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January 22

Disappearing history

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'm working a CCI, which involves comparing diffs to look for copyright infringement, and I've encountered a very peculiar thing in several diffs from 2005. See [1] & [2], for two. There are more. Is it just me, or does it look like these edits were added to empty articles to you? With the latter article, I've gone back step by step to track the disappearing text. It gets lost here and stays gone for several diffs. Again, is it just me? If not, what gives? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not you. Please add all such cases to bugzilla:20757 —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Will do. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Photo problem

There is an article at 2004 Harvard-Yale Prank about a stunt that was pulled at a football game. The picture used in the article is taken from a website set up by the prank's (evidently self-satisfied) organizers. The picture was obviously doctored, and without much sophistication. For example, it was clearly altered so that there wouldn't be any gaps where the stadium's aisles are. Furthermore, this article -- http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hsp/index.php?id=120_YaleWeSuckPrank -- has a side-by-side comparison of different pictures.

I think the picture should be removed from the article, for the above reasons. Additionally, the uploading of the picture not from a real source but rather from the prankster's own website is inherently POV.

The thing is, I can't "prove" any of this, and wikipedia is not a forum for discovering new information or debunking hoaxes. It's supposed to just be an encyclopedia. I think deleting the picture would be the most prudent way to avoid "controversy." The article contains a link to the website featuring the doctored picture as well as the article comparing the two photos. Both of these external sources are partisan, and that's fine - the reader can make a more informed judgment when s/he sees the context. That should suffice. Wikipedia should not implicitly endorse the photo that is currently in the article.

Does all of that make sense? Gohome00 (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is anywhere near sufficient evidence to claim that the photo is doctored. The image taken by the reporter was clearly taken at a different time, possibly before the sign was fully set up, or after it had started to fall apart. It was also taken from a different angle. The combination of those two factors make it very very weak evidence for doctoring of the "official" photo. Powers ^T 14:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

See, this is my point - I am not trying to "prove" that the pic was doctored. I am not Errol Morris and wikipedia isn't the forum for that. However, there is a) credible suggestion from other sources that the picture is doctored and b) certainty that the only source for the picture is a source with a vested interest in making the whole thing "look good." If the pic's uploader is challenged, s/he can just claim to be a neutral third party source. By keeping this photo in place despite those factors, wikipedia is implicitly endorsing one side of a conflict that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon unless the washington post takes a sudden interest in the topic.

Also, I don't disagree with you per se, but we are both engaging in guesswork. It looks clear to me that it's doctored; it looks clear to you that the other picture might be taken at a different time, and you are guessing as to the context and timeline (as, in a way, am I.) This is why I think the picture should just go altogether, since external sources cited in the article can give readers the chance to judge for themselves if they choose. Gohome00 (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

But I don't one person's claim that the photo was doctored is enough to justify removing the image. Anyone could make that claim about any photo on Wikipedia. Maybe the difference is "credibility", but that's subjective, and I don't really find the claim particularly credible in this case. Others may disagree, of course. For now, the most I would do is specify in the caption that the image was released by the pranksters and not an independent documentation of the event. Powers ^T 23:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

How do I edit the very first paragraph?

Hi,

At Ernest Clark's page, it says, "Ernest Clark (12 February 1912, London – 11 November 1994) was an British actor of stage, television and film.". Well, it should be "...a British..." as it is a consonant.

How do I do this?

Also, how do I add pictures to this first paragraph? I see many entries with no pictures.

Thanks. Harry Musicollector (talk) 00:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• Hi there Musicollector. To be able to edit intro to articles, simply click the edit this page tab located all the way at the top of the page. Click here for a tutorial on how to work with images. Best of luck! --Neon Sky (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Pictures in the first paragraph are often part of an infobox. If you want to add a picture to an infobox then you have to do it with parameters to the infobox. You can click "edit this page", look for the name of the infobox at top of the edit box, and then look for a link to the infobox page at the bottom of the window. There is often documentation for image parameters on the infobox page. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

ATTN, Neon Sky and PrimeHunter.

Have a great day!

Harry
http://harry.cckerala.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicollector (talk • contribs) 23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

What to do when I forgot to sign using four tildes?

Often times, I will forget to sign using four tildes, after editing the Talk Page. What should I do when this happens? Should I undo my own edit or delete my reply, and reply again (re-reply, if you will)? (almost forgot to sign again, :) )Pagen HD (talk) 01:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Just edit your message to add your sig. If the bot has already autosigned for you, you can leave it or delete the bot's sig and sign it. – ukexpat (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify that there is an automated bot which goes through periodically to update missing signatures on talk pages. If you realize you forgot, feel free to go back and add it, as it is very, very helpful. But if you completely forget and never re-add it, there is no need to really stress, as the bot does a really good job. Tiggerjay (talk) 02:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Making an article live

I just moved my article from my user page to what I thought was live Wikipedia by getting rid of 'User/Sputtnik', but can't find it in 'search'. Looks like I simply renamed the article. Could someone please help here. Also am confused about 'fixing' redirects and double redirects when article is moved. Thanks. Sputtnik (talk) 03:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

If you're talking about John Biddle (yachting cinematographer), it's right there. Our search engine is underpowered, so don't rely on it. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

If you click 'What links here' from the toolbox on the left, it will show you all links to the current page, including those via a redirect. Ideally, you will visit each of the articles which references it via a redirect and edit them to link direct to the article. It may or may not be desirable to delete the redirect page itself: see WP:rfd. --ColinFine (talk) 08:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"Moving" and "renaming" a Wikipedia page is two words for exactly the same. You did it right. Wikipedia's search function takes time to update. See Wikipedia:Searching#Delay in updating the search index. Until then you can only get directly to the article via the search box if you enter the complete exact title. External search engines will index the page when their web crawlers discover it, usually within a few days for Google. The disambiguation page John Biddle is updated manually and I have added a link to John Biddle (yachting cinematographer). Your move meant that User:Sputtnik/John Biddle (yachting cinematographer) redirected to John Biddle (yachting cinematographer). Userspace should normally not redirect to articles and I have disabled the redirect. If you don't plan to use the page more then you can request deletion of it with {{Db-u1}} PrimeHunter (talk) 11:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

loading a page

Hello I just cant seem to find out how I can start my own page about something. I want to write about a person in our community who is high profile in the philanthropic field. How can i do that!?? Thanks Luisa —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luisa SDC Williams (talk • contribs) 06:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I recommend starting your article as a userspace draft- see Help:Userspace draft. After you're finished and feel the article is ready to be made public, ask for feedback at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback where an experienced editor will give you advice about how to improve your article so that it is ready for Wikipedia. Once you've finished the suggestions, you can move the article from your user space into article space.

Before writing an article on a living person though, make sure to read Wikipedia's policy on living people. Also, check to see if the subject is Wikipedia-notable and merits an article by making sure he or she meets one of the guidlines listed at WP:PEOPLE. Good luck! Liquidluck✽talk 06:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

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

Thank you.

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 with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

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

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at 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. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 16:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Officical company content

I am the Web Editor at a company and we wish to update the article referring to us. It contains out-of-date (and therefore incorrect) information posted by an employee who is no longer with the company. It also would benefit from more in-depth and useful content.

I have tried to edit the page previously but after a few weeks it reverted back to its current content.

As an official representative of the company, how can I ensure that content updates made by myself are kept live on the site?

194.200.154.253 (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I cannot see any cases in the page's history of your edits being reverted by another user or IP, either way you shouldn't be editing article's with which you are affiliated with the subject thereof. See WP:COI. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 14:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Nobody owns an article and nobody can ensure their edits stay. Official representatives have a conflict of interest which gives them less right to edit an article. See Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations. I wonder whether the employee who made this grossly inappropriate edit from your company IP address is still with the company. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit summary

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 16:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to change edit summary? If it is possible, how should I do it? WP:Dummy edit wasn't helpful enough. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 13:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

No, edit summaries cannot be changed. Above the edit summary field there is a link to Help:Edit summary. See Help:Edit summary#Fixing. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've looked at them before, but Help:Edit summary#fixing says that edit summary can be corrected. Can you explain this sentence a bit thoroughly In the case of important omissions or errors in the edit summary, you can make a dummy edit just to put the correction in the edit summary.? Thanks. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 14:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This sentence is reffering to the process of explaining a recent previous correction or edit made to an article in the edit summary. Example. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 14:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I've rewritten the sentence in Help:Edit summary, which should hopefully avoid future confusion. TNXMan 14:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for helping. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 15:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Linking to foreign wikis with the same article name

I just realized what these commands [[fr:Nicolas Bachelier]] [[de:Nicolas Bachelier]] do. They link to French and Deutch articles of the same title e.g. Nicolas Bachelier. Is there an efficient way to find out of if there is an article of the same title in other wikis?. This would allow me to load the tags when I create the file. Or, is it best to wait for a bot to search out the new files? GloverEpp (talk) 14:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The links are not necessarily supposed to link to articles with the same title, but about the same subject. This has been (and continues to be?) a real problem with disambiguation, where different wikis choose a different person/place/etc to be the primary topic for the same name. As to your question, does googling for the name with site:wikipedia.org help? Jan1naD ^{(talk • contrib)} 14:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

And this is why some interwiki bots don't apply the links themselves until after they have been suggested for users to approve via the InterWiki Link Checker and the amount of 'yes' votes reaches a certain threshold. Nanonic (talk) 14:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Finding my page

Resolved

 – Mysdaao ^talk 15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I have written an article, but when I search for a main part of that page I get nothing. Should I copy the new page as new pages at all of these locations, or is there a way to redirect the search? E.g. I want a search of Bolton Show to bring up the article on Leverhulme park. Fly by Night (talk) 14:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search index is not always updated with new articles immediately. It is typically updated once a day, so if it not in the search results by now, it will be shortly. You can read Wikipedia:Searching#Delay in updating the search index for this information.

You can create a redirect from Bolton Show to Leverhulme Park so people searching for "Bolton Show" will be taken to the article on Leverhulme Park. To do this, click the red link Bolton Show, add only #REDIRECT [[Leverhulme Park]], and save the page. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I've just done that and look: the red link is blue. When I type Bolton Show I get Leverhulme Park. Thanks very much. Fly by Night (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! --Mysdaao ^talk 15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a template like this?

The German Wikipedia has a template, that is put in the lead-section and says "Some important facts are not covered by the article. Please help by providing facts on..." Is there a template like this in case of the English Wikipedia? Thanks.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The closest template on the English Wikipedia that I know of is {{missing information}}. If that's not what you're looking for, you can search through all the template messages found on Wikipedia:Template messages. If you tell us the name of the template, or an article that uses it, on the German Wikipedia, that might help. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is the template. I think it comes close to the one suggested by you. Thanks.-- Greatgreenwhale (talk) 15:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

On the left side of Vorlage:Lückenhaft, you can see an interlanguage link to Template:Incomplete, so whomever added that link thinks {{incomplete}} is the equivalent on the English Wikipedia. --Mysdaao ^talk 15:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Editing articles

Hi, I am looking at an article of an artist whom I was manager of. There are corrections that need to be made and I wanted to find out the following:

1) Can I edit them and will they be visible to others worldwide? 2) Can I add new entries to the database and will they be visible by other users around the world? 3) Can anyone edit an article, and if so, what would stop people from putting false information in there?

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.194.66.126 (talk) 15:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be better to point out the errors on the article's talk page, or here - if you have reliable sources that confirm the facts you offer, they'll be added to the article. I'd be mindful of our conflict of interest policy, though, as it's someone you've been involved with in the past. As to your questions, 1) Yes, you can make edits and they will be visible worldwide. Until you are a logged in user with a certain number of edits, though, your ability to edit certain articles may be limited. 2) Once you are an autoconfirmed user, you can create articles - but, again, be mindful of our policies before jumping in. Your First Article may be a helpful page. 3) By rule, edits must provide verifiable information backed by reliable sources - if an edit doesn't do that, it will likely be removed once it's noticed. This is doubly true for articles about living persons. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

In addition to noting that any information you add needs to have a verifiable source, you should note that the same is true for what exists there already. If there are parts you find inaccurate that aren't sourced you are welcome to remove them. Chris M. (talk) 18:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Page error

I didnt know where to put this, but [[3]] Has an error. Look at the bottom, the red lines are off.Accdude92 (talk to me!) 17:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. For some reason the last row (episode) is put inside a separate <table> which doesn't have the 'wikitable' class, instead of being inside the <table class='wikitable'> with all the rest. No idea why: I can't see anything obviously wrong in the markup (but I haven't delved into the template). --ColinFine (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've fixed it. Don't ask me how, though. Algebraist 19:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That's interesting. I was trying to fix it by removing the bullets, but your fix worked somehow. It seems that when the last line in the ShortSummary field of {{Episode list}} contains a bullet (*), then the remaining episodes in the table don't display properly. I thought the only solution was to remove them, but you found a better way. Thank you. --Mysdaao ^talk 19:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

awareness ribbons

What color awareness ribbon would be used for ALS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.46.46 (talk) 17:28, 22 January 2010 (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. – ukexpat (talk) 17:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A quick search on Google for ALS ribbon shows many ribbons raising awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis that have blue and white stripes because Lou Gehrig played for the New York Yankees. --Mysdaao ^talk 17:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Download of all Wikipedia Templates

I am working with a wiki I have setup on my own site using the WikiMedia engine. I have the wiki running and am starting to run into issues where I would really like to follow the "big dogs" and use Wikipedia Templating for my articles, however, I can't seem to find anyway to download all of the templates in one go... or even instructions on how to download categories of templates?! I've spent a good three weeks researching via Google and here on Wikipedia / Media / all the other branches. I've found plenty of broken links, and when visiting the download.wikimedia.org site, if I go to the Dumps the links will not pull up a downloadable file?! I know how to Special:Export and Special:Import, but I can't seem to add a single entry via the form on Wikipedia. Can someone help point me in the right direction?! Thanks! Quando Omni Flunkis Moritati - ( When all else fails, play dead ) (talk) 19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The technical section of the Village Pump may be the best place to ask. – ukexpat (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Templates make the difference between a bare-bones wiki vs. a wiki that is fun to edit on. Porting templates is a big problem when you start a new wiki. You almost certainly do not want to download all templates from the English Wikipedia. Many of them would not be appropriate for another wiki at all, since they are Wikipedia-specific. Others would not work the way you want without extensive editing by someone who understands template programming. Therefore one key to your wiki's success is to find and recruit users who are template programmers now, or who can learn quickly. Remember that wikis are collaborative - if you can't find collaborators, your project won't get far. You probably only really need a set of customized templates that corresponds to just a tiny subset of all templates on Wikipedia. I suggest you look around at wikis that are similar to what you want to create and study their templates. Many small wikis out there have smaller sets of templates that would be more tractable as starting points for developing your own templates. Also note that when you copy templates from Wikipedia or any other site with the same or a similar free content license, you must display a link back to the original source. Naturally the most convenient way to do this is to make a set of attribution templates for linking to the sites you copy from. For example see how Appropedia does it at Appropedia:Template:From Wikipedia. Other tips: when you port templates to another wiki, they may require some features on the target wiki to be the same as on the source wiki. This includes:

• The MediaWiki version. The target wiki should be running the same version of MediaWiki, or at least close.
• MediaWiki extensions. Many templates depend on various extensions. Check the Special:Version pages on the source and target wikis to see what extensions they have.
• External software. Some templates on Wikipedia may (unwisely) depend on things like HTML Tidy that may not be running on the target wiki.
• CSS style classes. Check the MediaWiki:Common.css pages on both wikis to make sure you have all the classes your templates are trying to use.
• Subpages in namespaces. Some templates (e.g. {{Documentation}}) assume the existence of subpages in some namespaces. You will get strange results on the target wiki if you haven't implemented subpages in the same namespaces as the source wiki.
• External tools. Some templates link to programs on the Toolserver that might only work for Wikimedia Foundation projects, I think. E.g., {{Coord}}.
• Other templates. Many templates on Wikipedia transclude other templates, which transclude still more templates, etc. This is why you might naively wish to export all the templates in one shot. If only that would work. Unfortunately, you will have to port templates one at a time, picking your way through all the template dependencies and getting them to work on the target wiki too. Wikipedia's templates tend to be highly abstracted, because Wikipedia is so huge. The same level of template abstraction would almost certainly be overkill on a small wiki. (If the previous two sentences do not make sense to you, then you may be in over head.)

If you find a simple way to port templates between wikis, please document your tricks so other MediaWiki sysops can benefit. As you may have guessed, I am just now porting a starter set of templates to a new wiki I am developing. --Teratornis (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to mention:

• Files. Many templates on Wikipedia display images, and obviously the target wiki needs the same images to display them. Even if you could export all of Wikipedia's templates, many would display red links until you exported all the necessary images too.

--Teratornis (talk) 20:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

And see Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki. Maybe someday there will be template "packs" for easy exporting to other MediaWiki wikis. --Teratornis (talk) 07:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

w and p

what does lowercase 'p and w indicate', by multiple pressing of "*" key on mobile phones? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.40.15 (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 19:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Search Wikipedia with Google for: mobile phone keypad - this might give some clues. See for example Telephone keypad and Predictive text. --Teratornis (talk) 20:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

If you use a mobile phone without a sim card in it, you can enter certain strings into the phone to find out information on the phones settings etc. E.g on a Nokia phone you can enter #pw+1234567890+2 to find the Network lock status, the pw entries are also used for removing SIM locks on some phones. Nanonic (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Asian Glory

Dear Sirs, Have You any information about actual situation with m/v "asian Glory", UK flag, which was seized on 01 Jan 2010? This is the father of one of crewmembers asking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.124.37.42 (talk) 21:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

See MV Asian Glory for our article on the subject. In the future, you should ask fact questions on the WP:RD - this help desk is for questions on how to use Wikipedia. I would recommend http://news.google.com for searching recent news articles. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Article deleted but nothing in delete log

My article Dry Rot Treatment that I uploaded on 10 January has disappeared from Wikipedia. I have checked the deletion log but there is no record. What is going on?

EricPolymath (talk) 23:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It appears to have been redirected. Is this the page in question? TNXMan 23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at this link [4]. First, another editor moved it to correct the capitalization, then someone else changed it to redirect to a section of another article which already existed. Hope this helps. DuncanHill (talk) 23:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Why has this happened and what can I do about it? EricPolymath (talk) 23:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The change of capitalization was normal and in line with Wikipedia style. You can ask the editor who changed it into a redirect by going to his talk page at User talk:DoriSmith. DuncanHill (talk) 00:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

At the time I saw it, the article looked like this. Most of it was a how-to ("Orthodox Treatment for Dry Rot", "Environmental Treatment of Dry Rot") followed by a critique of one treatment approach but not the other ("Criticisms of the Orthodox Approach"). Given that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide and that the article appeared to have a WP:NPOV issue and that we already had an article on Dry rot containing a section on treatment, it seemed natural to make it a redirect. Nothing has disappeared and nothing has been deleted, so no need to worry there. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 03:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you please explain your statement that “nothing has disappeared and nothing has been deleted”? If someone searches on Wikipedia for dry rot then my article is no longer returned, therefore I would class that as “disappeared”.

To respond to your comments about the article itself, firstly I would point out that it is essentially an extract from my final year dissertation for my building surveying degree course. If the way that I tackled this subject was lacking in academic rigour then I am sure that my tutors would have pointed this out at the time.

In your opinion what I have written is not from a neutral point of view. I would respond that in order to present a balanced-sounding comparison of the treatment methods I have deliberately left out a considerable amount of relevant material from the “Criticisms of the Orthodox Approach” section. Some of the criticisms by the published experts on the way that chemical-based timber treatments are implemented in practice are, to say the least, harsh and I felt that, if included, could make the article sound like an all-out attack on the UK remedial timber treatment industry.

It is true to say that there is no “Criticisms of the Environmental Approach” section. This is simply because I have been unable to find any published material anywhere (let alone in a peer-reviewed academic publication) that claims that the environmental approach is in anyway less effective or desirable than the orthodox.

You allege that I have produced a “how to guide”. I do not see how it is possible to compare the relative merits of two processes without describing what those processes are.

I believe that the information concerning dry rot treatment in the article to which searches are now directed is of questionable value. For example, I do not claim to be an expert on mycology but I cannot see how “epoxy treatments that kill rot by filling in the channels of the damaged wood” can possibly work. If such treatments are available why did I not find reference to them during the research for my dissertation or why did the lecturers at the university not point out such an omission when reviewing my dissertation? I would also point to the lack of references quoted for that section of the article.

Finally I would make the point that I am more than willing to discuss constructive criticism of my article with anyone. For example the question as to why there is no “Criticisms of the Environmental Approach” section is a valid point. However I do take exception to having my work deleted by someone who does not have the courtesy to give me the chance to respond to their criticisms beforehand.

EricPolymath (talk) 10:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If it's from your final year dissertation for my building surveying degree course surely it's original research - isn't that was dissertations are supposed to be? – ukexpat (talk) 16:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No. In UK universities original research is expressly banned from dissertations. A dissertation is an academic review of current knowledge. Original research would appear in a thesis produced by someone working towards a PhD. EricPolymath (talk) 17:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite prepared to accept that, when preparing your dissertation, you were instructed not to introduce original research, but this is far from a universal rule for dissertations in the UK. At the department where I work, undergraduate dissertations are expected to include original research, and for master's dissertations, it is pretty much essential. Warofdreams talk 02:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• I used "deleted" the way it's used here on Wikipedia: in reference to articles that can be (and often are) deleted. When you said you thought your article had been deleted, I assumed that that was what you were referring to.

  The problems with the original article become more clear now that you say it was part of a dissertation. As such, I think it fairly clearly falls into the policy Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal—Wikipedia simply isn't the place for (re-)publishing research papers or academic work. If you follow that link, though, you'll find a number of links to places that may be appropriate.

  And finally, if you believe that there are errors in a current article, go fix them! Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 21:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

January 23

Shabazz

How can the name Warrior Shabazz be added to the list of information on the name Shabazz?

MR Cooper Ali- Shabazz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.77.166.56 (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Presumably you refer to the Shabazz disamguation page. We add entries to the page that correspond to articles on the English Wikipedia. So really you are asking how to create an article about whatever person or group of people you refer to by "Warrior Shabazz". What is that? --Teratornis (talk) 01:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

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

It appears that you may be wanting to create a page or entry with a subject that you may have a direct conflict of interest with. Please see WP:COI for more info. Tiggerjay (talk) 02:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Article title in italics

The title of Deflexae is appearing in italics. I suppose this has to do with formatting that happened at the time the article was created, although I've never seen wiki markup in page titles before, and it certainly isn't standard for titles of pages on species or taxa to be italicized. I tried moving it to the same title, hoping that would undo the formatting, but I could not do this. I considered userfying it and then moving it back, but thought that this probably would not be possible because the original page would still exist, with whatever title formatting it had previously. One solution would be for someone to move the article into userspace (User:Opus 113/Deflexae, for example), have an administrator delete the redirect at Deflexae, move the page back, and have an admin delete the user subpage, but this would require help from an administrator. If any admin wants to do this, or anyone knows another way to solve the problem, either let me know or go ahead and fix it.--Opus 113 (talk) 03:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

This is part of the intended behaviour of {{taxobox}}. See the documentation. Algebraist 03:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems that it is. Thank you for letting me know. In checking whether it was standard for taxa, I just looked at Australopithecus and Campephilus, neither of which is formatted this way, and checked the MOS and naming conventions, which had nothing on the topic as far as I could tell.--Opus 113 (talk) 03:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting). --Mysdaao ^talk 04:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding article names, see also the last paragraph of Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Special characters and formatting. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

How/when will my article be published?

I have created an article more than a week ago, and yet it doesnt seem to have been published. How do I upload/publish my article to public wikipedia users? and how will I know that I am an autoconfirmed user? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alsharawy (talk • contribs) 09:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Your article is still in your userspace, at User:Alsharawy/International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation. It is "published" by moving it to Wikipedia's main article space. You can do this yourself - see Help:Moving a page - or you can request another editor to move it for you - see Wikipedia:Requested moves (I see you have already posted a request there). The criteria for becoming an autoconfirmed user are explained at WP:AUTOCONFIRM. However, before moving your article to the main article space, I suggest you ask for feedback on it at Wikipedia:Requests for feedback. At the moment, it does not appear to demonstrate the notability of its subject - see our policy on notability at WP:NOTE for more information. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Your first article. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

And more specifically WP:CORP and WP:FAQO. – ukexpat (talk) 16:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Development-induced Displacement and Rehabilitation in India

Dear Sir, Can I send some of my published books/articles on the above subject for the readers on your web page? Thanks and regards.

Balgovind Baboo —Preceding unsigned comment added by BALGOVIND BABOO (talk • contribs) 09:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid you cannot, as Wikipedia is not a primary source and does not publish primary sources. If you have expertise in this area, you are very welcome to contribute to existing articles on the subject, or create new Wikipedia articles if appropriate. But please note that articles in Wikipedia must be fully referenced from reliable sources, must not contain original research, and must be written in a neutral and encyclopaedic style. Self-published works are not usually acceptable as sources, but if your books and articles have been published by reputable publishers or in refereed journals, they may certainly be used as references in Wikipedia articles. --ColinFine (talk) 12:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleting my own uploaded photos

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 18:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

How can I delete photos that I myself created and uploaded? eu.stefan (talk) 10:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Only administrators can delete. You can request deletion by placing {{db-g7}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, thank you. eu.stefan (talk) 13:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Overriding template link format

Hi, I am trying to include this image from the Commons in this article on Christabel Bielenberg. The template {{Infobox writer}} automatically adds the word 'Image' before the filename. There also appears to be a naming conflict with Bielenberg.jpg. Can anyone help? Orthorhombic (talk) 16:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Image: is equivalent to File:. Some infoboxes automatically add one of them. It doesn't matter which is used, just omit it when the corresponding parameter is assigned. The English Wikipedia has File:Bielenberg.jpg. Then an image by the same name at Commons cannot be displayed. You can reupload Commons:File:Bielenberg.jpg under another name. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Or just request either one of them is moved. The {{rename media}} template can be used for that on either Wikipedia or Commons. Or just ask an administrator directly. I have now moved the image that was here on the English Wikipedia, to the more descriptive name File:Bielenberg Sports Complex, Woodbury, Minnesota.jpg and requested the file on Commons to be moved to a more descriptive name as well. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

How to suppress interwiki links?

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones should not be a link to Wikiquote, but to a Wikipedia page starting with "Q:". How to do this?--Oneiros (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You'll have to use a different title, according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Colons. Algebraist 19:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.--Oneiros (talk) 19:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

January 24

How do I use IRC?

Hi. When I tried to log into IRC, I could only see my own posts and not those of other users, and my IP address was still unhidden. What can I do to fix this, and actually communicate with other users? Do I have to request an account in order to have my IP hidden? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 00:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You haven't said what client you're using to access IRC, or what commands you're giving that client, so I can't give any specific advice. The tutorial may be of use. If nothing else, it explains how, once you have IRC working, you can get a cloak to hide your IP address. Algebraist 01:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I am using Internet Explorer and typing in a nickname to access IRC. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Typing in a nickname where? Algebraist 01:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

In the nickname bar, of course. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

What nickname bar? Algebraist 01:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

AstroHurricane001, Internet Explorer doesn't support IRC natively, this is why Algebraist and myself and no doubt others have no idea what you're talking about. IRC is usually accessed using a standalone program or via an applet in a webpage and there are many many many different programs and methods for accessing the chat, some of the more popular ones are linked in the handy 'How to get into Wikipedia IRC' tutorial that Algebraist linked. Nanonic (talk) 01:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I went onto IRC here, for example. On my browser, a window simply pops up with no restrictions asking for a nickname. That's where I entered it. ~AH1^(TCU) 02:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Right. That link takes you to the #wikipedia-en channel, which nonregistered IRC users aren't allowed in at the moment. Go there and type "/join #wikipedia-en-help" to go to the wikipedia help channel. Then we can see if your setup's working and answer any other IRC questions you have. Algebraist 02:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Stirrups

Discussion moved

 – to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Equine#Stirrups – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Stirrups.

English riding stirrups have generic and specific names. These names are recognized, not by their commercial value, but by the recognition of the general public, retail and wholesale tack outlets, and equestrian writers past and present.

My invention is of an English riding stirrup that allows the stirrup to be set at a traditional angle as well as a 45 and 90 degree position. As this type of stirrup is patented in the United States, Europe and Australia, no one can copy or duplicate this design. The name of this unique stirrup is the MDC Intelligent Stirrup.

This name is as accepted as a Peacock Stirrup, an Icelandic Stirrup or another other historically named stirrup, some of which are included in the Stirrup article on Wikipedia.

The editor of the stirrup page considers the name as commercial, while I contest that the stirrup he / she describes can only be called by its name, which is MDC Intelligent Stirrup. I edit, they delete my edit continually.

Can someone assist in resolving this debate so that my invention's name can remain on the stirrup page?

We are a part of invention, part of change and a part of history. We have a specific and unique name and want that name to be addressed.

My background includes over 36 years as an equine professional, two time Olympic Games judge and college lecturer on horses, bits and stirrups.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdcohen (talk • contribs) 00:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Question was posted to WikiProject Equine, and the discussion continues there. Montanabw^(talk) 03:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Could someone link this for the OP as well as for other readers? Thanks Bielle (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Equine#Stirrups. – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, ukexpat. I have taken note of the syntax so that I can do it myself next time. Bielle (talk) 17:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Referencing an article on es.wikipedia from en.wikipedia

I am writing an article on en.wikipedia and want to reference an article on es.wikipedia, but when I put the article name in double brackets, it shows up red as being not found. The es.wikipedia article is marked as orphaned, because no articles link to it. I'm trying to! How do I do it?

Thanks, oneroomschool

Oneroomschool (talk) 04:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

not sure that would be considers a good references..but -->

i.e [[:es:wikipedia:Portada]]= es:wikipedia:Portada
Buzzzsherman (talk) 04:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Links to articles in projects in other languajes must be included only as interwikis. You can't make inside an article a link to an article from another project, nor try to include here redirects to there. If there's an article here, link, if there isn't, leave a red link; but if you manage well with boths languajes, it would be better if you translate the article (or at least create a stub) and give it the needed interwikis (you can copy & paste them, and add the one to spanish, interwikis to third projects are written the same way) MBelgrano (talk) 04:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Links to articles in projects in other languajes [sic] must be included only as interwikis - where is the policy/guideline that says that? Sure, you cannot use Wikipedia articles in other languages as references, but I have seen plenty of inline "coloned" interlanguage links. – ukexpat (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ukexpat — while they're rare, you'll run across inline links to other Wikipedias (if we didn't have an article on Indian God Rock, it wouldn't be altogether unusual for a related article to reference the German article with words such as "Western Pennsylvania is the location of Indian God Rock.") that look exactly like links to articles at en:wp except for their slightly different color. I know that I've never seen any policy against that. However, be careful about referencing: Wikipedia doesn't qualify under the reliable source standards, so don't use the Spanish Wikipedia for a citation. Nyttend (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

reverse colors in table

The black and white colors in the table at World Chess Championship 1987 are reversed. I changed all blacks to white and vice versa, but it didn't work. It made everything black on white. I don't see why it didn't work. Why didn't that work? Bubba73 ^{(You talking to me?)}, 05:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Bubba73 ^{(You talking to me?)}, 05:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for page moved to incubator

I've just created the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MULTICUBE. It is telling me that there is a problem since I have copied sentences from a website, but this is the official website of the product and then I'm not violating any copyright policy. If I've to change then I'm going to re-adapt the content soon. Right now I'm going to ask an administrator to move the page under the wikipedia incubator.

Best Stefano Magnonis (talk) 10:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you should read up about what copyright is. You are DEFINITELY violating copyright, you should just write the article in your own words. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm working for them, I'm not stealing contents. Rather than have it deleted can I've it moved to the Article incubator where together with the project owner we will improve it? I've already sent an email at permissions-en‐at‐wikimedia.org to specify that I have permission from the author.

Magnonis (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a question of whether you have permission. It is a question of whether the copyright holder (who may be the author, but might be somebody else, especially in a corporate context) explicitly grants one of the specific kinds of license which Wikipedia requires. --19:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Pics

Resolved

 – Thanks for the explanations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Fenway Park

Wrigley Field

Busch Stadium

Other than using the "gallery" feature, is there any way to post 3 pictures in a straight line across the page? I specify "left" and "right" for the outer ones, and that works fine. But if I put one in between, specifying "center", the 3 pictures "stairstep" rather than lining up left-to-right, no matter how small I make them (see above). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You could use the templates {{Gallery}}, {{Multiple image}} and {{Triple image}}, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. ≈ Chamal ^talk ¤ 09:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Revised question and example, above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No this is not possible with any of the default wikicode. It CAN be done with pure HTML and CSS (though not all browsers will support it). But most importantly; Why would you ever want to do that ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

So I can put 3 pictures in a straight line on my userpage. Evidently I would have to use some variant of the gallery feature to make it work. If that's the case, then so be it. I just don't understand why 2 pictures will work and 3 won't.

Aha! I just did another test (not shown here), and it seems as if left and right will work together, and center will only work as a standalone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

New username does not allow me to upload photos or see my previous contributions

Since my username was changed, I cannot see the photo I uploaded with my previous username or upload a new photo. What should I do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjh134 (talk • contribs) 13:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems you simply registered a new account. As far as I can see your useraccount was not actually 'changed'. What was your old account ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why you are having trouble seeing photographs, but the reason you cannot upload one is because your account in not yet autoconfirmed. Make seven more edits and that problem goes away.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to commons:File:French ePassport.JPG? That was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and not to the English Wikipedia although it can be displayed here. Commons allows upload right away and has separate logs from the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

adam lambert

How often do you update music sales. Adam's has been the same for over a month. I know the numbers are incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.80.186.42 (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source why don't you update them? Teapotgeorge^Talk 14:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

An article is updated when one of the millions of volunteers who edit Wikipedia decides that it can usefully be updated, and does so. If any information they add is referenced from a reliable source, their edit stands a good chance of being retained rather than reversed. --ColinFine (talk) 19:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia query information

Hello, my name is Nigel and I am a game design student. I am currently working on a research paper and one of the points I wanted to bring up was the percentage of searches in your site were related to finding information regarding video games. Is there any way to accomplish this? Thank you for your time. <<redacted>> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.191.42 (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It does not seem feasible to me to identify those search queries that relate to video games, from all the others. And even if it is. I believe search behavior is not something that Wikipedia keeps statistics on. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Please do not add contact information here. We are not able to respond directly to you. All responses will be made on this page. ~~ GB fan ~~ ^talk 14:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Each page has a link under the history tab that gives the number of views like http://stats.grok.se/en/201001/Wikipedia:Help_desk MilborneOne (talk) 15:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Be aware that Wikipedia has transwikied a lot of game-related content to alternative outlets such as StrategyWiki. See WP:NOTGUIDE. People who search for video game information on Wikipedia will only find a tiny subset of the game-related collaboratively-edited content on the Web. Many of those searchers could be looking in the wrong place, especially if they are looking for cheats, guides, or other detailed information Wikipedia excludes. And just to endorse TheDJ's observation above, even if you had a complete record of all the search keywords Wikipedia visitors have typed, how could you determine the intent of every searcher from mere keywords? There are many possible search keywords that could indicate a search for a game, or just as plausibly a search for something else that uses the same terms. There is no box for the user to check which says "I am searching for a game." --Teratornis (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Suspicious edit

Receiver operating characteristic article - I found suspicious edits by user Biostusa (who did no other contributions). What should I do? To whom can i report my suspitions in the future? (links to particular guidelines would be helpful..) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2aprilboy (talk • contribs) 17:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

All the edits seem to have done is exchanged a reference to a website by a reference to a book: the title of the book is not obviously related to the subject matter, but one of its authors is cited elsewhere in the article. (I have edited to correct the template formatting only).

Your first step should be to engage with Biostusa either on the article's talk page or own their user talk page. If you have reason to believe that the book they have cited is inappropriate, you can revert their edit, but in any case you should open a discussion with them (since this is not simply obvious vandalism). If they do not reply, or if they simply reapply your edit without engaging in discussion, then you should read WP:dispute resolution. --ColinFine (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Link to viamontenapoleone.org - Via Montenapoleone site

Hello,

I added the link to the site of the street and this has been removed. It seems to me that if a street has its own site it is natural and useful to display the link. Let's consider also that viamontenapoleone.org is an informationional site and institutional one. It is also a nonsense to delete this link that is about a community since, for example, in Weekepedia we find the links to the site of commercial companies that have their store in Via Montenapoleone such as Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren...or not?

Kind Regards Erodoto —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erodoto (talk • contribs) 18:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Who the proprietor of the site is, is irrelevant. As soon as you go to it it is obvious that the link was linkspam. --ColinFine (talk) 20:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

submitting an article

I can not find where I to submit an article. Will you please inform me where and how to submit my article. I have searched through all our topics and have asked the question on the help site but can not find the instructions. Chen Xiaohui1967 (talk) 18:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

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

Thank you.

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 with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

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

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at 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. An Article Wizard is available to walk you through creating an article. – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

posting new article on wikipedia

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I wrote the article 3 days back. but it still does not show up in wikipedia searches. how do i get the article uploaded? Completeinfo (talk) 18:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest you to read Wikipedia:Your first article first - User:Completeinfo/Getit was not created in the main namespace, so it is not an "article", but a "user page"... —2aprilboy (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The draft has been speedily deleted as blatant advertising.  – ukexpat (talk) 15:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Contract document between a seller (merchant) and factor

Where can I find a typical blank contract document that a seller must sign in order to get his invoice(s) handled by a factor. Also, where can I find the language of the stamp that the factors place on the seller's invoice (indicating that this invoice belongs to the factor) before presenting them to the customers ?

Thank you.

KB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.22.137 (talk) 20:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This page is for questions about using Wikipedia. Please consider asking this question at the Wikipedia: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. --Mysdaao ^talk 22:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you do post the question at the reference desk, I strongly suggest that you say what country or jurisdiction you are in: this may have a strong bearing on the answer. --ColinFine (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

But also note that we cannot give legal advice. – ukexpat (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Tools for browsing article histories

Are there any readily available tools to browse article history(comparing consecutive edits) so that minor edits and those made by bots would be excluded? MarkkuP (talk) 21:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if this is any help, but if you were interested in a particular article, you could create a sock account (read WP:SOCK first) and put that page on your sock's watchlist. Then, from your sock account, select My preferences --> Watchlist, and check the boxes for hiding minor edits and bot edits. Your sock account's watchlist would then show non-minor, non-bot edits in the history of that article. You'd be limited to the last 7 days, though :-( Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

See WP:EIW#History. --Teratornis (talk) 19:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

WP Admins: Does my contribution have any problem with WP policy?

To WP Administrators: My contribution (already done) is a half sentence added at the end of the first paragraph of the section Customs relating to maiden names in marriages in the WP article "Married and maiden names", namely: ..... "; or for a further, more interesting treatment see this .pdf article on this website." This half sentence is followed by this reference, in single quotes, 'http://www.invisibleinkfreelance.com/articles.html Then, at the bottom of this webpage's righthand column, click on the link "Article: Matriname", in order to receive and read the .pdf file "Matriname".'

The external link above is a private person's business webpage – Does this cause a problem in WP?

I would like to help WP readers by repeating this information in the External Links section of this WP article (already done, of course, so you can see it for yourself). Does this repeating cause a problem in WP?

Naturally I've already checked WP Policy, especially Content Policy, and found no problem. I'll modify or remove my contribution, whatever is recommended to me by you WP experts, hopefully later today. (I would not go to this much trouble except for an article which is truly excellent, in my opinion.) Thank you very much for your kind help in this matter. For7thGen (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. It does not appear to comply with the policies regarding externl links. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

January 25

Vandalism not affecting page display?

Resolved

 – Mysdaao ^talk 13:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Compare the display of this edit to the display of the current version of the article, List of National Historic Landmarks in Vermont. You'll notice that the box in the top left corner of the table is a different color, but why don't we see the text added by the vandal? Of course I'm not trying to vandalise more effectively :-) I simply want to understand better why the broken template doesn't display as normal text. Nyttend (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think your describing two different things. With regards to the #1 box looking a different color, it has to do with the template:

! {{NRHPlegend|NHLD|1}}

versus what was used for the other ones:

! {{NRHPlegend|NHL|2}}
! {{NRHPlegend|NHL|3}}

as for the vandal edit, I don't think they intended to mess specifically with the table in a specific way, but were just performing random vandalism. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

The text entered in this edit didn't display in the article because it was added to part of table for the style, not the text. When defining the headers, the style options go first after the !, and text goes after the |. The vandal changed the color by removing the last } from {{NHL color}}, but the change wasn't in the right place to affect the displayed text of the table. See this example for how style formatting of a table's headers work. --Mysdaao ^talk 01:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense to me; I've never quite understood how tables here work (this table and similar ones for other US states' lists of National Historic Landmarks were placed by other people), so I couldn't imagine why the text wouldn't appear in this box as it would if I typed it into the leftmost column of a lower line; e.g. type some text between the right braces of the NRHPlegend template in a lower line, and it will display the text. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 05:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I was only trying to ask one thing: I've worked enough with these tables that I knew that removing the template would make the color default to a whitish shade (the only reason that I mentioned it was so that you'd know I hadn't forgotten about it!), so all I was wondering about was the way that the random text didn't show. Nyttend (talk) 05:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

How do I merge two accounts?

I began editing Wikipedia pages before I had an account. The history of those edits is tied to my IP address. Is there a way to merge that earlier history to my new "Named" account's "my contributions" page. In short, I'd like to merge my old IP account into my new Named account. The old IP address account could then be deleted and those edits reassigned (renamed) to the new account.

MKevH (talk) 01:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately there is not. Sorry. Tiggerjay (talk) 01:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It used to be possible to change attributions for an edit, but not since 2005 (see this page). However, as that page says, you can list your contributions made with the IP address(es) on your user page. --Mysdaao ^talk 01:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Billboard.com and WebCite

Does this citation only show a blank Billboard page for anyone else, or is it just me? If it isn't just me, is it some sort of incompatibility between Billboard and WebCite? Are there services similar to WebCite that might work instead? —Akrabbim^talk 03:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I also get a blank page, although I do not know of any similar services. Xenon54 / talk / 03:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I also got a blank billboard (Firefox 3.5.7)... but I don't see why it matters at present as the original article is still viewable (http://www.billboard.com/#/features/top-25-tours-of-2009-1004053062.story). The Internet Archive provides a similar service and will probably make available an archived version of this web page later this year. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of protected template

Please assist I have nominated Template:Extra_chronology for deletion, but I cannot tag it, as it is protected. Can someone please add {{tfd}}? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Listing a template mentions other possibilities for nominating protected templates. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Clover, the film

Found it under Elizabeth McGovern, but when I click on it it goes to the flower clover. Is it in another location? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shagra (talk • contribs) 07:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't seem to have an article on the film. I've removed the link so that won't happen again. Dougweller (talk) 08:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have changed it [5] to a piped red link to Clover (film). That is the common solution in such situations and was already done in Ernie Hudson and Zelda Harris. The link will work if an article is made later and it ensures that somebody doesn't remake the wrong link. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Swami Premeshananda

Please write Swami Premeshananda instade of Premeshanada. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premeshananda —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amit.saha70 (talk • contribs) 09:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Since you created the article in both places, I have merged them. Please pay attention to the notices on the article though. It's very important that you add references to reliable sources to the article.--BelovedFreak 10:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

As the relevant portion of our Manual of Style explains, we do not use honorifics as part of article titles; nor do we use them in the body of the text, except in the first sentence of the lede. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

New page patrol: marking pages as patrolled.

Would it be possible to automate the marking of pages as patrolled following nomination for speedy deletion? This would streamline the process somewhat as some editors neglect to mark pages at present. Catfish Jim and the soapdish (talk) 13:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe there was a bot that did this, I don't think it's around at the moment though and I can't remember what it was called. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 14:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If you use Huggle it automatically marks such pages as patrolled. – ukexpat (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

please give me the answer of this question...

i want to know the information about the following topic:

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HAZARDS AND PROBLEMS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.0.38 (talk) 17:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our roughly three million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is a help desk for asking questions related to using the encyclopedia. Thus, we have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen. If you cannot find what you are looking for, we have a reference desk, divided into various subject areas, where asking knowledge questions is welcome. Best of luck. TNXMan 17:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Page Statistics

Hi all. Has anyone noticed that page statistics has not been counting hits since January 23, 2010? Does anyone know what is going on and/or where this should be reported? Thanks in advance! --Neon Sky (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:VPT? – ukexpat (talk) 19:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes the Wikimedia Technical Blog explains mysterious server issues. --Teratornis (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I posted on bugzilla. They seem to have fixed it now. :) --Neon Sky (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Order of Wiki page types from general to specific

I'm looking for an outline or list of how Wikipedia lists the page types in order of how specific they are. ie Portal, Category, Lists, Subpages, & namespace etc. For instance, I'm assuming, you would never find a category page in a namespace page. I think there may also be some page types that lie outside of the main list such as Lists. Here you can have all types of lists including lists themselves. With that said, what would these be considered to be equal to in this list. Thank you in advance.

Imann08 (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question. Not all the various page types lie on a single continuum of specificity. Trying to rank them that way would be like trying to decide which is more specific, a dog or a cat? That doesn't make sense. You could read the help pages for all the terms you mention, Help:Namespace, Help:Category, WP:PORTAL, WP:SUBPAGE, WP:CLN, and look in the Editor's index for lots more. --Teratornis (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It is true that not all of the page types lie in a specific order. I mentioned this in my reference to the lists page type. I have taken the route of the help files and am only here after not finding a decent answer or one that I could understand. With that said, it seems pretty clear that a portal would rank higher than a category which would rank higher than a namespace. To me, it seems that a list would fall somewhere just about a namespace or be the equivalent of one. I can't think of all the page types off the top of my head. I have seen the help pages talking about each individual type such as categories and portals etc. I was just hoping that there was one that put it all together in one big outline or list as there are some that obviously follow some sort of order even though there are others that may deviate from that order from time to time. Thanks again.

Imann08 (talk) 22:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Namespaces and categories, for example, are different groupings of pages. One is not "higher" than the other. Category pages exist in only one namespace, the Category: namespace, but category pages themselves can contain links to pages in any namespace. A category itself does not consist just of a category page, but also of the links to that category which occur in other pages. Calling that collection of things a "category" is just a conceptual convenience. The underlying reality is a bunch of code in the MediaWiki software. If you are new to Wikipedia, try to empty your mind of preconceptions. Don't try to force Wikipedia to fit your current worldview, which you formed by experience with other things. Just read the friendly Wikipedia manuals, make some edits, see what other editors do to your edits, and read the manuals more to understand why they did what they did. After a while, Wikipedia will make some sense to you, and you will probably conclude it is different than what you knew before Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 22:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Portals, categories, lists, namespaces, subpages are different concepts which are used for different purposes and are not part of a hierarchical structure where some are above others. If you have a specific goal with your question, for example where to search or place a specific type of information, then maybe we can help if you say what the goal is. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

French typo (Charcher)

Resolved

 –  – ukexpat (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the right place to report a typo, but please note that the French version has a typo in the word (and associated buttons) "Chercher" (Search) which currently reads "Charcher". The A should be replace with an E. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Panfouez (talk • contribs) 20:50, 25 January 2010

Hello. Could you be more specific? I'm not sure which article you're referring to. Otherwise, if you spot a mistake, it's ok for you to change it yourself, by clicking "edit" at the top of the page. Or do you mean on the French Wikipedia? In which case, I'm still not entirely sure what you mean.--BelovedFreak 21:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Please dismiss this comment. My Wikipedia settings were set on the wrong language therefore making a different spelling of the word "Search" appear like a typo.

Copying the Wikipedia Upload Pages

I am trying to figure out which extensions Wikipedia uses to facilitate image uploads. I manage a chemistry book wiki used by students and we want to be able to train them to use copyright correctly and using a Wikipedia-like uploader seems appropriate. Is there some place which documents this functionality? Would it be easier to try to make use of WikiMedia Commons? (We have a slightly more restrictive Copyright currently on our wiki: Attribution Share-Alike 3.0). Thanks for any help! Jshorb (talk) 21:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Start with Commons:Commons:Village pump/Archive/2008Jun#New upload form which should lead you to pages or people who know the details of how the upload scripts work on Commons. User:Lupo might be one such person. For general tips on running your own MediaWiki wiki, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki. --Teratornis (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Creating an account for someone else

When someone else requests for an account to be created, where does the request go? I'm not even sure where to look. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 22:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

The request is found in a restricted interface used to create accounts. You need to be approved by an interface administrator to use the tool. Hamtechperson 22:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Username

How do I change my username? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garston (talk • contribs) 22:27, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

See WP:CHU. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 22:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Wikipedia:Changing username. If you go to Special:Listusers and find the name you want is already taken, you may be able to "usurp" the name, if it has not made any significant edits. For that, see Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations. Xenon54 / talk / 22:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a script....

to show the vandalism level on every page? Hamtechperson 22:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is, it should be listed in WP:EIW#Vandal. --Teratornis (talk) 22:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

January 26

Deleted edits

This is probably a dumb question, but what exactly are deleted edits? Are they edits to deleted pages? I know they are not edits that have been reverted or undone. --The High Fin Sperm Whale 00:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, deleted edits are edits made to pages that have since been deleted. --Mysdaao ^talk 00:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Existing articles in sandbox

Is it against policy to import an existing article into one's sand box to for editing purposes? Thanks Tiderolls 00:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. I think I found the answer. Thanks Tiderolls 00:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Page for copyright owners donating material?

I've been contacted by a user who says that s/he is the heir of a dead photographer and thus the copyright holder to an image that s/he wishes to release under a free license. What's the page that details the standard process for copyright holders who wish to donate images and text? I've looked at WP:IOWN, and I'm not sure that this is it (there's nothing about heirs, for example), and I'm not sure that OTRS is sufficient. Nyttend (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct my band's entry

hello wikipedia i am a current member of the band xiu xiu for which there is an entry on wikipedia. there are several notations that are irrelevant or are false and i have tried several times to update and correct and complete the entry but every edit i make is reverted to its original. what can i do, as a first hand source, to complete and correct my band's entry and have these edits remain? frequently in interviews people will ask questions based on the site that i will then have to clarify or correct. thank you! Xiuxiufanforlife (talk) 01:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Why are the text/paragraphs shrinking on the page I edited?

Hello,

On this page I edited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Williams_%28artist%29

After a certain point, the text and paragraphs seem to shrink and indent. The page did not do this before edit and does not appear this way in the edit window. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

~~Sketch V~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sketch V (talk • contribs) 01:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

In two places on the page you used the <blockquote> function without closing it with </blockquote>. It's fixed now. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)