Help desk
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November 30

translation

hi, i really got lost when i tried to find text to translate for you guys in your website, i was going to translate some stuff for you from french and arabic. but your website was not clear enough on how to find the materials.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.162.93.1 (talk • contribs) .

If you're translating from other Wikipedia's, you can just go ahead and do the translation. You'll notice a box on the lefthand corner of t he screen that says "in other languages". However, if it's a direct translation of a non-Wikipedia site, that would constitute a copyright violation, unless you can rephrase it in your own words. The best link I can give you for now is Wikipedia:Spanish_Translation_of_the_Week; look for links on this page, and you might be able to find some help. Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the best ways to find good translation candidates is to search for article talk pages tagged with Template:FAOL for a particular language, which identifies that the foreign language article is a featured article. See this search for articles tagged as featured in the French Wikipedia, and this search for articles tagged as featured in the Arabic Wikipedia.--Fuhghettaboutit 00:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also take a look at Wikipedia:Translation, which gives guidelines and tips for all translation activities. — QuantumEleven 07:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's Wrong with my CSS?

Linky. For some reason, class="wikitable" is not skinning tables over there for me. I've reloaded the cache, those lines check out OK with W3C validation, etc. What am I missing here? –Xoid 02:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, the problem seems to have 'fixed' itself. Buggered if I know why, though. --–Xoid 03:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia policies on Wiktionary

Do Wikipedia policies apply to Wiktionary? — Chris53516 ^(Talk) 02:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

not exactly. There are some shared policies but for the most part once you get outside the core policies (NPOV GFDL) projects are free to set their own.Geni 03:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like that it's like that. So Wiktionary people can just do whatever they want? I was blocked for no good reason, and I wasn't even warned. That doesn't seem right to me. Thanks for the info. — Chris53516 ^(Talk) 03:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm afraid it is like that, the different wikiprojects are run pretty independently of each other. Your best bet is to look through the Wikitionary rules and guidelines to find why you were banned, and take up the discussion there. Good luck! — QuantumEleven 07:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They can't do just whatever they want. They have to follow Wiktionary rules and policies. - 131.211.210.16 08:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inquiry

Sir, How do we enroll our college in Wikipedia? Name of the college: Jalpaiguri Govt Engg College, West Bengal. Pl cooperate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.212.7.5 (talk • contribs) . (S Mal)

Click here: Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College and type away! -- Samir धर्म 03:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to get a user name though. Anonymous users cannot create a page. Also go through the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Articles need to be sourced and written from a neutral point of view — Lost^(talk) 03:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can't "enroll" a college into Wikipedia. We're not a directory. We're an encyclopedia. Make sure you know what is required from an article before you start typing. -131.211.210.16 08:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

non-NPOV article

Greetings, denizens of the wiki! I've just read an article and I don't think it maintains a neutral point of view. What is the proper way to report or address this? I realize that this is highly subjective, so there any guidelines I should follow? Thank you very much. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Darkfrog24 (talk • contribs) .

You can add {{POV}} to the top of the article. Then you can just let someone else edit it or edit what you think is in violation. What article is it, anyway? — Chris53516 ^(Talk) 03:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PLEASE be sure to discuss your perceived problems in the article's Talk page, too! Placing a template in an article without any explanation is not very helpful in many cases. --ElKevbo 04:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's the "History of Abortion" article, particularly the section on ancient times.Darkfrog24 04:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And what is the problem? = 131.211.210.16 08:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is in the section "Legal: History of Abortion Law," particularly the section on antiquity. While the article admits that abortion was either legal or tolerated in some ancient civilizations, six of the seven quotes that follow equate abortion with murder. This could leave the reader with the impression that abortion was equated with murder in most ancient civilizations/most of the time/for most of the period. I realize that it might be hard to find quotes of people talking about something that they didn't find controversial, but I feel that a section on the legality of abortion in antiquity should reflect both societies that criminalized the practice and those that either endorsed it or considered it to be a non-issue. Darkfrog24 15:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question about ExpressPCB article

Hello,
I am new to writing and editing Wikipedia articles, and am having a problem about which I could use some advice.

The article I'm trying to publish is called ExpressPCB. It is about a company that custom manufactures circuit boards in small quantities for small businesses, prototypers and students ... individuals who might ordinarily not have access to small quantities of these boards, due to excessive setup costs. I am not the owner of this company, nor am I an employee. The owner is, however, an acquaintance of mine, and he asked me to write and submit an article about his company.

In accordance with Wikipedia policy, I have tried to post an article that did not sound like an advertisement or self-promotion. As a guideline, I looked at articles about major companies, such as Microsoft and IBM to see how one might write about comercial enterprises in an acceptible manner. I gave it my "best shot," but received a message saying that my article sounded too much like an advertisement and that it was "not notable."

I am trying to understand these comments a bit better so that I correct the problems, and would appreciate any specific guidance anyone can give me. To my eye, it does not seem any more of an "advertisement" than many of the wikis I've read about other companies. As to its being "not notable," the only thing I can think of is that ExpressPCB is a small company that is not known to many people. But is a company's size the main criteria as to whether or not it is worth people knowing about?

I believe a brief article about this company would be of value to the Wikipedia readership, because ExpressPCB has proven itself to be highly innovative in its use of existing technology and performs a useful service to the engineering community.

I would like some input from readers as to what I can do to bring my article more in line with Wikipedia publication standards

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

-Michael Friedman —Preceding unsigned comment added by Novamike (talk • contribs)

Hello, the problem the editor put up that the article should be deleted is that it does not show the notability of the company. Please see the notability guideline for companies, to see if the company your trying to write and article about can have a article here at Wikipedia. If it does meet one of those then make note of that in the page and remove the notice. Also you do not have to write html code to get spacing, the Wiki software does it automatically. --Simonkoldyk 04:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Large edit etiquette

I've found an article that I'd like to contribute to, but it needs a lot of work. Sections need rearranged, some paragraphs should be moved to other sections, other sections need to be created whole cloth, etc. Is it best to do my edit all at once on the page as a whole, or a series of smaller sectional edits? Individual edits would be easier to follow in the history, but anyone watching will get spammed on their watch page by the number of edits I'd be making. - Kesh 04:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think making the edits a section at a time sounds like a good idea. You won't be "spamming" anyone's watchlist as only the most recent edit to a particular article appears on one's watchlist. --ElKevbo 04:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, use the {{Inuse}} template to warn people so you don't get edit conflicts. And post a note on the talk page. Anchoress 04:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tips! I'll be sure to make use of that tag. — Kesh 05:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure, though, you check each of your edits, so you don't have to make additional ones to fix typos. - 131.211.210.16 08:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's a good point. When I'm copyediting a really messy article, I copy it and paste it into Word so it'll find the spelling errors, extra spaces, etc. Anchoress 04:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vanishing images

I've suddenly lost the ability to see the image Image:RVL-A-CW.jpg, besides its high resolution link. It doesn't show up in articles, and I can't see it on the description page here or in the commons. I've seen other images do the same thing. Why is this, and what can be done? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The image url is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/RVL-A-CW.jpg , it contains the string "ad" which is blocked by some anti-ad program thingos. --Commander Keane 04:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dang, that was doing it. I'm using Adblock Plus; just had to whitelist http://upload.wikimedia.org and all is good. Thanks. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

does the ad string in that picture indicate something, or was it purely a random specificity?--Diablorex 16:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking a user

A user User:Dangerous-Boy has been following my edits for last two days and has been tagging every Pakistan related article that I edit with a template with Republic of India which is extremely provacative territorial claim; as present day India is different from pre-1947 India which was called Subcontinent. After a lengthy discussion at User_talk:Dbachmann#Szhaider, where I and others gave him a solid reason to stop adding Indian tags to Pakistan related and Afghanistan related articles. User:Dbachmann gave a suggestion about creating a neutral tag without Indian flag refering to entire subcontinent. I created such a tag (Template:WP SouthAsia) and replaced indian tags with this new tag. But User:Dangerous-Boy removed this too and doesn't seem to convinced by any rational explanation. He is clearly following his own political agendas comparing India related articles with Pakistan related articles and he insists adding Indian scripts to Pakistan related articles (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 1). He has violated 3RR rule many times and I suggest he should be blocked to stop this meaningless edit war. It is wasting a lot of my time but I cannot stand such political aggression on Wikipedia. I suggest all Subcontinent history related articles should be tagged with Template:WP SouthAsia. Szhaider 05:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have been doing the same thing. Removing Indian history tags from articles of the same relevance such ancient indic civilizations. You have already been told not to do this by other users yet you contine. You have reverted countless times and do not cease. The pak tag that u put on the articles is respected and stays there. Yet, you remove the indian history tag there assessments that have long been there. At the time of this writng there is no Wikipedia:WikiProject History of South Asia only Wikipedia:WikiProject South Asia.--D-Boy 05:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This one is not really for the help desk. Ideally it should be taken to WP:DR. However there are several ongoing discussions about it including one at WT:INB. Please participate and try to resolve along with others there — Lost^(talk) 05:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I created Wikipedia:WikiProject South Asia to stop you (User:Dangerous-Boy) from tagging Pakistan related articles with Republic of India flags. I created a neutral Template:WP SouthAsia to replace your politiclly provacative and offensive tag. This new template covers the whole region, good for both Pakistan and Republic of India. Yet you are still imposing your nationalist approach towards the countries which are not part of and never were part of Republic of India; which was created, as we know it today, on August 15, 1947. Szhaider 05:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Szhaider, Discussion about this is going on at WT:INWNB. Creating South Asia project and tagging articles with it will not make the India project go away. Please discuss and let us come to a consensus on how best to solve this. -- Ganeshk (talk) 06:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Szhaider is merely accusing a good faith contributot of imperialism. Funny, because szhaider is trying to formulate a "Pakistani history" (when Pakistan wasnt even an idea before the 1930's and wasnt a country before 1947). The only meaningless edit war around here is some problematic Pakistani users trying to rid wikipedia of "Indian propaganda" (Indian propaganda = mainstream reliable sources).Bakaman _Bakatalk 04:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Szhaider is talking abour article Moen-Jo-Daro and other related to indus civilization, i think you should tag those as Sindh or Indus civilization beacuse Moen-Jo-Daro is historical place of sindh rather then india, and i have seen other article Raja Dahar, he was sindhi rather indian,i am suprised to see indian user putting his country tag on it? beacuse if you read sindh was sperated counrty at that time and it was seprate .i have source for it i am asked i will give it .

2k38 problem

i would like 2 get some info abt 2k38 problem

That's not what it's usually called. Sometimes Y2K38. See Year 2038 problem, but in future I recommend the reference desk. Notinasnaid 11:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Previewing Categories

When I add a category tag to the bottom of an article and then hit the preview button, the category box does NOT appear in the preview, but when I save my edit and go back to the article page, it's there! Is there any way to check to make sure I got the category right BEFORE I save the edit? Thanks for your help! Newbie Laurie Fox 11:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scroll right to the bottom of the page, below the box of special characters. The category previews are there. --ais523 11:37, 30 November 2006 (U T C)

Oaxaca Mexico story should be on your front page.

The murder of American journalist Brad Will and the courageous response to voter fraud just a few hundred miles away with a massacre of people protesting exploitation and election fraud should be on your front page.

Thank you.

We're not a news service. We only list news when the related articles are updated and they have to be suggested on the right page first too. See Talk:Main Page for more instructions. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Implementing Babel boxes on Simple English Wikipedia

Users on the Simple English Wikipedia would like to implement Babel boxes on user pages. I think I know how to do it, in a klunky way, starting from scratch. But I wonder if there is an easier way, copying the implementation from another Wikipedia. I can't find the source code; "Template:Babel" goes to a page of information, not to the source code for the Babel template. Any advice, or can you direct me to appropriate documentation? How do most other Wikipedias do it? What is the best way? Thanks. --Coppertwig 14:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at Template:Babel again. If I'm understanding you correctly, then you'll find the code by hitting "edit this page" and looking at everything that is NOT within the "noinclude" tags. So basically, remove everything after the first "noinclude" tag, and you should be on your way. tiZom_(2¢) 15:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! That's exactly what I needed to know. So it was right there all the time -- I just didn't look hard enough. Just like in RL! I've copied Template:Babel over to Simple English Wiktionary, and I've copied a few templates such as Template:User en-3, and now it's working! Thanks! By the way, I meant Simple English Wiktiionary and said Simple English Wikipedia by mistake, but I've actually copied the Babel template over to both of those. --Coppertwig 01:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Missy Elliott vandalism

How can I report a page that seems tempered with/vandalised? I came across the Missy Elliott page and found there is no article but the words "She's fat and ugly" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.12.14.240 (talk • contribs) .

Hey, thanks for spotting that! Usually things like that get taken care of swiftly, but it seems that one was overlooked for a long while. Here's what you do:

Pull up the history of the page using the history tab at the top
Locate the last good version of the page (usually if the page has been vandalized, then it will be the second one in the list
Click on the date of that edit - that will bring you back to the state of the page before it was vandalized
Once the correct version is on your screen, select edit this page
Don't make any changes, but type in "revert vandalism" or the like into the edit summary bar, and save the page. (There will be a pink warning bar at the top of the edit page, indicating that you are editing an outdated version of the page. This is alright, because that's exactly what you're doing.)

Hope this helps...and thanks again for pointing that out! tiZom_(2¢) 15:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, by the way, I noticed that you've got a lot of edits... you should consider registering so you can get some extra benefits to WP (user page, preferences, watchlist, etc.) tiZom_(2¢) 15:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Submitting an article

I am trying to subimt an article. Am I supposed to do it by uploading the file from the "uplaod file" selection on the lefthand column? Is there another way to do this? I am a little confused. Thanks for any help!!

No, you only upload pictures, not articles. To create an article, you just edit it, typing in what you need. But I would strongly recommend you start by editing other articles, so the process will be more natural. See Wikipedia:Your first article Notinasnaid 15:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Biology textbook

I was looking through my old things the other day and found my old biology textbook. IT's fairly recent, informative, and the images are spectacular. I was wondering if I could upload the images/text from the book. This would be a big help, because many of the biology articles here are painfully small. Thanks. ~ Flame vip e r 17:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I am very doubtful that the material in the textbook is licensed to permit it to be placed in Wikipedia. It's almost certainly protect by copyright and not available under a free license. Therefore the copyright holder probably still maintains the exclusive right to redistribute the material. I might be wrong so doublecheck. In any case, thanks for the offer! Perhaps there are some other ways you can help improve the biology articles by referencing (but not copying) the material from your textbook? --ElKevbo 17:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case you were wondering, copyright nowadays typically lasts 70 years after the death of the author. Notinasnaid 18:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The pictures, too? Because they're just phenomenal... Oh, well. I'll try referencing it. Thanks. ~ Flame vip e r 19:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the pictures too, except it will be the death of the artist unless a contract was signed transferring copyright to the author, or perhaps publisher. Now you see why so many articles are not illustrated, and many never will be! Notinasnaid 19:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

How do I mark a page as out-of-date? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdbrittain (talk • contribs)

You don't need to, go ahead and update it. --Majorly 17:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can also use the {{update}} template if you don't have the time or expertise to make the necessary updates. --ElKevbo 18:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pages should only be out of date if they are overtaken by current events; generally the current events should add to the article or replace speculation. Articles aren't out of date just because they are about things that happened long, long ago. Notinasnaid 18:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Headline capitals

I created an entry, 'The City Congregation', but it's appearing as 'The city congregation' and I'm unclear how to restore the capitals for the 2nd and 3rd words. Heather Chait 18:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to an article or a section of an article? It helps to be specific in your questions. If it's an article, I can move it. If it's a section, it's a simple matter of capitalizing your words. ~ Flame vip e r 19:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I moved it to The City Congregation. Thanks for asking. ~ Flame vip e r 19:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks!162.84.206.115 23:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

()(contents)()

How doi get the contents on my talk page to leave? I know there is a special way to do It but I do not Know how. --Darkest Hour 19:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just add __NOTOC__ someplace on the page. --Werdan7^{T @} 19:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see (N)O (T)able (O)f (C)ontents, Thanks --Darkest Hour 20:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone check me to make sure I'm editing correctly?

Hi! My name is Diane Yoder,and I am editing the entry for Superior, Wisconsin; I am originally from the area, and noticed that the entry had incorrect information and was woefully underdeveloped. I am working with Tracy Mandelin from the Superior-Douglas County Visitors and Convention Bureau (AKA the Superior Chamber of Commerce). Tracy wrote up the entries in the History, Economy and Education sections, and told me to cite these entire entries as "Superior Chamber of Commerce using the web address as a citation.

Since no one else is discussing this entry or editing this entry, I would feel better if someone would take a look at it and let me know if I'm doing things right. I hate to feel as if I am hogging all the fun!

Thanks so much for your time, Yodedp27 20:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you go back and look at the page, you will see where another user changed your use of [http://somesite.com] to <ref>http://somesite.com</ref>. Also, you should expect some of what you've added to be removed. Phrases such as "Douglas County residents are committed to providing the highest level of education for both the youth and adult populations." are barely factual. In fact, it is a false statement because it only requires one counter-example - any single person in Douglas County who is not committed to education. Others, such as "a challenging liberal arts education with top-quality professional training" are simply point-of-view. Both can be reworded so that they are (true) factual statements by digging up resources. For example, if you find an article listing the top 10 most challenging liberal arts programs in the U.S., you can use that as a reference stating that it is a challenging liberal arts program. --Kainaw ^(talk) 21:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changes made. I simply took out the objectionable statements--it is hardly worth spending hours doing the research, and the statements added nothing of value anyway to the article. Thank you!Yodedp27 21:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Works cited

How do you site this page for a works cited page in mla format??

See Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia. --Kainaw ^(talk) 21:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Put your MLA Wikipedia citation in the following format:

"Title of Entry." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (in italics) Date you accessed the entry. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Date you put entry on your References page of your paper. (web address of Wikipedia entry).

So an example entry would look like this:

"Iroquois." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 9 June 2006. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 20 June 2006.

I hope this helps!

You can also access the MLA format at the MLA website: http://www.mla.org/style_faq or at the Owl Purdue Online Writing Center at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/ bottom of page. 65.31.53.55 01:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with Wiki?

Wiki servers are busy? Try again later? Whats going on, every one on wikipedia at once? --Your friend, Darkest Hour 21:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It happens in the evenings. Don't worry about it; it'll go away in a bit. Dooms Day349 21:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My theory is: when the servers get a little slow because by coincidence many people click on things at about the same time, then some people figure while they're waiting for a few seconds for that page to load they'll do something else, so they go and click on something else in another browser window. Being Wikipediholicss, of course, they have other Wikipedia tasks going in all their other browser windows. So that increases the load on the servers even more. Rather than taking 5 minutes to edit a page (which doesn't put any load on the servers during the time the person is editing) people are clicking to try to load a page, then clicking again because it doesn't seem to be working or clicking to load another page. Finally things get so bad that some people get messages like "the servers are busy" and they finally give up and go and get a cup of coffee and come back. By then things are back to normal, because luckily people don't all return from their coffee machines at the same time. That's why when it advises you to wait a few minutes it doesn't specify exactly how many minutes to wait. My solution? While things are normal, I load a page I want to read or a page I want to edit (and I click "edit") in a browser window and leave it sitting there while I do other stuff. Then when the servers get busy (or my ISP takes too long switching IP addresses or whatever it's doing) I can just do stuff with that page that I already have loaded. Better for me, and better for everybody else too since I'm not clicking 3 times a second while the servers are already busy. --Coppertwig 12:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If ever you encounter slowness here, you might be able to ascertain the source (namely, whether the problem is on the 'pedia's end—most probably with the servers—or yours) by visiting the Writing Pot WikiStatus page, which provides generally the speed at which reading, writing, and uploading is proceeding (provided such information is readily updated by other Wikipedians), or by partaking of one of the English Wikipedia IRC channels, where discussion about the status of the servers (at least in such instances as server response is slow or non-existent) is frequent. Joe 07:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Userboxes

How do I create a userbox? I know the code for the content, but I don't know how to create it.

WmCliff 23:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's detailed instructions at Wikipedia:Userboxes. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Think of a name for your userbox such as "User:Myusername/Userboxes/User SparkysOwner" (if your username is Myusername and your userbox is about being the proud owner of Sparky, for example.) That's if the userbox is most appropriate in your own userspace. If it's to be widely shared maybe "Template:User SparkysOwner" would be the appropriate name; it can still be shared with other users if it's in your userspace (I saw a page somewhere talking about moving all controversial or non-encyclopaedic userboxes into user space as is done in the German Wikipedia; can't find it now. Certain things like ads or hate messages are not appropriate even in user space.) Apparently the name does not have to begin with "Template:". Type the name into the search box. It will say the page doesn't exist and invite you to create it. You can then insert your template content. You can use the template like this: {{User:Myusername/Userboxes/User SparkysOwner}}. See for example how I've customized the TeX userbox on my user page. Maybe the last word "User" in the template name is redundant and superfluous and unnessary. --Coppertwig 12:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I get an email notifying me when changes have been made to an article?

I can't figure out how to do this -- is it possible?

No, not least because you might end up getting thousands of e-mails a day. Imagine the strain on Wikipedia, as well as your inbox! Editors wanting to keep track of pages use their "watch list". Regular editors simply check their watch list each time they come to Wikipedia. Notinasnaid 23:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick answer, Notinasnaid. I thought this might be the case, but wanted to be certain. There is an article I have made edits to, which routinely gets reverted by another party so quickly that I assumed he must have figured out how to get some kind of notification. Since he has a job, I thought it was not possible he's so obsessive that he constantly checks for any changes to the article -- but apparently he does!

User:facts@michelthomas.org

Most Wikipediholics permanently have their watchlist open in their browser, and refresh it every few minutes... :)

Also, please sign your posts on talk pages by using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. It makes it easier to keep track of who said what. — QuantumEleven 07:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible to have notification emails sent to you on Wikipedia's sister projects Meta and Commons, where watchlisted pages and talk pages are unlikely to change as much. The feature isn't enabled on Wikipedia, though, for reasons given above. --ais523 08:35, 1 December 2006 (U T C)

Versions of a page are supposed to prevail because they are more encyclopaedic, not because someone looks at their watch page more often. There's the 3-revert rule 3RR, for example: a person is not supposed to revert the same page more than 3 times in one 24-hour period (with some exceptions). People are not supposed to get into revert wars. They're supposed to discuss things on the talk page and try to reach consensus, and if not, then there is an arbitration process. --Coppertwig 12:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to obtain a list of all of the article titles on Wikipedia, as Wikiwax.com has apparently done?

I am building a free mobile application called BerrySearch that includes the ability to search Wikipedia and has autocompletion of article titles to save the user typing. I was able to crawl a subset of the article titles using static pages and I have completion working for that subset. However, some of the titles are only listed on /w/ dynamic pages that are forbidden by robots.txt, so I can't crawl those.

Special:Allpages. —Centrx→talk • 23:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to trawl a list automatically, there's a more suitable one via query.php: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php will give you instructions. --ais523 08:38, 1 December 2006 (U T C)