remove the tag. However, I had a *very* quick look at Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University and I feel that it needs more references from reliable and independent sources to show that it is notable. Sources such as the Daily Telegraph article here, the Oxford Times article here, and the Interscience journal article here may be useful (although the latter needs payment). There might be others, but those were found after a very quick search. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ive taken that on board and added more references--Miriamclegg (talk) 08:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Medical references

Is it appropriate to provide google health as a reference, as I have done here and here. Immunize (talk) 16:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You will probably get a more expert response at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine and WP:RSN. – ukexpat (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My initial thought is that this would be OK. The note at the bottom of the Google Health page says A.D.A.M. creates health content for consumers that is physician-reviewed by experts in their field...., but it might be an idea to ask this question at Wikipedia talk:External links or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Health and fitness (I can't see anything there talking about it, but I only quickly looked at the pages. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I submitted a new page entitled "Gordon Ferguson (British Army)"

but when I type Gordon Ferguson into the search box it does not show up. It only shows if I type the entire title. How do I fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RoryFerguson101 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

First, you need to fix the article. It does not demonstrate notability of the person. Being in the military is not notable. Even being a commander in the military is not notable. What magazine articles, books, or movies have been made about him? Also, remove the "cuteness" factor of the article. This is an encyclopedia. Did he really (factually) have a gun up his nose or was the gun pointed at him? Did he really (factually) not flinch even a single muscle or did he simply not duck? If the article is not fixed, it will surely be deleted. -- kainaw™ 17:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, first of all, the article needed to be deleted as a blatant copyvio of the Daily Telegraph's obituary, so I've done that. I've left a welcome template message for RoryFerguson with an explanation. Bencherlite^Talk 17:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It may be moot now but it takes some time before new articles and edits are indexed by Wikipedia's search function. As you have discovered, you can go to an article before it's indexed by entering the exact title. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge Accounts

Since 2005 I have somehow acquired 2 accounts, I imagine I lost the password to my first account Drexel1 and was too lazy to recover it so I created another account kams912, can these accounts be merged? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drexel1 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You cannot merge accounts. Due to the fact that Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL, all edits must be kept for attribution purposes, and so your account cannot be deleted. --Mysdaao ^talk 19:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Putting Photos Next to Each Other

I would like to put two different pictures on my user page. They are [[File:Bolton County Borough Council - coat of arms.png]] and [[Nuvola English flag.svg]]. I would like to change their allignment and their size. For example [[Nuvola English flag.svg|100px|center|link=Englishman|This user is a proud Englishman]] gives a picture centred in the middle with a text box when the mouse points at it and then a page when the mouse clicks on it. I want to do the same with two pictures, but put them side by side. Fly by Night (talk) 20:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you can do that with gallery tags, see WP:GALLERY, or using {{Gallery}} or {{Image gallery}}. – ukexpat (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You can also use the {{multiple image}} template. See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial#Co-aligning for example of its usage. --Mysdaao ^talk 21:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Creating an account

how do i make an account on wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.240.82.221 (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Go to this page: Special:CreateAccount. – ukexpat (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Colloge with two campuses - how to add coords of both to title?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm working on the South Worcestershire College article. The college has two separate campuses (at 52.11345°N 2.3229°W / 52.11345; -2.3229 and 52.0807°N 1.94753°W / 52.0807; -1.94753). The college was formed by the merger of two previous colleges, and I don't think you can call either the 'main' site. How do I add these in such a way that both co-ords display in the title? GyroMagician (talk) 22:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Only one set of coordinates can be the title display; and since the infobox gives the Evesham address, that's presumably the location of the administrative offices and should probably be the title coordinates. What I'd do is insert ({{coord|52.11345|-2.3229|type:edu_region:GB|display=inline|name=South Worcestershire College, Malvern campus}}) after "The campus located in Albert Road North, Malvern" in the "Main campuses" section and ({{coord|52.0807|-1.94753|type:edu_region:GB|display=inline,title|name=South Worcestershire College, Evesham campus}}) after "The Evesham campus of South Worcestershire College is located in Davies Road, Evesham" later in that section. You can also add {{GeoGroupTemplate}} at the top of the "External links" section, which will allow readers to access a map pinpointing both campuses. Deor (talk) 23:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: For an analogous situation, where you can see how all that works, see Glasgow Metropolitan College. Deor (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks muchly for your help, I've done as you suggest. After some more reading, you're correct, Evesham seems to be the admin centre. {{GeoGroupTemplate}} is a neat toy - I might add that to a few more pages. GyroMagician (talk) 23:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

February 5

Lost toolbar

Hi! The toolbar in my edit window isn't displaying. I run Safari and until tonight have always seen the toolbar. Any suggestions to get it back? Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have the same problem, and I've tried it on IE, Firefox and Chrome. There's something wrong with the editing box as well. In IE, the text wraps onto the next line so words are split up over two lines, and in Chrome and Firefox, the extra features aren't working. Bertaut (talk) 00:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Check your preferences. Under the "Editing" tab, there's an option "Show edit toolbar". If that's not checked, the edit toolbar won't display. Also, it requires JavaScript to work, so be sure JavaScript is enabled in your browser. --Mysdaao ^talk 01:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"Show edit toolbar" is checked and JavaScript is enabled. Nothing has changed with preferences or browser since I walked away from the computer an hour ago, but the toolbar is gone. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you're in a weird situation. Are you using the old toolbar or the beta toolbar? -NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits) 01:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes to both questions and yeah, I'm using BETA. . I just noticed something interesting though. In Chrome and Firefox, when you open an edit page, in the top right hand corner there's a little orange X that shouldn't be there. When I hovered my mouse over it, it says "Loading error - wikEd 0.9.90 d G (January 30 2010)". That's happening in both Chrome and Firefox, and wikiEd isn't loading in either. And another thing I noticed, when I post stuff in from Word to an edit box, it retains the font from Word. It's never done that before. However, I just checked it on the old toolbar (ie I turned off BETA), and it appears to be working fine now on IE, but Chrome and Firefox are still a mess!! Bertaut (talk) 01:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The old toolbar in Safari (which is gone), but in Firefox the beta displays as default but it's not centered on the screen. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm seeing the same issues. Reported at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Toolbar and edit window woes. -— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 04:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

To fix the missing toolbar and disable the "rich edit box": Special:Preferences → Editing → uncheck Enable navigable table of contents. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The toolbar is missing for me too. I tried the solution above, and it didn't fix it, but maybe it worked for Gadget850 because it somehow refreshed his preferences? With that in mind, I tried unchecking and rechecking "Enable enhanced editing toolbar", still no go. On the "plus" side, I've learned where the tilde key is on my keyboard! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S., I'm not using Beta, either. (I'm fairly certain; how can I tell for sure? It still says "Try Beta" at the top of every page, so I presume I'm not trying it.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

:Sorry, that's not working. I've reset all the settings and still no toolbar. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If it says "Try Beta" at the top by your username, you aren't using all the features that are part of the beta, but you may still be using some of the features that are included as part of the beta. In Special:Preferences → Editing → Experimental features, disable the 'Enable navigable table of contents' and 'Enable enhanced editing toolbar' checkboxes there and save. Then make sure you bypass your cache while editing a page (although not if you've made any changes!) and the toolbar should reappear. mattbr 16:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I did exactly what Mattbr suggested and it worked on all three browsers, IE, Chrome and Firefox. I miss the BETA, but I can live without it for now. Thanks for your help guys. Bertaut (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. In the meantime you can still use the new Vector skin that forms part of the Beta by selecting it in Special:Preferences → Appearance (Preview). mattbr 17:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I missed the fact that the bottom section of the edit options was titled "experimental features". I doubt I ever checked that box manually, so I suppose when it was added (maybe in the last few days?), it was automatically checked for everyone. If so, most people may be missing the toolbar. Of course, some probably don't use it, and many don't know where to go to ask about it, so it may still be a widespread problem. Anyway, the bar is back for me now, so thanks. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 05:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all this fixed the issues I was having.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

what will happen???

hello sir, my ques is- an egg intially at rest and is dropped and break. what is sign of K.E, P.E, internal energy and Q?. IN MODELLING THIS PROCESS ASSUME THE PASSAGE OF SUFFICIENT TIME FOR THE BROKEN EGG TO RETURN TO ITS INITIAL TEMP??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.205.97.162 (talk) 01:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do your own homework. Welcome to the Wikipedia Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.
Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. You can search Wikipedia or search the Web.
If you need help with a specific part of your homework, the Reference desk can help you grasp the concept. Do not ask knowledge questions here, just those about using Wikipedia. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

descriptive links

I found a page about Alaska Klondike gold rush that was a series of links that gave four or so lines before you clicked on link. However, I have been unable to find links like that again. I have found many gold rush links but none that had the four lines of the link showing before I clicked on them

Is there a simple way to make the links show like this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.150.142.220 (talk) 04:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are asking about. If you mean that some descriptive text appears on the page with the link, that will be there only if some editor has added it with the link (which is not normal in Wikipedia). If you mean that a box appears when you hover over a link, that is navigation popups, which is a 'gadget' that you can turn on in Wikipedia, and will then apply to all internal links. Make sure you are logged in, and then pick 'my preferences' at the top. Pick the 'gadgets' tag, and then check the box labelled 'Navigation popups'. --ColinFine (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

userspace draft: How do I find my draft

I posted an article in userspace draft a few days ago Ratmuffin/Joseph Graves Olney alias "Joe Hill" how do I access it to make edits? I submitted it to feedback request. Where do I go from here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ratmuffin (talk • contribs) 05:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

You can find a list of all your userpages at Special:PrefixIndex/User:Ratmuffin. As you can see, no userspace pages are listed for you. If you have not yet done so, you can create a draft by clicking on the following red link and starting your article: User:Ratmuffin/Joseph Graves Olney. Once you are done, resubmit the article to Wikipedia:Requests for feedback with a link to User:Ratmuffin/Joseph Graves Olney.

You can also track your edits to Wikipedia by clicking "my contributions" at the top right corner of the screen. Here's a direct link to your contributions: Special:Contributions/Ratmuffin.

If you are certain you have already created an article on Olney, try to search for it and link to it here (I tried a search myself, but was unable to find the article). If you are trying to request an article be created, but do not wish to create one yourself, you may list it at Wikipedia:Requested articles; However, please note that there is a severe backlog of requested articles and your suggestion may not be attended to for over a year. Liquidluck✽talk 06:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Please sign your edits to discussion and help pages by typing four tildes, like this: ~~~~. Thank you!

And there are no deleted contributions for this editor, so I can only assume that somehow it didn't get saved. Dougweller (talk) 09:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

preferences not working

In My Preferences, Editing, Font, I had "sans-serif" font selected. Tonight it suddenly changed to monospace. I tried resetting it, to no avail. I exited Firefox and restarted. I rebooted the computer. It is stuck on monospace and I can't change it. Is this a bug, or what is wrong? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 06:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's apparently a problem when using the enhanced editing toolbar. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edit box & monospace style changes. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See #Lost toolbar. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:18, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I'll hope someone fixes it. (There are also problems in the editor - I paste something and it is initially in a very large font a couple of lines lower.) Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 16:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Images, a query

I came accross a stub article, Gene Sprague of a documentary movie about suicides. The stub article contains a photograph of this individual jumping off a bridge committing suicide (taken from the documentary). To me this image seems very disturbing to place on wikipedia, but i am aware wikipedia is not censored and maybe there is an argument for keeping it in this article based on this. But I am wondering, Is this image allowed though on wikipedia, showing an individual killing himself? Thank you for your time and thoughtsOttawa4ever (talk) 10:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored; disturbing material can be removed, but not because it is disturbing. In this case the image should probably be left on the page, as the main reason the individual is notable is for killing them self. Please also see the Content disclaimer, please let me know if you have any further questions about this. Kind regards, Spitfire^Tally-ho! 10:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

K thanks for the reply. The way WP:NC is written it does suggest that its allowed (I just wanted a second opinion if there was something else out there that suggested otherwise for this paticular case). happy editing. Ottawa4ever (talk) 10:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Place-mark on Google Earth

Searching the Google Earth I had found that there is not a place mark - article on One important spot. There is an article on Goli Otok in Croatia, on several languages, but you can't see it from Google Earth. Please tell me if you are responsible for this upload! Best regards, Rade Lalic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.252.88.125 (talk) 10:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi - this doesn't sound like something for which we, volunteer editors at Wikipedia, are responsible. As you say we have an article at Goli otok; you should contact whoever is responsible for the Google Earth layer you are viewing that omits the place. Gonzonoir (talk) 13:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See About the Google Earth Geographic Web Layer. The Goli otok article has coordinates, in what appears to be the proper format according to the Google instruction page, and has had them for many months at least, so I do not know what the problem is. Naturally the Google FAQ page does not answer the next obvious question: "What do I do if the article meets the requirements you mention here but still does not appear?" The FAQ page does not tell how to determine when Google last updated the map layer. Perhaps you can ask at the Google Earth Help forum. --Teratornis (talk) 22:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

enquiry for person who borrow money from me

Hi sir,

This is srikanth. i need help from you. here i am giving the details of one person who is residing there at hanmakonda. --Personal identifying information redacted-- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.165.82.168 (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over 6.9 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.

Please do not include contact details in your questions. We are unable to provide answers by any off-wiki medium and this page is highly visible across the internet. The details have been removed, but if you wish for them to be permanently removed from the page history, email this address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonzonoir (talk • contribs)

What should I do if a page I created is not listed as a edit prefix:Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives

What should I do if a page I created is not listed as a edit? I ask this question because I created a article entitled Paul Gasgoine is dead and there is no record that it ever exzisted in my contributions nor does it state that the article was deleted. Any advice/help? Jack Quinn UK (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It was deleted. Anyway, my advice would be not to create the article as it doesn't sound like something that would meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. If there is a genuine rumour that is being covered in reliable sources (ie. mainstream press), then that would be added to the Paul Gascoigne article itself. But nothing like that without proper sources can be added. --BelovedFreak 16:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Only administrators can see edits to deleted pages. You can find information that a page has been deleted in the deletion log if you enter the exact title. The page was called "Paul Gascoigne is dead" with correct spelling of Paul Gascoigne in the title. Your post here said "Paul Gasgoine is dead". There has been no page with that title so it's not in the deletion log. As an administrator I can see that the text of the deleted article also said "Paul Gasgoine". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

How can I become a admin? Jack Quinn UK (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Guide_to_requests_for_adminship#What_RfA_contributors_look_for_and_hope_to_see. Usually admin nominees require at least 5000 edits on a variety of articles, notice boards, and talk pages to learn policies and guidelines well enough to attempt adminship. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

One name, three images

Resolved

 – Mysdaao ^talk 00:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I just tagged an image for renaming last night (File:Morning.jpg), but I found there were two earlier versions, that aren't even of the same subject. How can I be sure the older versions won't go with this one once it's renamed? I'd like to rename them separatley. ----DanTD (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

When a file page is moved, everything is moved, including the history of previous versions. The old file page is replaced by a redirect. If you want an earlier version of a file to be at a different name, you have to upload it again to that name. --Mysdaao ^talk 18:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If that's the case, perhaps I should swipe a copy of the existing file, revert that, and repost the existing one under a new name. ----DanTD (talk) 18:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That's probably the best thing to do because the original image was uploaded under a free license. The new version of the image is clearly not free and should never have had the free license tags. When re-uploading the album cover image, use a copyright tag that says it qualifies as fair use. {{Non-free album cover}} is most appropriate. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Good. I'll do it. Plus, I've used the non-free album cover template before. ----DanTD (talk) 21:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE: - Done. Now, all that I have to worry about is the second version. ----DanTD (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Uniblue Registry Booster

I can't find an article on this software. There are many references to it in Google but nothing in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.67.106.19 (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it's not notable per the guidelines at WP:PRODUCT. If it is notable, then you could write an article about it. Standard "article creation" message follows.

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

You will need to first register an account, which has many benefits, including the ability to create articles. Once you have registered, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. 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 and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article and Wikipedia:How to write a great article, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article, but you will need to create an account to use it. if you don't wish to do so, you can submit a proposal for an article at Articles for Creation. – ukexpat (talk) 18:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wine Personalities

Hello,

I would like to add my name and credentials to your page on wine personalities. I went to the page and edited my info. but it was kicked out.

Can you tell me How do I put myself on the list.

Thank you, Joseph Bertuccio —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wineetiquette (talk • contribs) 18:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

In short, it's discouraged to write about yourself. From WP:PROMOTION: "Self-promotion. It can be tempting to write about yourself or projects in which you have a strong personal involvement. However, do remember that the standards for encyclopedic articles apply to such pages just like any other, including the requirement to maintain a neutral point of view, which is difficult when writing about yourself or about projects close to you. Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical articles is unacceptable. See Wikipedia:Autobiography, Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest." WP:COI is another relevant page. If you can definitively establish that you belong on the list then I'd argue your case on the Talk page before adding yourself to the list. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

WikEd loading error

Re: WikEd. All of a sudden, I cannot use WikEd on any article. Error message when I click on edit: Loading error WikEd 0.9.9d G Assistance, please. Thanks. Using Foxfire. It had been working fine until about 20 minutes ago. ─AFAprof01 (talk) 18:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

According to User talk:Cacycle/wikEd#Loading error, you need to either 'Leave Beta' (using the link by your username at the top of the page) or in Special:Preferences → Editing → Experimental features, disable the 'Enable navigable table of contents' and 'Enable enhanced editing toolbar' checkboxes. After saving, make sure you bypass your cache while editing a page (although not if you've made any changes!). Hope that helps, mattbr 18:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I had the same problem this morning and this fix worked for me. – ukexpat (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

NED KELLY IS SEMIPROTECTED

I made an addition to the wiki article on Ned Kelly and it has not been enacted because Ned Kelly has a protected status. My contribution is an important clarification and needs to be included. It is fully referenced. I don't understand why wiki allows this protection if it stops articles from being updated. Can you help? RachelandBronwen (talk) 19:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The best idea is to post your suggested edit to Talk:Ned Kelly, where a autoconfirmed editor can review and post it for you. TNXMan 19:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User:RachelandBronwen should be autoconfirmed - 45 edits since 1/19/2009... – ukexpat (talk) 19:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

First hand experance with Presidents problem

After last nights meeting I have been getting the questions for the president, lots of them. I do not know how to stop them but it has been educional! I read the first 100 and see what the presidents advisers have to deal with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.41.226.143 (talk) 19:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. Is this a question about using Wikipedia? That is what this page is for. --ColinFine (talk) 23:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly 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 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 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. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Pick Me Up Error

I recently added Pick Me Up (book) to Wikipedia. I tried to link to it from my user page, but when testing the link it sent me to the other Pick Me Up (book) page. Can some body fix this? ThanksAlltheold (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Pick Me Up (Book) has just now been speedily deleted. Apparently you blanked the page. When the only editor of a page does that, it is deemed to be a request to delete the page. – ukexpat (talk) 19:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

But when I link to Pick Me Up (Book) it still sends me to the wrong page.Alltheold (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, it treats the page for Pick Me Up (Book), a book by Dorling Kindersley published in 2006 and Pick Me Up (Book), a book written and completed in 24 hours by Singaporean first time writers in 2008 as one and the same. Once I deleted the Pick Me Up (Book), a book written and completed in 24 hours by Singaporean first time writers page, it deleted the Pick Me Up (Book), a book by Dorling Kindersley published in 2006 page.Alltheold (talk) 20:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks like you just re-created the page at Pick Me Up (Book). If you are being redirected, try clearing your cache and/or a server purge. I will note however that the book does not appear to meet the notability guidelines at WP:NBOOK nor Mark Walden the guidelines at WP:BIO.  – ukexpat (talk) 20:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Two articles cannot exist at the same page. Pick Me Up (Book) is the Dorling Kindersley book. Also as a non-admin you cannot delete a page. You blanked a page which was taken as a request to delete. I cannot find the Singapore book that you mention. – ukexpat (talk) 20:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you visit Pick Me Up and visit the last link you will find the Singapore book. Also we are not discussing the notability.Alltheold (talk) 20:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

No you won't because I removed the link as it was exactly the same article as the one above it. – ukexpat (talk) 22:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User Confirmation

I am a user for 3 years, but do not have the ability to upload files. I get... The action you have requested is limited to Autoconfirmed users, Administrators, Confirmed users.

How do I become "confirmed" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drseaman (talk • contribs) 20:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Just make 5 more edits. The WP:SANDBOX is a good place. – ukexpat (talk) 20:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

In the future, please remember to sign your posts by placing four tildes in a row after your edits to talk pages (and the wikipedia help desk). Thank you. Immunize (talk) 20:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What a waste of activity!!! Done and all fine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drseaman (talk • contribs) 20:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you merge your account, you can log into Wikimedia Commons where you can upload new files immediately. On Commons the rules are different for autoconfirmed users; there you must be autoconfirmed before you can update an existing file, but you can upload new files immediately. --Teratornis (talk) 21:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Except that Commons would not allow a logo like File:Syntergy logo.jpg, because Commons does not allow fair use. --Teratornis (talk) 21:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

My recent changes to the article virus are not displaying

I very recently made an edit to the article virus that consisted of adding a list of viral diseases to the article. However, after clicking on save page, my changes failed to display. Any help would be much appreciated. Immunize (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

From the article's page history, you can see that the changes were reverted by GrahamColm with the edit summary "Reverted to revision 342057135 by GrahamColm; Please discuss such additions on the Talk Page first." You should discuss what you wish to change with other users on Talk:Virus, or ask the user about it directly at their talk page User talk:GrahamColm. --Mysdaao ^talk 20:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

removal of article

Dear wikkipedia,

I contributed to wikkipedia a few weeks ago. my contribution was removed there was no explanation. Please could you find out why?

Doctoresbi —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doctoresbi (talk • contribs) 21:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you refer to an entire article which was deleted, see Wikipedia:Why was my article deleted?. --Teratornis (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you refer to material you added to an existing article, look at the history of that article to see who removed it. If they did not leave an informative edit summary, you can ask them for explanation on their talk page. --Teratornis (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Your account has no deleted contributions. However, if you contributed to an article, it is possible that another editor has modified or removed your contribution. Do you remember from which article your edit was removed? TNXMan 21:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The article wsa Hypophyseal portal system and the edits were reverted as not having sources. I left a note at the IP's talk page. Franamax (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I prevent an edit fight?

It's about Richard Manitoba. Other IP address edits a section out. I editted it back--explaining my reasons and posting on his/her talk page. No response, he/she just undoes my edit. What's my next step? Thanks.192.30.202.11 (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe the other IP is correct. The information you have added is unsourced and potentially contentious. The way to stop from getting in an edit war over this is to find reliable sources so this informtion can be verified. I have removed the information. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 21:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It was on the CBC. But I'll do the extra work, and if it's editted out, then what?192.30.202.11 (talk) 22:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable source to verify the information then it probably could be restored. That is dependent on what the source says. It would probably be best to have a couple of independent sources so that there isn't any questions. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 22:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

There, I found a source. Mind you, that wasn't my big problem, it was the threatened lawsuit against Caribou that was editted out.192.30.202.21 (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking for album

I am trying to find a price for a old 12" record no one has hear of it?,It's from the 1980's It'S title is ONE LOVE by celibe and the silly bees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.106.43 (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This help desk is for questions about how to use Wikipedia. A better place to ask this type of question is at the reference desk. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 22:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The reference desk is unlikely to provide a value estimate on a collectible item. A better approach is to search for it at ebay, but remember that "asking prices" (without bids) are not always realistic. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 05:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys

Usually help here but now i need help..For some odd reason my cut and past option is all messed up ..layout not normal when i past ..or even try to add a url..I have looked online but cant find anything..anyone else having this problem as of late??..I cant even sign my name by the button bellow have to do it manual.. i use firefox!!...we need to revert 2 edits here-->Canadian Indian residential school system Buzzzsherman (talk) 23:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See #Lost toolbar above. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

ok i just cant fix this not really a wiki problem i guess..all my stuff gets justified left.. O well ..tks for the help!!Buzzzsherman (talk) 02:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a WP problem; some recent changes seem to be affecting us. Check the help desk section quoted above for remedies. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 05:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

February 6

New feature rquest

Where do I request new features to Wikipedia? -NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits) 01:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The village pump is your best bet. TNXMan 01:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If you say what the feature is then maybe we can give more specific advice or determine whether it already exists or has been requested. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

can this be copied?

http://www.sss.gov/RomoBIO.htm

Public domain, biography of the director? JB50000 (talk) 06:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I see -->©2009 Selective Service System...© =copyright.........Buzzzsherman (talk) 06:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Works by the United States government are in the public domain and can be copied and reused. Please see Wikipedia:Public domain#Works ineligible for copyright protection and Copyright status of work by the U.S. government on this matter. --Mysdaao ^talk 14:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Sir/Mam, please update your database..........

Sir/Mam,

Please update your database along with the heights of celebrities.............. For some purpose, we require the statistical data for heights which is not available in a very well known Wiki-encyclopedia............ kindly act for it........... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.15.131 (talk) 09:36, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You are addressing thousands of people, some of whom may have an interest in heights of celebrities, but most of whom do not. We are all volunteers, and working towards (our individual views of) what improves Wikipedia. Doing your research for you probably does not come into that goal. --ColinFine (talk) 09:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:Notability, WP:Verifiability and WP:NOR. Kayau Odyssey HUCK FINN to the lighthouse 14:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

My text formatting problem

Apologies if this is the wrong place - please advise. I've been editing here for years with no technical problem, but one has now arisen in editing my sandbox at User:Ghmyrtle/sandbox6 and the article I was working on - Big Dee Irwin. Hard for me (no technical background, but I use Firefox) to describe... but basically when I copy and paste material into my sandbox, and from there into article space itself, I suddenly have lost the ability to format automatically. That is, text copied across from other sites into my sandbox retains its original formatting, which I then have to change - and the WP formatting that I add, for example to add Wikilinks, often seems not to work. For example, at Big Dee Irwin, the parentheses that I've used in the references seem not to work. Don't know if I've explained this adequately, but any advice to rectify the problem would be welcome. Is it a problem with Firefox, or something else? Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's to do with line-breaks. Your paragraphs are not separated because there are not blank lines between them. Your link isn't working because there is a line-break before the "pipe" (I think - I didn't know this was a restriction, but I've just tried and it seems to fix it). Why the behaviour of copy/paste has changed for you I don't know: are you using a new version of whatever you edit in or something? --ColinFine (talk) 10:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like the problem at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edit box & monospace style changes. Until Wikipedia fixes it you can disable Experimental features under Editing at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. It does seem to be the same problem referred to by PrimeHunter. I had tried to insert line breaks, but they didn't work. I've now disabled the experimental features and re-edited the refs at Big Dee Irwin, but no changes visible there so far - I will play around with the sandbox version to see if it changes now. and that seems to work now, thanks. I haven't been using any new version of Firefox. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Urdu text in wikipedia articles

Hi, I apologise if this question is quite irrelevant but was hoping someone could be of help. I've noticed that the Urdu text that is written in many wikipedia articles displays in the Nastaleeq style and is still copyable to unicode programs (e.g. microsoft word, etc.) e.g.: the article on Allaamah Iqbal [1] Whereas, usually websites display Urdu in the simple Arabic style or are uploaded as images. I was wondering how that was done and what the requirements are. For example, I have some unicode Nastaleeq fons installed on my computer but is that the reason why the text displays correctly or will it display on any computer etc? Do you need any special programs or fonts to make the website in such a way? Thank you in anticipation of your response. 81.98.252.181 (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

creating Wikipedia ID:

I have an article to contribute. to do that I have to log on with Wiki's ID to do that - I have problem, I do not understand why. I contribute elsewhere under "es:". I tried to use the same for Wiki - but it tells me that this is inapropriate - why? It doesn, contravene anything I could read about user IDs on Wiki. 193.122.239.20 (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You may be trying to edit a semi-protected article, which only registered users can edit. -NerdyScienceDude :) (✉ click to talk • my edits) 14:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately your question is a bit too vague, thus we can only guess at what you are referring to. Please be more specific. If you want to use the same username on all Wikimedia projects, visit Wikipedia:Single user login here, or es:Ayuda:Login unificado on es.wp. Xenon54 / talk / 14:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

What article are you attempting to edit? If it is semi-protected, not only will you have to create an account, you will also have to make at least 10 edits and be at least four days old. See this link for more information. Immunize (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Autoconfirmation requires both: at least 4 days old and 10 edits. – ukexpat (talk) 17:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Victimisation

I am being consistently attacked by two other editors who conspire to persecute me. They have a particular view point on historical interpretation (revisionist) which is no more valid than any other. Every single edit I make they revert and just say something like "they have had problems with me before" which then invalidates anything I try to say in my defence. The fact I reference my work and often use primary sources should be taken into account. Some historians which I favour may not present views that these two editors personally support, but all views should be aired. They revert and delete edits I make without process or consideration. I feel victimised and this is totally unfair. I write good wikis and have been using this site for years. I have more to give but I am on the verge of quitting. What can be done. I am at the end of my tether. Please help. The editors in question are Cúchullain and Doug Weller. James Frankcom (talk) 17:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Without commenting on the merits either way, have you tried to discuss this with the other editors on the talk pages of the relevant articles? That's the place to start in a content dispute. – ukexpat (talk) 17:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#Dispute for links to pages that describe how to handle disputes on Wikipedia. See WP:ALTOUT for some other places to try editing if you find the going too tough on Wikipedia. If you are editing topics that are highly controversial, and you favor a side, Wikipedia can be an unpleasant place to edit. You might have more fun editing on a wiki that caters to your point of view; see WikiIndex. It is not natural for most people to write neutrally - for many Wikipedia editors, that is a skill we have to cultivate and then work to maintain. Also, Wikipedia has millions of articles about thousands of topics, so try editing something else that isn't controversial - ideally, some topic that you don't have a life or death personal stake in. --Teratornis (talk) 00:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a template

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 01:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering if we had a template that could produce the month and day as they were 28 days ago. I was unable to locate anything on my first attempt, so I thought I would ask here to see if there was a place I could try. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of one, but I'm a little confused as to why it would be necessary. Are you referring to 28 days ago for one specific date or would it be a rolling date (28 days ago from yesterday, from today, from tomorrow, etc.)? TNXMan 21:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Rolling. I ask because 28 days is the usual length of time for a milhist project A-class review to stay open, and I was looking for a template that could provide the date 28 days ago so my coordinators could more easily determine which ACRs were eligible for closure based on the time stamp for the initial nomination. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

28 days ago was 17 October, computed with {{Day+x}} using {{day+x|{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{CURRENTDAY}}|-28|year={{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. Does that work for you? PrimeHunter (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Purrfect :) Thanks for the assistance, PrimeHunter. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:41, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Offensive stuff

Someone wrote offensive (racist) stuff in the article Demographics of Germany [2]. Can this be removed from the article history?-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 19:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This is standard vandalism. Removing versions from article history is usually done only if an editor's personal information (name, address, etc.) is revealed. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The policy is at Wikipedia:Oversight. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Counting Views

Hello everyone. Thanks a lot for all of your help so far. I have another question. Is there a way of knowing how many people have looked at an article? Fly by Night (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If you look under the history tab on the article you are interested in at the top section you will find a link to Page view statistics. MilborneOne (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikicode converter

Is there any tool online somewhere where I can convert wiki markup (like seen when editing pages or templates) to html and vice versa? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes there is - it's called the MediaWiki software. There's nothing simpler that I know of, you basically need all the software and extensions (like Cite.php to format references) to see what exactly you're going to get (plus you need to have the template pages if you want to see what a template will look like in use). If you're a little tech-savvy though, it's not all that hard to set up your own wiki. Franamax (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Tools. I don't know how they work. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

And WP:EIW#Tools and WP:EIW#Table. If you tell us more details about what you are trying to do, someone might give you more specific advice. In general there is no magic data conversion tool that meets every need, so the more precisely you define your desired conversion, the better your chances of realizing it. The hardest part of solving a problem is often defining it clearly enough to admit a solution. Incidentally, you mentioned templates. Do you just want to convert the rendered output of a template to HTML, or do you want to embed the dynamic behavior of the template into the HTML? If the latter, then you might need a programming language like PHP. --Teratornis (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

You can run MediaWiki as a Personal wiki. See mw:Manual:Wiki on a stick. --Teratornis (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The robotics team I'm responsible for designing the website of decided against a wikia wiki (due to advertising) and mediawiki (due to school district server space issues) for their website, opting instead for PBWiki...unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom, they disregarded the fact that I am clueless as to html, thus I need a way to convert wikicode from templates, etc, into html. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 06:20, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

So you are not even talking about a site which uses Mediawiki software, but some other kind of Wiki? I doubt anybody here can help you. But in any case, I don't understand why you should need to convert anything to HTML: surely the point of using any wiki software is that it does that for you? --ColinFine (talk) 10:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

February 7

login to valid account after personal email changed

suggest consider alternate login method for users with valid account and forgotten password but who have changed to a different ISP who gave them a new email address, and hence have lost ability to recieve new password resets from Wiki and therefore cant login at all. Common industry password recovery includes answering secret question(s) and providing account setting details in order for password recovery/reset to proceed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.100.114 (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

This may address your needs Template:User committed identity. Tiggerjay (talk) 07:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Same login for different products of wiki

I have a login for ta.wikipedia.org which does not work for en.wikipedia.org or www.wikimapia.org. Would it not be good if the same login makes me accessible for different services of wiki? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.115.196 (talk) 01:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Read m:Help:Unified login to learn how to make your login work on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. Be aware that Wikimapia is not a Wikimedia Foundation wiki, and also note that a "wiki" is simply a type of website and not all wikis are related. Xenon54 / talk / 01:55, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Robot Editor

For about two weeks an external link I have contributed to a Wikipedia article has been frequently deleted by a robotic editor, and also by an author of another external link to the same article.

(1)How can I find out if this other external link contributor to the same article is responsible for unleashing this bot on my external link?

(2)How can I find out precisely what this bot finds objectionable in my link?

(3) How can I get this bot to quit targeting keywords in my external link, or equivalently, get some person(s) with administrative authority over robotic editors to examine these cases of robotic editing and exercise intervention if needed. I am about 100% positive a robotic editor can never make a scientific evaluation of the contents of an external link concerning quantum mechanics, and so this bot must be keying off something else.What would that be?

(4) Is it possible for some author of one external link to program a bot to repeatedly delete another author's external link to the same article? This would be a conflict of interest, clearly, whether the second author did the deleting or caused a bot to do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rekcana (talk • contribs) 04:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The bot is attracted by the website host, Bravehost.com. This site is a free web host and, since it may have been created by anyone regardless of knowledge, is not a reliable source and should not be included. In fact, Bravehost is included on Wikipedia's link blacklist. The website you are attempting to add also has several other issues: It appears to be someone's research and thus may be a copyright violation, it uses Wikipedia as one of its references and thus violates WP:CIRCULAR, and it may be link spamming. It also fits Wikipedia's guidelines on external links to generally be avoided.

For what it is worth, [[::User:XLinkBot|XLinkBot]] (talk · contribs) is not targeting you specifically and is not operated by User:Michael C Price. Since you are interested in the topic, I hope you will contribute to it through references to reliable sources. Thanks, Liquidluck✽talk 05:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. When commenting on help or discussion pages like this one, please sign your username by typing four tildes, like this: ~~~~ Thanks!

The bot is reverting links to sites like Geocities, Bravehost, Yahoo, etc. We very rarely link to self-published material. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Impostor

My name is Maurice Karnaugh and you have my biography. It seems that some one else has placed his own photo at the end of it. This is the same impostor's photo that appears in Facebook with my name and bio. Please remove that photo and, if you can, give me his email address.

Maurice Karnaugh 74.88.237.148 (talk) 05:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The picture at the end of Maurice Karnaugh comes from the Template:US-physicist-stub template. It is not meant to represent you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)As far as I can see, there is no image in the Maurice Karnaugh article, unless you count the tiny image that accompanies the "US-physicist-stub" tag. That image is on every stub sized article of physicists and is not at all directly related to you, nor is it intended to be. Dismas|^(talk) 05:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

However, the image is of someone who was a writer (or appears to be; he doesn't seem to have an article), so this brings up the question — why not a physicist in the physicist stub tag? I'm going to change it. Nyttend (talk) 06:11, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Getting rid of the Try Beta link?

I'm one of those people who, once he figures out how to work something, generally prefers to stay with it instead of going with new upgrades that don't provide major improvements. Accordingly, I have no interest in trying Beta. Is there any way to get rid of the "Try Beta" link next to my username and user talk links in the right side of the top of my screen? Nyttend (talk) 06:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you are using monobook, add li#pt-optin-try { display:none; } to your monobook.css file. Prodego ^talk 06:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Trans Fat

I just visited the page for "Trans fat" and I noticed there's been a series of vandalism on that page. I have no clue what the deal is about it, but I figured I'd take the time to volunteer and call it out here since I don't really even know how to edit well, nor revert at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.79.75.41 (talk) 06:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up the vandalism on that page, however there is not enough recent vandalism to suggest some sort of page protection is in order... yet... for more information, you can checkout WP:Vandalism and WP:PP. Tiggerjay (talk) 07:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Password

In Wikipedia, if you have forgotten the password to your user account, then what should you do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.223.63 (talk) 09:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

In the login screen, you can click "email new password". If you do not have an email address registered with your username, or if you no longer have access to the email address, then there is nothing that can be done. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Domain Eukarya

I have seen people adding Eukarya or Eukaryota to pages. This is not required. It is an epic fail, and in all nature books I've read there is no mention of the three domains. So this is absolutely unnescary. 89.240.239.157 (talk) 11:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

What on earth do you mean by "an epic fail"? And on what grounds do you say that the domain is "not required"? It is no more and no less required than any taxon above the level of genus. I regard your reversions as completely inappropriate. --ColinFine (talk) 11:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, on Gecko you have reverted the same edit by two different editors within a few hours. This comes close to WP:edit warring, and I strongly advise you to discuss the matter on the talk page before making any further reversions. --ColinFine (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if that's the case then it shouldn't be on articles like Dog or the like. And antway, I've discussed it on Reptile 89.240.239.157 (talk) 11:56, 7 February 2010 (UTC)