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March 2

cannot login to Wikipedia

username codestone paassword <redacted> email <redacted>

everytime I create a new account, as soon as the account is created I cannot use it. this problem began about 5 months ago when a login was recovered after several weeks since then the logins are premanently blocked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.49.50.104 (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed password and email. If you have any accounts on other websites with the same password, change them immediately. Xenon54 (talk) 03:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a help desk for the English Wikipedia. At Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2009 January 10#Logins Repeatedly Stop Working you said you had logged in with two user names BraveLittleHawk and LittleHawk but they are not registered in the English Wikipedia. There are many other wikis and Wikipedia languages. At which website are you creating accounts and trying to log in? And how are you directed to create a new account? The username codestone was created at the English Wikipedia on 4 May 2008.[1] It has no edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Help:Logging in may be of help. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense in Burn Hall School page

Looks like someone inserted nonsense in the Burn Hall School article. I removed some obvious crap, could someone please take a look and rewrite whatever useful text was deleted by the abuser? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by SpaceRocket (talk • contribs) 04:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. In the future, it would help if you'd provide a link to the article that you're talking about such as Burn Hall School. This way, people can just click right on that link instead of having to go to the search box or look through your contributions to find the article in question. Dismas|^(talk) 04:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You can do that by putting double brackets around the article title .. [[Burn Hall School]] would then look like: Burn Hall School. You can find more about linking here — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 07:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

speech topic

anyone know were to go to get somethings on the speech topic"handicap is not a problem if one has the determination".i dont have any idea what to write .please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.7.62 (talk) 05:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

We can't do your homework, but maybe you could get something from our articles on Disability and Determination. Good luck! ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 05:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

PDF file map

Resolved

Is it possible to upload this PDF file and import it into an article.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Programs like Corel and various other PDF converters might give you what you're looking for, but could you just link to it, or perhaps do a screenshot (providing there was no copyvio)? — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 07:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Go to WP:Upload.Smallman12q (talk) 14:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I converted it with Adobe Reader 8.0, Scansoft PaperPort 9.0 and Microsoft Paint on my old laptop. I was unable to do it on my new laptop with Adobe Reader 9.0 and Paperport 11.0. Go figure. I had the same problem with my taxes this year and pre-2008 forms.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

JPG is designed for photographic images (the P in JPG). Your file contains text and line drawings which JPG is poor for. Converting to GIF would probably give a better result than File:JCCIC-2009 Inaugural Map.JPG. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tools#Importing (converting) content from other formats to Wikipedia (MediaWiki) format has a link to Appropedia:Help:Porting PDF files to MediaWiki. I haven't tried it. If you want to display the image in the PDF file in an article then the best solution may be to convert the pdf file or part of it to an image type listed at Help:Images and other uploaded files#Supported file types: PNG, JPEG, GIF. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Garbo - German Actors

Is there any reason why Greta Garbo isn’t included in the list of German Actors (Category:German_actors)? Please note, this list includes both actors and actresses, so it is not a sex/gender thing.

Because she's not German by any means? If you read Greta Garbo's article, you'd know that she's Swedish. And please sign your posts. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 05:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

She has appeared in German films but German actors refers to the actors and not the films they make. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

File:New York Islanders logo (1995–97).svg

I'm experiencing an issue with an image. I just recently received a message on my talk page stating that the image (mentioned in subject title) is not being used on any articles. However, currently the New York Islanders page is using it (near bottom). I tried refreshing to no avail. Thanks in advance. — Hucz ^{(talk · contribs)} 05:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It now shows as used (maybe as a result of my doing a null edit on the article). —teb728 t c 05:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone keeps undoing my corrections

Resolved

I am a new user and am trying to make important corrections and additions to the page about Kentucky author Gurney Norman. Someone keeps undoing my page and reposting the incorrect page. Why is this happening? The corrections are important. What can I do?Spudsparo (talk) 06:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello Spudsparo, I've left you a welcome message on your talk page. Some of those links may help you get an understanding on how wikipedia works. What article are you asking someone to look at? - (I will try to look through history, and see if I can find an answer for you - and be back shortly) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 06:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be involved in a content dispute at Gurney Norman. It also appears that you are familiar with how to revert edits made by another editor. Not being familiar with the subject matter, I don't feel qualified to supply an opinion on the content. It is good procedure to discuss the changes on the article talk page (may be marked discussion or talk on the tabs). If you have questions, you could approach the editor who is also making changes here. I will close with the note that when dealing with an article about a WP:BLP (biography of a living person) - content should be referenced by reliable resources. If you are unable to resolve the issues on the talk pages, you can seek further assistance at: WP:DR — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 06:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks so much for looking into this. The content I am supplying is (indisputably) correct, so I will try to communicate with Badagnani on the talk page as you suggest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spudsparo (talk • contribs) 06:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem, best of luck ;-) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 06:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• Answered on talk page. Neither of them appears to be providing references. _ Mgm|^(talk) 09:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

An update from Spudsparo (talk) 20:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC): I have added references. Thanks to all for your help to a new userSpudsparo (talk) 20:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Easy template problem

The template I'm having problems with is Template:PhylomapA. It's pretty straightforward, but I can't figure out why the parameters aren't working. There's a demo at my sandbox. I'm sure it's something silly, but any help is appreciated! -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 06:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

a relevant page is the ImageMap explanation at mediawiki. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 06:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Admins protecting their own userpages

Why do virtually ALL admins here fully protect their userpages? 89.242.183.73 (talk) 08:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the "ALL" part, but many of the admins are involved in reverting vandalism, and when it's persistent - they must block people to prevent further disruption to the site. Given their high rate of visibility to vandals, they are often subjected to having their pages vandalized. That means instead of building a better wikipedia, they have to spend time fixing the vandalized page. It's simply a matter of "Better to just lock the door" ... than to have to come in and clean up every 10 minutes. Why would you want to edit another users (admin or not) pages anyway? all ... IMHO — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 08:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm an administrator and if I'm the target of a vandal I ask another administrator to temporarily protect my userpage. I rarely see admins protect their own userpage. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There really aren't a lot of good reasons to edit an experienced user's userpage. I have mine protected because it avoids this, this, this, this, this and many others, all retaliation for one admin task or another. Recentchanges patrollers and users who deal with ethnic dispute messes, fringe theories and other contentious areas have it worse. One user moved my userpage to User:IAMLAME (lol, he got me) and many other instances which are now unavailable from the page history since someone who was trying very hard to figure out who I am, did in fact do so, and I had to delete earlier versions of my userpage based on personal information posted. The protection also has the side effect of avoiding newish users posting to your userpage rather than your talk page by accident, which has happened to me a number of times.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In the case of User:Curps, his user talk page is protected. Why on earth would he do that? 89.242.183.73 (talk) 19:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

He's taken a "very long term Wiki-vacation", and his talk page has suffered vandalism while he's been gone. He did not protect his page, Jéské Couriano did. Xenon54 (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if it inconveniences vandals intent on placing libellous material on my talk page, but after wasting time undoing the repeated assaults of vengeful vandals, I protected my user page. If someone sees something on my user page which should be changes, they are welcome to call it to my attention on my talk page. Especially if one is on vacation, disturbing pictures or statements left on a user page by vandals might be assumed by others to actually represent the views of the editor whose page it is. Edison (talk) 19:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Degree symbol (superscript)

I'm trying to type map coordinates in a query ("new section") I want to post on the Ref Desk but can't find the degree symbol among the various copy/paste text edit options. What to do? -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It's the eighth option under 'insert'. Algebraist 10:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Car Dealerships

What is the estimated cost for a dealer to buy a car from a manufacturer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.250.199 (talk) 16:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps. Gonzonoir (talk) 16:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

releasing it to the web

I have wrote a bio on me but I can't seem to release it. Because some of my friends from Syracuse can't find it. How can I release it so it can be read in the web? Thanks Boca247 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boca247 (talk • contribs) 16:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The page you created is on your talk page, not the main article space. To put the article in the main space would require a page move. However, the article is not ready for the main space. I suggest you look at the biography guideline and conflict of interest information before proceeding. TNXMan 16:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Arnold M. Zack

I don't know what happened to my earlier request for help, but here I go again. I wrote the entry at the suggestion of several clients who thought I should be listed. I am not familiar with Wikipedia and apparently failed to adhere to your protocols. I can assure you the entries are all accurate and confirmable, even though the one commentator seemed to challenge my veracity. I don't really need the entry, my resume is readily available from a Google search and at age 77 I am no longer bent on building a resume. I dont have the knowledge, experience or interest to spend considerable time to fix the entry.If some one could do it, or tell me how to do so <personal information removed> I would be most appreciative.Otherwise, just delete it.

Arnolsd M.Zack —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zackam (talk • contribs) 16:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It is not the "veracity" that is at issue. The article Arnold M.Zack has several problems. First, you wrote it - per our conflict of interest guidelines users are strongly discouraged from writing articles about themselves because of the extreme difficulty in maintaining a neutral point of view; as a consequence, it reads like a curriculum vitae and not like an encyclopedic article, and is very promotional in tone and IMHO should be speedily deleted as such; there are no references to indicate that you are notable - a list of books and Harvard bio are not reliable sources as that term is defined on English Wikipedia. – ukexpat (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

How to prevent a vicious circle of account creation and blocking

Resolved

As a mediator in conflict areas, I often encounter new users who start with some angry edits, but who, after some mediation, learn the ropes and turn into normal editors. Now a situation happened that seems inevitable; in hindsight I'm wondering why I haven't seen that happen before: User:X1 (name changed) got blocked for "trolling" (I don't know what actually caused it; I only see a couple of opinionated, but legitimate talk page contributions in the user contributions), and created user:X2. That got blocked again, ... and so on.

In all that time, I haven't seen any behavior of the socks that would be blockable in itself. So, whatever the user did initially to get them indef blocked, he/she learned to behave now. Blocks should not be punitive, but preventive, and there's nothing to prevent now anymore. All we got out of this is a confusing diffusion of user histories, a lot of admin time spent on researching and blocking, and a lot of nice user names which were rendered unusable in the process. How can we stop this vicious circle? — Sebastian 17:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• If a user doesn't commit the "crime" they received the initial block for, there is no reason for checkusers to investigate the user's IP history and if they create the same username with a different number appended on the end, they should disassociate themselves from the previously blocked account by choosing something entirely different so the link isn't made by username. If you don't know what the trolling was that got them blocked, ask the blocking admin. With a bit of luck they'll remember. - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 17:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Users who stop bad behavior don't get checkusered on their new accounts, and so never get blocked again. In fact, for some stuff (like username vios) we recommend abandoning the old account and starting a new one. Secondly, the creation of "sockfarms" (not just one new account, but often hundreds) is of itself disruptive, especially where those farms are being used as "good hand/Bad hand" accounts, i.e. maintaining some "vandal" accounts and some "good" accounts". Such behavior is intolerable, and such blocks are applied to the person, and not to the account. Finally, in order to be unblocked, a user needs to convincingly let us know that he does not intend to perpetrate the violation. With a user who is creating a rediculous number of sockpuppet accounts to dodge a block, they need to convince administrators that they have no intention of creating more socks to dodge the block. This only can take time, you can't show up a few hours after your last fresh sock block and apologize, you need to PROVE that you intend to abide by the rules. And it does happen. I have personally shepherded back into the fold 3-4 recidivist sockpuppeteers when they agreed to abide by the "one person one account" idea. These people do get unblocked, but not when they keep doing the violation they were blocked for in the first place! --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Thank you, that's very good advice! I'll post a note on the user talk page. — Sebastian 18:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Uploading new image

I'll preface this by stating that I haven't done much editing of Wikipedia. But I did create an SVG version of File:EffectOfTariff.png but I don't think I have the rights to change it, or have somehow completely overlooked how to. How can I replace that old png with a snazzy new svg? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gandhizero (talk • contribs) 19:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Your account must be autoconfirmed (at least 4 days old and 10 edits) before you can upload files. – ukexpat (talk) 20:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Gubernatorial elections?

There are a lot of pages about United States governors that include the word "gubernatorial." This is originally a word to describe Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship, but it's not a real word, and definitely shouldn't be on all of the US governor election pages. Any ideas for what might be going on or how it could be fixed?

Examples: Kansas gubernatorial election, 2006, Virginia gubernatorial election, 2005, Governor of Wisconsin, New York gubernatorial elections.

I'm concerned that if I'm not just hallucinating, this is incredibly widespread and will probably require sysop involvement. Thanks for the help. AnEmptyCageGirl (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"gubernatorial" has 358,000 Google News hits for all dates, including 185,000 before 2000, and 10,800 before 1900. I don't know where you have your information from but it looks like a real word to me. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, weird. Okay, then. I'd always heard of it as a slang term, so I guess it never occurred to me that it could actually have a history. I still think it's a horrible abuse of the language (like "yoghurt," ugh) but if it's real then I'm happy with that. Thank you! AnEmptyCageGirl (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You may also want to see Wiktionary entry. TNXMan 20:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Briefly, gubernator is the original Latin word (originally meaning "helmsman") that has been anglicised into "governor". However, the adjectival form "gubernatorial" still retains the original Latin root. All this is probably to be found in the links posted above, but I am a Latin nerd... – ukexpat (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

On "yoghurt": see also yoghurt and wikt:yoghurt. —teb728 t c 20:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Yep, gubernatorial is a real word. On the other hand, if you start seeing governator in real articles, then you can start worrying :) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 09:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not American and did'nt know "governator" but it's mentioned in Arnold Schwarzenegger and maybe what AnEmptyCageGirl was thinking about. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Missing footnote links

While reading a recent "on this day..." article about Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game, I noticed that several of the footnote links in the main Wilt Chamberlain article produced a link to "ESPN File not found". Specifically footnotes 3, 7 and 14. Should these footnotes be corrected or deleted? How are old footnotes handled within Wikipedia? Pardon me if this is covered in a FAQ but I could not find an answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Salazar45 (talk • contribs) 19:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Dead external links and the template {{Uw-deadlink}} which I created upon request to advise users not to simply delete dead external links. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk)!

After some searching I found that all 3 links work if "static." is inserted before espn.go.com. For example, http://espn.go.com/nba/news/1999/1012/110905.html can be replaced with http://static.espn.go.com/nba/news/1999/1012/110905.html. But ESPN doesn't give that information. What the hell were they thinking when they broke a huge amount of links and made a useless message to look at the site map? At least it was useless to me. I went to the Internet Archive to check that the url once worked and then used the archived headline in a site search with Google on espn.go.com. I don't know how many Wikipedia articles this affects but based on a brief look at [2] it could be hundreds. If nobody else volunteers then I will look into this issue later today when I have more time. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you need a hand, just drop me a line and we can split up tasks so we don't edit conflict.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Many ESPN links still work. Maybe a bot could assist in sorting it out. I'm not going to edit for at least 2 hours if you want to look at it before that. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In my personal experience, I've noticed that links that begin with "sports.espn.go.com" are fine, but the older "espn.go.com" links were removed a few months ago. Of course, I have no way of knowing if that's universally true, but it's one possibility. Didn't know that adding "static" to the old links makes them work again; that's a useful tip. Giants2008 (17-14) 00:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I have posted to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 25#Broken ESPN links. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian & American Government Parties.

I am a Canadian and my question. In Canada, The colour for Liberals is Red. The colour for Conservatives is Blue. What colour is the Demograts? What colour is the Rebublicans? My email address is <blanked> Thanks Gordon E Mayhue, Truro, Nova Scotia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.137.86.220 (talk) 20:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In the U.S. we generally associate blue with democrats and red with republicans. However, this is not any type official party line or color. It actually is a rather recent development (from 2000 I believe) resulting from the colors used on television during the past three elections to demarcate states or regions that have a majority for one party or the other. See Red states and blue states and Political colour. Note that in the U.S. Democrats are associated with a donkey symbol, while Republicans are associated with the elephant.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)In the US the colors are not official, but the Republicans are red and the Democrats blue, which is contrary to most other places where red is usually the colour of left-of-centre parties (like the British Labour Party) and blue for the right-of-centre (British Conservative Party). – ukexpat (talk) 20:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought the association was fixed in the late 1990s. But Fuhget is correct that this is a fairly recent development: I remember reading that when the television networks broadcast the 1976 US election results, at the time the Democrats were red, & the Republicans were blue. And in response to Ukexpat, I for one enjoy the irony of seeing the Republican Party associated with the same color that invokes the evuhl spectre of Communism. (Let's all say it together now: Newt Gringrich is a cowardly Red!) -- llywrch (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I will note, however, that most American socialist, syndicalist, social-democratic and communist organizations still use the color red with all its historical associations. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• It's media thing, and therefore inaccurate. All right and center-right parties of the world have blue as their color (whether official or not), while their left-wing counterparts are red. Here is the opposite, and quite frankly it irritates me, as a Republican, to be associated with the color of socialism/communism. It's horrible! --96.232.58.180 (talk) 01:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

book references

what is the correct way to reference a book?. LOC permalink ok googlebooks html etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by Varnesavant (talk • contribs) 21:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Do WP:CS and {{Cite book}} help? – ukexpat (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Image gallery

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 17:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a tool (like all the edit counters) that allow you to see all the images you uploaded? Like the one on Wikimedia Commons. This tool is no longer working (for me at least). --Ted87 (talk) 22:21, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

On your contribs list, there's a pulldown menu for "namespace". Change this to the "File" namespace. That should show every edit and/or contribution you have made to any image files. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) For a gallery of all uploaded media files, go to your contributions, then go to the very bottom of the page and click on "Files uploaded". Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you and thank you. --Ted87 (talk) 22:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Question about a speedy delete

Resolved

User:Citizenmeyer created Kevin meyer, with content identical to the IMDB page on this person. So three potential issues: copyvio, COI, and probably not notable anyway. I've done a speedy for copyvio, but is that correct? I'd be grateful if someone would have a quick look. I'm wondering whether IMDB is copyright, for example, and should I have mentioned the COI? Itsmejudith (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's a word-for-word copy, then a copyvio tag is appropriate. The COI tag is also OK because if someone cleans up the article (thus nullifying the copyvio tag), then the COI tag would need to be there. TNXMan 23:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

March 3

Unprotected Article

I was about to creat a page for one thing. Figured the thing I was about to wirte about has been unprotected for almost two years. I was about to request unprotection. However, on one page, it is said that please do not contact the protecting administrator. On another page, it is said that If you do want a page that exists unprotected, please try to ask the protecting admin first before making a request here. I am so confused and would like to get someone's help! Plus, how do I find a protecting admin? (sorry, I am a newbie here! ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelsy (talk • contribs) 00:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

What page are you asking about? —teb728 t c 00:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Angelsy's contributions show that the page is LG CNS, which has been deleted 5 times earlier because of copyvio and advertising. The page has since been "salted". I suggest you go ahead with requesting unprotection, or contact an admin. If you want the admin who protected the title, it's User:MZMcBride. Cheers. Chamal ^talk 01:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that Angelsy requested unprotection at WP:RFPP, and the request was declined because he gave no reason for unprotection. —teb728 t c 01:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for making things crystal clear! :)

What does this edit do?

An odd (IMO) edit was made to an article on my watchlist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leo_Major&diff=274277819&oldid=261741284

Can someone please tell me what this edit does and if it is a valid edit? Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 02:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It does nothing: The img tags are not allowed; Wikipedia displays only images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia or Commons. This leaves the gallery tag empty. —teb728 t c 02:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Wanderer57 (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Following up on this question. The two images (which can be viewed on another website - "uploader.ws") look to me to be excellent additions to the article. This edit, adding the img tags, was the initial contribution of a brand new editor.

Is another editor willing to work with the new editor in regard to both the copyright status of the photos and the technicalities of putting the images into the Commons and into the article? I know just enough about these issues to know that I am not qualified to do this. Thank you. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Everyone Else

Resolved

What's that WP guideline that's about "everyone else" as that points out that a statement such as "everyone else's article states the hair color of the person and so this one must" is not a valid rationale? I read it a while back, can't remember the tile, and a gander of the help only finds Wikipedia:Assume the presence of a belly-button which I assume is required reading for all admins. Thanks! --Marc Kupper|talk 06:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you're thinking of Wikipedia:Other_stuff_exists? Alternatively, Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_in_deletion_discussions#Individual_merit. --Evan ¤ Seeds 06:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - it was Wikipedia:Other stuff exists though the Arguments to avoid article is a good one too. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Mathematics / symbols

there is no information about order symbols —Preceding unsigned comment added by Naveed14382 (talk • contribs) 06:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You may be looking for Help:Math#Relations. --Marc Kupper|talk 07:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

query

dear sir, the word "sodha" appears nowhere on your website.i don't know whether this is the right place to ask this question,if not please help me for the same.

sir "sodha" is basically a rajput caste found in present india and pakistan border area. please help me get some more information on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.161.9.88 (talk) 06:41, 3 March 2009 (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. Or you can try to request the article. Best, Zain Ebrahim (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

If you enter "sodha" in the search box on the left side and then press Enter then in the lower part of the search result page is a list of the 25 articles the word appears in. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Club software

Came across this new category page that appears so confused I've no idea what to do about it - unable to understand it, I can't even identify an appropriate template. Do I just ignore it, assuming that someone else will happen upon it or is there some template you can suggest for such cases? 69.106.246.15 (talk) 08:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like some linkspam by a new user who is off to a shaky start, blanking his/her user talk page to hide warnings. --Teratornis (talk) 09:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Logged in but cannot edit a semi-protected page

I've created an account 8 days ago. I want to edit a semi-protected page. I log in but cannot see a way of editing the page. It does not seem like I can edit the page even if i am logged in. It says somewhere "create an account and after a while you will be able to edit (semi-protected) pages". How long is "after a while"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpy01 (talk • contribs) 08:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Your account needs to be autoconfirmed to edit semiprotected pages. A "while" is usually four days. Your account is older than that but you also need to make ten edits to be autoconfirmed. You haven't done that yet. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Where did you see that message? It sounds like it needs to be updated. Algebraist 09:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't match your quote exactly but I guess you refer to MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext which is displayed when somebody tries to edit a semi-protected page without being autoconfirmed. I have updated it.[3] PrimeHunter (talk) 13:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest?

I have a listing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Clemo that has been flagged as having a possible conflict of interest. I have read the description on C o I and I don't feel this is the case. This listing was based on two biographies written by Chris Fortescue and Nick Royle and other sources. It was not written by the artist. How do I get this flag removed?

Thank you

Chloe Fellerman assistant to Philip Clemo —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pclemo (talk • contribs) 09:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Regardless, it was written by a close associate/employee of his (you) which makes it a clear conflict of interest. You may also be interested in reading This Page. Good day. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

David Bryce

Hello,

I have a tiny small English Dictionnary, very old, edited by David Bryce and sons - Glasgow. 2 centimetres,8 x 2 centimetres. 384 pages. I received it from my Grandfather, many years ago. I should like to know if you are in a position to give me few information about this David Bryce.

Thank you for your kindness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.92.55.76 (talk) 10:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is for questions about editing Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. Algebraist 10:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Difference between negative "Deleted edits" and positive "Deleted edits"

• Can someone tell me the differences between those two ? — Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 11:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the red and green numbers on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist? Those indicate the net gain or loss of characters by that edit. Adding the word "Wikipedia" will cause a (+9) to appear, while removing the word will cause a (-9) to appear. Xenon54 (talk) 12:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Where did you come across this? I'd guess that positive deleted edits are stuff like CSD tagging, whereas negative would be the creation of articles that are deleted later. Chamal ^talk 12:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 56#Deleted edits under "my contributions" apply to your question? PrimeHunter (talk) 12:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

How to patrol an article ?

• Pls answer it in detail. Thanks. — Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 11:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Pages on Special:Newpages that are not higlighted in yellow have a small "mark this page as patrolled" link in the bottom right. Xenon54 (talk) 12:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

But only when you visit them directly from Special:Newpages. Algebraist 12:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You may be looking for the information at Wikipedia:New pages patrol, or perhaps you're just asking about keeping a general eye on changes to a particular article, in which case Help:Watching pages may be of use. Karenjc 20:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability requirements for YourStory.in, The Indian Website for Entrepreneurs

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I have tried submitting an entry for YourStory.in on two occasions without any luck. I have been informed that the entry does not meet the notability requirements for wikipedia. Since I'm rather new to wikipedia, I'm still feeling my way around and trying to educate myself by browsing through entries on similar subjects.

In India, YourStory.in is now being recognised as one of the foremost webportals for entrepreneurship. I would like to know how it would be possible to prove the notability of a subject if evidence lies outside the websphere? Also, in this particular case, what exactly needs to be added so as to have the article accepted? In case you would like to take a look at the website, here is the link -- www.yourstory.in Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

D'artagnan7 (talk) 12:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well you need multiple independent sources that provide evidence of this notability - if they don't exist, we can have an article on a subject. So you need newspaper articles (NOT press releases), magazine article etc etc. --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the prompt reply, Cameron Scott. At present, YourStory.in has two sources in newspapers/magazines -- the Economic Times [4] and Mint Magazine, The Wall Street Journal [5] The Economic Times article refers to the site in the context of recruitment from the IIM institutes while Mint Magazine speaks about the collaborative strategy adopted by the site to stay afloat during the recession. Firstly, I would like to know if these two sources meet the notability standards on wikipedia? Secondly, could you please give me the approximate number of independent sources required for an entry to stand? Lastly, is it possible to create an entry and have it critiqued by a wikipedia volunteer in an dashboard like editing space rather than having it listed for speedy deletion? Thank you. D'artagnan7 (talk) 13:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I've made you a sandbox in your userspace - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:D%27artagnan7/sandbox if you work on it there, I'll take a look and help you with sources. --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you I've added the article I had done before to the sandbox space. Thanks again. --D'artagnan7 (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia to Commons image transfer

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there a method by which I can tag images for transfer to Commons, eg Public Domain, CC 3.0 licensed images.

AshLin (talk) 13:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You can use {{Move to Commons}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! AshLin (talk) 16:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I knew this existed but could not locate it from image & media help, so I added Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons as a link in the 'Others' section. Others should find info on this topic easily now. AshLin (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Proper protocol for requesting rename for the Village Pump subpages

What is the best way to start a discussion about this? The subpages are in the format "Wikipedia:Village pump (subpage name)", but i think it should be "Wikipedia:Village pump/subpage name". I want to make sure that all regulars of these pages see the discussion, even though it's quite likely they don't visit the talk page, and may miss a brief thread about it on these pages. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mishehu (I'll hold off on calling anyone "old" ...lol). I haven't been to the Village Pump for quites some wiki-time, could you post a link to the thread where it's being discussed? I'd be happy to look through it and offer my humble thoughts ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 14:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I haven't yet started the discussion - I want to know where to put it, and what the best way to notify people about it, before I start it. I'm talking, for example, about moving Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to Wikipedia:Village pump/policy. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, ok - you're probably looking for input from more experienced editors then. But, while I'm here offer my 2-cents. I would put a notice right on the main WP:VP page that "A current discussion concerning Village Pump name changes is currently in progress at" .. Wikipedia:Village pump/Naming Conventions - that way anyone coming to the main page would see it. Start the page, then also post to the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) page headers as well. That way you get them all centralized to the same discussion page. Just IMHO, full disclosure: I haven't been here long enough to really offer much more than my opinion/guess. I'll keep an eye open though, and chip in when I see it. ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 15:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps "Tophat" is the more proper term than "Headers"? — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 15:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

For my son's 16th he wants to eat at every fast food place in the area.

Resolved

 – see local phone book  – ukexpat (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In three weeks time my 15-year-old son will become 16.

I've asked him what he wants to do for his birthday, and he said he wants to eat out at every McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut in the area.

I've said to him he can go to one of those restaurants, not all of them, but he's become insistent we have to eat out at all of them.

I've told him there's no difference between them, but he insists "WE HAVE TO GO TO ALL OF THEM!! PLEEEASE!!"

He does have a big appetite, but isn't overweight.

I spoke to my husband about it last night and he said I was right, our son shouldn't get everything he wants and that we'd be in debt if we did it.

Our son keeps on insisting that we go to ALL the restaurants (McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Burger King) that he mentioned, but we've told him no and he refuses to accept it.

His 21-year-old brother, who is in university, agrees with us. He said to him: "It's not healthy, don't eat loads of fast food, have fun but don't do it to excess!"

However, he refuses to accept his brother's advice, and said "I WANT to eat out at every McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza Hut in the neighborhood!"

I asked him if he wanted to do anything else on his birthday besides fast-food, but he said no. He told us "Food is my favorite thing. Gawd, isn't fast food great??" and said "On my birthday, we MUST go to all the McD's, Pizzahut and Burgerking outlets in the area and sample their great foods!"

What can me and my husband do to convince him that it's not possible, and it's a bad idea?? He refuses to listen to us.

We've only got 3 weeks before his birthday, how can we deal with this without getting overly stressed??

(I'm posting from an Internet cafe right now, so sorry for it being rushed!)

Concerned Parent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.45.219.185 (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory. Your local phone book would probably be the best place to check. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, what do we do about this sort of thing?? We've tried reasoning with him but he refuses to listen.

He still insists that he should eat at every fast food outlet in town.

A Concerned Parent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.45.219.185 (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Not our problem. We don't supply people with such information. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is neither a directory of addresses nor an advice column... I'm sorry, but you're really going to have to work this out on your own or somewhere other than Wikipedia. We're only here to be an encyclopedia. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 21:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Disclaimer; the following represents only my opinion, and you alone are responsible for independently verifying or refuting any claim I offer. Fast food in the United States has expanded in lockstep with automobile dependency. Fast food and automobiles together have contributed to the obesity epidemic, one of the greatest public health problems in the United States. Your son may be falling victim to this twin scourge. The cure is simple: adopt the car-free lifestyle. When people have to actually expend physical effort to get around (if such a thing is still imaginable), they typically feel less eager to visit so many destinations. For example, if your son had to walk or bicycle for an hour to reach the first restaurant, he would probably feel disinclined to walk or bicycle additional hours to reach more restaurants. He probably only has his strange desire to visit several restaurants because (if yours is a typical motorized family) motorized travel makes it effortless. Your son's emotions, like those of every human, are the product of millions of years of natural selection which have optimized humans to survive in the ancestral environment. The modern environment in developed countries is very different than the conditions our ancestors faced during the Pleistocene. Our ancestors lived on the knife edge, always in danger of starving to death if they could not find their next meal quickly enough. Our ancestors never experienced an environment of physical ease and sustained abundance of food. Thus it is no surprise that so many people, given the opportunity, become fat and lazy - there was so little risk of sloth and gluttony for our ancestors that they never needed to evolve resistance to these hazards. The automobile is the great facilitator of laziness, since it removes what was historically a constant source of strenuous activity for everyone: walking long distances to get around. In any case, you can assert some influence over your son's behavior while he is still a child, but soon he will be an adult and he will have to decide how to behave. If you have spent his first 15 years training him to become automobile dependent, he may be approaching adulthood with a substantial behavioral risk. When asking your son what he wants to do for his birthday, I suggest constraining the choices to what he wants to do that does not involve using a motor vehicle. I'm also somewhat puzzled about this custom of asking children what they want to do for their birthdays; I don't recall getting such an offer to dictate to my parents. --Teratornis (talk) 21:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It is my belief that parents should parent their children and not let children get everything they ask. These kind of requests and wishes can eventually lead to obesity. However this is not the proper forum to bring up this kind of questions.Wamaina (talk) 05:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Accessing user page

I am a new user. each time I click on my user name at the top it directs me to an ERROR 404 page. how do I open a new user page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by MartiniGoddess (talk • contribs) 18:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I created your user page, see if it works now. Queenie 18:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

How do you edit the title for a page

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There's this page Spunge where the title is simply "Spunge", and the band's name is actually "[spunge]". Is there a way to edit this?

Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomflaherty (talk • contribs) 21:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There are technical restrictions that prevent the use of brackets in titles, so I have added the {{Bracketed}} template to the article which at least displays the proper title. – ukexpat (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The notice at the top of page indicates that article titles cannot include braces ([ or ]). This is due to a technical restriction. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) for more info. TNXMan 21:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomflaherty (talk • contribs) 22:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Dunno what i should edit

I wanna contribute to wikipedia, as i'm bored and have nothing else to do, but i dunno what article i should contribute too, any suggestions? 79.75.132.65 (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Community portal has some great suggestions for you to help out. See the section titled "Help out". There are links all over to some small things you can do, if you learn a little WikiMarkup, there's lots of little tasks that need doing, such as Wikification and Categorization and things like that. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You can also upload images, or help organize them. See for example commons:Commons:Flickr files; there are literally millions of image files on Flickr under licenses that make them suitable for uploading to Wikimedia Commons so the various language Wikipedias can use them to illustrate articles. Or you could learn to use a program like Inkscape and create illustrations. See m:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests. On Wikipedia, it is easier to learn how to edit text than to deal with images, so our articles tend to run ahead of our ability to illustrate them. If you can take pictures, draw pictures, or organize pictures, you will never run out of interesting things to do here. --Teratornis (talk) 06:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How to test templates by supplying test argument values on the template page?

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 16:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've created a userbox template that accepts optional arguments. However, I can find no way of testing it without involving a second page to invoke the template and supply argument values. Is there a way to test this on the template page itself by introducing some temporary test code and using the Show preview button? Thanks. Jim Ward (talk) 23:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You may want to ask this question at The Technical section of the Village Pump. People who patrol that forum may be more adept with the more esoteric technical questions such as this one. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 23:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. I've posted my question there; thank you. Jim Ward (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Apollo astronaut Lovell's family

Why are Marilyn Lovell and the Lovell children not documented in the Wikipedia article on astronaut Jim (James) Lovell ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.137.91.156 (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Lovell family is mentioned in the Jim Lovell article at the bottom of the page. If you have more info on the family that is supported by reliable sources and is written from a neutral point of view, then feel free to be bold and add it in! TNXMan 00:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

March 4

Article Title

How can I make a minor change to an article title?...such as changing The Order of the Greek Horsemen to Order of the Greek Horsemen. Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitey4man (talk • contribs) 00:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You can change the title of an article by moving it. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I ain't nobody's sockpuppet

Okay, it took long enough to notice, but it seems that my userpage has been tagged for sockpuppetry. What does it mean (am I on the verge of being kicked out)? What do I do? How do I remove this unsightly tag? Comments welcomed. Thanks for your help.
Yartett (talk) 00:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'd ask the editor who put it there to follow up on it and actually make a request for a sockpuppet investigation. If they don't want to go public with the accusation, there's no good reason to keep the template there. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it means, read the pages linked under WP:EIW#Sock, such as WP:SOCK. --Teratornis (talk) 06:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Not being able to submit pict

I would like to know the proper steps I have to follow in order for me to be able to include a picture of public domain in one of the pages of Wikipedia. What is exactly "autoconfirmed"? Does the editing of typos count as an 'edit' in my record? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rocketonio (talk • contribs) 01:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The definition of autoconfirmed, as you can see on that page is at least 4 days and 10 edits, and any edit will count, as far as I know. Then you should be able to upload files, as well as edit semi protected pages and mark new pages as patrolled. -Evan ¤ Seeds 01:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Wikipedia:User access levels#Autoconfirmed users. Typo correction or any other edit counts towards the 10 edits. Public domain images can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org where you can upload right away. Commons images can be used in Wikipedia articles just like images uploaded to Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. Last but not least: Are the 10 edits measured by 10 typos being corrected or by any number of typos found and corrected in 10 different pages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rocketonio (talk • contribs) 02:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Your edit count increases by 1 every time you click "Save page" after making any change to any page at http://en.wikipedia.org. Your two edits here also count so there are 8 left. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Since I have been member of this site I have noticed that some pages shown bias towards representatives of certain ethnic groups, for example: some pages don’t even mention the existence of certain actress or actors, or don’t show the picture of them regardless that there may exist many of those under public domain. Can you tell me how to address this issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rocketonio (talk • contribs) 03:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You can address them by uploading said images, but make sure you understand what public domain is first. Copyright law is often misunderstood and you'd be surprised how many photographs of actors are actually not free to use. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Subject: The page called INDIGO CHILDREN

Resolved

 – Message left on user page by Arch dude  – ukexpat (talk) 16:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Subject: The page called INDIGO CHILDREN - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children

I am Lee Carroll, author of the Indigo Book series, the one that introduced the term Indigo Children in my 1999 publication. I edited this page for factual content. Then I returned and found the edits were not accepted. In my personal area there was a message from a user named Eugene Krabs, who said:

"You can't just go claiming to be the author. WikiPedia is going to need proof that you are the book's author before you go editing an article you "claim" to be about something of yours. Please show us proof. Thank you. - Eugene Krabs (talk) 21:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)"

So, does he represent Wikipedia? I will supply any proof needed.

I am the author.

What next?

LEE CARROLL

Lcarroll (talk) 04:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Without knowing the edits, the topic, or any of the history - my guess is that the editor is referring to the WP:COI, which could lead to the WP:NPOV policy. Check through those two articles and see if they may apply. It's very difficult to edit articles that you are closely tied to sometimes. Good Luck ;) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 05:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Responded on Lcaroll's talk page. -Arch dude (talk) 16:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Huggle

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 16:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

How do you enable Huggle in your preferences? Okay15 Blah - What I've done 05:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You have to have have rollback in order to use huggle. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 05:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. Okay15 Blah - What I've done 05:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you'll need a little more time and a few more edits under your belt to be granted rollback, but it doesn't take too awfully long. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 05:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Google Books

Is it possible Google Books can be discounted as valid source. Here's why. Not every user can access every page that is linked. In one instance, I clicked a link to a Google book page only to get a message saying the page is unavailable due to me reaching the limits of the book. It appears some users can see the page and other users such as myself, cannot. It's a problem. A-Kartoffel (talk) 08:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• No, access has no effect on the reliability of the source. I can't access BBC News videos because I don't live in the UK and loads of books because my library doesn't carry them. But BBC News is still reliable and those books are too. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

"Google Books" is not the reliable source. The reliable source is the book itself, and the reference should be to the book, not to Google books. The reference should be a {{cite book}} rather than a {{cite web}}, and should include the ISBN. It is perfectly acceptable to include the link to Google books as a "convience link." this inclusion neither enhances nor detracts from the reliability of the book as a source. -Arch dude (talk) 15:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Electronic siganture software?

Is there any electronic signature software that supports Open Office format that you know of?

If yes, can you please provide me with the relevant company or software that can help me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thembanim (talk • contribs) 11:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing 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. Algebraist 11:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing 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. TNXMan 12:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've heard rumors that too much time on Wikipedia causes double vision. Any truth to that? --Teratornis (talk) 05:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I add clean up templtes which I do not find in the list...

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

to the "Pickleball" article? It seems to be, merely, a very short summary, an image, and two very long lists. The summary has a too-short template added, but I can not find a template for the lists which should be converted to prose, other than the "trivia" template, which does not seem right. I askéd at the IRC but they said there is one and maybe it will repair in time, but I just wanted to confirm... Thanks for any help. P. S. Why did a bunch of new buttons (horizontal line, redirect, strike, line break, superscript, subscript, small, insert hidden comment, picture gallery, block quote, table, and reference) appear on my toolbar recently?--Ecw.technoid.dweeb (talk) 12:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps {{Not list}} or better yet {{Prose}}? Nanonic (talk) 13:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you.--Ecw.Technoid.Dweeb|contributions|talk 16:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Information about Economice trends

Hi

I need information about Economic Trends & Structural changes :Economic growth (trends),Economic develpoment (Structural changes), Issues in economic development.Long run strategy &policy of economic develpoment.

Since I am new to this... please guide how to see my request (this one) in wikipedia.

You can rech me on <blanking>

Thanks, Sumanth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumanth.vankadaru (talk • contribs) 14:21, 4 March 2009 (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. Also, see our articles on Economics, as they may have the answers you need. TNXMan 15:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

copyrights

would like to know copyrights for printing information in our book or letting people pick the information up at our office? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.112.201.55 (talk) 16:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to Wikipedia content that you want to re-use? If so, please see WP:REUSE. If you are seeking legal advice as to copyright of materials that you have produced for use outside Wikipedia, we cannot give legal advice, you should consult a lawyer. – ukexpat (talk) 17:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding links

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 17:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I add links to another article in Wikipedia? Sorry if it's obvious, but I'm new. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CeresVesta (talk • contribs) 17:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

See Help:Link. The basic syntax is to wrap the name of the linked page in double square brackets. For example, my link was created with [[Help:Link]]. Algebraist 17:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by CeresVesta (talk • contribs) 17:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:Build the web and WP:LAYOUT (the latter to learn about the "See also" section). You can also learn how to create or improve navigation templates. For a general introduction to Wikipedia, read Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. --Teratornis (talk) 06:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Video question

i need to see the video of president samuel doe's torture. --213.210.245.231 (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what this Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. I hope this helps.. – ukexpat (talk) 17:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

NO PICTURES

all the web pages don't display the pictures, they show a little red square in a box where the picture should be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.141.183.211 (talk) 21:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to confirm, does this happen only on Wikipedia pages or on all internet pages? – ukexpat (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

changing the text at the top of a page

I am trying to edit the very top portion of the "Young Life" page, but I don't see and edit option. the first edit option starts with "History" but I need to edit what's above history. Thanks for you help!Sjknott (talk) 21:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Just click the edit tab at the top of the page and the whole page will open in edit mode. – ukexpat (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You can enable this at Special:Preferences → Gadgets → Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

quick question

Thought I'd break the "research, find info, provide helpful links" mindset for a second here at the help desk. Perhaps one of you kind folk have been around long enough to notice certain behavioral patterns in us wikipeidans. My question is this:

1. I noticed that I have begun to sign my email messages with " ~~~~ ". Does this mean that I am developing a "wiki-addiction" problem?, and is there any cure? .. Thanks. Cheers — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 21:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Just don't use {{fact}} tags in your work e-mails. – ukexpat (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Or worse, marking memos for {{db-nonsense}} --Evan ¤ Seeds 22:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

LMAO - sigh .. I'm still waiting for 74, TnXman, or someone to throw one of those "We can't give medical advice" templates in. (and I actually did do that .. Well, I'll pick up my "wiki-demerit" for socializing on the way out - you folks have a good one =D — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 22:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question in the Wikipedia:The real world. They specialize in knowledge questions about the real world 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. You could always try searching Wikipedia for an article related to the topic you want to know more about. I hope this helps. -Optigan13 (talk) 22:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In my learned medical opinion, you appear to be developing moderate to severe wikipediholicism. I'm sorry, but your prognosis does not look good. TNXMan 22:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Wikipedia makes the Real World obsolete, and the sooner everyone realizes that, the happier everyone will be. Everything sucks compared to Wikipedia - you will see countless examples of this every day. --Teratornis (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sicilian Language

How can I find articles written in Sicilian? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.41.179 (talk) 21:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You can find them here. You can also look on the left side of any Wikipedia page, and there is a list of alternate languages that the article appears in. But there's a Sicilian article only for every 1 in ~200 English article, so you usually won't find one. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

New Template

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 02:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I created a new template called Template:Numerical PDE and included it in several articles, but changes I made to the template do not appear in the articles. Now the template appears differently in different articles. What is going on ? How do you repair this ? Example: the article Finite difference method displays an older version of the template. Charvest (talk) 22:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it can take a while for template changes to be visible in articles where the template is used. Have you tried a server purge. – ukexpat (talk) 22:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) try it now - sometimes you have to do a null edit to the article after you mod a template, that way it doesn't pull from cache. — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 22:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

cool ukexpat, I didn't know we had access to purge - ?action=purge huh? good deal! — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 22:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant, ukexpat, thankyou. Charvest (talk) 22:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, clicking on the clock that is displayed in the upper right of the page purges the page. TNXMan 22:47, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The clock is an optional setting under Gadgets at Special:Preferences. It's off by default. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Siouxsie Sioux

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 02:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been wanting to replace the picture of Siouxsie Sioux in her article, because that picture is nearly thirty-years-old and obviously she's changed since then. I found what I deemed to be a couple of suitable images under the Creative Commons CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses acceptable for uploading images on Wikipedia. However, I've recalled seeing the first image elsewhere on the internet, so is it ok to use the image anyway, being that it is under the proper license? --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 22:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, seeing it somewhere else on the net means that if Wikipedia uses it, it wont be troublesome, because the picture is already on other websites. Raaggio 22:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the best idea is to ensure that the person who uploaded the images under the licenses you mentioned actually has permission to license them that way. A picture may be used in different places across the internet, but we have still have to have the correct licensing info. Another good place to ask would be at the media copyright desk. They may be able to point you in the right direction. TNXMan 22:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --Whip it! ^{Now whip it good!} 00:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I would say that neither photo would be of use for us here. The first one, as it if found elsewhere on the web, means it is likely copyrighted by someone other than the flickr user (therefore he cannot release it by that CC license). I found a blog post with that same image that predates the flickr user by 4 days, which further indicates this user got it from somewhere else (also, the set up is clearly a photoshoot, and there is no evidence that this flickr user is a commercial photographer). The second image is clearly labeled in a set that says these are not the flickr user's images. Again, the flickr user here is not the photographer (or copyright holder) and cannot legally release that image under the claimed license. Normally, you can accept flickr users are face value, and believe their licensing claims. But sometimes you do run into cases where users have uploaded other's works and improperly claimed a CC license. Both of these images appear to be cases such as those. Sorry.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That said, the photos of Siouxsie in this user's photostream seem legit, as do this and this.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And of course, we have an image from the first user already in the article... -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit to article just disappeared

This AM I edited the page on Ben Bernanke by adding some non-controversial details provided in 3 New York Times articles on him. I also included the reference links to the NYT articles. I saved and the changes were immediately visible. When I checked back this PM my additions were gone and are also not listed in the editorial history for the page. What happened? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sevalt (talk • contribs) 22:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean. Your account shows no edits to the Ben Bernanke article. Nor are there any edits to the article that match your description. Might you have possibly hit "show preview" at the bottom of the page instead of "save page"? TNXMan 22:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Help with redirect/shortcut mess

Resolved

 – TNXMan 00:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that I messed up and need help recovering. There has been a long-standing redirect WT:RD for the Reference desk talk page. Wanting to make it more visible and available to others I tried without success to make that link into a shortcut (with its top of the page notice/advert and all). So, I thought I could outwit the Wiki software by creating a shortcut named WP:RDTK (which worked fine as a shortcut) and thought that I could then move that shortcut name to the more preferable WT:RD name. Well, stupid me - of course I wouldn't be allowed to do that because WT:RD was already taken. Rather than messing around and possibly making things worse I thought that by begging forgiveness here that someone would be sympathetic and fix this without calling too much attention to my screw-up to the community at large :-( Thank you, -hydnjo talk 23:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If I understand this correctly, there are two steps you can take to put everything back the way it was. Simply remove the {{shortcut}} from the top of reference desk talk page and mark WP:RDTK with {{db-g7}} (author requesting deletion). You can also change the {{shortcut}} to say {{shortcut|WT:RD}}, which should provide the correct redirect. I don't think it's a major problem, however. The only issue I see is that the templates at the top of the talk page appear to overlap a little, but there's nothing that can't be fixed. Hopefully I've understood your question, but let me know if there's something I missed. Best, TNXMan 23:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

OK thanks, I hope I didn't make any triple redirects on the way!  ;-) hydnjo talk 23:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for your helpful edit ;-) hydnjo talk 00:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem. Happy editing! TNXMan 00:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Talking to an administrator

Resolved

 – user referred to WP:AN – ukexpat (talk) 04:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to contact an administrator? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jss5104 (talk • contribs) 23:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Right this way, please. TNXMan 23:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

March 5

Editing organisational pages

Hi, I am an employee of an organisation and have been asked to overhaul our Wiki page. The information is badly out of date and there are major omissions. Basically I need to completely re-write and add to what is there. I am aware that when an organisation makes major edits to it's own Wiki entry it can sometimes be seen as unethical. Can you please tell me what the policy is on this and if there is some way that I should indicate that the page was edited by an employee?

Yours sincerely David Wiltshire —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwiltshi (talk • contribs) 00:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Basically, you are strongly discouraged from editing the article on your own organization, and if the edits are seen as problematic, you'll get substantially less leeway. It would be much more advisable than editing the article yourself to suggest changes on the talk page of the article, assuming the talk page is well trafficked by other editors. If that doesn't suit you, you can also write what you think the article should look like in your userspace, and then suggest that on the talk page, or ask for feedback at Wikipedia:Drawing board. The key concepts for someone in your position to keep in mind is that article content is supposed to be based on reliable sources, and the content must be neutral (part of that being, it must honestly report what reliable sources say, and not be littered with subjective terminology). These concepts tend to cause a lot of the trouble for users like yourself; you have to keep in mind that press releases and the company's official website are not reliable sources (they're find for mundane factoids like John is the CEO, but not XYZ corporation is the most respected manufacturer of widgets in the world). The prefered sources tend to be books and journals from academic publishers, newspapers, industry and trade magazines, etc. You're also unlikely to see negative information about the organization removed if it cites a reliable source. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the advise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwiltshi (talk • contribs) 02:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Also see WP:BFAQ, and note that general advice can be off the mark by varying degrees in specific situations. You did not tell us the organization that you work for. If our information about that organization is badly out of date, that suggests the organization is not very (what we call) notable. On Wikipedia, the degree to which a principle like conflict of interest matters is a function of how often a particular article gets viewed. If an article contains badly outdated information, the article probably doesn't get much attention. In that case, a correction from someone associated with the article's subject may be better than no correction at all. Wikipedia also has many articles on Religion and you can bet most of them get edited by people who have a vested interest in promoting their religious points of view. On Wikipedia, people write about the countries they live in, their favorite entertainers, their local sports teams, and all sorts of things they are hardly neutral about. If we eliminated all conflict of interest on Wikipedia, we'd eliminate much of Wikipedia. Therefore, in my opinion, the key is learning how to manage our inevitable conflicts of interest, both as individuals and as a community of users. You did the right thing by coming forward and disclosing your relationship with your employer; you should also do so on your user page if you intend to edit the article about your employer. I think your willingness to disclose makes you more potentially able to contribute productively than someone who isn't even aware that they have a conflict of interest or that it might be a problem. However, read WP:COI and WP:BFAQ carefully, as the pitfalls of COI are subtle. Read WP:PEACOCK for examples of the promotional writing style to avoid. As with everything about Wikipedia, it all gets easier as you learn more about how Wikipedia works. For a comprehensive introduction, read Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. By putting in the time and effort to read that book, you would be demonstrating seriousness about Wikipedia and good faith. --Teratornis (talk) 05:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Revert vandelism "to last version by____"

How do I revert article vandelism "to last version by____" or "to last good version by _____" going back three or four edits (for example)? I assume the words "to last good version by _____ " are automatically generated (somehow) if the proper steps are done. Lets say I want to go back four edits to the last known good version before all the vandelism started. Can you tell me how to do that without just clicking on "undo" - which is only for one edit back. I assume it then generates automatically the words "to last good version by _____." You can answer HERE. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell ^talk 00:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If you notice the little buttons between (cur)(prev) and the date in the history, you can select two revisions to compare. If the later revision is the latest revision to the page, pressing undo while viewing the diff will undo the entire series of edits. Just make sure that no good edits were made in the meantime. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Some of these messages were left by people using wiki editing tools. See Category:Wikipedia counter-vandalism tools. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone fix this problem?

Resolved

I addressed the problem at the article's talk page, but no one bothered to answer, so I thought I'd get a response here. Do you mind checking my comment at the following talk page (scroll down to the end; the last entry is mine) - here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Republican_Party_(United_States) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.58.180 (talk) 01:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed in [6]. I don't know the details of how <timeline> works but I compared to Democratic Party (United States) and found that adding a space at the end of a line fixed it. Maybe the problem was that a timeline image was not stored correctly somewhere, and many other tiny changes could have fixed it too by generating a new timeline image, but that's just speculation. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

By the way, there were 82 minutes between your post to the talk page and here. Wikipedia has millions of pages and talk page posts usually don't get responses that fast. On low traffic pages they may never get a response. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Good work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.58.180 (talk) 01:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

What font do I need installed for Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is using a very strange font on my PC. I obviously don't have the right font installed. Can you give me some choices?? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.83.153 (talk) 01:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It should be Arial, and on my Vista PC looks Amazing. I wish they'd never change it --96.232.58.180 (talk) 01:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It should be your browser's default sanserif font. If it looks strange, it might be because that default is set to something weird. Algebraist 01:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

utorrent

how to open utorrent file which is downloading without installing utorrent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.240.89 (talk) 03:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the computing 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.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

transgender operation terminology

In the transgender operation from male to female, the new female has to do something called dilate and has to use 'medical stints.' what exactly is this medical stint she is placing in her newly made vagina? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.185.26.212 (talk • contribs) 03:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a stent, but the Help Desk is for questions about using Wikipedia. For general questions, you want the Reference Desk. --Fullobeans (talk) 04:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, for future knowledge questions, please ask at the reference desk, linked by Fullobeans above, but please see [7].--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

See Sex reassignment surgery, {{Transgender sidebar}}, and Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer. --Teratornis (talk) 05:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Editing & using DVDs & video for references

I want to submit & edit articles by adding references from DVDs & videos. Will the editing policy allow that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frostviper (talk • contribs) 05:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• See WP:CITET, especially the template for DVDs. Not sure if we have a similar one for video tapes, but as long as they're commercially released, you're good. - Mgm|^(talk) 05:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

More precisely, you're not bad when it comes to one potential source of problems, but there are other gotchas. For example, if you cite a DVD to support a factual claim that the Earth is flat, you can expect other editors to challenge your claim on factual grounds. You could cite a source to prove that some particular person or group thinks the Earth is flat, but to assert the flatness of the Earth as a factual claim, you would have to find sources that could somehow overpower the existing scientific consensus. If you told us more about kinds of edits you want to make, what sources you want to use, and what they claim, we might provide more specific advice about the type of reaction you might expect from other editors. --Teratornis (talk) 05:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Bot reverting to vandalized version

Please, take a look at this. How to fix it? 81.95.228.239 (talk) 06:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Somebody has fixed it. The reason the bot reverted is undoubtedly that it suspects major content deletion by anonymous editors.

It would be nice if an admin could hide the 400KB versions; it takes forever to download them. —teb728 t c 06:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

laser

where can i find total information of laser communicatios —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sathishbabug (talk • contribs) 06:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• We don't appear to have an article devoted to Laser communications, though you can find brief discussion at Mars Laser Communication Demonstration. Please also try the Science and Computing areas of the Reference desk, which specialize in answering knowledge questions. (This page is intended for questions about how to use Wikipedia.) Gonzonoir (talk) 09:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

hey there

um i new to wikipedia and instead of writing articles i wil probaly delete vandalism can someone give me advice how to find and delete vandalisms oh and btw if you're lookiing for an adoptee look no further :) AntiFetch (talk) 08:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi AntiFetch, welcome to Wikipedia. A good place to start is our vandalism guide. That sets out details on how to recognise and respond to vandalism. As you'll see, it suggests you consider patrolling the recent changes list, a record of all the latest edits to Wikipedia and a good place to catch vandalism as soon as it happens. You will also find useful a list of warning messages to use for vandalism, and this guide to cleaning up vandalism. Always remember to assume good faith, treat everyone you come across with civility, and ask for help when you need it. Good luck! Gonzonoir (talk) 09:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

cymbalta

should somebody stop taking cymbalta cold turkey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.80.187.84 (talk) 08:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

We cannot offer medical advice. Please see the medical disclaimer. Contact your General Practitioner. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

how to submit a new article in wikipedia

… —Preceding unsigned comment added by Himanshu.paliwal83 (talk • contribs) 09:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Your first article - this page both has technical instructions on how to do it, and recommendations on how to create one that won't get deleted. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Standard template message follows:

Before creating an article, 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 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 the article before creation. – ukexpat (talk) 15:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Online Recharge for prepaid mobile phone & DTH services in India

<url removed> is india's first of it's kind website that provides instant online recharge for pre-paid mobiles and DTH services. We are currently...<remainder of post removed>—Preceding unsigned comment added by Himanshu.paliwal83 (talk • contribs)

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles or other Wikipedia pages. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" is strongly discouraged. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Page rank

Is Wikipedia popular just because google favours it? Also, is the priority in page rank natural or are they making it on top at all costs? (As a side question... it's weird, especially if google wants to compete with knoll, to still favour Wikipedia, isn't it?) 212.219.0.20 (talk) 11:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried the Computing 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. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• You start with the wrong assumption: "Is Wikipedia popular just because google favours it?" Google favors Wikipedia in its listings because it's popular. The more other people link to a site, the higher it ends up in the search results and Wikipedia is often linked. Together with its traffic statistics, it's unlikely for Wikipedia pages to not come top in the rankings. See Google PageRank.- Mgm|^(talk) 11:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and as far as I know, they don't do anything to advertise the site on other sites or manipulate search engine rankings. Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute to reduce the incentive to place spam links in Wikipedia (spam is still a big problem), but I have seen somebody accuse Wikipedia of doing it to suck up page rank from incoming links without giving out page rank with outgoing links. Apart from being popular and getting many incoming links, I think Wikipedia has several properties search engines like, for example page titles and url names containing the topic of the page, and internal wikilinks from articles with related content, but that is just part of being user friendly and well structured. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

vandal warn

Resolved

I see a lot of this "Example.jpg" stuff in recent changes. this. I am correct in saying it's vandalism and should be reverted aren't I? (didn't revert any yet - clarifying first) — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 11:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• Probably not vandalism. It often happens that someone tries out buttons and doesn't notice the changes it makes. But yet. Quite often using example.jpg is unsuitable and should be removed. Missing images in bio articles can be replaced with a more specific "this bio is missing an image"-image though. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like a test edit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both, Mac Magic, and Mishehu. Have a good day today, and a better one tomorrow ;)— Ched ~ ^(yes?) 12:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually consensus appears to be against using the placeholder images in bios: WP:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. – ukexpat (talk) 15:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

New title

How do I change the titile of a page that I have created once it is already made public?? Ex. nano indenter to nanoindenter(one word). Please help, thank you in advance Volvera215 (talk) 15:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Use the "Move" tab on the top; see Help:Move. –Capricorn42 (talk) 15:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You will have to move the page to the new title. There should be a "move" tab at the top of the page that should allow you to move the page (assuming the title you want isn't taken). Also, your account needs to be autoconfirmed before you can move pages. TNXMan 15:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

From a quick Google, there does not appear to be any uniformity of use of the terms "nano indenter", "nano-indenter" or "nanonindenter" – ukexpat (talk) 15:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The method of preparation for yaga kondam - how to make the yagna oma kundan?

I hear there are different ways for making oma kundan for various -different dities and performing yagna for various auspicies ceremonies. I have one "Agni hothria" homam - description of how to make the homa vessel out of brass the height, the weight ,sizes shape etc. I want to know how many types of Homa Kundams are available and their specifications etc. Pl reply = <blanking> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.29.78 (talk) 16:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried Wikipedia's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions and will try to answer just about 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. TNXMan 16:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Categorisation of articles

Hi, I was wondering if there is a way to search out all articles, containing the tag Trinity College, Cambridge, which do not contain the cats, Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge, or Academics of Trinity College, Cambridge. If I could filter such articles out then this would enable me to go round and add cats where appropriate. 79.67.228.216 (talk) 16:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:CatScan. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

About usernames and IP addresses

I'm a long-time anon browser, very new user (just registered last night), and I have a question regarding usernames and IP addresses. Are any IP addresses I use to acccess my wiki account under logged and noted for future review?

The reason I ask is because the company I work for (not gonna name names) appears to be highly active on wiki and has been accused (rightly) of POV pushing and hostile edits and reverts to keep their information intact. I'm just a lowly button-pusher and have no interest in what my company does with their time, however if I access my account from work could my username potentially be linked to any activit ythey generate on their wiki page? I guess, to put it another way, if they get themselves banned or whatever happens here, can my username potentially be banned as well, as having used this IP address in the past?

Obviously I would mostly be accessing from home, however I do have spare time during the day. I just didn't want to be lumped into the...ah...STRONG opinions of my company.

Hope this is the right spot for the question. I spent some time poking around, and this was the best fit for my question I could find. Please feel free to direct me elsewhere if I'm wrong. Helixical (talk) 17:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, first of all, welcome! Secondly, now that you've registered an account, there isn't too much worry about your IP being traced. There are certain users (known as checkusers) who can see which IP addresses are associated with which usernames, but that is only done to rare cases to prevent vandalism. Basically, having account allows you to distance yourself from your IP address. If no one has done so already, I'll leave you a welcome message with useful links on your talk page to get you started. Best, TNXMan 17:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I was afraid I came off too tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theory there, but that's very helpful. Thanks, too, for the links. They'll surely come in handy! Best, Helixical (talk) 17:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I?

how do i put something on wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.185.87.170 (talk) 17:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

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 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 the article before creation. TNXMan 17:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Indigo Children

Just a note:

I'm Lee Carroll, author of the books on Indigo Children. I have twice corrected misinformation on the page about Indigo Children.

The colors seen are not auras, and never were. I reported this in the first book 10 years ago, but it continues to be reported as auras within the description. The Indigo Children have nothing whatsoever to do with auras.

If the author and creator of the term INDIGO CHILDREN can't go in and correct misinformation, what is the value of Wikipedia? I didn't change anything but those items, and I added another book that I have written on the subject.

I give up.

Very Sorry.